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beanghostprincess · 22 days

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Hey sweetie!! I realized I have been absent from your inbox for quite some time and that simply will not do, I am legally required to annoy people I like, it's the Law.

Therefore, I thus drop even MORE transfem Buggy ideas, silliest, and snippets in the hopes of making you smile and/or laugh bc you deserve nice things I wanna throw them at you ♡♡♡♡♡

• Buggy coming out as trans over the course of a loooooong time, where she had Inklings of it young (Buggy+Toki bonding my beloved), and for a while just went "it is what it is, it's my nose that makes me hate mirrors so much-" and thus reclaiming the nose with the clown aesthetic and commitment to the circus bit. And it's enjoyable, really, the colors and patterns are So Good, and the makeup feels WONDERFUL, and all dolled up, Buggy doesn't want to punch the mirror quite so much.

It's only with Alvida and their Mean Girls Gossip Club being founded that there are some late night, semi-drunk conversations and Buggy says something like "everything sucks but I think things would be better if I were born a girl, ya know-?"

Cue Alvida taking that as a "women have it easy" type of thing (it's not), and so she and Buggy make a bet - dress as a girl, go out for a night, and play the part. They pick a small, no name island, pick an equally small, no name town, and hit the bars there. And Buggy is.... thriving.

It's not all sunshine and daisies, and Buggy sees first hand what women experience, but there's a shift in the movements, in Her Chest, and suddenly things are clicking, she's stepping aside, she's off to the restroom, and she is staring into the mirror there, blue eyes wide and hair loose around her shoulders and she really Looks. Fingertips brush the cool, smooth surface before her, trembling with fear, with anticipation, with joy and grief and anger and love. She barely notices when Al comes up to her side, when a pale hand brushes her shoulder. It's the question which throws her.

"What are you thinking?"

And in the tiny little bar bathroom at Seas-knows-what-time, Buggy has a sudden accidental baptism, and Alvida takes her hands through it all.

Buggy comes home to her ship, her crew, with knowledge, with a new awareness, a new fear, a new joy.

Her crew are nothing if not welcoming, and when she tells them, faux-casual and already edging into defensive aggression, they are simply delighted. They are ecstatic. They don't even question it, just beam and offer hugs and ask if they should still call her Buggy and Captain and Ringmaster, because she is theirs and they are hers they will be as good for her as she is for them, by the Seas as their witness.

And Buggy is happy, is safe, is emotional, is loved.

• coming out publicly is an ordeal, especially with the media storm already occurring elsewhere. She doesn't even think to do it. It's her crew that bristle when someone misunderstood her, the first two times a passable correction, then a point of disrespect. People do not disrespect their captain lightly.

• An article is written about her, and the contents are.... unkind at best. Interestingly enough, another article is never published by that journalist, and there is now no trace of their existence beyond that point. It was not Buggy and her gang who did it, though.

• Crocodile and Mihawk are both bisexual, and they do not initially know of Buggy's gender identity until well into the Guild's existence, after that article full of heresay and guessing. Not many want to correct such powerful men, after all.

When it DOES come out, they don't even really treat Buggy any differently. Just nod, verify name, ask for pronouns, and it's back to business. It's refreshingly normal and bittersweet.

• when they eventually being courting Buggy asks if her gender is.... going to be a problem. Crocodile just sneers. "It'd be hypocritical of me to not date someone transgender. I may pass as cis, but I made myself into the man I am today. Who cares?"

Mihawk just kind of laces his fingers with hers and states that "your body is but a vessel, and I care only for the wielder. The forms of your body matter not to me beyond your own joys in it."

• they also go on to be rather protective of their girlfriend. Business transactions have, and will, be dropped if a group is not respectful of her or has a history of it. Money is money, certainly, but business is a gamble and the deck is stacked against them with such animosity. After all, would you trust someone visibly aggressive with you over an ambivalent stranger when both hold a gun?

• just for shits and giggles, open relationships, and Shanks being fucking FERAL for Buggy and it's an absolute hot mess because he loves his clown wife so much-

• extra funnies, many others ALSO love his clown wife. Including, to his dramatic betrayal and theatric tears, many in his own crew.

• Rayleigh shows up at Karai Bari without warning to give Buggy a piece of his mind - not about her being a woman, no, that's fine, he loves her regardless, but about how she hasn't called him even ONCE just to give him the news that he has a DAUGHTER, she KNOWS he wanted a little girl, Buglet, why have you hurt him so-?

"You never gave me your number???"

"I didn't??"

"NO?????"

"Oh."

"Yeah, OH, you senile old fart!!!"

"Hey, missy, no need for that kind of disrespect-"

• Luffy, Zoro, and Ussop bond over "my dad/dad-figure has done it with the clown lady" and Sanji is just laughing at their misery while Jimbei is trying so hard not to make eye contact lest they see his own clown fucking history ((it was one time but he wouldn't be against a repeat-))

I'm eepy so that's all I have now but ily nini ♡♡♡♡

HELLO SWEETIE HOW I'VE MISSED YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💖💖💖🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻 I am so glad you're back for more ideas and headcanons of our wonderful Buggy 💖💖

Toki and Buggy bonding my beloved but I absolutely adore what you said about Buggy blaming her nose at first instead of like, actually thinking why her image bothers her so much,,, She doesn't want to think further about it so she just guesses it had to be the nose because it's the one thing that's wrong with her,, But then she has the whole "I wish I were a girl because it would be easier" mindset still after claiming the clown aesthetic,,, My girl,,,

And the way she finds out I am,,, Gonna cry,,, The way it starts as a bet and Alvida is genuinely mad at her at first for her commentary about women but then she sees Buggy visibly upset because she's having the realization™ in the middle of a crowd. And I can't stop thinking about how it'd be sweet and comforting and,, You know. It'd feel like a family, something they don't really seem a lot of times because of their catastrophic dynamic. But Buggy would feel seen and loved and she knows Alvida will be there for her through it all no matter what. It's kind of weird to be comforted by a younger woman and I think Buggy would feel a bit ashamed for that?? But Al would tell her that there is no age to support each other, especially in womanhood.

I love how protective her crew is but mostly how little Crocodile and Mihawk care about this 😭 They really said "well if this doesn't affect us I don't care what you are but at least we are going to refer to you properly because we are not monsters, thank you". And also Crocodile is trans so it just makes sense. And what the hell with Mihawk's words??? This man is so romantic when he wants to--

My favorite thing about this is everybody being extremely protective of Buggy. She deserves it. She's a queen. An icon. And everybody is in love with her. And Rayleigh is soooo father and I adore him,, He'd go there solely to see his girl.

And never forget Zoro and Luffy bonding over this, but the funniest part of all is how I am 100% sure that after transitioning Buggy is wayyy hotter and way more confident and Sanji would be head over heels for her like everybody else. So yeah, he laughs all he wants but he wishes he could pull Buggy like that-

And I hope you slept well!!! Mwah mwah mwah!!! Loved to see you here again sweetie 💖💖💖💖💖

#the return of the king or queen or sovereign idk who you are anon but i love you #this was soooo nice i love everything about this #one piece #buggy the clown #transfem buggy #ask-bean!

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josefavomjaaga · 3 months

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The Metternichs about Junot

Metternich to Mme Metternich, 14 February 1810 It is with true sorrow that I take up my quill today. Your letter of 26 January contains one of the scenes that show us the people of 1792 and 1793 exposed and naked. Place a being like J[unot] in a very high position, he will drink blood without letting any misgivings stop him.

That’s Metternich reacting to the news of the scandal Junot had caused after having discovered the correspondence between his wife Laure and Metternich, proving they had had an affair. Metternich himself was not in Paris at the time but had left some time after the war of 1809 between France and Austria had begun, and in the meantime had taken over the ministry of foreign affairs in Austria. However, Lorel Metternich with the kids had stayed in Paris, and Junot had dragged her right in the middle of a scene of severe domestic violence that she immediately informed her husband of, with the help of a secret agent Metternich had in Paris, Benoit des Androuins.

Interestingly, Lorel Metternich at first does not mention any involvement of Caroline Murat in this event, she only lists her as one of the people gossipping about it.

Other than that, Lorel apparently behaved as prudently as she could once she had entered Junot’s house. According to the letter by Androuins, Junot had forced Laure to write a message to Lorel, urgently inviting her over. On entering, Lorel found Laure Junot crying on the sofa, hiding her face in both hands. - According to Laure’s own journal intime, the last hours had been a nightmare for her, including attempted rape and attempted murder. - Once Lorel Metternich was in the room, Junot locked the door behind both women and started to rage against Metternich, demanding Lorel take revenge upon him etc. The only thing Lorel answered was: "But you are mistaken, Monsieur le Duc. This is not my husband’s handwriting." - Despite the fact she had obviously recognized it. Again, according to Laure’s journal intime, she at some point managed to silently ask Laure if she could do something for her.

Despite Lorel’s calm reaction, the scene must have scared her a lot. At least she seems rather relieved to learn that the Junots were to leave the capital, when she writes to her husband:

Bluebeard has finally left with his amazon and, as I am assured, probably never to return.

"Bluebeard" obviously referring to Junot.

Edit: Forgot to add the source for the two letters: Conti, "Metternich und die Frauen", Vol. 1 - The description of what may (or not) have happened during the night when Laure was alone with Junot are a brief summary of the excerpts from Laure's "journal intime" quoted in Toussaint du Wast, "Laure Junot". It is to be noted that this "journal intime" may have been written years after the event for Balzac, and that it is per se unverifiable.

However, Lorel Metternich calling Junot "Bluebeard" at least strongly hints at her, too, being convinced that Junot had physically abused and possibly tried to murder Laure.

Edit II: On second reading, I added an "attempted" to the accusation of rape. Of course, by the reasoning of the law at the time, rape in the judicial sense would not even have been possible between spouses. Obeying to the husband's needs was the wife's job. - As to Laure's "journal intime", she describes that Junot tried to force himself on her, but claims that she managed to make him stop. (I am not sure I fully believe her.) Junot then at some point attacked her with a pair of scissors, wounding her, before trying to strangle her. He only stopped when Laure was close to loosing consciousness and when he literally saw her blood on his hands. That's how Madame Metternich found Laure on entering.

#klemens von metternich #eleonore von metternich #jean andoche junot #laure junot #paris 1810

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casualtydept · 10 months

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one of my favourite things to come from the leaked mgsv script docs is this chart of what personal pronouns and forms of address the thought the characters should use for each other in japanese, so i thought i'd make an english/romaji version of it and provide some notes!

initial notes

to make it clearer to understand, the left column indicates the speaker, and the row along the top indicates the character being addressed. the top line in each cell is the second person pronoun they use for that person (first person in the case of the character talking about themselves), while the second row and below are how the character would call the other by name/title.

so first of all, this obviously doesn't fully reflect the final game, and there's still a lot of uncertainty over certain pronouns and names evident by all the ?s indicating the staff member(s) working on this weren't 100% confident in their assumption, or didn't make a guess at all. empty cells also indicate they thought a form of address simply wouldn't be used - code talker having no reason to ever talk to ishmael, or volgin never speaking to address anyone at all, for example.

something else to be aware of is the presence of a few unused names in here, namely geronimo for code talker, which was an early name for him presumably based on the real life apache leader. at this point in development they also seemed to be sticking with liquid for eli's form of address

there's also "neocon" as skull face's nickname for huey, which interestingly doesn't seem to come up anywhere else in any of the scripts! we can assume this is a play on his son's future nickname "otacon", while also referring to him as a neoconservative which is frankly so hilariously awful i can't help but feel we were robbed of this.

a crash course in japanese personal pronouns pt. 1

next i want to briefly explain what all of these pronouns mean, for those unfamiliar. this comes with a big disclaimer that i'm not japanese or even close to fluent in it, so do your own research if you're interested in this just in case i'm misrepresenting any of the incredibly specific cultural connotations everything in this language seems to have

俺 ore

most characters in the game use this when referring to themselves, it's an informal masculine pronoun that can emphasise masculinity or status around those with lesser status, although around close friends it has a different connotation of casual familiarity.

ore is used by snake, ishmael, miller, ocelot and liquid

僕 boku

this pronoun is used mostly by young boys, but can also be used by adults. it has connotations of humbleness, its use by older men suggesting they feel young. non-threatening and casual.

boku is used by both mantis and huey in each of the two contexts described above.

わたし watashi

your standard gender neutral formal first person pronoun. casually it's only really used by women, a man using it in a casual context suggests aloofness or a businesslike attitude.

quiet and skull face are the only characters that use watashi, you can interpret this as suggesting either formality or casualness for quiet, and the usual formality for skull face.

in the notes this is written in hiragana, rather than using the kanji 私, i'm unsure if this indicates anything in particular or perhaps was to avoid confusion with watakushi, the more formal variant of this pronoun which uses the same kanji.

わし washi

this is a mostly male pronoun, used frequently in fiction to represent your stereotypical old man character.

as such this is the pronoun code talker uses.

a crash course in japanese personal pronouns pt. 2

now for the second person pronouns.

real spoken japanese doesn't really use these pronouns as freely as we would with "you" in english, since in a conversation the "you" part of the sentence is usually implied from the context and using a pronoun puts specific emphasis on the other person in a way that can be seen as cold or rude.

i'll leave it up to you to see which characters use each of these towards others rather than listing them since many of them use different ones for different people depending on their relationship with each of them.

お前 omae

a very informal pronoun mostly used by men. as you can see this pairs with the first person ore, and has all the same connotations of status towards subordinates and casualness among peers. wikipedia says men use this towards lovers so... there's that i guess.

あなた anata and あんた anta

anata is the standard second polite form of "you", often used on forms or in ads when referring to someone in a general sense or used for someone you don't know anything about.

anata is almost exclusively used here by mantis, which fits his distanced nature.

anta is a shortened form of anata that is more informal, suggesting anything from contempt to familiarity, and stands out as rude in a strictly formal context. it can also be used to suggest a sense of defiance and disrespect of authority - as if the character respects the other to some degree, but not enough to use anata towards them.

anta is liquid's pronoun of choice for all characters but mantis, drawing on the latter connotation. it is also used variably by some of the main characters to refer to each other, suggesting their familiarity, rather than rudeness.

君 kimi

kimi is a reasonably informal pronoun used mostly by men to subordinates, or their equals. it can be rude when used to superiors or elders.

this pronoun tends to pair with the first person boku, and as such it get used both by huey and Mantis - although mantis only uses it for eli, demonstrating their closeness.

i find huey's use of it to be kind of a humorous way to draw attention to how convinced he is that they're all one big family and absolutely nobody here wants him dead or anything.

(zero isn't included in this sheet but he exclusively uses this pronoun in the tapes, referring to paz, skull face, kaz, ocelot and big boss with it. up to you if this is a blanket You Guys Are All My Subordinates thing or if it can suggest closeness with some of them)

貴様 kisama

less of a pronoun and more of a insult. often translated as "you bastard/son of a bitch/etc."

as you can imagine the only person they figured would use this was kaz to paz. so in this case i suppose "you spying bitch" would be the best translation.

i can't believe you read all of this

since this was made during development and reflects a lot of uncertainties and some unused ideas, i do want to go through the script and make an updated version of this with the pronouns used in the final version of the game just to have a complete resource. but for now i hope this proves interesting!

#mgs #metal gear solid #mgsv #not art #words #canon talk

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antianakin · 11 months

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If you were in charge of the Star Wars Prequels how would you have written Anakin? (assuming the only thing you can't do is erase him from canon :P)

Would you learn into Anakin's evilness or try to make him more sympathetic?

Honestly? I don't have THAT much of an issue with Anakin's general characterization in the Prequel Trilogy. I think for the most part that Anakin is a really interesting character in the Prequels and pretty unique as far as villain origin stories and action heroes of the time tended to be written. The focus on Anakin as FEARFUL, as someone who CRIES a lot and is AWKWARD and honestly not suave or smooth AT ALL (unless he's giving himself over to darkness, generally) is actually a really interestingly novel choice to go for. And that unique aspect of him is, arguably, why Anakin was so despised in the Prequels for being "whiny" and "annoying" and people really did not vibe with this weird awkward dude as proto-Vader. Obi-Wan as the much more competent, smooth, suave character with all of the snarky one-liners comes off looking much better in comparison. Same with Padme, usually.

So I wouldn't actually change the CORE of Anakin, the journey he goes on and the way his vices tend to be shown. TCW has already done that, they've just replaced Anakin's less likable characteristics with Obi-Wan's much more affable personality. They gave him snarky one-liners, he's now suave and smooth and charming, etc. It's annoying and it's boring.

But there are two things that don't work for me that I WOULD change if I were capable of going back in time and influencing Lucas's mind towards certain rewrites.

One is that I would make his romance with Padme more believable. The problem with the romance in AOTC for me is that you can completely believe that Anakin would be into Padme, but it feels a lot more difficult to understand why Padme is into Anakin in return. Especially after he murders an entire village of people down to the last child (we'll come back to this one). So we need to be told more WHY Padme is so into him when he is this weird, awkward, whiny manchild. Like, sure, he's pretty, but being pretty isn't enough to explain why Padme is willing to jeopardize her entire career to marry him by the end of the film.

So Padme either needs to be more corrupt, more angry herself, more connected to this part of Anakin that desires power, or they need to show us a better genuine connection. One of the things from the extended/deleted scenes from AOTC that I think could've helped with this is the bits where Padme mentions she had thought she'd be a wife and a mother by now and we see how close she is to her own family when she takes Anakin there. We know how close Anakin was to his mother and I think it would've been REALLY easy to use that as an easy connection. You could even help along the next movie by having Anakin mention that when he was a kid, he'd always sort-of wanted a big family. He didn't HATE that it was just him and his mom obviously, but it had been a sort of dream of his that one day they'd be free and he'd find a beautiful wife and have a big family for Shmi to dote on later in life. This gives Anakin and Padme a shared dream that neither of them is allowed to pursue due to their chosen careers. They've both sacrificed a desire for a family in favor of duty to the galaxy so when they get together later, you can kind-of understand why. No one else gets it but each other, etc.

The second thing I would change is the Tusken Massacre. I think that going as far as completely massacring the entire village is too far too soon. This is something that works only if you as the viewer don't truly see the Tuskens as equal to humans like Shmi or a people like the Jedi. The Tuskens aren't QUITE animals maybe, but they're also just savages who torture innocent women to death, so their deaths aren't sad for THEIR sake, the massacre is sad because of what it represents for Anakin - it's the beginning of the end. And obviously from a modern viewpoint, this really doesn't work anymore, especially with the way the Tuskens are being written these days. It also feels a little redundant with Order 66. It's not as impactful that he murders Jedi children when we already saw him murder Tusken children in the last movie. Baby murder is baby murder, there's no escalation in the evil he commits aside from sheer numbers I guess.

So I would probably have Anakin either choose to just leave the village quietly without killing anyone, or have him stop at just the guards/men and leave the women/children alive and either way he admits to Padme that he WANTED to kill them all and only just barely stopped himself. This also helps the romance aspect in that now you don't have to figure out why Padme is super chill with marrying a MASS BABY MURDERER and her moral code is a lot less gray. If he only killed the people who attacked him in the village or didn't kill anyone at all but just WANTED to, then you can dismiss it a lot easier. The rage is sympathetic and understandable and relatable, but Anakin is still mostly in control of himself. Padme can say that she's felt the same rage and not acted on it, so Anakin is the same. She can insist he would never murder Jedi younglings to Obi-Wan in the next film without sounding like an idiotic hypocrite.

(There's obviously a LOT of other issues with the Tusken Massacre in terms of how the Tuskens are written and presented in this film that could be rewritten to be a lot better and make the Tuskens more sympathetic, etc etc, but that's not really what you're asking me about and I'm not necessarily the right person to speak to that anyway.)

#star wars #attack of the clones #padme amidala #anti anakin #anti anakin skywalker #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #tusken massacre #anti anidala #anidala critical

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ufonaut · 4 months

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"a disaster beyond description" - the parallax view on parallax (& coast city's destruction)

i've often talked about the importance of pre-parallax retcon hal jordan, what a radical move his downfall had been for an art medium so uniquely focused on status quo and how much walking that back in post-2005 continuity damaged the character & his development. however, something i've become increasingly interested in lately is the outsider point of view on the magnitude of coast city's destruction and hal's descent into madness -- the reverberations of one of the darkest days in the dcu were far and wide for a good long while there but rarely acknowledged outside of nostalgia pieces nowadays and even more rarely understood as a thoroughly visceral, well-written, well-planned arc that intentionally portrayed the superhero world as largely unsympathetic to the trauma of one of their own but the average civilian as grappling with that loss nearly on the same scale that hal did.

to that effect, i thought i would show a highlights reel of this outsider POV and how much it adds to the weight of the pre-2005 story. while i've accepted some tie-ins to major events (ie zero hour 1994, final night 1996), this will feature titles entirely unrelated to green lantern presented in real life chronological order by publication date in order to showcase the impact that's compelled me so (that's no convergence: green lantern, no legends of the dcu #33-36, etc).

"every office, every home, every school and hospital is atomized. the west coast and its entire ecosystem is instantaneously shattered-- and more than seven million men, women and children that once called the coast city area home-- die."

to set the scene, the explosion that destroys coast city actually appears in superman 1987 #80 (cover date: aug 1993) as part of hank henshaw and mongul's plan.

the destruction had spread as far as santa barbara & the los padres national forest. getting closer to ground zero, hank henshaw also proceeds to resolutely take care of a handful of the sole survivors:

(adventures of superman 1987 #503, cover date: aug 1993)

you all know the reading order here. past the return of superman and the events of emerald twilight, the first outsiders to have gotten the news are the darkstars

whose immediate course of action is to brand hal jordan a criminal (darkstars #23, cover date: aug 1994)

and as zero hour-induced temporal anomalies keep coming up, the darkstars start seriously considering further tampering with time in order to prevent "the creation of a power-mad monster" (darkstars #24, cover date: sept 1994).

it's a sentiment that the majority of hal's justice league colleagues share, as zero hour: crisis in time and the final night both tell us, but a more sympathetic view comes two years later in the spectre 1992 #47 (cover date: nov 1996)

and a more neutral one from waverider in superman: the doomsday wars #2 (cover date: dec 1998)

interestingly enough, more details of the in-universe perception of hal's actions comes from deadman: dead again

where we learn that "sources close to the JLA" have actually issued a press statement naming hal as wholly responsible for the green lantern corps massacre, with no hint that they've been equally forthcoming about the motive behind his actions (deadman: dead again #4, cover date: oct 2001)

the last pre-retcon word goes to superman: day of doom #3 (cover date: jan 2003), a sobering portrayal of the immense horror of coast city's annihilation and subsequently a look into the reality that had made hal snap:

post-retcon, nostalgia pieces like dcu: legacies #8 (feb 2011) and dc retroactive: superman - the 80s (oct 2011) both treat the mad-with-grief version of the story as the truth -- as does the 2015 convergence event --but outside of these few instances, the tour de force of storytelling that is this years-long arc has been cast aside in favor of an unnecessary retcon. as the zero hour: crisis in time 30th anniversary approaches, i'd say it's just the right time to remember that hal (unrepentant hal, power-hungry hal, hell-bent on making everything right hal) had had a perfectly proportional reaction to the tragedy he'd endured, if not outright a justified one.

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pynkhues · 6 months

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I read your meta about kendall's vulnerability/dishonesty. I'm so curious as to how he was able to remain vulnerable despite presumably being punished for it at every turn by Logan. why don't we see him with more closed-off defense mechanisms like Roman and Shiv?

Mmm, I don't know if I think that Kendall was punished for it at every turn by Logan?

He was punished, of course, the show makes no secret of that, but we also see Kendall being both rewarded for it and coddled over it - the immediate aftermath of Doddy's death being the most obvious example, of course, but I tend to believe that Logan's worry in 1.08 and his tenderness with Kendall in 2.04 is genuinely (albeit a loaded) love and care too.

One of the things that I love about the show is that I think it really understands that family violence is rarely uniform across members of said family, and in many ways I think that the juxtaposition between Roman's character as someone who can be honest without being vulnerable, and Kendall's as someone who can be vulnerable without being honest, is an embodiment of that. Their treatment by their father, the way they experienced both love and violence at the hands of him, is inherently different, just as it is with Shiv and Connor too, which is a major factor in why the four of them can never entirely come together. They're each experts in their own abuse, and while there's overlap and shared experiences, their personal relationships to their father are just that - personal - and I think that compounds and manifests in different ways.

In terms of Kendall, I do think a part of his vulnerability and emotional state is just him - a cocktail of genes, a bipolar-or-autism-or-both-or-adjacent-condition, being the groomed and favoured son, and a who-knows-how-many-nannies-raised upbringing. After all, on a scale of 1-10, he operates at 11 90% of the time, and the result of that is generally emotional spillage.

I do tend to think too though that there's a degree to which Kendall both consciously and unconsciously understands that his ability to be vulnerable gets him places. Kendall's manipulative! With everyone! And while I do think that his emotional state is usually honest (even if he's not being honest about why he's in that state), he's also pretty well-documented in using his state (or trying to use it) to get his way. Interestingly enough, I think Connor tends to share this with him, because he's absolutely emotionally manipulative too.

I think Roman and Shiv are in really different positions when it comes to being allowed that degree of vulnerability - Shiv's the only girl, which means for her any sort of vulnerability will see her diminished and written off, and I think Roman as the youngest son closing that part of himself off - as you put it so well! - is in some ways the same story. He has to differentiate himself from Connor and Kendall to gain any sort of traction with his father, but also being perceived as 'other' or 'having something wrong with him' because he's not sleeping with women, existing in these environments of being sent away and coming back, having a degree of adult 'freedom' that was never extended to Kendall until the last seasons of the show, indicate different relationships and yeah, again, I think their abuse probably manifested fairly differently a lot of the time.

It's an interesting area to think about!

#kendall roy #roman roy #hbo succession #succession asks #welcome to my ama #kendall + logan #logan + roman

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esther-dot · 7 months

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what do you think about the comparisons between sansa and elizabeth i?

Traumatizing 😂 Actually, Sansa having a cult of personality in the North with a goddess like depiction in songs, well, it's what she deserves so I guess I shouldn't be too down about it!

It has merit. The LF and Thomas Seymour parallel alone feels like enough to argue Martin was influenced by her life when writing Sansa's story. But the important thing is what is says about Sansa's endgame and this was written all the way back in 2012:

Disregarded as a daughter, and later marked as the daughter of a traitor (Anne Boleyn), Elizabeth was raised to be a highborn lady. After the death of her father, brother, and the execution of Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth was held hostage by her mentally ill sister (Bloody) Mary for almost a year before Mary's death, putting Elizabeth on the throne. In government, Elizabeth was much more moderate than the previous Tudor monarchs had been. Her personal motto was, interestingly enough, "video et taceo" which roughly translates to “I see, and say nothing.” (much more--follow the link)

However, many people have made similar cases for Elizabeth of York being the inspo, especially because Martin has mentioned being influenced by the War of the Roses. I found this post from 2013 discussing it:

Sansa and Elizabeth resembled each other and their lives took somewhat parallel courses. Both bounced around various diplomatic marriage proposals. Both wanted to be queens. And, both married or almost married their uncles... (much more--follow the link)

@minitafan wrote about some similarities with Elizabeth of York for me once, and this part of a meta she wrote on it is particularly notable

This I think is a parallel GRRM took straight from the history books: Elizabeth’s young brothers were in line for the throne before her, but they “disappeared” presumably, were killed. To this day historians debate who exactly was the murderer, but for decades after that, several young men claimed to be either Edward or his younger brother, true heirs to the Throne. The story was they have been swapped for peasant boys by York loyalists, and the peasant boys had been murdered in their place. This is very similar to the story of Bran and Rickon being “swapped”. (link)

@trinuviel commented on the parallels:

GRRM has praised Sharon K. Penman’s novel Sunne in Splendour about the Wars of the Roses and it is quite obvious that it has been a big inspiration for his series, especially the first book. (link)

And @kitten1618x wrote a meta about all the parallels between ASOIAF and the War of the Roses, some of which are rather striking:

Amidst the War a King is Born [...] Edmund, a Lancastrian, was taken prisoner by Yorkist forces mere months after his marriage to Margaret, and died in captivity less than a year later, leaving behind a 13-year-old widow who was seven months pregnant with their child -whom she birthed at the tender age of 14. This sounds vaguely familiar -like a lovable bastard prince we know, who’s mother birthed him at a tender age, his father dying in a “rebellion” of sorts -War of the Roses/Roberts Rebellion. (much more--follow the link)

I think there are enough parallels to conclude both of the women were on Martin's mind, and seeing how he translates an influence into his own work is really interesting. Depending on how you foresee Sansa's ending, becoming queen in her own right a la Elizabeth I or marrying Jon as a kind of resolution to the Targ v Stark issues, and more pressingly, the Northern succession, for the Elizabeth of York parallel, one carries a lot more significance. I dislike the possibility of Sansa getting thrown at different guys for other people's purposes, being forced to marry, lusted after and molested by several adult men, without ever having a mutual love interest, so I can't really celebrate the Queen Elizabeth I parallels too much, although it’s nice they exist for QitN purposes.

#dot chat #historical parallels #sansa stark

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germanpostwarmodern · 29 days

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1953 was a pivotal year for Korea: after three years of war between the south and the north an armistice manifested the tragic division of the peninsula that is likely to exist well into the future. Apart from that it also was the start of a modernization that deeply influenced the country's art scene: in contrast to earlier generations who had to live through colonial rule and wars, a young post-1953 generation not only had access to international art publications but also consecutively challenged capitalism and the convictions going along with it. In view of these quite unique circumstances it is remarkable that little has been written about Korean art after 1953 outside of Korea. Thankfully this gap is filled by the present meritorious volume: "Korean Art from 1953 - Collision, Innovation, Interaction", published in 2020 by Phaidon, brings together several elaborate essays by experts on Korean modern art that offer a comprehensive picture of movements, artists and the deep interrelation of art and identity in Korea. Spanning early collaboratives like Shinjeon or the Zero Group, the major artists of the dansaekhwa movement and even today's digital artists the book convincingly interweaves general and art history. This is of particular importance since art in Korea more often than not directly reflected social wrongs, censorship and oppression that came along with the modernization process and changing governments. From 1987 on a liberal travel policy also allowed intensified exchange with the world outside Korea, an opportunity seized by many artists to study abroad or the global art currents. Interestingly also gender and women's identity were intensely reflected topics since particularly women had long been degraded in both art and society.

"Korean Art from 1953" is an incredibly rich publication that addresses a multitude of fascinating aspects of Korean modern art and also explains them very insightfully. A true must-read for anyone interested in 20th century Korean art.

#korean art #art book #art history #modern art #book

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chibivesicle · 1 year

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You just can’t win; how K.K. is a great example of a professional woman in the 21st century

This is the second in my character analysis for Kekkai Sensen, focusing on the senior female member of the team, K.K. I absolutely love her character; she is incredibly well written and I find her to be an excellent example of the situation that many working women find themselves in as their careers advance.

K. K.’s character design is obviously inspired/derived/variation of that of Vash the Stampede with a gender swap and the willingness to kill. I find her unique as she is a taller than normal female character, much like Milly Thompson from Trigun but with the tall and skinny versus tall and stocky (Klaus). She has a blonde bob haircut and striking blue eye while she wears an eye patch over her right eye at all times, even at home with her family. We don’t know when she lost/injured her eye but very much like Steven, she has a visible sign of her job as a fang hunter since they are both over thirty. I really appreciate that Nightow visibly shows us the toll that their job takes on their physical body as well as their minds.

K.K. was first introduced when Klaus went to go play prosfair against the Beyondian mob boss who absorbs the brains of his defeated opponents. We find her in a parking garage surrounded by a literal pile of foes defeated by her single handedly, and we also learn that her vehicle of choice is a motorcycle. Which makes her even more cool. Zapp has his moped, Leo has an e-bike/motorized bike, Zed a skateboard and Steven drives a standard sedan car for the most part.

Nightow makes is quite clear that according to Klaus, she is one of the strongest people he knows but of course he’ll defend her because she’s a lady. But at the same time, she’s the person he brought with him and Gilbert. Which in a way puts her on the same level as Steven one of the two senior Libra members whom he really does trust.

We learn that she smokes clove cigarettes when stressed out and is one of the more emotional though mature members of the team. What I mean is that she’ll make a statement or observation that is emotional, but she isn’t overreacting, she’s instead expressing her feelings on the usually sub-optimal setting.

Our next introduction to her is with the Libra social event, where we get her first observation on the workplace. She runs into Zapp on their way into the after work/after hours social gathering. It seems there is some sort of power dynamic between the two of them were K. K. has the advantage over Zapp. However, it is clear that she is in part reacting to the male dominated cabal.

By holding Zapp physically back, she is preventing him from joining the inner circle of Klaus and Steven. Her observation is 100% for many workplace environments where men will form groups, frequently not even aware of it and create smaller groups where key decisions are made and women are absent from them. A sort of backroom deal situation but without a backroom but maybe X activity at Y location.

Steven laughs it off (in the Darkhorse translation) calling her pugnacious which only annoys her more, but it is a losing battle. Of course, Steven laughing at her doesn’t make it work and she drops his common nickname of scarface and notes that he’s not just a scheming bastard - but the most scheming.

Interestingly, the entire time Steven seems nervous with little sweat drops and she states that she’s the bad guy today after noticing Chain’s crush on Steven. These entire two pages are so honest and realistic - even though this is a fictitious vampire hunter organization.

However, the party comes to an abrupt end when Leo confirms that he saw a Blood Breed and Lucky Abrams comes calling. Hilariously, since both of them avoid him, the end up together at the 23rd Street Station. Of course, K.K. voices her annoyance about being teamed up with ‘this’ schemer. The anime uses ‘black-hearted’ instead and I am too lazy to determine which is the more accurate translation. It is clear that K.K. has reservations about Steven and he is always replies with a level headed and logical reason to work together.

It is clear that K.K. has some sort of revenge/rationale waiting for the return of the Blood Breeds while Steven would rather not even have to do these sorts of things. However, each time you go back and read or listen to their dialogue the more and more it sounds like old friends bickering and not two people who hate or dislike each other. This is further emphasized, and will continue to be depicted this way where the two of them move completely naturally with each other as a team.

This is our first two page spread in all of Kekkai Sensen with them. Just - ah. So good.

Two professionals at work, completely serious. Notice how they went from their standard bickering to non-verbal actions. Time and time again, we will see this with the two of them. When the Blood Breed from the India Gate comes to HL, it is K. K. who first spots the possible vampire and Steven is the first one to the scene by car. K. K. saves the girl and her mother and Steven is able to freeze everything in the last second. He remarks he was cutting it too close while she snarks back he was looking to make a dramatic entrance. His reply that it wasn’t like her praise dripping with abuse. These two have a long history of working together.

She’s annoyed that they ended up together again (this has to be super common outside of the story on the pages) and we get the standard Steven line of “Now, now/ まあ, まあ” trying to deescalate/console someone. Yet, after their short bickering, they are down to business. Can we just state that this entire dynamic is just awesome? K.K. goes by the information Steven relayed to them via phone as they nervously decide how to proceed. And even though K.K. is incorrect in her assumption, Steven isn’t a jerk about it. They both pull out their mirrors without actually discussing it.

Teamwork. I like good teamwork.

What is interesting is the first time that K.K. doesn’t end up with Steven. When Leo and Chain are looking for the arms dealer who stole Zed’s special breathing apparatus, the rest of the team had to fight villains. In that instance, K.K. is teamed up with Zapp.

At first she is thrilled to be working with Zapp. He does an excellent job (but we all know that Zapp is 100% on the job when he’s on the job) and she praises him for a job well done and that she feels lucky to work with him.

Since this is a great way to transition to speak to him as a parent, she has concerned about his recklessness. She’s being very honest and contemplative about this positive interaction with Zapp, when Zapp totally bales on her! Zapp literally sprints off and thanks for taking charge and working with others to continue the clean up and she’s pissed!

What does this tell us? That despite all of her verbal complaints and bickering, there is no way Mr. Anal-retentive would leave. Instead, Steven would be there giving exact directions to them for the clean up while she could leisurely hang out of even take off to see her family. This short two page spread shows us that she likely appreciates working with Steven more than she’d verbally admit.

Since after this chapter, I can’t think of another time where K.K. was paired up with anyone besides Steven in fights. Though I can’t be 100% sure since I haven’t done a full re-read of the series yet. But all of the big scenes in the Calamity Auction arc, they are teamed up together. We don’t know what would have happened win the Noctova Smile arc b/c K.K. wasn’t present for the entire incident.

Another interesting short page that gives us more insight into her character is from the “Lunch” chapter where Leo, Zapp, and Zed struggle to decide where to eat. While they are bouncing around the city failing to agree on a place to eat, Steven and Klaus are in a back alley meeting up with Inspector Daniel Law.

Law makes a dumbass mistake (again going back to her workplace gender dynamics observations) of commenting on K.K.’s physical appearance and her age. He makes it clear that the HLPD is actively trying to snipe K.K. and he gives her a terrible misogynistic backhanded compliment that she’s got no boobs but a great shot. Which immediately causes K.K. to fire a warning shot next to Daniel’s head.

You can’t cover that up by stating it was a compliment as Steven simply smiles and that K.K. still was able to keep it to a warning shot. Funny how Steven is using her skills as a way to press their own advantage implying that K.K. could have simply shot him and there wouldn’t have been any recourse - since the HLPD can’t track her.

What this also shows us, is that K.K. is playing a critical support role for Klaus and Steven. Yes, they are very powerful together, but they didn’t go into that location alone and without backup. Since K.K. is providing it for them. The level of trust between these three characters is amazing. Klaus wouldn’t go to play prosfair without her nor would he meet up with the HLPD without her in a sniping position.

An important part of K.K.’s character is that she is slowly revealed to be a mother, but that it is not the key aspect of her as a character. When writing decides that a woman needs to be primarily framed as a mother it makes me cringe since that woman should not be defined by if she has children or not. She should be defined by her whole self and different aspects combine into this.

The first major instance of this is towards the end of volume four of the manga. The last one shot chapter is about K.K. trying to find a birthday card for one of her sons.

Leo has been roped into trying to help her find this super obscure and random card with a character who is very popular in the K.K. household but apparently no place else.

She adorably sings the theme song for the obscure series and Leo, the most ‘normal’ of the Libra crew has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Even though this is a joke on her that her kid has weird taste, it also demonstrates that K.K. knows what her kids are into, showing that despite her taxing job, she gets them.

The convenience store instead becomes a set up for an awesome shoot out between K.K. and a bunch of nefarious gunmen while she smooshes Leo out of the way.

The two page spread of her flying through the air above the aisles is just great as she deadpan makes her marks. Looking to use the mirror to see where all her opponents are etc etc.

I just love K.K. We also have her getting emotional and even though Leo is trying to console her, again, he isn’t judging her as she expresses her frustration. She still needs to maintain that straight calm face but and is already concerned at how he’s growing up and wants to give her moments of childhood joy.

I really like how she regains her composure as she puts everything in context. She knows she’s missing part of his childhood and society already puts enough pressure on her to somehow be a mom and a fang hunter and DO ALL THE THINGS. Which, obviously, she can’t. This single chapter is laying the groundwork for the last chapter in volume 9, Bratatat Mom, where we get a slice of her life outside of Libra.

The chapter starts with a meeting of the in house SWAT/tactical team with Libra led by Steven. K.K. looks awkwardly nervous as she slowly admits that she can’t support the tactical team that day. Stating personal business to not get into the specifics.

The team is annoyed since it is clear that they rely upon her and highly value her skills. She comes clean admitting that it is for parents’ day at her younger son’s school and due to work, she’s never made it to any of their open houses! She’s upset about this and also afraid that it will impact her role in their family as being a mother. Think about this if it were a male character. There is no way he’d be under the this type of pressure - furthermore, there is the judgement of parents upon their peers at those who are involved in the PTA and who is too busy etc etc etc. The parent-school dynamics haven’t changed as much they should have; with the transition of women to the North American workplace in the 1970s. And it isn’t even that, it is also the fact that she’d like to do something for her children since they are her kids.

Steven then steps in to diffuse the situation as we’ve grown to expect from him by this point in the manga. He looks disappointed and admits that it isn’t ideal but she can go. She cheerfully turns to excuse herself from the meeting when Steven then turns his personal manipulation to the max and guilts her that the other men may not make it and not see their children as well. It is amazing that the most well known bachelor of Libra is able to achieve this so well.

It works and K.K. snaps threatening to kill Steven herself. This is his ‘black-hearted’ nature at its finest. Thus, K.K. comes up with a compromise - she pulls out all of the stops to coordinate with Patrick to get her all the weapons possible that she could remotely operate. We get a scene of K. K. with her loving and adorable husband who is comforting her when she told her son that she’d be at parents’ day. I love how this entire scene shows us that despite all that she does, he chose her, and also wanted to build a family with her. K.K. knows how to choose them! Win for healthy relationship!

He’s the best support spouse, and one of the best examples of a female led family/household. That man is the house husband doing support and it is little elements like this that I love how Nightow writes female characters and their close relationships. Despite the chaos of remotely supporting Steven and his tactical team, she gets to have hard hitting emotional moments watching her son with his classmates. He may not understand it at that time, but it means the world to her.

This also sets up another mission that is a K.K.and Steven partnership. Yes, she’s only doing remote support until she isn’t. She realizes that one of the other parents is a Blood Breed standing right next to her. Just like Steven does in Day In Day Out as he looks out into the night, K.K. berates herself for trying to enjoy herself in the moment. Living her life like a normal person. This shows that the two of them have much more in common than they don’t - both wanting normal lives, and not allowing themselves a break or the ability to forgive themselves for turning their fang hunter brains off for a second.

Yet, she returns to her senses and gets down to business. Her original motivation is to protect the children. She was able to inform Steven and his team of the Blood Breed at their location but then had to deal with the one she was chatting with . . . however, this is the only time that we’ve seen Steven fighting a Blood Breed solo and he’s getting his ass slowly handed to him. The man knows he’s at a disadvantage and so does his opponent. Steven is always either with Klaus or K.K.

And that is where the writing for this chapter is amazing as K.K. makes her move on the Blood Breed. She is confused when he refers to her as ‘also’ being a fang hunter giving us the clue that he’s currently fighting Steven at the moment. Right before he’s about to engage with her, his daughter finds him wanting to bring him down for lunch with her in the cafeteria. This lapse in his concentration gives Steven the advantage he needed to break the head off of his remote robot. There is a nice touch of the ice on his neck where it broke it as he collapses unable to fight back in front of the children.

Thus, even though they were not aware of it, the K.K.-Steven team succeeds in the most unlikely way possible! I really wished that the two of them would have later been shooting the shit, bickering about something, like Steven being to relaxed and K.K. ready to go and this pops up. And then the two of them realize it was their teamwork that allowed the mission to succeed.

I think it also goes to show how much Steven relies on/appreciates/needs K.K.’s talents for him to help complete Libra’s mission in HL. K.K. may complain about his requests but ultimately knows that he’s a solid organizer and makes good, well thought out plans for the entire team to execute. They also know how to both annoy and motivate each other which is another asset to them as partners in missions.

I already mentioned it in my previous post about Steven and the woes of running a secret organization, it is K.K. who gets him to stop his course of action with the escaped human-nonhuman fused being from the evil pot. No one else is able to make him pause as he lets the team argue it out until K.K. calls him out. That look on his face - he knows she’s right and K.K. is, I think, the only other member of Libra who can get Steven to change his mind. That speaks volumes for how much he actually respects her. This than comes back full circle to her shooting that warning shot at Daniel Law and Steven can only laugh at Law, rubbing salt in the wound since he’s one of the few people who understands her besides her amazing husband and Klaus.

So where does all of this leave us in regards to K.K.?

K.K. is a character who fills several different roles in the series but they do not define her or make her one dimensional.

K.K. as a fang hunter - she was first introduced as clearly powerful when she was chosen to be Klaus’ escort. One of the few members of the team who has long range strikes and therefore, support she fills a niche that no one else can do with her 954 Blood Bullet Arts. She frequently snipes able to disable enemies and does a great job as a distraction in Get the Lock Out! Though she did almost cause Steven to lose it when she was ready and willing to break into the main office.

With the birthday card in the convenience store shoot out, we see first hand that she’s incredibly talented.

I’ve also pointed out that other than acting as a support sniper, the rest of the time, she’s almost always working with Steven as her teammate and it again leverages the best of their abilities.

K.K. as a professional mother - much of the anxiety and drama around her has to do with her role as a professional and a mother. How she’s worried that she isn’t there enough for her family; that she can’t do the same things that other parents can do. The stress of likely being judged when she does meet other parents. Yet, we know that one of her major motivations to do her job is to protect her immediate family and the future and all other families. And that she has a husband who feels blessed that she chose him is top tier mature adult relationships and communication as a couple.

This even comes out when Leo thinks back to all the advice the team gave him if he were in danger and alone. She joked that she’d snipe a barista if he threatened Leo at the local coffee shop, meaning that she isn’t just a mother to her own children but that the younger team members could use a little maternal love in the absence of their own parents.

K.K. as a female professional - this is slightly different than her as a mother, though the two are intertwined. There are different aspects of the workplace that women have to navigate and they are never easy. If a woman is single than she pays the tax of “Oh, since you don’t have a family you can do overtime.” if she has a family than she gets the loss of skin in the game “Oh, since you have a family, you won’t be as committed to the organization’s success.” As you can tell there is no way to win, it is more dammed if you are or dammed if you aren’t. When she shows up for the work party, she immediately realizes that she’ll be cast as the bad guy, noting the boys club which Zapp immediately tries to join where Steven and Klaus already are. And as intelligent and gentlemanly as Klaus and Steven are, both are completely oblivious to this dynamic that leaves her on the outside. Thankfully, this isn’t a frequent issue within Libra itself and I will continue to state that the ability of K.K. and Steven to work as a pair only improves as the manga progresses. That speaks volumes as to their mutual respect of each other.

Interestingly, we don’t see a lot of her interactions with Chain - I think this is a reflections of both their age differences with Chain being in her early twenties and K.K. being in her thirties but also the fact that Chain has a female friend group in the Werewolf Bureau. In contrast, K.K. has her family outside of Libra. Additionally, both women have different ways of expressing their emotions as Chain likes to keep hers a bit more distant (or so she thinks) while K.K. is more likely to let them out. It may also feed into that bit of strong women workplace dynamics where it is sometimes best to leave each other a wide birth to avoid conflict.

Lastly, K.K. as an older female character who isn’t uwu-cute - Yep, there are no uwu-cutesie-waifu women in Kekkai Sensen. And I as a reader like it that way. She’s an honest character, living an interesting life, contributing to protecting the balance and has all these different unique aspects to her life. All of this comes together to make a very human character in a series where totally zany shit happens all the time.

#kekkai sensen #kekkai sensen manga #kekkai sensen meta #kkss #blood blockade battlefront #blood blockade battlefront meta #yasuhiro nightow #K.K.#leonardo watch #steven a starphase #Klaus Von Reinherz #Zapp Renfro #Character Study

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attemptsonherlifepdf · 9 months

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the parasocial problem: a comparison of leonard cohen and damien rice’s depictions of infatuation and entrapment

trigger warning for brief mentions of sexual assault terminology, no graphic descriptions (6th paragraph is signposted with tw)

romantic relationships are often the subject of musical musings. they are integral to the human experience and and musicians often use their medium to explore and reflect upon the nature of their relationships. more specifically, a common motif is that of romantic relationships breaking down, or being disrupted by another party. leonard cohen’s ‘famous blue raincoat’ and damien rice’s ‘back to her man’ both detail very similar, almost parallel circumstances from two different perspectives, and together provide an insight into parasocial relationships, dissatisfaction and the feeling of entrapment. these songs work in conjunction with one another to illustrate the cycle of the ‘parasocial problem’ wherein idolising people outside of one’s relationship works to trap all the parties involved in varying degrees of unhappiness and isolation.

‘famous blue raincoat’ by leonard cohen was released on march 17th, 1971. the song is widely considered one of the artist’s best, and is predominantly driven by storytelling. the song details a turbulent romantic relationship disturbed by another man’s interest in cohen’s wife, and reflects upon the nature of his romance. irish musician damien rice released the song ‘back to her man’ as an homage to leonard cohen on november 18th, 2016. the motivation behind the song lies in the story of rice opening for a performance of cohen’s in ireland. rice’s mother, sisters and girlfriend attended the show, and according to rice himself, they ‘were all dripping with love for [cohen]’ having watched him. the song ‘back to her man’ was then written about the idea that ‘after [the] show many women would be going back home and that their men were not, and would never quite be, leonard cohen.’ the song’s lilting, melancholy melody and humming solemn guitar echo the traits of cohen’s ‘famous blue raincoat’, and interestingly, appears to follow a parallel narrative.

‘famous blue raincoat’s narrative is slightly more elusive than that of ‘back to her man’, but it essentially follows cohen’s reflections on a love triangle between himself, a man referred to as his ‘brother’ and a woman named jane. the core theme shared between both songs is the notion of being with someone who is no longer who you expect them to be, but for differing reasons. while rice’s song is about a woman’s partner not living up to the idealised man she has developed a parasocial infatuation with, cohen sings about his ‘woman’ no longer being his own and having to reconcile with the fact that his ‘brother…my killer’ took the woman he knew and made her happier than he could himself. in the final verse, cohen thanks the other man for ‘the trouble you took from [jane’s] eyes’ and continues, ‘i thought it was there for good / so i never tried.’ this suggests that the narrator is aware that this other man may make jane happier than he can, and serves as an admission of neglect for jane, having not even tried to make her happy himself. this fits into the aforementioned theme as jane has become a happier, almost unrecognisable person in the presence of another man. similarly, rice sings ‘whatever you got, you lost in the game / of picking your own pockets for someone to blame / there may be nothing above the arc of love / depending on who you're dreaming of’ as a reference to never finding satisfaction in a relationship if another person is making you happier and has become the subject of your fantasy. both songs focalise on the concept of another man, particularly in the context of a woman’s different reactions to the men in question; one man is the subject of infatuation while the other, her partner, is a source of dissatisfaction. in cohen’s case, his ‘brother’ is the former and he is the latter, and in rice’s case, cohen is the former and the woman’s partner is the latter. these songs almost act as a foil to one another, or as different perspectives of the same story.

‘famous blue raincoat’ sums up the narrative of both cohen and rice’s stories, with the second verse: ‘you treated my woman to a flake of your life / and when she came back, she was nobody’s wife.’ in the context of ‘back to her man’, the singer here would be referring to cohen, the ‘flake of [his] life’ being the small amount of time the woman will have spent watching him perform, and she returns home to her man feeling as though she no longer belongs in a relationship with him due to her infatuation. watching cohen onstage is a particularly small ‘flake’ or insight into his life as it is performative; he is not being his authentic self onstage and audience members fall in love with the performance rather than the performer himself. similarly, in the original context, this lyric references cohen’s ‘brother’ sharing a small amount of time with jane, and it was enough to make her dissatisfied in her relationship with cohen due to it’s contrast to her relationship with the other man. labelling jane ‘nobody’s wife’ also illustrates that cohen perhaps only views her in relationship to himself; rather than being a woman in her own right, she is a wife that must belong to a husband. this perception of jane could indeed be part of her dissatisfaction with cohen, and suggests the ‘other man’ may have treated her as an individual and not as a wife that only exists within the context of her husband. cohen consistently refers to jane as ‘my woman’ or ‘his woman’ and rarely refers to her as a person in isolation. this provides a subtle insight to the nature of his relationship with her, and illustrates how jane is arguably ‘trapped’ by cohen’s definition of her and she cannot exist outside of the context of her relationships. this entrapment is caused by cohen’s perception of her, which is in turn the result of his love for her. in this sense, cohen presents love almost as an object to be possessed rather than a feeling to experience, and almost isolates jane from her own personhood.

TW FOR SA MENTION BELOW

similarly, rice ends his final verse with ‘you can’t escape when it feels like rape / but who’s raping who?’ the usage of the term ‘rape’ creates incredibly visceral imagery; here, rice could either be referring to the feeling of entrapment stemming from being with a partner who no longer fulfils your wants, or he could be likening audience members’ infatuation with cohen to a form of assault, suggesting that their parasocial attachment to him is in some ways an aggressive violation. while rice has introduced the song by stating that he found the contrast between audience members’ love for cohen and the discontentment of having to return home to their partners ‘humorous’, the framing of this contrast within the song itself says otherwise. rice asks the audience ‘who’s raping who?’ as a way of pushing them to consider if their infatuation is in fact harmful to the subject. additionally, the word ‘rape’ itself is incongruous with the soft, quiet tone and lilting melody of the rest of the song, making its use all the more impactful. it darkens the lyrical and musical tone of the rest of the song, with the chorus of people singing the phrase ‘back to her man’ that follows translating to the listener as a kind of omen or warning. the sense that either cohen or the audience are trapped is made explicit with the phrase ‘you can’t escape.’ this illustrates the trapping cycle of obsession where the subject is destined to be objectified and only desired at a surface level, and the person perpetuating this is destined to be dissatisfied in their own relationship and thereby hurt or neglect their partner as a result: therein lies the ‘parasocial problem.’ cohen also uses a particularly stark image in his song; the title of ‘my brother, my killer’ that he gives to the ‘other man’ invokes a biblical image of cain and abel, demonstrating the extent to which he feels betrayed. this usage of the extreme as a means of illustrating betrayal or violation parallels that of rice, creating another theme that runs through both songs.

END OF TW

cohen and rice sonically construct a lamenting, listless tonality in their respective songs, however rice’s guitar parts are much softer and feel much more intimate. this is amplified in the live performances of the song as he introduces it’s backstory with a friendly demeanour and the performance almost imitates the narrative as he arguably ‘treats’ the audience to a ‘flake’ of his life and potentially perpetuates an audience’s infatuation with himself. ‘famous blue raincoat’ arguably has its own intimacy as well; it is structured as a personal letter to the ‘other man’, opening with ‘i’m writing you now just to see if you’re better’ and signing off with ‘sincerely, l. cohen.’ it allows the listener into his interpersonal life, and into this conversation he’s having with the subject of his wife’s happiness and romantic preference. the closeness and trust between the artists and audience in these two songs is reflective of the very narrative they explore: in letting audience members in on personal experience, rice and cohen are risking enabling listeners' potential parasocial obsession with them. the ‘parasocial problem’ is cyclical and the songs in question serve as a wider commentary on the relationships between artists and their fans, not just the specific interpersonal instances that are being written about. the more artists discuss their feelings on parasocial relationships, the closer audience members may feel to them. this in turn can perpetuate the delusion that the artists may return their love and obsession, as fans can feed off being let into personal experiences even if the songs are partially fictionalised or dramatised.

the cyclical nature of obsession is also demonstrated by the mirrored perspectives between the two songs. while cohen is saddened by his ‘brother’ being his wife’s idealised man, he as a performer is inflicting the same fate upon the husbands of his female audience members. in his interpersonal circumstances his wife has become detached from him, but in the context of his performances, he is the one causing this detachment and lack of fulfilment in other people’s relationships. this illustrates how the ‘parasocial problem’ permeates various situations and can function in multiple fashions. both songs depict the end result of this ‘parasocial problem’, where the jilted lover’s feelings morph into acceptance and defeat. cohen’s third verse directly addresses the ‘other man’ and says ‘if you ever come by here for jane or for me / well, you enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.’ this serves as a defeated invitation to his ‘brother’, letting him know that his ‘woman’ is free to be with him. interestingly, cohen still refers to jane as his own ‘woman’, suggesting he is still unconsciously attached to her in some ways, and that he still perceives jane in relation to himself. rice also directly addresses the ‘other man’ in his song, stating that ‘there’s power in your pocket and ships in your sea.’ the ‘power’ in question references the power dynamic between an idolised performer, in this instance cohen, and an infatuated audience member. cohen, as the performer, holds the most power over this fans as he is the one commanding the stage and whose attention is coveted by the audience. he ‘pockets’ the authority he has, as he does not reciprocate the attention and infatuation he receives. instead artists tend to ‘pocket’ and keep the adoration they receive and are aware of the swarming mass of fans and unaware of each individual fan, as is the one-sided nature of parasocial relationships. rice utilises the metaphor ‘ships in your sea’ to paint a vivid image of the large volume of audience members or ‘ships’ that put cohen on a pedestal, rather than referring to each individual person. the combination of these two lines serves to construct the image of one powerful person and their pulsing mass of devotees; even the traditional structure of a concert corroborates this image. artists tend to be elevated on a stage, looking down to their audience. while this has obvious practical benefits such as ensuring the audience can physically see the performer, it also has a symbolic meaning, showing the disparity in power and value between the performer and audience.

the ‘parasocial problem’ functions both in the smaller context of the relationships detailed in ‘back to her man’ and ‘famous blue raincoat’ and in the wider context of fan culture as a whole. artists cannot discuss the feeling of either being idolised or jilted without letting audience members into aspects of their personal experiences, but this act can then fuel fans' unreciprocated infatuation with them, which amplifies the artists feelings, and perpetuates the cycle. this is not the fault of the artists, but is the result of fan obsession and delusion. it is a cyclical, one-sided form of social entrapment. artists and fans are united in the construction of social bondage that keeps them trapped in one of three conditions; either being objectified and desired at surface level, being dissatisfied with their relationships due to their infatuation with a performer, or being neglected or hurt by their partner who is obsessed with a performer. we define ourselves often in relation to one another, as the people and environment around us cannot be ignored, and the ‘parasocial problem’ is a particularly clear example of how these relative definitions can socially trap us. ‘famous blue raincoat’ and ‘back to her man’ both invoke visceral imagery in order to depict the cruel cycle of parasocial relationships and the disappointing outcomes of infatuation. in either narrative, a woman ends up unhappily going back to her man.

i.k.b

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 1 year

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Doctor Who, but Chronologically 28

Fun fact! If we were watching normally in a normal order, Rose would have just left, and this would be a Christmas special. But we're not. Instead we suffer on.

Last episode was 1913 - this time we're jumping a whole year, to 1914. Small jump! So this shouldn't be too weird. After all, we had a lot of discussion in the previous episode about what 1914 would be like.

It's Twice Upon a Time. Lol

OKAY so there will be a LOT of new questions here, Jesus. We begin with old Hartnell footage! Fun! Which fades into David Bradley playing the First Doctor as he refuses to regenerate and tries to die instead. Turns out Capaldi is here doing the same thing?!? So interestingly, we've now seen Capaldi's first AND last episodes. Fascinating.

("708 episodes ago", reads the caption, showing Hartnell grouching about. "Lol", says I.)

Anyway, there are two (2) main threads here, and one is the relatively minor but fairly fun (albeit very hole-y) sci-fi plot; the second is Double Doctor Fun, but unfortunately this was written by Steven Moffat who thinks 60s Man = Misogynist UNLIKE CAPALDI OBVIOUSLY so it goes, um, badly. I'm getting ahead of myself, hang on:

Mark Gatiss is pulled into the same moment in time as the Doctors because they're causing a timeline error. He was, in fact, about to be shot in the head by a German soldier in WW1, but then time froze around him, so he climbed out of his crater and got pulled here; I can't help but feel the director could have made some better choices, though, because on climbing out of the crater we're treated to multiple shots of other soldiers just drinking tea and chatting in their trench rather than, you know, helping Mark Gatiss. This is not how we work as a team, lads. Where's Tim when you need him.

It emerges that glass people are taking people from the instant before they die, harvesting their something, and then returning them to their timestream to die and avoid fucking up history. Harvesting what? Well, for zero reason other than "The Plot Requires It", we don't find out right away. But both Doctors climb aboard Capaldi's TARDIS (there are some fun quips about the size of the windows that must have given several folks on Gallifrey Base a dry orgasm) and promptly get abducted by a spaceship shaped like a Sims plumbob. It's the glass people.

... and then Bill turns up.

... and Capaldi FREAKS THE FUCK OUT.

Because it turns out that Bill! Is dead! After having turned into a Cyberman! And choosing to die to save others!!

MASSIVE NEWS. What a strange choice to tell us this before showing her conversion and death. Honestly, you'd almost think this is a terrible viewing order for this show.

Except this Bill is a copy, but with all her memories, so this kicks off a running theme about how memories maketh the man except the Doctor disagrees. But this Bill also says she didn't die because she pulled a woman in a puddle called Heather so now I have a LOT of questions.

The glass people show them the original forms of the Doctor from Hartnell to Capaldi, and call him the Doctor of War because Moffat really loves his Mary Sue elements. They escape the plumbob, jump into the original TARDIS ("Aren't the windows the wrong size?" asks Bill), and run away to try and find out who the original person was that the main glass alien is mimicking. This is to find out what the glass people are actually harvesting. For literally no reason at all, the glass people didn't just tell them that.

Meanwhile! The First Doctor is a raging misogynist who keeps suggesting the women clean the TARDIS, and Capaldi is in an agony of embarrassment trying to stop him! And it's funny, sure, these are good actors, but FUCK OFF AND DIE IN FIRE. That is NOT the First Doctor. The First Doctor was a gentleman who respected all the women he knew and met, and his favouritest and best friend in all the world was Barbara, and like fuck did he devalue them like this. It was the men he used to devalue and see as brainless useful muscle. Meanwhile, it's fucking Capaldi who straight up abuses the women he meets including his companions, and it's Matt fucking Smith who yells "Do as you're told and go back to the TARDIS!" at Amy (who complied meekly, let's all remember.) This is absolutely fucking enraging. Hartnell was LESS SEXIST than anything Moffat puts out, and yet here's Moffat acting like he's a bastion of progression fuck off fuck off FUCK OFF

(ahem)

Actually I'm not done because then there's a "men's browsing history" joke Jesus FUCKING Christ okay I'm done

Anyway, after a last bit of misogyny for good measure, which Bill somehow wins by looking the First Doctor in the eye and going "I'm a lesbian and I get more pussy than you", making David Bradley's monocle fall out in spite of him not even wearing it at that point, they land on a sort of fantasy red war torn forge planet inhabited by mutant octopuses. Capaldi inexplicably tries to make Bill stay in the TARDIS. Naturally she puts up token resistance and then obeys.

Anyway, Capaldi goes up the tower. There's a Dalek! We know those, we saw them by the Pandorica in the second episode, and also once in the Doctor's dream journal in the last episode. This one is called Rusty.

"Remember when I shrank down and went inside you and showed you that Daleks are bad?" says the Doctor. "Good times."

I don't remember that. That has not happened yet. Intriguing.

Anyway, Rusty the Good Dalek shows them that the original glass alien woman is a researcher from the year five billion and 12. What they're harvesting is memories, so that the dead can then be resurrected of sorts to speak again through the glass bodies.

"Oh," says the Doctor. "Not evil."

One can't help but feel most of this episode was extraneous and could have been avoided if the glass aliens had just... said that.

Anyway, Bill is also glass, and also knows all of this, so again, she could also have explained this.

They return Mark Gatiss to die in a crater. Except the Doctor shifts the timestream by a couple of hours, so the 1914 Christmas Armistice kicks in and saves him, which is just as well, given that the rest of the army was uselessly drinking tea like 20 yards away. It's genuinely quite moving. Also it turns out he's a Lethbridge-Stewart! Nice touch. The First Doctor has a moment of sagaciously staring into the middle distance and saying "So this is what it means to be a Doctor of War," which is nauseating but you know, fine. He wanders back to his TARDIS and regenerates into Robin Hood in the TARDIS files.

Meanwhile Capaldi heads back to his own. Last conversation with Bill, who tells him that the most important thing about a person is their memories. "Look," she says, "I'll prove it," and turns into Clara.

Except??? It turns out??! The Doctor had somehow FORGOTTEN CLARA (so many questions)

Then Nardole turns up as a glass alien too, so I presume that means he's dead and all. "I have glass nipples and invisible hair," he volunteers, and I think I will never not have questions about Nardole.

Anyway, the Doctor flies away to regenerate alone. He has a great monologue, right, and Peter Capaldi is of course an absolutely superb actor, just completely nails it, except for the fact that the monologue does not remotely suit this Doctor.

"Never be cruel!" is his opening line.

Yes you read that right. Mr "Clara you're so ugly and stupid." Mr "If you try to fight off your abuser you're a child who needs to grow up." Mr "I mock and belittle women until they cry and then accuse them of sulking." Mr "I make fun of people's cultural artefacts." That guy. That guy's opening line is "Never be cruel!" Followed swiftly by "Always try to be nice! Never fail to be kind!"

Fucking hell.

Here's a good bit though:

"Never tell anyone your name. No one would understand it anyway. Except children. Children can hear your name, if their hearts are in the right place, and the stars are too. But nobody else, ever."

Fascinating! We have heard nothing so far about the Doctor's real name.

Also he includes "Never eat pears!", so but for a deleted scene in Human Nature/Family of Blood this is a two-parter about the Doctor not liking pears.

And then; Regeneration!!! The first one we've seen!! We saw Capaldi's first episode, but he was post-regen then; this is our first on screen. Destroys the TARDIS, lads. Just completely fucks it up. Doors everywhere.

And we get Whittaker! A ring drops off her finger. Wonder if that was important?

Anyway she immediately crashes the TARDIS and falls out to her death

SO MANY NEW QUESTIONS?!?!?????

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (perhaps River returned as Missy. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest.)

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up (unless she’s Missy)

The TARDIS has blown up (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again)

The universe appears to have ended (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” NEW INFO: Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants)

What has happened to all these companions and where are the new ones coming from?

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

What’s With The Silence?

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Who is Captain Jack Harkness? (Is he the one who gave the companions a warning about the lone cyberman?)

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window?

What’s with the Doctor’s future involving getting shot by an astronaut?

Is Amy pregnant and why is it inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

Who did the Doctor lose to Cyber Conversion?

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What’s with the Weeping Angel statues, and why can’t you blink at them?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi. NEW INFO: Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

What happened with Amy’s pregnancy?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory?

Is Rory plastic or not?

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras?

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill's puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor's name?

#doctor whom #and yet we are continuing #long post

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shesnake · 6 months

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just saw s2, & totally agree w u that the show doesn't know it but it's really abt white women being the devil. i like how it challenged fate/George's love for sarah coming out as an entitlement to her, but at the same time, i wonder what it's trying to say about who is right & who is selfish. like if we'd & sarah are supposed to be right, then what does that mean for everyone else? obvs the ending of s2 leaves a lot of potential answers to that, but i worry that maybe the apolitical and/or colourblind approach to the use of time travel by some european imperial org, like u said it's an extension of colonial supremacy. but with the framing of wes & sarah (even greta?) as the correct white women worries me a bit, how do u feel on this front? also: so sad there wasn't more homoerotic shiv & george situations :((((

god yes!!! what george did to young bryson is of course horrible but what's crazy about it to me is that he will never come back from that in wes/sarah's eyes and it will always be used against him to shut him out in the same way shiv is shut out for being "too dedicated" in the way that archie is only ever trusted enough to follow orders but never make any real decisions (it's so crazy when you think about the chain of recruitment where archie is shiv's protegee and then george in turn becomes archie's basically.. they all sponsor each other. then wes funnily enough breaks the chain with george letting sarah in)... they are treated as irrational and never allowed to go further up the ladder and Know Who They're Working For meanwhile wes and eventually sarah are ice cold and just as if not more horrific in scale. wes has her partner (husband?) assassinated and watches her son be tortured/beaten, both of whom are black men of course, and does nothing. she won't look at janet's baby before wiping him from existence, and orders the death of her daughter later on. over all the different loops of operation midnight she only ever puts ross, eric, and greta in charge, which is odd considering shiv is so loyal and competent. wes is the only character that's closest to a villain.

joe barton is a white guy and I feel it is likely that this is written "colourblind" and the racialised subtext is most probably unintentional. which I don't mind tbh because just as a poc watching this I'm not going to ignore how interestingly it turned out regardless of intent. I made that post about tlp and colonial supremacy back when s1 came out and it looked like it was going to be them (the west) vs the chinese government I'm soo glad they shifted angle off that and went internal

#replies #the lazarus project #tlp s2 spoilers

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rontra · 8 months

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who The Fuck is manhunter

god this is such a good question. who the fuck IS manhunter. well okay so let me pose a counter-question. what if women sucked and were not fun to hang out with. do we still support their wrongs?

no okay (visibly trying not to laugh) heres the girlcrush of the day. she's got what ive jokingly called "bull-in-a-china-shop lifestyle". her name is kate she's a famous federal prosecutor who specializes in prosecuting supervillains. and brother she loves pushing for the death penalty. one day when she was pushing so so hard for the death penalty, the jury did not go for it. and she got so so so mad that she decided to go find and kill the guy herself

and she liked it.

so she blackmails some guy in the witness protection program into being her gadget guy & from then on she's the vigilante "manhunter" (yay!) who kills bad guys she thinks deserve it. when she's out there she's basically operating on a completely circular logic that goes like "well if i can't kill this villain here, i'll simply get him the death penalty in court (which i'm very good at), and if that falls through, i'll just go back to Plan A (killing him with my own hands)" and it's like girl i think you just kind of Like Killing. good luck with that

it's like what if batman not only loved killing and jumped directly to it every time, but was also working With & Inside the system at the same time to ensure there is no other way for things to end. that's a weird thing to do, right? girl? this is weird?...

& like MAYBE in 2004 america this setup was written to appeal to a certain type of reader who'd go "yeah girl the System never gives the bad guys what they Deserve lets fucking go #justice" . i couldn't really tell you to be honest (and her murder mettle is proven entirely in scenarios that are like "well maybe she's morally in the clear here because the guy in question is a cartoon snake-man who eats people") (to me personally, on its face, this all reads like the origin story for a supervillain lawyer named Death Row or something. but that's just another part of her womanly charm in my eyes.) what i CAN tell you is that deciding to become a coldblooded premeditated killer in her spare time is Really cutting into both her professional and private life and now her ex-husband is suing for full custody of their son

oh yeah. she has a son and she is like a deadbeat mother she never shows up on time she forgets to pick him up and he hates going to her house when it's her weekend she is NOT doing a good job on this one. figuring out how to actually mom this kid is also kind of a thing for her and she DOES figure it out but i have to tell you. her Divorced Milf Who Totally Sucks appeal. VERY High

man. yeah she's always getting her shit pushed in during fights because She Is Just A Lawyer but she just like Walks it off (girl...). she's addicted to nicotine in a major way. she's cold and cranky and would not be fun to hang out with. she's terrible at banter. she actually sucks to the point it makes me feel Bad for her ex-husband who has to keep hounding her like "don't forget to pick up our SON" it's kind of a feat to be honest. she just sort of is charging blindly into things and wrecking her life because she has a chip on her shoulder and Maybe Enjoys Killing but at least she's also got a certain failgirl swag about it

there is a major theme of like, legacy, but crucially (and most interestingly, imo) most of the time kate is completely ignorant of said legacies existing around her while she's stomping through the porcelain with her hooves until they rear up to bite her directly in the ass, which i enjoy very much. she is very much focused on her own thing and consumed by her own motivations and does not really give a shit about these things and it's a major issue every time. even "manhunter" itself is a name that's been used by multiple dc characters (sometimes simultaneously) (including a whole cult), which suddenly becomes a problem for her when someone starts murdering all the other manhunters until she's the only one left standing. uh oh! i was just doing my own thing and thought the name sounded cool! noooo!

there's also the very pointed matter of her gear which is all "borrowed" from just like. the lockup. (girl...) so she's wearing someone else's suit and someone else's gauntlets and using someone else's weapon (actually one of the previous manhunters! there's that manhunter lineage again!) and while the audience is treated to a whole issue elaborating on the backstories of these things, kate herself is completely unaware and uninterested in the significance and legacy of these hand-me-downs because she picked them out at complete random to go do premeditated killing. it's really underscored in an interesting way how much she just is kind of bulldozing straight through everything--whether it's her own life or her proverbial predecessors--towards her own ends

the whole lineage and legacy thing is something of a Theme i guess. especially when it turns out her own biological father is an absolute sicko with a murder charge and he's on his way right now to bulldoze her life for his own ends. that's funny. maybe she's got that serial killer gene from riverdale,

jokes aside i would give her a 10/10 failwife cringemilf rating, with ample extra points awarded for being divorced, for the broken ribs, and for how much i would hate hanging out with her if she were real. this is a certified manhunter post. i hope you enjoyed it.

(reading manhunter 2004 and shaking my head sternly the whole time but also smiling. so people know i don't support the death penalty but i Do support women's wrongs)

#i'm such a rambler. every time i receive an ask i'm embarrassed and put it under a cut because i ramble. i have a lot on my mind okay.......#(and by a lot on my mind i mean im thinking about women being weird and offputting and sighing dreamily)

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