Going to be rambling insanely about Ghost and probably what his feelings on the monarchy would be, coming from one deeply damaged povo to another.
Anyway, specifically around the time the parasite in chief in her idiot hat (thanks Eccleston lub u) died and passed said idiot hat on, I was seeing a lot of (fun and gentle-ribbing, mind you!) posts about Ghost getting razzed about the queen croaking and maybe him being sad about it or something - I don’t really remember bc I have shit for brains and I just latch onto what bits my adhd will allow.
SO. I really don’t think Bruv Innit gave two shits about Liz buying the farm, bc he grew up working class in a working class town to a drug addicted, drug peddling dad, and a fairly nondescript mom who likely didn’t have a way to get her and her kids out of that shit situation (per ‘09 MW lore and some presumption). I imagine dude was dragged around a shitload of council estates and his dad’s friends’ shitty crash pads, no stability whatsoever, where food insecurity was a big ass forever-looming deal, mom had no idea if her 20 year old vauxhall was going to make it another trip to her minimum wage part time job, and school was forever on the back burner bc when it came to school supplies/trips vs eating and keeping the lights on. You can guess which one won.
If we’re also going with him being about 35-40ish, he would’ve been 10-12ish or so around Diana’s divorce and then her death. So, here’s this starving, horrendously abused kid, with his starving, horrendously abused mother and little brother, drowning in a system that is pretty much just letting them sink to the bottom, nothing is being done about the evil sperm donor that ruins everything for them, and he’s obliterated constantly by TV coverage and tabloids and radio DJs talking about this goddamned family’s stupid fucking drama. Charles cheated, Diana left, her poor boys in their fancy private schools with their endless wealth and glowing skin and brand new clothes that don’t stink of consignment shops are sad.
Sorrows - sorrows, prayers. 🫶
It’s a story he’s seen countless times, the only difference is money and coverage. And, realistically, the women in the stories he knows aren’t killed in car wrecks, they’re killed by their infuriated husbands who think they’re owed something catching up. Maybe that’s why his mom doesn’t leave the cocksucker that trapped her, she could’ve ended up another council house Diana that no one gave a shit about.
He grows up, becomes a butcher’s apprentice, joins the army. Straightens his brother out, makes sure his mom is set up nice, finally beats the shit out of his dad. And all the while, there looms the most fucking pointless, parasitic family in England: living off taxes taken from the public, god knows how much land and how many castles, even owning all the fucking swans on the island.
Relics, vampires, leeches.
But, you know, twenty years down the road, he’s pushing 40, his services to the country are done in the dark, the family he tried so badly to save were brutally cut down anyway, and when he goes to Tesco, the price of a fifth of piss Smirnoff is insane, and he’s still got Soap swimming in his head mid-rant bc his mam’s fucking knee replacement appeal has been denied for the third time and she can’t even walk anymore, Gaz is moving for the second time in a year bc he just can’t afford to live close to his parents even on his salary, meanwhile there was a stretch where it looked like Philip was surviving solely by being pumped full of virgin blood and straight stem cells.
So, yeah, if anything he probably said cheers when the news broke and cracked a couple extra jokes that day.
“What d’you call one dead Windsor? A good start.”
Edit: This is picking up some traction. @50cal-fullauto-astarion is my CoD blog if you like my Call of Bullshit stuff, this is my main and I don’t really go into CoD here
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the problem w loki s2: hey, where did the women go?
this is criticism so if that isn’t your thing you have been forewarned!
i knew by episode 2 that something was off compared to s1 and i couldn’t quite place it. was it the sole focus on drab retro futurist TVA aesthetic instead of the colorful cinematography in s1? was it the focus being placed upon this Loom that we just found out is a thing and also Hey we have to stop it right now? Was it the lack of sylvie content?
but i think it just comes down to bad writing and whilst also trying to salvage what we DID get, i would feel dishonest to pretend that my problems with s2 arose from the finale alone. and while there were narrative inconsistencies between the seasons, i think a central error in s2 was sidelining the female characters.
s1 had beautiful themes, including self-acceptance and the power of love, and was building up to a ton of unanswered questions. a central theme of s1 (like it or not) was the connection between sylvie and loki. it was intended by waldron and herron from the start to be a romance, but beyond the romantic aspect, sylvie was the driving force of the show. she’s the variant the TVA is chasing, she’s the one who reveals that the TVA is a lie and makes everyone question what they were taught, it’s her that plunges the blade into HWR and opens the multiverse- and it’s no secret that in s2 she was largely off screen, only to show up at key plot points and kind of make things difficult rather than allow a further explanation into her character. and i could and might make a whole post on the sidelining of sylvie, but also- renslayer.
we saw a lot of renslayer in s1! she was pretty damn integral to the plot. her connection with mobius was fascinating, her dedication to doing what she saw as the right thing even when she learned all her gods were dead, her willingness to prune her best and maybe only friend to protect the big TVA lie- that was captivating. she’s also the first character we get to see the real non-TVA life of! she’s a principal at a school! and what did we get from her in s2?
she throws the book at victor, we learn she was his general and she’s Mad, and then exiled to the void.
she’s barely there this season despite being central to s1! why, when you have an actor as talented as gugu mbatha-raw, would you not take advantage of that! we see threads of what COULD have happened in her storyline- her alliance with miss minutes, realizing maybe they never needed him at all- but at the end she’s pruned, thrown in the void and That’s That’s, stay tuned to see if anything happens in one of the endless future installments. we get that amazing I’m order line, and then what? and what type of order is she even representing? why is she so willing to toss mobius to the curb? you see why we need more development here?
b-15 met a similar fate. actually, i was really excited at the start of s2 to see her get her moment defending the new branches, realizing those were people, seeing the grief on her face; remember, sylvie showed her her life on the timeline, so this is personal for her. but she’s also quickly regaled to the side after her speech in the war room. she was a doctor, she is VERITY WILLIS, but do we get into any of this? No! (I also didn’t like her willingness to negotiate with Dox after the bombed the timelines, saying deep down I know you’re good right after we watched her cry over the devastation that had brought to the timelines, but maybe that’s another point)
and dox? what’s the deal with her! we are introduced to this strong general with a weird connection to brad, someone who is willing to go against TVA orders to bomb the timelines in the defense of what she believes is right, but then- squashed in a cube. that’s that. no examination into why she would be willing to betray the TVA in that way but also NOT join renslayer, no explanation into what was going on w brad.
(brad is worth a whole separate post but this is focusing on the ladies so just keep that in the back of your mind)
and back to sylvie. i saw some people point out how gross her being frozen during the final battles between her and loki was; how it eliminated her agency and allowed the men to have a Serious Talk. i have to say i agree with that judgement. in this season we get to see glimpses of what sylvie wants, but the unresolved relationship (whichever way you wish to characterize it- you do you!) between her and loki just hangs in the air like a heavy storm cloud i kept waiting to break but it… didn’t. the closest we got was the pie room scene, but everything between them was stilted and awkward when she was onscreen, which wasn’t that much.
it was almost as if the connection with loki was considered in opposition to her role as a Strong Woman, in a way- she was Strong and Angry. in s1 we see sides of her that defy stereotype- giving that doomed child her candy to ease the pain, her admitting to loki that she numbed herself with flings; there’s a vulnerability there, a complexity. the two of them rehashed their first fight again and again instead of moving onto something new (that being said sophia’s performance in episode 3 added a weight to the story that pleased me greatly) but overall she was regarded as a plot obstacle to be hidden away- at least past episode 3.
anyway i do think it comes down to writers biting off more than they could chew and losing the central concept of the show and focusing on sciencey plot rather than characterization. you can’t make season 1 centered around a love story and then pretend that didn’t happen and expect a cohesive transition between seasons. you can’t bombard us over and over again with the centrality of loki and sylvie’s duality- all of the we’re the sames, all of the i’m not you’s, and then move into s2 deciding it’s time to focus on only one half of that duo you spent the whole series focusing on.
you also can’t give us a “aHH we’re all gonna explode” thing over and over again and expect us to give a damn when you’re not letting the characters have dialogue that makes us say, oh man, i hope this loom thing doesn’t blow up, because i want to see where the connections they have going on end up! you can’t replace emotional weight with a ticking time bomb and expect it to do the work for you.
there are other problems with the series as well, and other people are far more articulate than i am, but the lack of female gaze and only one episode having a female writer this season was glaring, imo.
thank u for coming to my tedtalk and i’d love to hear ur thoughts!
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Im so glad to see someone else getting sucked into the trash pit that is the dmc franchise, i read the manga as a kid (i should not have had access to that) and played dmc 4 on repeat, dmc 4 is so goddamn funny bc its the edgy goth bullshit but even MORE
**sucked back into the trash pit *looks at the metaphorical camera with the stare of a traumatised soldier*
But is dmc4 more corny and edgy than dmc3. Does it really beat all these one liners and weird slow motion gun fights and cutscenes. I just wanna know who approved of all of this and send them my compliments
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