#and season 2 looks like it will have a bisexual love triangle? or at least bisexuality

[paverics]

“I cannot advance you to junior year unless you complete summer school.”

“As in school….during….summer?”

please don’t threaten me with the pretty little liars tag, a girl kisser and an iconic line because i’m worried I’ll find myself there and ready

#I’ve lost count how many pll adjacent shows there are now #BUT i saw the trailer for season 2 of summer school #(I didn’t know there was a season one?) #anyway I think that line is iconic and it’s giving hanna vibes #and the ogs will never re replaced or replicated #but this show looks a bit more murderous and spooky (though it’s probably not) #and season 2 looks like it will have a bisexual love triangle? or at least bisexuality

[shallanigans]

oooh im so glad u watched dbd! yeah so charles, in the comics, is canon bisexual. he's also, in the show, a teen boy who died in the 80s. which. the AIDS crisis. the first person to die of AIDS in england did so in 1981. take that, and then pair it up with his reaction to edwin's confession, particularly what he says.

hes not closing the door to edwin or this opportunity--what he is doing, is saying that they have the rest of forever to figure this out. he's not wrong. he just needs for the two of them to be able to reach that forever first, and to do that they need to run up the stairs and away from the doll spider demon.

i think, for charles, who is so devoted to edwin, and clearly loves him above all else, the answer he gave was perfect--he cant say hes in love with edwin back, so he doesnt. he cant say hes in love with edwin back, because he doesnt know! as a bi person, ill say this. in my experience, there have been a few times, where there have been moments of, i dont know yet. and obviously that is not everyone's experience, and im not even saying that is charles' experience! but he loves edwin so much, and he wants to figure out if he loves edwin in a romantic way too--and to do that, he needs to think about it, and again, he cant do that on a stairway to hell running from a demon. perhaps, its even more than that--perhaps, he wants to figure out if he can. has he thought about his sexuality before? has he ever been attracted to a boy before? has he ever consciously been? maybe these are things he needs to think about. he likes girls, check. maybe he likes boys too? he's a detective, he'll figure it out.

i do think that expecting a love confession reciprocation (which we did get, it was just not a romantic one, and even then, it wasnt shut down forever) right away, and then not getting it, was not necessarily bad thing. ultimately, dbd is a story, a tv show, there are characters and then there is development--there is build up. so to not get that confession, it makes sense storytelling wise. because we havent gotten to see charles come to terms with his sexuality, or even think much about it (consciously), beyond being attracted to crytsal. (and. all those longing yearning loving looks directed at edwin lbr) we get to see edwin come to terms with his sexuality in s1. he was repressing pretty hard and wasnt even aware he was in love with charles. so, in the hopes we get a s2, maybe we'll find ourselves with a charles having an oh moment scene. id kill for that

I would absolutely love to see this, and I know in the show the love confession wasn't explicitly a shutdown. However, based on Edwin's comments to Niko that "it made us better friends"/that Charles didn't feel the same, and also based on comments from the showrunners about how they wanted to focus on the platonic friendship between them, I am not so optimistic.

In the case that it does happen, I'm frankly not looking forward to a several-season love triangle between Crystal, Edwin and Charles. Of course, I understand Charles not reciprocating Edwin's feelings immediately (and especially not in that setting). However, I really don't care for his romance with Crystal because I feel they have no chemistry. It annoyed me that Charles pretty much put the whole thing out of his mind afterwards and went back to wanting to be with Crystal for no real reason other than she's a girl who was a good friend to him. I understand that TV shows work like this, but I'm tired of love triangles in general. If Charles and Edwin don't get together (or at least Charles doesn't address Edwin's confession in some manner) in season 2 I probably won't be watching it. I've seen too many teen shows drag on with unnecessary romance drama between people who have no chemistry, and I don't want another one to add to the list.

#anon ask #dead boy detectives #I do hope you're right though #it would be interesting to see Charles unpack his bi feelings for Edwin #I am bi too and I would love to see it

[3rdbogwitch2theleft]

We're currently in season 2 of our Smallville rewatch (or first in my partner's case) so, largely from memory, here is my ranking of Smallville characters who should have been canonically queer listed on a scale from "Dude it was right there! I cannot fathom why you fumbled the ball here!" to "I mean I get why you didn't, but the subtext was loud". I might change my ranking after we finish the show.

1. First and most egregious we have Tess Mercer.

This woman is a lesbian.

Her second scene in the entire series is a square off with Lois in which Tess waits maybe 15 seconds before asking if Lois is into role play (to be fair, Lois is in a Spirit Halloween style french maid outfit at the time). Their tension remains severely homoerotic throughout the her time on the show.

They pair Tess with Oliver. They pair her with Zod. They give her the hots for Clark and none of it feels the least bit authentic. She is gay. Let this woman be gay.

2. Coming in at a close second is Chloe Sullivan.

Comp het is the only narrative explanation I can think of for why Chloe spent so much time pining for the obviously disinterested Clark when Pete was right there!

(Yes, I know that the actual reason is network demanded the love triangle, but I want an in-universe explanation, damn it)

Don't get me wrong, I remember her relationship to Jimmy being delightful, but "spent my teen years wanting someone who I knew didn't want me" is giving big "closeted and not ready to deal with my sexuality yet" energy.

Also her jacket choices in the early years feel distinctly sapphic to me, a sapphic who lived through this era.

Bonus: she and Lana could have ended up together and driven a stake right through that love triangle from hell.

3. Lois!

Lois is bi. Fight me.

Am I saying this just because I'm in love with her? No, but I'm gonna be real with you, it is a factor. It's just so obvious to me.

Let bygones be bygones and bi gals be bi gals

4. Clark Kent

Am I saying this just because I'm in love with him? No, but I'm gonna be real with you, it is a factor.

As the show went on, they dipped more and more heavily into the "super powers and kryptonite poisoning as queerness allegory" and it's... it's not great. But that's a whole other post. I just think that if you make listen to a character earnestly describe herself as her bestie's "krypto hag" when talking him through an issue he's having with his sex life AND you make your first on screen lesbian a homicidal shape shifter the least you can do is make your allegorically queer main guy actually bisexual.

Let bygones be bygones and bi guys be bi guys

Also it would kinda explain why he looked the other way about Lex's deeeeeply creepy behaviors for so long. He had the same blind loyalty to Lex that he had to Lana. While I do not ship them especially in the early seasons (Clark is a teen and Lex is in early 20s for the first 4 years of the friendship, that's a big nope for me) Clark having a crush on his morally dubious older friend would explain a lot.

Clark, that grown man is bribing a government agent for your mom's medical records. He is not you friend!

5. Lana Lang

I just think it would have been neat. As I mentioned under the Chloe section I would have really liked it if she and Chloe had ended up together.

Also Lana's journey from damsel in distress (that poor kid is in so. much. distress.) to morally complex love interest to superhero in her own right could also have been a really cool exploration of gender identity.

While I know the average TV writer in the 2000s first association the the word "binary" was likely "code" rather than "gender", non-binary Lana Lang would have slapped.

6. Lex Luthor

Lex is the official recipient of the "I completely get why they didn't make this canon, but the subtext was loud" award.

Lex is manipulative, duplicitous, obsessive, and predatory. (In other words, just another billionaire amiright) Making him canonically gay or bi would have reinforced some extremely harmful stereotypes and given how popular the show was in its time, I am very glad they didn't do this.

That said, he's just so obsessed with Clark and he loooves to compare himself to Alexander the Great.

And a season 6 (when everyone is adults) toxic, chaotic Clark/Lana/Lex throuple would have been amazing. The secrets! The betrayals! Certainly beats the canonical Lex/Lana doomed abusive marriage and ride on the ever present Clark/Lana merry-go-round.

Lex also made a clone combining his DNA with Clark's. Fellas....

Honorable mention: Oliver Queen

I don't have a narrative reason.

Maybe the fact that he was paired with first 3 people on this list at different points in the series just gives him a bit of bi/pan 4 bi/pan energy.

I also just think it would have been fun. And I like fun.

#smallville rewatch #the image function was giving me grief so here's a long ass text post for your wednesday night enjoyment #characters that should have been queer #long post

[strangerfigs]

the fact that in response to el saying mike does not tell her he loves her, he says “you know what I think of you” ✋🚩 the fact that he uses the word feel when talking to will hand ✋🚩

“I feel like l was worrying too much about el and I don’t know, maybe I feel like I lost you, or something”

then, literally when talking to will, he can’t even bring himself to say the word, makes zero reference to his feelings or having trouble expressing them, instead saying that if he just said the thing he needed to say, then he could be with eleven now. in this, i also think it goes back around to the whole “maybe i was worrying too much about el” like that has been a majority of his relationship with el, looking after her, and her being in trouble, and trying to help her. it’s almost the nature of their relationship. there has not been a single point where he wasn’t worrying about el in some way since she came into his life which is not only unhealthy! (their relationship is honestly so unhealthy on both sides but let’s focus on mike rn) but it pretty much takes up all the space in his brain to feel anything else, which hey, that’s what he said to will, right? yeah, it was. while mike might not fully realize it, or have agreed with eleven, on some level, he knows she is different. he knows that she does not get to have a normal life. he worries about her because on some capacity, he knows that she needs help, and he thinks he can be the one to give it to her, or maybe even feels like he owes that to her (she has entrusted him more than anyone else and she has helped him so many times!) but honestly, I know I said this was about mike, but he needs to let her go. when eleven was able to remove herself from mike and get other help, she was able to conquer her trauma. mike is not the answer, and their relationship tends to hang on that promise of “everything is going to be okay” kind of thing. but like, mike is just some kid in indiana, he’s not a professional, and i really hope, that on some capacity at least, mike realizes that he needs to take care of himself for once. because ya, he can be a little bit of an ass at times, but finn was correct, especially if you rewatch. he is always focused on other people. it’s never about himself. his arc in seasons 1&2 were both about will/el (el being second priority in both to will) and in season 3, it’s obviously eleven, along with season 4, thus far; but will isn’t in trouble in these seasons. but el is, but she was also in trouble in 1&2 and even though we did see mike worrying about her and trying to help her, his focus was will when he was in trouble because truly, truly i think he really cares for them both and loves them both (in different ways) but when it comes down to it; he would choose will. but since season 2, it’s only been eleven, who had to worry about. will has his mom, jonathon, their other friends, while hopper “died” and el moved in with a family, of which, she really did not have much connection to? other than joyce? so I guess what I’m saying, is, I’d be so interested in seeing what mikes feelings are outside of worry; like if he didn’t have to worry about el, how would he feel about her? how would he feel about will? because truly he has had no time to not worry about these two people, one of which he says is the most important thing in his life and the other, who he said was the best decision of his life to become friends with. I think it’s a triangle, and at the very least, he is bisexual (but I rly think he is gay.) And to completely deny that or say fans are delusional to see this, is actually, just homophobic. sorry

literally I can’t wrap my head around it. mike - honey - thinking does not equal feeling. I feel like these two conversations truly confirm the differences of feeling v thinking. mike doesn’t have a problem with words of affirmation. someone with issues with words of affirmation doesn’t say shit like, “I think you’re the most incredible person in the world,” they don’t say, “you look beautiful”, they don’t say, “I called you every night for 363 days,” they don’t say, “I can’t lose you again,” they don’t say, “you’re the most important thing to me in the world” (this is honestly the biggest thing ever and I promise you, someone with words of affirmation is not capable, or at least not as easy to say it as mike was), people who struggle with words of affirmation cannot say, “I’ve never felt, you know, this way with anyone before”, they don’t say things like “a friend is someone you’d do anything for,” or “I’m happy you’re home,” and they don’t say things like, “that was the best thing I’ve ever done,” in reference to becoming friends with someone. like, maybe on a few occasions, Mike would be able to express how he feels if he truly struggled w this, but he doesn’t, and neither did nancy when she did not tell steve that she loves him; it was not even like she hadn’t told steve before, like that we know of. steve says, “you don’t love me?” as if he is surprised, as if she has said it in the past. it’s so valid that people do struggle to open up, people like hopper, for example, but mike has never been that way. he openly sobs in his mothers arms upon wills “death” and seeks her out for comfort again when el and the byers leave. as someone with actual issues of expressing fondness and affection and love, it’s just so obvious to me that that is not the case with mike, and if it is, the development of that makes zero sense. it’s just not his character. like to credit myself, i study human behavior and that’s just… not how it works. nor has it ever been insinuated further than, maybe the scene where he first tries to tell her but that scene made sense: he does not know if she will say it back, but that clearly is not the case anymore.

#byler #stranger things

[lucemferto]

Niki Nihachu & Barbara Kean

Gonna drop something controversial real quick.

Niki Nihachu is the most tragic character on the Dream SMP – and I don’t mean in the sense of her having a tragic story (though she is up there), but in the sense that she is tragically mishandled.

I want to start out by saying that this essay is by no means an attack on the content creator Niki Nihachu or her abilities as a performer. She is frequently one of the strongest actors on the SMP and I have no idea how much of her character writing was within her power. How much of it was improv, how much pre-planned, how much something she genuinely wanted to do and how much stuff she just stumbled into or – in the worst-case scenario – was forced upon her. I don’t know.

The Dream SMP is not very transparent when it comes to their creative process. As such I can only judge it as a discerning viewer and English major dropout, who retained some half-remembered stuff about narratology.

So, a few weeks ago, I tumbled on here that Niki’s character journey reminded me a lot of the character Barbara Kean from the hit TV-show Gotham. Then I got an ask asking me to elaborate. This is the elaboration.

Barbara Kean

So, a quick crash course for people who haven’t seen Gotham (the greatest comic book show on Television, seriously, what are you doing with your life?!): Barbara Kean was a major female character throughout all five seasons of Gotham – and not once during those five seasons did the writers ever figure out what they wanted to do with her.

Every 10-12 episodes or so, Barbara’s role shifted completely. She started out as cop-protagonist Jim Gordon’s girlfriend at home and moral compass, then became part of a bisexual love triangle, then a hard-drinking jealous party girl with a backstory as repressed, lonely rich kid, before being kidnapped by a serial killer and ultimately making her perfect metamorphosis into the psychotic ex-girlfriend trope.

And that was Season 1.

Since then, she became the pseudo-Harley Quinn to the pseudo-Joker, a whip-wielding dominatrix, the obligatory female member in a supervillain squad, some sort of information broker, a mafia kingpin, the leader of a girl-power posse and – my favourite – the reincarnated wife of an ancient immortal who also controls all of Gotham and transferred that control over to her before that plot-point was dropped harder than a half-dead Oswald Cobblepot of the Gotham piers.

Also, she’s Batgirl’s mom.

In short, it’s a mess – but that’s what makes Gotham kinda fun.

Character Cohesion

Now, obviously, Niki’s character journey has not been quite as extreme. But it falls into the same traps, I find. Namely, that there’s just a distinct lack of character cohesion or character continuity.

Now, character cohesion or character continuity doesn’t mean that the arcs these characters undertake can’t be explained in a logical way. Barbara’s character journey is logical in the sense that you can explain it all with in-universe logic – but it’s not logical from a narratological sense now, is it?

Character Cohesion basically means that a character’s journey is reflected in their personal conflict – their Want vs. Need. Their arc is the natural continuation of what was set-up in previous sequences. Everything falls into a whole with Set-up, Confrontation, Resolution – we set up the character’s Want, their Want and Need are conflicting, the Want vs. Need is resolved. Ideally this coincides with the plot beats of the large conflict surrounding the cast.

When you look at Barbara in Season 1 of Gotham, you’re not thinking “This one right here – she’s the reincarnated wife of Ra’s Al Ghul”. Because why would you? There was no set-up; it’s not part of what her character was about in this moment – or any moment before that concept was introduced. It’s not needed for her character conflict (or any thematic conflicts for that matter).

It’s quite transparently just something that is affixed to her so that she has something until the writers come up with the next at which that first thing will dropped, underdeveloped.

Niki in Season 1

Niki follows the same route, unfortunately. She’s set-up as the resistance in L’Manburg, allies herself with Eret and HBomb until – oops – it doesn’t end mattering, because that entire side of the “plot” is completely underdeveloped. Just be a damsel until Wilbur can swoop in and save you, Niki.

Okay, but now she has a big moment with Tommy and Tubbo just after the pit-scene. “We’ll figure something out”, she says. “We need L’Manburg back”. This is all before the backdrop of Wilbur completely giving in to his role as a villain and Techno’s apparent “betrayal”.

So, now, surely, Niki is gonna affect change in Pogtopia and will have some influence on either Tommy or Wilbur, the two people she’s closest to. What’s this? Her biggest contribution is holding a birthday party where Quackity convinces Wilbur to hold off on his TNT-plan? And after that … she’s just gonna be part of the Pogtopia-masses?

Now, I like Wilbur’s writing and Season 1 generally, but when it comes to Niki (and Eret) something went terribly wrong. Both of them provided many a set-up – none of which were taken advantage of, unfortunately.

And, just to be clear, I’m not putting the blame on Niki here (or at least not most of it). Season 1 was pretty firmly in Wilbur’s hand … and Season 2 was a train wreck.

Niki in Season 2

Niki is – for the most part of Season 2 – a nothing character. She has no real conflict, no character beats, no arc. This is because through some unfortunate writing decisions, Season 2 is pretty squarely focused on a specific set of characters – and even fewer of those characters are granted a fully explored, completed character arc.

It all culminates in her Doomsday villain arc – a moment that can be logically explained from both an in-character perspective and a meta-perspective, but unfortunately, it’s not justified from a technical writing point of view.

Niki burning down the L’Mantree is her “Ra’s Al Ghul’s reincarnated wife”-moment. It’s a big statement that put her character on the map for a large part of the audience again. It was a striking visual. It could not be ignored.

Most of that was because it was a stark departure from her characterization in Season 1. Now, such a departure doesn’t necessarily have to be bad. The problem comes in when

a.) The full potential of the character in their previous narrative role had not yet been fully or even partly exhausted

b.) It cuts into an on-going character arc and drastically changes its course

c.) It’s not foreshadowed or developed properly.

And most of those are true for Niki’s character. She was not necessarily underdeveloped but underexplored in Season 1 and had no consistent storyline going on in Season 2. She was a witness to Tommy’s trial, but that was never worked into an on-going storyline for her. No matter how much we retroactively pretend like this turn to villainy, this breakdown, was brewing deep inside of her – there was no foreshadowing.

The reason, why I said it’s understandable from a meta-perspective, is that the content creator Niki Nihachu had a self-admittedly hard time getting her foot in in Season 2 – because Season 2, for as much love as I will heap upon Tommy’s and Dream’s storyline, was a pretty messy.

So, the villain arc was not well foreshadowed and Niki’s turn was developed, but what happened after she was in it?

Niki in Season 3

Well, unfortunately that problem of an inconsistent storyline never really went away for her. In the beginning of Season 3, she hatched her wagons with Jack Manifold, which was a pretty big tonal shift – from darkly tragic to cartoonish villainy.

But as Jack kept developing his character in that lane and following up on big plot development with corresponding character moments, Niki again just … vanished. She then changed gears again, joining the Syndicate – a great idea if only the Syndicate actually streamed together and developed a storyline and group cohesion.

As it stands right now, Niki’s character exists in the negative space of the fandom imaginations. We are given some scraps and good character moments – her sleeping in a jail cell, “I started baking again”, her secret city – but those moments never coalesce into a full-fledged storyline.

Her character’s journey is still as fragmented and underexplored as it ever was. I really hope that – with Wilbur’s revival and the new character conflict that seems to arise from that for her – she manages to finally get the foot in and get the storyline and dynamic arc she deserves.

#dream smp #dsmpblr #dsmp #dreamsmp #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #dream smp season 3 #dream smp season 2 #dream smp season 1 #mcyt #mcytblr #niki nihachu #dsmp niki nihachu #dsmp niki #dsmp nihachu #nihachu #wilbur soot #dsmp wilbur #dsmp wilbur soot #jack manifold #dsmp jack manifold

[mychemicalrachel]

So I finished season 2 of Love Victor a few days ago but I needed time to process because that was a lot and part of processing is reviewing/reflecting, which I’m gonna post here. Everything under the cut because I ramble.

(also, it’s anti Victor/Rahim. Venji is endgame and you can pry that from my cold dead hands. Skip this if that’s not for you. I’m not posting this to start drama. Just my opinions.)

To start off, I liked this season. I’m gonna trash it a little, but it’s done with love. There were a lot of things I wanted to see after season 1 and, surprisingly, I got a lot of those things! Such as…

I wanted more Felix and Pilar. Which we got. I did not want it like this. I’m not opposed to them together, I like them, but I wanted Felix and Lake to stay together. HOWEVER, I’m kinda glad they broke up because y’all it’s paving the way for bi Lake (another thing I really wanted) and I cannot wait to see her and Lucy together.

Kind of following along with that, I really wanted them to give Pilar more friends this season. And they did that with Rahim. And then they took Rahim away and gave him to Victor instead. Guys, this is killing me. I want to see Pilar with actual friends, give her more of a social life I am begging you.

JACK. I knew, I just KNEW, that we were going to get a Spier cameo this season and I honestly kind of expected it to be Emily, maybe Nora, but I am so happy it was Jack. He’s grown so much since Love Simon.

I wanted to see Mia portrayed as her own person and not a villain. She was justified in her anger and betrayal because Victor hurt her. They handled it really well I think. She’s such a good friend. I’m also glad we got more of her and Veronica bonding. I can’t wait to see Mia with the baby, that’s gonna be so cute.

I wanted more Andrew and this season did not disappoint. He was like the cool uncle that everyone went to for advice. 

Now, with all of that said, I did get a lot of things I wanted from this season. I also got things I did not want. I was actually really excited when they introduced Rahim and kind of went full circle by having him go to Victor for advice. I was like, hell yeah! Gays who can be friends without being all over each other! And then they started this love triangle thing and I kind of hated it. I liked Victor and Rahim as friends, I want more of that because I think Victor (and Rahim, too, to be honest) could use more queer friends. Just friends. They built up this entire relationship between Benji and Victor in season 1 and spent a lot of this season confirming that yeah Benji and Victor are in love even though they have some tough times, and now I’m just supposed to accept that Victor has started having feelings for someone else? No thank you, please stop.

And that leads me to things I want to see in season 3!

Victor chose Benji obviously. You cannot convince me otherwise. Someone he started having feelings for when he was going through a mentally distressing time in his life fails in comparison to the guy he spent an entire season falling in love with.

Now I’m not discounting Victor’s feelings. I’m sure he felt something for Rahim, but we need to acknowledge that Victor was in the middle of a stressful time. He had only recently come out, he was dealing with his mom not accepting him or his boyfriend, he quit the basketball team, he was struggling with his place in his and Benji’s relationship and then Benji wanted to “take a break”. He can’t be blamed for latching onto someone who wholly accepted him and made him feel normal.

Also, it’s fairly common to play into the trope of “this character is new to being gay, he can’t just be with one person so we have to add another love interest and make sure what he’s feeling for person A is real.”

That said! Benji will probably feel insecure now! And that’s okay! Let’s explore that! Let’s allow Benji to be the one who's insecure in this relationship for once instead of always having Victor be the one to doubt everything! They don’t have to break up to take a step back and slow things down!

As such, I really want to go back to the Victor/Benji roots. Make them friends again. I want stupid cute moments like them dancing to Call Me Maybe and trying on thrift store clothes. We spent so much of this season making Victor and Benji boyfriends that we kind of skipped over the whole friends aspect. There’s a reason they fell in love in the first place and we need to revisit that. A relationship is not just sex and miscommunication. It’s laughing together, it’s enjoying each other's company, and I didn’t see nearly enough of that between Victor and Benji this season.

They were not at all subtle with the parallels between Felix and Victor this season; Felix having to choose between Lake and Pilar while Victor has to choose between Rahim and Benji. I mean, I don’t think it was supposed to be subtle. It couldn’t have been more obvious. And at first I was worried that Felix chose Pilar because of the parallels and that must mean Victor was going to choose Rahim. But the longer I look at it, the more differences I notice in their parallels and I don’t have the eloquence to unpack it all right now, but it all just made me more assured that Victor is going to choose Benji.

Moving away from Victor/Benji, there’s something that keeps bothering me; it’s when Felix and Lake had sex at the lake. Cute romantic moment, yeah sure, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it, except it made a deal out of Felix buying condoms beforehand. He was prepared. That’s good. Only, when they went out to jump into the lake, they only had towels. Which means that there is a very good chance they didn’t use protection. That, coupled with Georgina’s comment about watching Teen Mom...I foresee a pregnancy scare in the coming season. Whether it’s an actual pregnancy and we get a whole pregnancy storyline (possibly an abortion, maybe a miscarriage. I don’t really see it going full term for whatever reason) or if it’s just an episode where Lake thinks she might be pregnant.

I’m pretty excited to see how they handle this newfound romance between Lucy and Lake. Does Lake already know she’s bi? Does Lucy? Lake made a comment at the beginning of this season about making sure everyone knew Mia didn’t turn Victor gay, which makes me wonder how Lake will react to discovering she also likes girls. No, I’m not saying she’ll think Felix turned her into a lesbian. But I think she’ll doubt her feelings for Lucy. She’ll think (however briefly) that maybe she was just hurt and maybe she doesn’t actually like Lucy, she’s just coping with having her heart broken by a boy.

But I want all of her doubt to end when she accepts that she’s totally bisexual.

Now that we got our bi character, I’m gonna start demanding an ace character, too.

I want Mia’s mom to be awesome. Her dad kind of sucks and she deserves at least one good parent.

HOWEVER, if her mom also sucks, I think it could bring her and Veronica closer.

Speaking of parents, I want to explore Lake’s relationship with her mom more. She always tells Felix about how she was pressured to be skinny, and that right there is a terrible basis for a mother/daughter relationship. But she also felt comfortable enough to tell her about Felix’s mom and ask for help. So yeah, I definitely want more of them. I need Lake to stand up to her mom, though. I need her to be like, “you made me insecure in my body and I have self esteem issues because you made me think I wasn’t good enough” and I want to expand on that. Maybe Georgina had a good reason (in her mind, anyway) to treat Lake like that, and while it may have been a horrible thing to do, I don’t think she saw it that way. I’m not saying she should win a mother of the year award, but what she did to Lake needs to be acknowledged and talked about.

And then there’s Felix’s mom. I want to see her recovery. It’s a process and I don’t want her to magically be okay now. I also want her to meet Pilar (and Victor. Has Victor ever met her?) but also she really liked Lake and I want them to keep in touch, even though Lake and Felix aren’t together anymore. I still want them to be friends. 

AND I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED TALKING ABOUT ISABEL AND ARMANDO. I’m glad they found their way back to each other, but again; it’s a process. I think they should stay apart for a little bit and not just jump back in where they left off. They still have problems to sort through, but this is a start. They’ve realized they want to be together.

#love victor #love victor 2 #venji #i don't want to tag this as anti Rahim #because i like rahim #just not in a romantic relationship with victor #so anti vahim i guess #is that what people are calling it? #idk but also idc #love victor spoilers #i think that's all my thoughts for now #all of them that i can process anyway

[flying-elliska]

S5 Review pt 2 : the Bad

So in my last meta I listed a lot of reasons to like this season...but then why did it not (at least to me) all add up together ?  Looking back, I can think of so many clips that I thought were incredible. But looking back at the season in general, I just feel a big ‘meh’ and it’s sort of puzzling - why exactly ?  Here is where I thought the season could have been a lot better :

I loathe love triangles : I hate the trope in itself. Is S5 the worst example of it ever ? No, it served somewhat of a thematic purpose and the resolution was interesting. But I can’t help it, when I feel a love triangle coming on, I generally disconnect emotionally because I have been annoyed to hell and back by it before - one big offender being Skam France s4, in which the love triangle/quadrangle marked the beginning of the season going down in flames, with it overshadowing everything else and making the characters behave in completely obnoxious and puzzling ways. S5 isn’t quite as bad, it feels more respectful of the characters, but I find it weird that the writers chose a love triangle again on the heels of the reception of s4. 

The problem with this trope is not ‘oh we don’t want drama ever’ it’s just so bloody annoying, so trite and overused. It rests on centuries of sexist tropes : either a wishy washy girl in the middle who doesn’t know what’s good for her/her own heart ; or two girls competing for a man’s attentions. It often ends in the fandom villifying the women involved no matter the shape of the triangle, comparing them against each other, which definitely happened this time (Twitter was just so annoying this season), and this whole ‘team x’ thing gives me hives, as the assumption that this is what young women viewers care most about. 

Also it generally involves the characters showing that they have very little self respect, letting themselves be walked over, bad communication, implications about what the ‘better woman/man’ should be like, cheating, etc...it’s very rarely fun or interesting to watch because we’ve seen it a thousand times before in teenage soap operas. Again, the s5 ending avoided the total trainwreck but this is a show you watch in real time, and for weeks I was afraid it was going to be absolutely terrible, and it ruined a big part of my experience of the season. When they introduced Noée I started being scared, and when it became clear Arthur was developing feelings for her, I basically noped out emotionally. I started following it in a much more detached manner, I wasn’t looking forward to the clips anymore, I stopped writing meta so much. And it sucks. I wanted to love the season. But this was just not a ride I really wanted to be on. 

Alexia (and Noee) deserved better : I love Alexia and developing her character is one of the best things Skam France ever did. In OG, the character of Chris, if interesting, is just continually reduced to the ‘funny fat friend’ persona and it really sucks. So giving Alexia a real personality, making her bisexual, giving her more of a role in s3, making her a dancer and a singer was really cool. I’m bi myself and I spent most of my high school struggling with my weight and if I’d had a character like her, who radiates self-acceptance, it would have meant so much to me. I was really stoked for her to have more of a role in s5 - only to spend most of the season feeling really sad for her. It was just...not fun. I so wish she could have had her own season and her own story that didn’t revolve around a dude she was so supportive of and still ended up treating her like shit. 

Also, real talk : when is a curvy girl actually a love interest without it being shown as funny or not good enough ? Especially of the main character ? Almost never. Coline might have lost some weight, but she’s still written as a curvy girl this season and it’s an important part of the character. So for her to have this particular role this season - the girl that isn’t romanticized, that doesn’t get to have the cute and thrilling moments, that is just sort of there and patient and understanding as if she couldn’t get anything better, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sure the end of the season did her more justice but god it took so long and in the meantime, it just felt...very ill considered and careless. 

In the same way, I wanted to love Noée, I thought she was amazing, but because of her role in the plot I just felt this instinctive defiance towards her character. It would have been so cool to have her in a friend role, or even a love interest outside of the triangle or I don’t know like...have someone else fall in love with her. Also, I just did not understand why she loved Arthur ? Like she just met the dude a few times, and he’s mostly been a total asshole to her, who makes very little efforts to communicate with her...I get she could get attracted to him but love ??? The moment where she tells him ‘I love you’ felt demeaning to her, like the moment in OG where Noora falls after running after William. It’s like, Arthur has just been an enormous asshole to her, and she pushes herself to do something she’s never been comfortable with in the first place ? Why ? This show romanticizes teenage boys being assholes and girls being desperate way too much. 

The Skam dilemma, love vs politics and “Let’s all just be nice.” : There is a reoccuring problem accross all Skams, starting with the OG : they bring up very political topics, usually in the beginning of the season, and then they...don’t really do anything with them. In the OG, Noora’s feminism is really just window-dressing and we see her bend over backwards to accomodate this super toxic asshole into her life. And we see Sana’s struggles as a Muslim in Norwegian society, but then love drama takes over, and it’s waved away with an insulting ‘everyone should just communicate more’ ending. Skamfr s4 made it even worse, by making the girl squad a lot more overtly racist, never having them make a big gesture for Imane, putting her in a position to apologize, and never showing that the girl squad had an idea of where they messed up or real growth. It was insanely frustrating, especially since the beginning of the season was so good at showing all the little micro-agressions. In the end it felt like all the racism was just there to motivate Imane’s breakdown for plot reasons and not to actually say something. S5 never stoops quite that low, but there was a bit of a similar dynamic at hand here. Instead of the boys actually have a real conversation after their fight, most of the denouement of the show was consecrated to talking about the love drama. It was, again, as if the focus of the show was on the wrong things, and it robs you of the catharsis you’re expecting. As if they used the love drama for a metaphor for the actual issues, have it do all the emotional heavy lifting, and in so doing bypass having to adress the actual problem. There is this weird ideas that the audience of the show - teenagers and young women, mostly, in the end care the most about the love stuff and that everything else has to take a backseat and...this feels neither a good message to send, nor realistic to me. I like it when shows about teenagers decenter love and show the real complexity of their characters’ lives without making them paragons of virtue or wokeness - Derry Girls is a brilliant example of that. Skam, and Skam France in particular, feel a bit immature still compared to those, punching below their weight for shows that pride themselves on their social impact. 

Hit with the idiot stick : Speaking of underwhelming resolutions - yes, the boy squad messing up with Arthur, I found relevant and realistic. But...did they really even adress it ? I was really hoping for the boys to have more of a conversation, for Arthur to open up to them about what he went through, about his father, to tell them that they should have asked him/listened to him more, etc...and I know ‘teenage boys’ or whatever but ...aren’t they trying to change those stereotypes too ? Like when Arthur went to see Basile, they must have had a conversation, why the fuck did we not see it ? That’s the emotional bond I cared most about ! And we just had a hug ...underwhelming tbh. Same Arthur talking with Lucas but then it was just about their love lives ? Or when they came to the hospital, again, it was just about the love drama ? God it really sucked out the oxygen out of the season. The resolutions of those things just being hugs or speeches or handholding at the end felt hollow, and a lot less powerful than they could have been. And again, there has to be a tolerance for messiness, but I found the boys so incredibly dumb at several points in the season. Especially them being like ‘oh cheating isn’t so bad’ after they found out that Arthur’s dad was cheating on his wife ? Like why the fuck did they take Patrick’s side ? What kind of lack of empathy ? It would feel a lot more coherent for teenage boys to be furious at the destruction of a friend’s family, not talk like cynical 50 yr olds who just divorced for the fifth time. It felt so unrealistic and stupid and just meant for Arthur to finally clue in to the idea that cheating and lying is bad maybe, himself first without external clues from characters that really should have known better by now. Especially Yann and Lucas advising Arthur to keep his mouth shut after what happened in s1 like...did whoever write this read the previous seasons of the show ? There were just too many times where the boy squad felt out of character and mandated to be idiots just for plot reasons, and it felt...very crudely drawn. Disappointing, because the beginning of the season was awesome. But again, Skam France failed in delivering real growth for their friend group. At times, it even felt like character regression. Them holding hands at the end of the season made me emo but damn it could have been so much more.

Also some plot twists - the car crash in particular, just felt dumb and unnecessary, seriously. 

A too distant main : In the end, like I said before, my main issue is that I didn’t feel as connected to Arthur as I wanted to. I mean, the cheating bit was just very unrelatable to me, after how they showed how supportive Alexia was and how she supposedly made him happy like...why. But maybe that’s just me. Regardless - in the first few episodes he felt distant in an interesting way, because it made sense for his character to be so walled off. But...I felt like his self discovery was way too blurred with the ‘oh I like Noee’ part to the point where it ended up being obscured. I would have loved more clips on his own, maybe something more about him questioning his path in life, whether he truly wants to do medecine. And like apparently he liked fine arts ? Then, why didn’t we see anything about that ? Did he paint the x-men painting ??? That feels so relevant, why the fuck didn’t we see that ? Also why didn’t we see him take those LSF classes with Camille and actually make an effort this time ? Having almost all of his realization moments tied to Noee was just...the manic pixie dream girl trope. That’s what it’s called, when you use a quirky female character as a device for the emotional development of the male one. It’s...not flattering tbh. And then that farm episode - it was funny but for a week I felt like I completely lost touch with Arthur’s POV ? I’m really not sure that was the right choice. All in all, there were just not enough introspective, small, intimate clips for it to really feel like Skam, and that’s a shame tbh. I recognize a lot of myself in Arthur, and Robin acted his heart out to make him relatable, but because of the writing, there were way too many times where I was reluctant and puzzled instead of in it. I saw several people saying it was too much tell and not enough show and I think that’s very on point. I feel like a lot of Arthur’s actual character development happened behind the scenes in moments where we didn’t see it.  

Yeah...I think as a conclusion most of my issues are tied back to the preponderance of the love triangle. The season wasn’t bad but god it could have been so excellent if they hadn’t gone that route, and this swerve from greatness is just sooooooo frustrating. I don’t think it’s enough to condemn the whole season but...

Next up : some things I’m just very ??? about and a general conclusion. 

Bonus bitching round, fandom edition : oh my god, I don’t get into this often but...the fandom was so bloody annoying this season. Starting with the people sending death threats over a tv show (like...what the fuck) or thinking them being nasty assholes is somehow for the greater good (???), from people that don’t want anyone to use even 1 analysis capacity (especially on Twitter) and go beyond praising everything on the show, or the people either villifying Alexia and Noee and indulging in that ‘team’ crap, to the people that shoot down every single detail of the show without discernment or accuse the creators of being ableist sexist garbage or maltreating their actors ... And then you have the other remake stans coming to pollute the tags talking about how we were all stupid for liking the show in the first place. Like...seriously, what is up with you people. I really loved the block button this season, damn. 

#skam france #skamfr s5 #my meta #arthur broussard #skam france meta

[cassandra1447]

Lucifer 5A Thoughts

Lucifer season 4 was great. It had a nice solid plotline, it had great character development for pretty much everyone, I actually thought the Eve-Lucifer-Chloe triangle was done both purposefully and realistically with reasons why all three of them acted as they did, and just generally felt like a breath of fresh air after the mishmash that was season 3.

I had few complaints - a few but not many. 

I was super hopeful about season 5. Guess what I binge-watched this past weekend?

Me:

Cue rant (under cut b/c there are spoilers aplenty and if you liked this season - please keep scrolling)

To be fair: I have only watched season 5 once. 

Unfortunately, I have no desire to watch it again. 

First of all, the lack of creativity.

Maze betrays Lucifer (again for like the 10000th time)

Michael being a jerkass - I’ll grant them his fear mojo, but could you have reached for any other concept than Lucifer vs. Michael? Or give him something more interesting than an ego-problem to fuel his evilness?

Ella’s boyfriend - look, there’s foreshadowing and there’s eye-rolling, damn it really, this guy is clearly only here to serve a plot point and he’s either going to be the victim or the murderer

Ella deserves a genuine good person and good relationship - WTF did you have to do that to her? There’s no point besides hurting her

It would have been better - and more surprising - if he had been a truly decent person even if the relationship ended up not enduring

And then there’s Chloe...and oh dear...

“Being a gift” consternation

Okay, yes Chloe is allowed to be upset and to be struggling with the divine side of things - in fact, I actually liked how they depicted that in Season 4

But in Season 4, when Chloe’s reactions hurt Lucifer, there’s a clear consequence. It’s part of why he turned to Eve, and there are a couple of excellent moments - the part where he confronts Chloe about neither being an angel like she wants or the devil like Eve wants for instance - that showed Lucifer was coming to understand himself and to stand up for his own sense of self to a degree

This time round, we get a lot from Chloe but little from Lucifer aside from him desperately wanting to be with her and willing to do just about whatever she wants to have that 

And unfortunately, whereas by the end of season 4, we definitely get Chloe seeing past the divine bombshells and remembering that she cares about Lucifer for himself - that progress is completely nullified by the “you’re a miracle” bombshell and I didn’t need to see that again

Also - WTF does Amenadiel’s spiel to Chloe about seeing Lucifer truly work on her anxiety over being made for Lucifer? Did I miss something? Chloe’s upset over this seemed to me to be because of a lack of free will - not that she didn’t know who Lucifer was. Why - when free will is such a major deal for Lucifer - was that not discussed? Why did no one - Lucifer for example - come out and say “Humans have free will. Period. You can choose to walk away from me or tell me to go, and I will. I don’t give a damn what my Father did or wants or intends. It’s your choice.”

The “I love you”

I do not get why Chloe doesn’t know if Lucifer loves her. He may have not used the three words but he literally told her the prophecy (his first love) was about her not Eve. Or what about “I would do it again”? Or any of the many actions through which he’s demonstrated that he cares about her, that he values her, that he loves her. 

And okay, maybe she needs those three words to be 100%, absolutely sure, okay. Then just ask him. How do you feel about me? What do you want from this relationship? Where is this going? You know, normal adult questions.

I’m not expecting Chloe to do emotional labor for Lucifer but if she needs something from him, she needs to ask him. I think that’s fair.

It also highlights a problem with Chloe’s empathy for Lucifer IMO - it feels like she’s once again so caught up in her emotional turmoil, she’s incapable of even seeing his. This is someone who literally just returned from thousands of years in hell, who has a family  had cast him out and treated him like the worst, has been vilified by humanity for millennia, and because of all of this has a low sense of self-worth and has come to believe that he’s a monster - love is something Lucifer literally hasn’t been shown in millions (billions?) and until very recently hasn’t been in a position to express love in return - and you expect him to drop an “I love you” nonchalantly?

Again, it’s okay to have Chloe focus on her emotions rather than Lucifer’s. But if I say something hurtful to someone - even if I’m under duress - it’s still hurtful. I still owe them an apology. 

The “not in relationship” evasion

Despite the fact that Michael lying was such a key factor in Chloe knowing he wasn’t Lucifer and Chloe clinging to the fact Lucifer doesn’t, Chloe doesn’t seem to make the connection that telling the truth to Lucifer is essential

One unaddressed factor from last season - Chloe lied to Lucifer and allowed him to think that everything was fine and that she wanted a relationship with him...and then on what he happily thought was a date almost roofied him (at minimum, who knows what was really in that vial).  Lucifer subsequently found out about the plan - so there’s a historical basis for her to lie to him about how she feels (in order to betray him) -  Chloe, he already thinks he’s unworthy of you, he’s already used to people he loves hurting him - you need to be straightforward with him

This includes not evading (or lying) about being in a relationship with him. 

At least she does eventually tell Lucifer she needs time & space I suppose

Mojo switching

Why? Just why? It happened and then it stopped. What?

Various other characters:

Linda:

Why did we only have like 2 therapy sessions? Why did Linda not get to do her job this season? Her sessions with Lucifer did help him grow - why the hell didn’t she help Lucifer & Chloe work through some of their issues

I don’t like having her plot this season revolve around children. It’s a personal thing I know - but it’s such a default plot device to use with female characters. 

Amenadiel

IDK about the timing of filming for this season but it felt really off-key to have a black man depicted as thinking the best way to make the world safer for his son to be aggressively trying to work with the police. Season 4 had an episode that dealt with the endemic racism in our justice system - why in the hell was that not carried into this season? Why don’t we see Amenadiel protesting or volunteering with a local group trying to address the systematic racism? 

Where the hell did the “reflection” thing come from? I never saw Lucifer’s mojo as reflecting, more bringing to the surface what someone already felt/wanted/knew. And even if I buy that - Amenadiel never had people behaving as if he was reflecting love before. Oh and for Lucifer’s mojo, for it to have a visible impact, he generally has to be intending it to (except for when he’s in his devil form). There’s a few examples in earlier seasons where there’s an indication there’s a low level field continuously but nothing like what Amenadiel had happen in the convent. And doesn’t that give Amenadiel two powers (time + love mojo) while Lucifer and Michael only get mojo? 

Maze

Oh look, Maze betrayals Lucifer again. Never seen that before. 

1 freaking episode with Trixie!!! And it’s also the only episode with Lucifer & Trixie and Lucifer being adorable with Trixie and then - oh, it’s not that Trixie likes Lucifer, it’s that she’s being paid by Maze to get information  (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

WTF does Maze believe Michael? He’s a lying liar who lies. I can’t believe Maze would be that stupid. 

God

Just no. 

Previous seasons seemed to be having the message that God isn’t responsible for your life, you are. Lucifer has a similar realization at the end of season 4. So why are you going to muck that up by making God an active participant???

Other things that bug me:

Lack of LGBTQ+ representation

The old-timey bit doesn’t count IMO - Lucifer gender-flipped characters at Trixie’s request so any LGBTQ+ moments aren’t genuine

Lucifer & Maze are attracted to men and women (no defined label - maybe bisexual or pansexual) but there are no moments where either of them actively show it (or someone of the same gender was obviously attracted to them); I think we get a single line about Lucifer having been with both men & women but that’s all I can recall

Is there a single non-hetero couple depicted on screen (that didn’t have to be gender-flipped)? Seriously. I’m asking. 

Ella’s treatment

Already talked about this - but it was blatantly obvious the boyfriend plot served no purpose for Ella herself, just was a way to get this character looped in for other plot purposes

Chloe’s horrible advice to ignore Ella’s internal alarm bells. I don’t - how - what - yeah, feeds into what I said earlier about Chloe being too wrapped up in her own turmoil to be able to see from even a impartial (let alone another’s perspective)

Azrael! Why do you not use this sweetheart of an angel who has an established relationship with Ella? If you had to do this terrible Ella + bad guy plot, then for heaven’s sake, at least give us Azrael to warn Ella? Or something? 

Lilith was good...but where is Eve? There’s not even a throwaway line of “Eve’s in Madagascar” or show some postcards she sent to Maze or have Lucifer check-in on her and say “Eve says hi” - does Eve still exist? It’s not like Eve understand about “being made for someone” and maybe help Chloe, right? 

The Mock-Lucifer show episode -

 if you have an episode in your show that’s parodying your show...it had better be because you work for a secret government agency and it’s being allowed b/c the government can claim anyone trying to blow the whistle got it from the TV show (Stargate fans out there?) - otherwise, no. 

I know Lucifer likes to use the case-of-the-week to mirror what’s going on with Lucifer and the rest outside of the case - but this is too blatant, to the point it feels condescending

I didn’t actually want to know the story of Lucifer’s ring. Officially at least. Leave me some mysteries please, something to speculate about with other fans, something to develop headcanons for, something to write fanfic about - the story itself was fine, but doesn’t seem necessary

Hell Repercussions

Despite Michael using it as an excuse why “Lucifer” was behaving weirdly, once Lucifer is back, there’s little to no indication of the impact Hell had on Lucifer - thousands of years, and he’s pretty much the same as the moment he left Earth

Could have had Lucifer regress somewhat because he no longer had any support structure, was among literal demons who aren’t good for socialization, and perhaps had to revert to a more violent and vicious version of himself

Could have had Lucifer return to being more hedonistic - which would have been a good point of tension with Chloe - because he was starved of anything good in hell and is now trying to soak in as much life as possible (music, drink, drugs, parties, maybe flirting/dancing)?

One thing I did like was Lucifer talking to a human in hell - could have done something with Lucifer trying to help humans who felt guilty for things which shouldn’t qualify for eternal torment - connecting with semi-decent humans in hell b/c he couldn’t go back to Earth and b/c he has more empathy for them now (although I would argue Lucifer has always been kinder towards humans than other angels - look at the very first episode and how he treated Deliah)

Did no one try to contact Lucifer in hell? Amenadiel could have visited, he could have brought letters or messages from the humans in the know...did no one think of that? To help ease Lucifer’s isolation even in the smallest way? It felt like - as soon as Lucifer left - everyone was just like ‘well, he’s in Hell now, that’s too bad.’

What I did like:

Dan

He’s struggling and he knows it, and he’s trying to be a better version of himself while knowing he’s deeply flawed

The scenes with Dan & Lucifer working a case together are some of my favorites 

While I do wish he had recognized Michael’s ploy - in light of his history of doing something morally questionable “for the greater good” and his current self-examination - his reaction makes sense to me. He’s terrified and he reacts very honestly and directly; I think Lucifer would far prefer Dan’s reaction of just shooting him to Chloe’s reaction that involved her lying to him and allowing him hope only to learn she planned on using his feelings for her to allow her to get close enough to use the poison (and send him back to hell). 

Lucifer & Trixie - loved it (up until the elevator scene at the end)

Lucifer’s very practical solution of marking Michael so they couldn’t be confused - brutal yes, but practical 

This turned out way longer than I thought it would. I could be wrong - I did only see it once so it’s entirely possible I’ve missed something or don’t remember something - and I know we’ve got more episodes to come that may improve the season.

But compared to season 4 which had a tight plot that worked in concert with the character arcs, my initial impression of season 5 is overwhelming disappointment. I expected better than I got. 

#lucifer #season 5 spoilers #this is rant-y y'all #I didn't like season 5 #it had some good moments #but IDK WTH happened between season 4 & 5 #netflix you have betrayed me #I thought you were my savior

[signoraviolettavalery]

I’m new to the Roswell New Mexico fandom and I have noticed people,you, don’t really like the creator Carina and I was wondering why.

Ooooh boy. Would you like those answers in alphabetical order, chronological order, order of egregiousness, or order of how much they piss me off? 

I have a lot of issues with Carina, as do a lot of other people. Obviously, not everyone agrees with me, and some of my answers may be controversial (they’re the subject of biiiig debates in fandom). I have no intention of re-opening those debates, so what I write below is a summary of my opinions (many of which I know are shared by at least some others in fandom) for the purposes of answering your question. I’m also putting it all under a cut, because it’s a lot of negativity that some people may want to skip. 

I mention a lot of tweets and interviews in the answer below; I, frankly, don’t want to go searching for and linking to each interview and tweet (and also, Carina has me blocked, for reasons I’ll get into), but everything below has a source that I can find if you super want to read it yourself. 

So, here goes.

Firstly, Carina pisses me off because she is a white, straight woman who is writing about oppressed and marginalized minorities and, quite frankly, doing a bad job of it. She brags constantly about how progressive her show is, how much she wanted to include people of color and comment on things like immigration, how important the Malex storyline is to her, etc, etc, but doesn’t seem to be capable of (or care about) the delicacy, nuance, and care such issues require.

In a panel she did on Roswell (at ATX or NYCC, I think?) she talked about how she had qualms writing about marginalized people from identities she didn’t belong to; she said she was plagued by the question of “should I even be doing this?” Which she then immediately answered with, “but we’re doing it!” and that was that, and that seemed to me to be such a flippant way to answer the question. Like, you’re writing about people whose experiences you don’t share and your response isn’t “I’m going to do research and talk to people,” it’s “eh, I”m doing it anyway”? 

Then there’s the fact that when it comes to representation, Roswell has done a really really shitty job, engaged in harmful tropes, and thrown its characters of color under the bus. Carina insists that she consults with a lot of advocacy groups when writing about the experiences of undocumented immigrants and Latina characters, and yet. Liz simply forgives Max in the span of two episodes, even though he covered up her sister’s murder and was responsible for subjecting her family to racially-motivated hate crimes for a decade. Max, a white man, at no point acknowledges his privilege; he just pouts and whines when she rejects him until the Latina who was fucked over by his use of privilege just...forgives him. It is, in my opinion, incredibly indelicate and kind of insulting. She made the south Asian man (the only Asian character on the show, in fact) the borderline pedophile serial killer who violated Isobel for years, was creepily grooming both Isobel and Rosa, and murdered a bunch of women. She made the only black woman on the show (Maria) the plot device for an entire season: Maria had no storyline. She was there to give information to Liz when Liz was solving Rosa’s murder. She hasn’t known about the aliens all season and was thus excluded from the major show narratives. Her one defining character trait (her loyalty to her friends) was completely thrown away in order to make her a plot device for Malex (because let’s face it, Miluca won’t last and Malex will get back together). Narratively, she was thrown under the bus. 

And then there’s the queer representation, which...don’t get me started. She keeps talking about how much she loves Malex and how they’re her favorites, but she’s also very explicitly said that she finds happy relationships boring and that she uses fiction to work out her own trauma, which means that she’s essentially likely going to put the only same-sex ship on the show through an interminable amount of tragedy (because that’s what queer viewers absolutely need in this day and age). 

Plus, the idea of a straight woman using a fictional same-sex relationship to work out her own issue makes me really, really uncomfortable, because she’s made it clear that she fundamentally doesn’t understand the queer experience. She says she consults with advocacy groups when she’s writing queer characters (she won’t actually name these LGBT advocacy groups, which doesn’t make me sideye her at all), but I have doubts about whether she listens to them. I mean, she said, after the season 1 finale aired, that Michael going to Maria has nothing to do with her being a woman, even though she also explicitly said Michael wants something “easy,” and a same-sex relationship in Roswell, as it’s presented in canon, can never be easy. Roswell is canonically a homophobic, bigoted town, and Malex’s trauma stems largely from homophobia. Their relationship issues stem (not entirely, but largely) from them being the victims of homophobic abuse and a homophobic hate crime. Being with Maria means Michael never has to worry about any of those things, and the fact that Carina doesn’t seem to conceive of this is mind-boggling to me. 

Then there’s the fact that Maria...basically outed Michael to Liz, and this doesn’t seem to be a problem. Of course, maybe they’ll address it in season 2, I don’t know. But, Carina basically wrote a woman who has been best friends with a gay guy for more than a decade as casually outing someone (when she tells Liz that Michael is Museum Guy). The fact that this is a problem doesn’t seem to cross her mind for a second when she tells Liz, even though this is information Michael has never told her himself and they’ve known each other for a decade. It’s not something Carina’s ever mentioned in the numerous post-finale interviews she did. And frankly, it doesn’t matter who Maria outed Michael to; the fact that she’s capable of it when best friends with a gay guy in a town like Roswell, when Maria has been written as a loyal and understanding friend up to now, again suggests to me that Carina just does not comprehend the queer experience. 

(Also, technically, all the Isobel/Rosa hints, then it turning out that actually Noah was possessing Isobel, screams queerbaiting to me)

And then there’s the mess that is the love triangle. I’m of the camp that things that it’s complete and utter bullshit that contributes to the stereotype of bisexual people as promiscuous, though I know there’s people who think it’s good representation. It shows that she’s more interested in her particular (and frankly, kind of esoteric) storytelling preferences more than she cares about representation or continuity. The love triangle is, frankly, really badly written, and nothing about Maria developing “feelings” for Michael (or him for her, honestly) is in any way believable. Maria getting with Michael behind Alex’s back requires throwing out Maria’s only character trait (her loyalty and commitment to being a good friend). But Carina ~has~ to have her love triangle, characterization or continuity be damned. 

Speaking of storytelling, Carina is kind of...a bad writer. Look, I love the characters on Roswell, and I love the world she created, and it had some truly beautiful moments. But let’s just admit the season 1 plot was a mess. There were so many plot holes. Who knows what? Does Alex know Liz knows about aliens and vice versa? Does Alex know about Rosa, or just about aliens? Why did they spend episode 9 establishing that Alex is taking over project Sheppard to find the alien serial killer, only to have him be missing from the episode (1x11) where they find the alien serial killer? Does Alex know that it’s Noah? If Michael’s hand got broken right before he went to cover up Rosa’s murder, why did Liz think it couldn’t have been Michael “because his hand was broken then”? If Isobel is an event planner (a busy and demanding job) how did they manage to cover up her being missing for so many weeks? If Malex went straight from the museum to the toolshed, when did Alex have time to tell Maria about Museum Guy? What is Alex’s rank? (it changes from the pilot to the show). I could go on. Like, I just don’t have a lot of trust in the narrative going forward, in character and emotional continuity, in a fulfilling story for the characters I love, given that Carina seems to have a basic inability to so much as google (”my entropy changes”? that makes no sense), let alone write a story that makes sense. 

Part of the reason she’s not a very good writer, though, is because she doesn’t seem to like criticism. She insists she listens to it from people who matter and whose judgment she trusts, but, um, the mess that is the narrative suggests otherwise to me. The fact that she wrote in the love triangle suggests otherwise; it screams to me that it’s something she just had to have, regardless of whether it made narrative sense. She also literally blocks fans on Twitter who give her any kind of criticism. I don’t mean hate and vitriol, I mean criticism. She complains about how she, a public figure, a showrunner with a show that has millions of viewers, wants to log in to twitter and only see positive things and have fun interactions with friends. And I get it, criticism can be exhausting. But her job is literally to bring viewers to the CW. It is to tell a good story, and, if she wants to be as woke and progressive as she insists she is, it is to listen to different people - including fans. If she wants to shoot the shit with friends on Twitter, maybe she should get a private account. But I personally believe that she can’t use queer and marginalized characters to work out her own trauma, with no understanding of those people’s experiences, and then demand that people only ever praise her for it. It reminds me of the debate about criticism in fic comments, actually: some fic writers don’t want any negative comments. Which is fine if you’re writing fic for fun. Carina’s a professional writer with a TV show, who is getting paid. Insulating herself from literally any and all objections from the audience she’s writing for is, in my opinion, stupid, and also incredibly self-centered if she’s writing about people who’s experiences she doesn’t share. 

Honorable mentions, probably not worth getting into: 

She has like, a really creepy crush on Michael Vlamis, and even though she’s technically his boss, she’s constantly basically...thirsting over him on Twitter and Instagram in very uncomfortable ways

Max’s little speech to Michael in 1x11 about how he felt “everything,” every part of the abuse Michael suffered, and how guilty he felt about it, was just absolutely horrifying and tone deaf. Max, a character with great privilege, basically making all of Michael’s abuse about himself and how guilty it made him feel and acting like he can in any way share or understand Michael’s experience was just in every way gross, but clearly intended to make Max ~compelling~ and get the brothers to start talking and become closer and it just again shows a complete misunderstanding of the experiences of people less fortunate than her. 

Which, in short, all means that I have absolutely zero faith in Season 2. I’m not in the least bit excited for it. I think she’ll completely let us down, and I expect a lot more of the same tone-deafness and lack of nuance in relation to complex issues and marginalized characters. I think she’ll put us through the wringer, emotionally, for the sake of writing angst rather than telling a good story. 

Anyway, hope that answered your question, anon. 

#carina adly mackenzie #ask #roswell new mexico #negativity #roswell negativity #roswell wank #Anonymous

[nandalorian]

Since I posted my thoughts about how Roswell has adequately represented queer men on the show and completely shit the bed on their representation of most everything else, I need to address the epically fucked-up treatment of female queerness and the queer female gaze in the context of Isobel and Rosa. This has been bugging me for a few weeks, and the reveal of Noah as the fourth alien pretty much cemented my feelings on the matter. I know there are people who feel the way I do about it, but if there’s another post on the subject I just haven’t seen, please link me. And if you disagree completely about this too, that’s cool. Let’s discuss.

While in my last post I applauded the show on its treatment of Michael’s bisexuality, I still don’t feel great about the introduction of a Michael/Alex/Maria love triangle. It’s one thing for Carina to double down on her defense of love triangles and insist they are not an overused and biphobic trope in popular media--news flash, it is, and in this case it’s also potentially damaging to the one black woman on the show, who will almost certainly bear the brunt of fans’ ire for “stealing Michael away” if they go through with a Maria/Michael relationship. I’m sorry if I don’t take a random straight white woman’s insistence to the contrary as gospel. Saying your formative years were shaped by straight love triangles doesn’t change the fact that it’s an insulting trope to women and an outright damaging one to queers, not even taking into consideration how the two intersect, or further when you consider POC characters, etc. You can’t compare straight relationships with queer ones, in the same way you can’t compare white experiences with nonwhite ones. To insist otherwise denies a whole system of privilege that drastically shapes and influences people’s lived experiences. 

But that isn’t what I want to address, because it’s another thing altogether to come for female sexuality and queerness. If I was willing to maybe give Malex a pass on the good-intentions-written-badly front, this is a hill I’m ready to die on. Isobel’s arc in season 1 of RNM demonstrates a lack of understanding that these are identities equally vulnerable to attack, exploitation, and misrepresentation--maybe even more so--as male queerness. That the outrage about Malex drowns out this other but no less important conversation kind of reaffirms the point I’m trying to make.

More under the cut.

Female sexuality has always struggled to find positive representation in popular media, no matter the time period or culture. Compared to male sexuality, it is not taken seriously, always played against the male gaze, or disregarded altogether because it excludes men. Queer female desire challenges societal structures around male desire and sexuality because it just… doesn’t require men to function and in fact actively rejects them. This is obviously a problem because the patriarchy loves it when men are shown to be extraneous and irrelevant. 

A lot of us know what it is to be invalidated as queer women, socially and sexually. Put your hand up if you’re a woman (in which I include cis and trans women, of course) or nonbinary individual who desires women and has been told, oh, you just haven’t met the right man yet, or oh, you’re just putting on a show for male attention. We have all been there and experienced this kind of erasure to various degrees of aggressiveness. This refrain is especially loud for bisexual women, who suffer erasure and ridicule from queer and straight communities alike, but the fact is, women’s sexuality has always been portrayed as less than or dependent upon that of a man’s. That isn’t to say bisexual men don’t also experience bi erasure. They do, and this is as much a product of homophobia as it is the primacy of the queer male gaze even within queer spaces and contexts. But in this case I’m addressing that of female and nonbinary bi-erasure and biphobia.

Furthermore, the role of queer women in society and popular media has always been underrepresented compared to that of gay men, or seen as more harmless or less significant, groundbreaking, or offensive for a couple of reasons: namely that a lot of people have played down or played off the existence of female sexuality and desire because they doubt its validity to begin with, or it’s “allowed” because it’s desirable to the male gaze. In some ways this has worked in our favour because subversive or queer female behaviour and desire in media have been able to fly beneath the radar, but it’s still a symptom of a greater problem.

I include this preamble because the writers of Roswell New Mexico have stunningly managed to ignore or remain ignorant to this context. The straight women on the show are shown to express their sexuality in upfront or positive ways, even opening up conversations about kink and reversing gender roles, but often in problematic ways too. The show sometimes fails the Bechdel Test or reduces characters, especially WOC like Maria, to having no purpose but to desire male characters and be desired by them, or portrays them as unable to want sex without quickly falling in love the way Maria seemingly has done with Michael. They’ve known each other for over a decade, and yet Maria only catches feelings after they’ve had sex, a night that, supposedly, meant nothing to her but quickly is revealed not to be the case. Interesting.

But beyond even that, my beef is with the whole Isobel-might-be-bisexual-and-in-love-with-Rosa-Ortecho storyline. I was excited about it at first; I couldn’t believe our luck that we had not one, but two bisexual characters on the show, and one of them was a bisexual woman married to a really awesome and seemingly caring South Asian man. But it was not to be, and this to me is ridiculously tone deaf and offensive in light of the fact that she was possessed by a male alien the whole goddamn time.

This tells us two equally disturbing things about the writers’ take on the queer female gaze and queer female sexuality: a) according to them, in this context, it literally doesn’t exist, and b) it is wholly a product of and subject to the male gaze.

From the promo for 1x12 it looks like they are going to delve a little bit into the mindfuck around consent due to Noah effectively brainwashing/tricking Isobel into marrying him, but one aspect of this I’d be surprised if they acknowledge is how he has also robbed Isobel of agency over her own sexuality. Not only has she been in a nonconsensual relationship with Noah this whole time, but he’s stripped her of the ability to discern whether her desires are her own, including the possibility that she is bisexual. As a woman, how can Isobel take her own sexuality seriously/see it as valid when she’s been forced to reconcile with the fact that, until now, it hasn’t been?

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the fact that a man used a woman, against her will and without her knowledge, to kill another woman. All over the simple fact that Rosa didn’t desire him/Isobel by extension. This stupid-as-fuck storyline is literally about weaponizing queer female sexuality in order to do violence against women. 

Just think about that for a second.

To make matters worse, Noah is a South Asian man and represents a community that is already marginalized in white media and society. Brown men have, in white culture, been relegated to two-dimensional stereotypes, rejected as love interests, and often portrayed as villains, and instead of positively developing an Indian character in a multiracial relationship and using that representation for good, he’s been made to violate his wife and use her to kill another woman. My girl @insidious-intent has written a really fantastic post to that end and I’d encourage you to read it. According to Carina, hiring Karan Oberoi to play Noah was colourblind casting. But viewers aren’t naive enough to buy that it’s ever that simple, or it shouldn’t be. I don’t see how you can write a nonwhite character the same as you would a white one and not expect it to have deeper or more damaging implications.

So my point, or at least one of them, is this: the failure of Roswell New Mexico to its queer viewers isn’t just that they’ve desecrated a ship as sacred as Malex or, at best, totally failed to do it justice. Roswell has failed us by invalidating and retconning female sexuality, and if this isn’t something we should all be angry about, straight and queer viewers alike, I don’t know what to tell you. While people are justified in expressing their anger to Carina about Malex, I think it’s also important to acknowledge and protest JUST AS LOUDLY the queer female angle. When you are thinking about how to represent, express, and phrase your disappointment to the production team, remember this goes far deeper than Malex. She has let us all down in ways that have nothing to do with our ship potentially not becoming a reality by the end of this season. She’s let POC viewers down just as resoundingly hard, both distinctly and factoring in the intersectionality of their writing choices.

All writers make mistakes. I want to put that out there. And I also want to put it out there that the issues around queer and POC representation are serious and disappointing, but not insurmountable if the writing team shows a willingness to learn, improve, and listen if the show is greenlit for season 2. But that isn’t what they’re doing. Carina has taken a stand, via Twitter, that they’ve done nothing wrong, and that is a big red flag that the writing team isn’t as woke as it likes to pretend and definitely not interested in listening to criticisms about their politics or how they try to convey them. So are her efforts of trying to silence bisexual viewers with legitimate criticism, or POC viewers doing the same thing. She and the writers would rather praise themselves for their token representation than acknowledge, listen to, and learn from real people expressing real concerns and sharing lived experiences.

#roswell new mexico #isobel evans #queer representation #female sexuality #meta

[mtvswatches]

Wynonna Earp 1x10 She Wouldn’t Be Gone

Spoilers disclaimer (please read before sending messages or writing comments.)

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Bobo really has a thing for Waverly, and it’s creepy as fuck…

Waverly claimed she couldn’t wait for Wynonna to shoot him in the face, but to be frank, I really hope Bobo’s final confrontation is with Waverly instead of Wynonna. There’s so much history between them, and I feel Waverly would gain both a sense of accomplishment and some closure if she’s the one to put him down. I wonder if that’s possible, though…

Also, what’s Bobo’s plan here? Other than piss the Earps off, of course.

2) Dolls put a bug at the bar, and this is the first thing they here…

Bobo: Those Earp girls may be bangable, but they're a boil on my scrotum.

…which makes me feel super creeped out about the fact that Bobo struck up a friendship with little Waverly. Pedophile much?

3) Who the fuck was this girl, what was that mark on her face, and why was she eaten by a wolf?!

So many questions!

4) Evidence that the revenants are bisexual. Boom.

WAVERLY: They're talking about Dolls, guys! They're speculating that your penis is small!

5) I’m glad Wynonna and co were as confused as I was about Bobo buying the bar. Their assumption is that he did it to protect the revenants, given that Wynonna is not likely to kill them off in front of the bar patrons. I guess? I mean, it’s not like Wynonna hasn’t shot revenants in front of humans before… And as BTVS has taught us, no matter how weird what people witness is, they will always try to find a logical explanation to put it off their minds. So, I think getting rid of Bobo warrants a few scarred-for-life patrons…

6) So… the girl bore this Lou’s mark, who is Bobo’s number one enemy, apparently. They seem to have made some sort of pact and Lou was not supposed to cross into Bobo’s territory. And I think Lou was the wolf?

7) Uh-oh…

Bobo found the bug. That doesn’t bode well… 

8)

9) There’s absolutely NO way Wynonna didn’t see that…

10) Wait, wasn’t Whiskey Jim being tortured for information by Dolls? How did he end up in Bobo’s hands?

11) How are these two so soft and sweet and badass at the same time? My heart cannot take it…

12) I really liked how the confrontation between Wynonna and Dolls played out. At first, I thought she was honestly being vulnerable and purposefully giving him the flirty eyes and leading him on, which she has sort of been doing, and that seemed unfair to me. But she was just using his attraction to her against him in order to handcuff him to the car and find out what he was hiding.

13) So we can’t really trust anything Jim tells Wynonna and Dolls, considering Bobo instructed him to provide them with certain information. But I think there must be some truth to what he told them. There’s definitely some blood between Bobo and Lou, but I wonder if it’s really because Lou tried to overthrow Bobo. And I do have a feeling that he might be much worse than Bobo. But I’m guessing they’re not going to find them in Pine Barrens, like Jim told them…

14) This is actually some good advice…

WYNONNA: Those things are cockroaches to me.

DOLLS: Don't do that. Do not do that. I saw your eyes back there. They were cold and callous. Don't get all hard and forget that you're human. That you are you.

WYNONNA: I won't.

DOLLS: Just remember, revenants will say anything with a ticket to Hell pressed to their forehead.

15) In this episode of Man vs Car…

I love that he’s so perplexed by this gift and Wynonna’s gesture that the best use to make of it he can think of is smashing it to bits until Waverly suggests he could learn how to drive.

16) Woods 101? Always stick with your group. Amateurs…

17) Why does Wynonna always wake up in the weirdest places?

18) Is this Lou? And is he the leader of some kind of wolf cult or something?

19) Sounds accurate…

CULT GIRL: How can you tell the good from the bad?

WYNONNA: Um the good ones are usually scared. But they push past the fear, you know? And they do what's right, even when it hurts. Even when every instinct is telling them to do nothing, to survive. And the good ones are hotter.

20) Oh, I feel sorry for the cult girl, she was kind of sweet.

21) Of course, they’re caught…

22) Well, he does seem to know Bobo pretty well…

LOU: Bobo. That narcissist finally figure out that his stupid fur coat won't protect him?

23) So, the “mark” means that you’re no longer welcome in this “community.” Well, mark me down…

24) The rogue animals are coming after Wynonna, right?

WAVERLY: Every single girl on this list? Found dead, scattered around the Ghost River Triangle. Autopsies say that they were toyed with and then killed by animals that had gone rogue.

WYNONNA: Rabies?

WAVERLY: No. Just torture. Like, every single bone in their body broken, their skin licked off.

WYNONNA: This is why I don't do pets.

25) I knew that he’d be craving this after a night out in the woods…

But what the fuck is it?!

26) Wait…

Was this just a camera trick? Or is it something that he can actually do when he’s under the influence of whatever he’s been jacking up on?

27) He’s the cutest…

But was he trying to run off or something?

28) He was trying to run away. Because he doesn’t think Wynonna feels the same way as he does…

DOC: I have vanquished my enemy. I have taken her horse. I am finished here, Waverly.

WAVERLY: This was your plan the whole time.

DOC: No, this was your plan. You told me to learn to drive.

WAVERLY: I didn't mean leave Purgatory without a word!

DOC: I do hate goodbyes.

WAVERLY: Look, we need you, okay? She needs you.

DOC: She has Dolls.

WAVERLY: Can't you at least try? I mean, I'm trying with Nicole.

DOC: Difference is, she adores you back.

But I wish Waverly asking him would’ve been enough for him to decide to stay, you know? Not that I think he’s gone. God, I hope he’s not gone!

29) Wynonna’s message about what makes a person a “good one” really got through to Eve, and I love that. But… it seems a bit unrealistic that a girl who’s been part of a cult for who knows how long would turn against her leader after having a few words with an outsider, you know? I know they didn’t have enough time in one episode for them to actually develop a bond, but it would’ve been more effective if we would’ve seen them establish a connection and how Wynonna was helping her demolish the walls in her mind.

30) So, Lou is a skinwalker. I’m guessing that’s another way of saying shapeshifter?

31) In case I haven’t said it, I’m in love with Wynonna…

32) 

33) hOW THE FUCK WAS EVE ABLE TO SHOOT THE GUN?!

34) IS SHE FUCKING WILLA??!!!

DOLLS: She didn't remember anything - since Lou found her, huh?

WYNONNA: Yeah.

DOLLS: Prolonged psychological trauma can cause amnesia. She may have been brainwashed. Or she's lying.

WYNONNA: She's not lying. We thought she was dead.

DOLLS: Wynonna…

WYNONNA: We gave up. We stopped looking for her.

DOLLS: Wynonna. We don't know anything for sure. There could be 1000 reasons why Peacemaker worked in her hand, you hear me?

WYNONNA: Or there's one.

34) IT IS!!!????

36) Okay, I was not expecting that plot twist? To be honest, half-way through the episode I was feeling like it was a meh episode. Some fun moments here and there but I really didn’t see the point in this plot so far into the season. But now it all makes sense! There are two living heirs! It’s a great twist on the “chosen” mythology. I just assumed that the mythology in this show was similar to the one in BTVS, by which an Heir could only be called at the age of 27 when the previous one had already died… but this changes everything! This means that as long as they turn 27, they can all be heirs. Could this mean that Waverly could be an heir at some point? That would mean she can actually be the one to kill Bobo off! I also have so many questions about Willa. Does Wynonna’s father’s relationship with Bobo have something to do with the fact that she was taken? Did their father hand her over to them? Was she the reason Lou left town? Did the girls’ father and Bobo team up against Lou and Willa was one of the sacrifices they had to make? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS!

37) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

#Wynonna Earp #Melanie Scrofano #Waverly Earp #Doc Holliday #Tim Rozon #WE recap #WE 1x10 #mine #MTVSwatches

[marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer]

Replies masterpost, I guess?

curiousorigins replied to your post “UO for Buffy: I would have loved to see Willow/Fred, especially over...”

I completely agree. Though I would have liked to eventually have seen some Will/Fred. After proper mourning

They definitely would’ve been more interesting than Willow/Kenned ever were.

whiskeywin replied to your post “If you're still doing UOs, mine is that Season 7 is SO underrated and...”

I misread that as the Scoobies taking breakfast, and I was like "you know what, they did eat breakfast a lot in season 7..."

omg you’re RIGHT! The Summers’ kitchen was featured heavily during season 7.

cynassa replied to your post “What do the green and yellow parts in your icon mean?”

@sulietsexual oh gosh, now I'm gonna say that that's why I did it XD. But no, I just wanted it to look pretty tbh because our marshmallow deserved /the best/

I’ll owe you forever for making my lovely icon, and I’m glad we agree on our new origin story for it :)

thecaptainoutoftime replied to your post “Unpopular opinion angel shouldn’t have come back after he was...”

The Only reason Angel was brought back at all was because of the spin-off. Whedon intended him to stay dead.

That’s why I said I can’t wish he wouldn’t have come back, it’d mean no ATS.

rahirah replied to your post “UO - Angel/Spike is a Decent-ish ship”

Back In The Day Spangel rivaled Spander as the most-shipped m/m pair, so I would hardly call this an unpopular opinion!

Agreed. Maybe the “decent” part is unpopular. I would call it an indecent ship :P

moratheexplorer replied to your post “UO fuffy should’ve been a thing in s3”

Ehh considering what happened in season 4 with Faith I'm kinda glad we don't have another canon wlw who is a rapist. (I know you already talked about this in another ask but I seriously can't get over the fact that Faith never gets any consequences from that)

Season 4 events probably wouldn’t have happened if Faith and Buffy had become a thing in season 3. But I totally agree with you about never getting over the fact that Faith is not held accountable for the rapes.

gendervilleusa replied to your post “UO: the love triangle shouldn't have been duncan-veronica-logan, it...”

I'm also strongly anti love triangle, but I gotta say, Weevil/Veronica/Logan would be pretty great. It'd be more like a love sphere -- like who even is trying to get with who? THE ANSWER IS ALL OF THEM.

I KNOW! UST OFF THE CHARTS!

catefrankie replied to your post “Unpopular opinion angel shouldn’t have come back after he was...”

We'd also miss out on Amends!! which is a really powerful episode. Strong is FIGHTING

Another good reason to keep Angel around!

imhairybuffalo replied to your post “UO - Angel/Spike is a Decent-ish ship”

Strongly agree, they'd have had loads of sexual tension with Angelus occasionally doing Drusilla etc a fanged foursome was how they spent hundreds of years (or at least decades) so I even highly doubt it was only once, though dru and Darla also express bisexuality which probably translated into a lot of their smuttier victim choices

They were the kinkiest vampires in town, that’s for sure.

emilykinncy replied to your post “zur-en-arrhbatman replied to your post “I don’t know if this is an...”

season 7 is my fave buffy season too! haha so now you've found 2 of us

Apparently, season 7 as a favorite is not an unpopular opinion at all. I even read an article about it the other day.

happilyshanghaied replied to your post “Unpopular opinion: Veronica and Duncan in season 2 felt really forced...”

Duncan is straight up loathed by this fandom. Like, people may find Piz annoying, but they don’t have the same vitriol. Duncan is a garbage person and Veronica did look like a massive idiot falling for his bullshit.

Did I write this? Cosigned!

#curiousorigins #replies #whiskeywin #cynassa #thecaptainoutoftime #rahirah #moratheexplorer #gendervilleusa #catefrankie #imhairybuffalo #emilykinncy #happilyshanghaied

[4pondsinabox]

Summer 2018 TV Binge Ranking

I use the term “Binge” lightly, since I’m not used to watching a lot of tv at once. Anyways, starting out this summer I realized the number of my active fandoms had significantly decreased, which I needed to fix asap. Luckily, not only did I have more time than usual to watch some television, but I also had access to a Netflix account for once, so I went right to work. The following shows were picked from various gifsets, edits, fanarts etc. on Tumblr and Instagram, so for those of you I follow who post occasional stuff that don’t pertain to the main fandom I follow you for, you probably had some influence on my list. Because of this, I figured it might be useful for anyone else looking for a new show to watch to have some kind of ranking, though I realize different people have different tastes. You will notice though that none of these shows are long-running, so it’ll be pretty easy to jump right on board any of them. These are ranked purely on my enjoyment of them and how much I looked forward to seeing the next episode, NOT the actual overall quality. 

1. Legends of Tomorrow

“You’ve got to be joking” Nope. No I am not. Ok, the first season is really rough. Like, extremely rough. But the show finds its footing by season 2 and becomes essentially the American version of Doctor Who (aka my favorite show of all time). Time travel? Check. Sentient Time Ship? Check. A good blend of hilarity and touching moments? Check. Badass bisexual queen (who was trained to kill people)? Check. The list goes on. It’s extremely enjoyable, particularly when you need a good laugh, I really looked forward to every episode post-series 1. I would almost recommend skipping the first season altogether but there are a few important backstories for the characters that might make some later moments confusing. You don’t really need to have watched other Arrowverse shows to understand what’s going on and, aside from 2 crossover specials, there’s hardly a connection at all. Legends is also pretty diverse, although it would be nice to add a few more women to balance out the man-heavy team. Otherwise, their “dysfunctional family” dynamic is, quite frankly, hilarious and the overflow of pop-culture references (there’s a whole episode where they have to convince George Lucas to return to the movie industry because of his films’ influence on history) made my geek heart so happy. My biggest critique is the show’s use of the “only white boys are nerds” trope because, while I love these two particular characters, I would really love to find another show where the women aren’t always “sensible and non-geeky.”

2. Black Lightning

I don’t think I can put into words how wonderfully heartwarming this show is. I have seen one too many shows with dysfunctional families, so watching the Pierces grow and work through their issues in a healthy way was just … so important to me. Literally all of them are beautiful, flawed but well rounded characters that I would fight for. Also, Lynn and Jefferson? Freaking adorable and couples goals (Also ironically the names of my aunt and uncle). Anissa was born to be a superhero. She never had a moment of calling like most do because she was already an activist and her reaction to her powers is extremely believable. So is Jennifer’s. She’s 16 and wants nothing more than an average life. I completely relate to their sibling relationship (I, too, frequently borrow my sister’s stuff). It’s a bit darker than Legends but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of light moments to go around. Needless to say, this is another wonderfully diverse show. Aside from focusing on a healthy, black family, the fact that Anissa’s a lesbian isn’t made out to be a big deal. The underlying commentary on black incarceration and other racism issues is very poignant and eye-opening, as someone who’s not a part of that community. I don’t feel like I can say much on the actual superhero aspects of it, since I generally don’t watch DC or Marvel stuff (previous mentioned show aside) because the amount of fighting overwhelms the plot and characters for me, but I thought this show had a good balance of superhero-y moments  and touching character moments. It really did feel like a break through in television.

3. Sense 8

Late to the party, I know, but I knew I’d get here eventually. First off, if you opened a dictionary to find the word “diversity,” this show should be underneath it. Every time I think they couldn’t find another way to integrate another identity into it, they proved me wrong. I particularly loved that they trick the audience into thinking they’re setting up yet another love triangle, then are like “Psyche, threesome.” They know modern audiences too well. The characters are fantastic, I have a particular soft spot for Lito Rodriguez. The concept is unique and the camera work is another level (as someone who’s thinking about heading into the film industry, I appreciated that). What threw me off was how graphic the show was. I tend to keep away from television that has copious amounts of sex and blood, largely out of discomfort, so if that stuff triggers you in any way it would be good to steer away from this particular show. I grew accustomed to it as I kept watching but early on I had to take significant breaks between each episode. Luckily, the characters and storyline was interesting enough to keep me coming back. 

5. Dark Angel

Not from Netflix and technically a two part miniseries instead of a full tv show, but I had to include it. Wow. Just wow. I enjoyed Joanne in Downton Abbey but boy I was not prepared for the stellar performance she gave off as Mary Ann Cotton, Britain’s first female serial killer. This is about as dark as television gets, there was hardly a happy moment in the whole thing and yet I was compelled to keep watching. This is quite the accomplishment for any show or film that doesn’t have at least some humor added in to balance it out. The show depicted the difficulty of Victorian women extremely well, and almost made Mary a sympathetic character. Almost. What I admired about this telling was the writing’s ability to do this without glorifying what she did. You can understand her actions without condoning them. Considering how many people Mary was suspected of killing though, there wasn’t as much death as I expected from a serial killer story. Not that I’m complaining. Probably not one I’ll re-watch anytime soon, but I’m definitely glad to have seen it.

5. A Series of Unfortunate Events

Boy, where do I start. This is the one show I started watching without prompting from social media, simply because I had read the first few books when I was younger. Watching this reminded me why I never picked up the other books in the series. It’s not technically a bad show, I did mostly enjoy the first season, it just became so dark and depressing by the second season, even with the bright and comic-y look to the show. I actually think that was a smart decision on the creators part, to include the over-the-top scenery and clothes, because I can’t imagine how much more depressing it would have been if they’d gone with dark tones. The Lemony Snicket dialogue is also amusing, and I appreciate this show for giving Tumblr more dialogue to play around with. On the downside, I wanted to punch literally every adult onscreen. Shows are a bit difficult to watch when you have that kind of reaction to them. At this point, I can’t say if I’ll watch the third season when it comes out or not, as I do generally like to stick with happier shows.

That concludes my summer show review, I tried not to go super in-depth and spoiler-y I hope these thoughts were helpful or, at the very least, an interesting read.

#legends of tomorrow #black lightning #sense8 #asoue #show review #doctor who #arrowverse #netflix #ouat #dark angel #i actually did a thing #and posted it #yes I'm proud ok

[girlonfilmmovies]

Welcome to Friend Island: "Love Island US Season 3" and the Gaping Sores of America

So I foolishly thought that in the new year of 2021, the world would be in a better place than it was the previous year. After all, we were coming out of the "worst" of the most horrifying pandemic of the past century, a middling presidency that at that point served only a wealth of TV soundbites and less actual damage to the political system, and we were looking forward to a brighter future and a return to what some hoped would be "normal". The past was the past, and this was going to be a new moment.

Oh how naïve we all were.

As of this writing Covid-19 cases are hitting staggering new highs in the southern US, with Florida (of course) somehow hitting a record amount despite vaccines being easily available in the country for months. The death rates are at almost the same as last year. The middling disaster of the 45th president had one more trick up its sleeve, a firebomb brewing for dozens of years that went off in one of the most embarrassing fiascos of American political history. Misinformation has already implanted itself so thoroughly among half the country that people would rather die than admit they were wrong; the spread of such chaos being happily spat out through the algorithms of corporations only intent on raking in dollar signs. All the potential benefits that could have come from this once-in-a-lifetime moment are being briskly swept away: offices demanding their employees come back, no respect given to science and healthcare workers, the country's clearly weak infrastructure forced right back into action as if we didn't just see its gaping holes. The earth is dying and the people who actually have the resources do something about it instead have kickstarted a capitalist space race.

2021 has gone to show that old, toxic habits die hard.

Sigh.

Yeah, I watched Love Island again.

Despite my... let's say mixed feelings regarding last year's shitshow, I couldn't help but admit that it was the closest thing that I've had to appointment viewing TV that I've had in a long time. In an era of streaming and DVR boxes, it's a bit of an actual feat to get someone who works a fulltime job (especially one with erratic scheduling) to go out of their way to watch something the second it premieres. Love Island brings the family together, so they can engage in our favorite pastime: pointing and laughing at young, dumb, fame hungry cis-hets.

Plus, the second season had offered a fascinating glance at how to contend with a pandemic while also trying to stage a typical dumb reality show. The tropical island villa was swapped for a luxurious hotel rooftop in Las Vegas -- a literal ivory tower of ignorant hedonism looking down upon a plagued nation. You could feel the sexual tension of the hot, hyper-sexual adults forced without physical contact for months finally allowed to relieve themselves the only way they know how: toxic relationships. It was trying so hard to be an oasis in a desert yearning for frivolous content, but the façade was clearly visible to the point of satire. It was a wonderful thing to experience firsthand as what I originally thought as merely me dipping my toes into the genre.

Season 2 was the show that we deserved at the time, a funhouse mirror reflecting all the callous stupidity that had led us to this moment in world history. It attempted to offer a happy ending, a look towards the future: a black couple finally winning a reality show, a first for such a mainstream program (both of them actually kind of turned out to suck, but shhhh...).

It also allowed America to completely break the hearts of people while watching them fall apart live on TV. It was cruel, it was stupid, but most of all, it was fun as hell.

Season 3 is not about torturing the competitors. It's about torturing us.

In all fairness, there were a couple of lovely positive developments for the series this season. While still struggling with racial diversity a little bit, as evidenced by them casting only one very specific kind of black man like five times, strides are being taken elsewhere in the lane of body diversity. Alana makes her debut as literally the first woman on this show who isn't a size 0-2, looking absolutely gorgeous in every single shot.

The almost aggressively heteronormative nature of the show is slowly being shaken by a more openly queer cast than previously expected -- multiple bisexual/pansexual contestants participated, even though there wasn't any overtly queer romance shown (also almost all of them were women, with them describing their sexualities being confined to streaming exclusive episodes, which isn't... great). It's certainly a step in the right direction for a show that unceremoniously shuffled off the only queer member of the Season 2 cast overnight once the internet found his gay porn shoot. Ironically, they also ended up booting off the most openly queer member of this cast too, the purple haired proudly pansexual TikTok-er Leslie, but for the more legal reason of smuggling weed into the villa.

It's not terribly surprising that both Alana and Leslie garnered a lot of positive attention both inside and outside of the villa -- they stand out so much against the otherwise predictable casting that we've come to expect from this show and white American media in general. Alana is a woman with actual curves who looks stunningly gorgeous in comparison to the monotonous supermodel figures of everyone else. Leslie almost falls into a stereotype from the way she appears: dyed purple hair, tattooed all over, obviously queer, vaping weed constantly, exuding the kind of chaotic yet weirdly fun energy that only a former stripper can. Yet she obviously grabbed the attention of the contestants because while people like her abound in real life, in the fantasy land of reality TV she's an absolute rarity, a far cry from the sanitized beauty pageant-esque standards that they seem to pluck girls from. The men are still dumb, bland, boneheaded idiots in this show, but by offering some actual variety, they get to actually pursue people they aren't "traditionally" supposed to, while an outsider audience member like me gets to see women like herself be offered up for titillation in the same way "conventionally attractive" women are.

It's kind of cool, even if it is just playing into the icky sexualization of everyone, but hey...progress?

In an odd "two steps forward, one step back" kind of situation, the show has somewhat dialed down the outrageously toxic relationships of last year into a more relatively subdued level of toxicity. Gaslighting/cheating is at least kept to a relative low in this season compared to the nightmare that was last year, although this year's ratio depends on how much of that corresponds with sexy Columbian boy Will's obviously flimsy grasp of the intricacies of the English language. He continued to be plagued by the cliquey-ness of the cast until the very end but his genuinely sweet couple with Kyra still did enough to sneak into the final two.

The actual main problem this year was an almost unbearably long love triangle between Cash, Trina, and Cinco that refused to solve itself for nearly a month. Cash and Cinco perennially kept flip-flopping in their feelings for each other, bouncing between failed partnerships despite so obviously being into each other. Trina ended up roped in as Cinco's partner for a while, a constant victim of his own lack of courage to make up his damn mind. Cash, freshly single and in horny jail (aka Casa Amor), coupled up with the handsome and mysterious Charlie.

Now we need to discuss how bizarre Charlie as a cast member. Not only is he the only member who is, looks, and acts like an actual adult, but he also seems to show no adherence to the rules of reality TV: he's very relaxed and unassuming, seems genuinely uninterested in the "game" aspects of the show, and only perks up during rare moments of actual romantic potential. He's a fascinating spanner to throw into the machine of Love Island, and once Cinco was eliminated in the competition, Charlie had to sit there while Cash only continued to openly and aggressively pine for a man who isn't even her current partner. Proving once again to be an anomaly in the cast, he actually decided to do something about this: he unceremoniously dumped fan favorite Cash like a sack of bricks, sending her home while hooking up with the previously mentioned Alana. This smart decision was met derisively by viewers, despite him being the only person there who actually acted like a fucking adult for once. Ironically, this got him and Alana into the finals, where they finished in last place with the same trademark lack of enthusiasm that we've come to expect from him.

I suppose now we need to uncork the problem of the season and by extension the franchise as a whole. You might have read that previous situation and thought, "gee, a fan favorite got tossed aside while a guy that everyone hated ended up making it into the final four? That seems weird."

But by that point it really wasn't at all.

See, the problem with the voting is that you don't usually get to pick who goes; the audience only gets to pick who to prevent getting kicked. At that point, the audience control is out of our hands and now into the contestants', and if there's one thing we all learned in high school it's that cliques are very much a thing. The contestants seemed dead set on booting anybody who was new the second they had the chance, so many potentially exciting people were so quickly thrown out. Instead of the exciting potential we could have seen, we got a love triangle sucking anyone nearby into doom, with everyone else being a relatively stable couple or part of the Jeremy/Korey wishy-washy railway. Casa Amor was an absolute bust, with people making half-assed couplings despite still being in love with somebody else (it speaks a lot to the weakness of the Casa Amor men that Olivia literally preferred to come back single than with any of those planks of wood).

Part of the problem did rely on factors that nobody could control at all though. "Romance novel come to life" Slade seemed like a threat with his rugged handsomeness, twangy accent, and classic southern charm, but had to quickly leave due to ambiguous family troubles. Similarly, the nearly perfect Josh and Shannon, who seemed like an obvious shoo-in winner by virtue of being probably the only actual relationship on the show, had to depart in the middle of the night due to the tragic death of Josh's sister. Aforementioned chaotic pansexual Leslie was unceremoniously removed in the middle of the night once they had realized that her classic vape pen was actually full of weed, an especially tragic circumstance considering she basically had Cinco wrapped around her finger and was about to bring that love triangle crashing down (also tragic because she has gone on record saying that she was fully crushing on Genny while they were both in there, robbing us of any potential of a queer couple).

But part of the pain as always has to do with how the producers control everything no matter what: what we see, what we hear, who gets the villain edit and who gets the hero edit. It's why they seem to play Jeremy as dumb hot surfer bro instead of the actual funny and charming guy he is. It's why Trina was treated as a bitch and Cash as a woeful victim despite the roles more often than not lining up the other way around. And most embarrassingly, it's how the biggest joke couple of the show ended up winning it all.

Now, look at this picture right here: the poses, the awkward hand holding, the very strange smiles between those two. No, this is not a picture of two teenagers going to prom together who just met only five minutes ago and are taking pictures on their parents' front lawn; these two are the winners of season 3, the supposedly "strongest" couple on the show. This is Olivia and Korey.

Korey is a charming boyish sweetheart by way of an absolute fucking dumbass. He's sort of like last year's beloved and wonderfully stupid Carrington: a very sweet and nice teenager who seems to have "13 Going on 30"-ed his way into an adult body. He's childish in a way that's very cute and friendly but also woefully unattractive to anyone who's an adult. Just like Carrington, he notched up a staggering amount of dates with pretty much every single beautiful woman that came into the villa, all seemingly very interested in him. Carrington, for as dumb and childish as he is, could bag anyone because he was outrageously confident too. Korey on the other hand seems incapable of making any decision, following any girl who pays him the time of day like a little puppy, constantly looking up to her with his big puppy dog eyes. It's very telling that for all the dates he had, almost none of them actually went anywhere because it's just not that appealing to anyone. If you're looking to win, he's not someone who can scheme and play the game. If you're looking for love, he's not going to cut it because he can't seem to even understand the concept of romance. If you're looking for a friend, he's probably the best damn one you'll get in that villa -- but as constantly established by everyone, this show isn't called Friend Island.

Olivia is a bit of a thornier subject. She habitually couples up with people that you can kind of tell she's not at all into. She started the first half relatively unassuming and not particularly interested in the men that she was supposedly attracted to. But you could basically see her panties drop when Slade walked in, ready for him to pull her up into the saddle and ride away into the sunset. But his sudden departure only left her more empty, desperately grasping onto whatever random attraction she could. She went off to Casa Amor single and had the gall to come back without coupling up with any of them (although once again, they really dropped the ball with the men compared to the stunning Casa Amor women). And somehow in the midst of all this wishy washy mess, she finally settled on the one single man who she hadn't coupled up with and supposedly suddenly had feelings for: lonely, little Korey.

As a watcher of two seasons of this shit, I've seen a lot of fake relationships, but this one is just ridiculous. The chemistry is really nonexistent; she seems more annoyed or at best partially amused whenever he tries to say anything genuinely sweet to her. She reacts like how you would when a little kid tries to tell you they have a crush on you, an adult: you just kind of go, "aw, cute, thank you!" and walk away chuckling. It's genuinely comedic in how tragic it is, a boy who thinks he's finally found someone when all she's found is a trip to the bank.

And what did the editors do? They tried their very best to sell this as genuine, as actual romance. We know what romance is -- we basically saw it with Shannon and Josh, and to a lesser extent Will and Kyra. And yet they whipped out that expert level edit to say, "wow, look at these two lovebirds, huh?" It's ridiculous, especially since only in the final episode did they suddenly remember that Jeremy and the stunning Bailey (aka the combination of Gal Godot and Ashley Judd circa-2001) were an actual couple and even they looked more real than the winning couple.

Love Island is, if nothing else, a reflection of America.

It's an outdated tradition desperately grasping to what's left of the typical western idea of romance. No matter how many beauty pageant contestants they pick, men like women who aren't size 2s, or with natural hair/skin, or with family-friendly occupations. Women are probably tired of the big muscle bound hunks they usually put on here, the nearly identical men that they seem to cast every single season who have all the looks but zero of the confidence or personality.

It's an example of how our choices are an illusion, how our influence can be easily overwritten by those in charge. Votes that don't matter when they change the rules on the fly, ripping out the actual choice of the people in favor of letting them decide what stays and what goes.

It's a testament that even in the face of a viral pandemic that's quickly turning into part two, as the lives of millions are being further destroyed across the world, there will always be some asshole who has more than you and looks better than you, vacationing on a tropical island stolen from its people, ignorant of everything else that's happening around them.

Love Island hates everyone. It hates it's contestants. It hates the viewers. It hates change. It hates me.

But I do still kind of love it.

#tv criticism #deepdives

[ao3feed-fuffy]

Love Triangles Aren't Triangles (Until You Draw The Third Line.)

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2N7mpZN

by CescaLR

The Powers That Be - forces of good to balance the forces of evil. Or so they're supposed to be. But Buffy's realm doesn't so much feel balanced as the good always scrambling to find the least devastating outcome, and most of the time only sort of succeeding.

And yet. For beings so supposedly high and mighty, the Powers don't actually do much. Except make it so you have to be slightly demon to get their visions and thus, in turn, make it so everything with Cordy and Jasmine happens, so Connor, so Angel bargains with Wolfram and Hart, so the end of the world (sort of.) Along with a sincere lack of any aid regarding the many, many, many Sunnyhell apocalypses.

So... given how strong the evil in Buffy's world is - maybe the Powers really should up their game, just a tad. Make themselves less of a laughing stock that can have their own thing be taken over and used so easily by someone like Jasmine.

So. Let's fix that. And in turn, break some other things along the way.

Words: 2734, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of In Which Higher Powers Make Mortal Messes.

Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Angel: the Series

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M

Characters: Cordelia Chase, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane, Angel (BtVS), Rupert Giles, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Spike, Allen Francis Doyle, Devon MacLeish, Tara Maclay, Powers That Be

Relationships: Cordelia Chase/Xander Harris, Xander Harris/Willow Rosenberg, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne/Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris/Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, Cordelia Chase/Allen Francis Doyle, Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg, Angel/Buffy Summers, Buffy & the Scooby Gang, The Scooby Gang - Relationship, (because I can't be bothered, to write out that many relationships), Angel & Cordelia Chase & Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Faith Lehane & Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Spike/Buffy Summers, Spike & Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay & Faith Lehane, Devon MacLeish & Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, Faith Lehane/Amy Madison, Amy Madison & Willow Rosenberg, Amy Madison/Willow Rosenberg, Tara Maclay & Buffy Summers

Additional Tags: Bisexuality, look at the tags that a lot of Bi-ness, it was a whim, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Character Death, (of!! Sorts!!!! you have been warned), Canon-Typical Violence, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, but then that's them, Teenage Drama, and all, Fluff and Angst, Attempt at Humor, No Smut, so u know, not exactly safe for work though, hmm, Polyamory, Infidelity, both of those, so technically there's also, Consensual Infidelity, there's just - there's a lot of, Teen Romance, Romance, and general, stuff like that, Drama & Romance, etc - Freeform, Sunnydale (BtVS), is the locale, little bits of LA and thus, Angel Investigations | Team Angel, but.... not much, eh, Tags May Change, Tags Are Hard

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2N7mpZN

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #fuffy #buffy summers #faith lehane

[jigglybug]

Season Three: LGBT+

At this moment in the show, as the season 2 finale has come and gone, I can come to the possible idea that I don’t think Cyrus has a crush on TJ.

At least not right now. But of course we all know TJ HAS A CRUSH ON CYRUS. FACT! And I think that it’s just the deal of Cyrus still kinda getting over his crush on Jonah because even though he said it’s gone you can’t just get over someone just like THAT. It takes time.

So, I think his feelings are not so open to crushing on anyone else so quickly. TJ of course has very obvious feelings for Cyrus after that whole look back scene that I wanted and glad I got.

People talk about him looking at Buffy and yeah I get it they had a moment. This whole moment was surrounded on them but after he apologized and said see you later, before the Look Back™️ he glanced at Cyrus. Making me think Cyrus was on his mind before he even walked away. And of course to mention the Cyrus running to hug Buffy in slow motion scene. He was so obvious jealousy about not being praised by Cyrus.

So, I hope through out season 3 this could be a possibility of how TJ and Buffy become closer to each other, this and the girls basketball team. TJ goes to Buffy to talk about his feelings towards Cyrus. I would love to hear about when it started and when he discovered he liked Cyrus (if he even knows himself). And to watch their friendship get better and watching TJ gush over Cyrus that would be cute! It’s not an impossiblity considering they already did it.

Cyrus’ storyline it’s not bad of course it can be improved but what do you expect with Disney. I hope that season 3 will be the focus on him more instead of Andi and Buffy. I like watching Cyrus’ storyline with and without relationships. He’s discovering himself more and I hope we get to experience him coming out to one of his parents. That’s something that’s bigger than coming out to close friends. Of course, I’d love see him come out to Jonah considering that’s who helped him discover he was gay in the first place.

Jonah at this point doesn’t seem to be a possible endgame for Cyrus. I would LOVE to see a love triangle between TJ/Cyrus/Jonah but of course...Disney. I’m open to Jonah developing feelings for Cyrus and seeing how that goes it could spark drama that everyone would want to see. But so far, we can only seem to headcanon him as Bisexual as far as the story is going with him on sexuality. I would love them to make him the first Bisexual Character on Disney Channel, with the help of Cyrus or someone else. Or even just blurts out “boys and girls are cute.”

Accurate representation would make it better. Like, maybe him crushing on a guy at camp or maybe even Walker to show how he can develop crushes on both boys and girls. Maybe he would talk about having feelings for a guy at some point in the past. His young...13-14 years past. It could have happened. I would love for that to happen.

Let’s hope for an even better season!

#andi mack #tyrus #tj kippen #cyrus goodman #buffy driscoll #jonah beck