#find them compelling. instead what i am trying to say is that pretending a morally grey character actually isnt morally grey

[helisol]

dude im not sure you will get it after reading this either, but you Can read it now

okay so first of all do not expect me to adhere to rules of grammar or Proper capitalisation, I am writing from the heart

so it’s been said before by other people but if Quark and Odo didnt look like the aliens that they are but instead like two regular prettybois the fandom would do cartwheels over their dynamic and Not call them a crack ship. because really, their dynamic fucking SLAPS and I’m here to tell you Why.

their surface-level dynamic is “Respected and Talented Security Chief and Cunning Immoral Businessman who are in Love but pretend not to be” and that's just an off-brand version of enemies to lovers! which is excellent and for some people that’s all you really need to get invested in a ship.

but some people look at it and go “Hm, no, that’s not enough. I mean, they work as friends but it doesn’t really have to be romantic.” and to that I say you are Absolutely Valid, not everything has to be romantic.

it just so happens that these two fuckers have one of the most compelling romance stories ever, and it’d be a shame not to explore it.

so before I dive into the internalised homophobia and repression, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Quark as a character.

because if you have brainworms like me you can kind of see that its an honest to god greek tragedy.

this guy comes from a race of people where being kind, ethical and fair is considered Abnormal and Horrifying. and I’m not gonna call Quark out of all people kind, ethical or fair but,,, 

you ever notice how he’s A Much Better Person Than Pretty Much All Other Ferengi?

dont get me wrong, Quark is still a bastard, but every once in a while his True Character shines through. and I say True Character because guys,,, the way he behaves around other people is an Act. he’s pretending to be something he’s not.

he has to try so hard to be a good ferengi it’s honestly painful to watch at times. because he is a SHIT ferengi! 

he loves his friends- because that's what the ds9 crew are. they’re his friends! and it makes him miserable because that's not! normal! for a ferengi!

let’s compare Quark and Rom for a second. 

Quark reeks of self loathing because a lot of the time he just Doesn’t act like a ferengi is supposed to, and this drives a lot of conflict in the show. he knows how a ferengi should act, it’s just that he can’t!! fucking!! do it!! but he still tries and tries to fit into that mold, which straight up ruins his life on multiple occasions.

Rom is also not a Model Ferengi, but he lives without hating himself. and it’s mostly because he doesn’t care about how a ferengi Should act, he’s loved and cared for even when everybody knows that he’s a shit ferengi! because his non-ferengi-ness works to his benefit. it encourages and highlights his abilities as an engineer. the success and love he finds make it easy for him to be content with his true self. Unlike Quark, who doesn’t get unconditional love from anyone.

its so!! tragic!! because you can see what Quark is really like!! his true self!! he’s a nice guy who cares for people!

its right there all the time and it's so blatantly obvious. especially in episodes like “Body Parts”, “Bar Association”, “The Way Of The Warrior” and “Ferengi Love Songs”

his own wiki page literally calls him “a compassionate and generous man by ferengi standards” which pretty much translates to “not really a good ferengi”.

anyway so Quark is a tragic figure or whatever but we’re actually here for the REPRESSED! HOMOSEXUAL! TENDENCIES! that he and Odo both exhibit.

with characters like garak you don’t really need to have brainrot to pick up on those tendencies, because that was something andrew robinson chose to do, on purpose. 

and to be fair, Quark wasn’t intended to be Any kind of representation, not even by the actor. I’m just pointing out that he Does look and act and talk like a little gayman.

I will admit that he is Painfully Straight in the text of the show, but on a meta level he’s just. a dude who has a serious case of repressing his real personality. and taking it a step further- he also represses his feelings towards another man.

and that man is Odo.

a few things on him:

Odo is literally desperate to be a person. unlike Quark, who at least has the comfort of belonging to a society of people with a set of rules and expectations, Odo has never met anyone or anything like him in all his years of life.

like, we all know Odo basically grew up in a lab, right? 

with people who didn’t know anything about him. who he was so unalike that they literally called him “Nothing”

but he still learned to look and talk and act like them (because if he didn’t he’d feel *pain* which is very fucked up by the way?)

so we know for a fact that Odo wants to be recognised as a person- which is why he tries really hard to conform to the ideals of the society that raised him. instead of exploring his nature as a shape shifter he maintains a humanoid form, picks up a job and creates an entire personality around what he wants to be seen as. but not what he really is.

and that's the thing that causes all the conflict between Quark and Odo. the type of person odo wants to be seen as is the polar opposite of whatever the fuck quark wants to be seen as.

In the same way that Quark acts like a Normal Ferengi, Odo acts like a Normal Security Officer.  and in a cruel twist of fate, the Ferengi happens to be the antithesis of the Security Officer.

If you only look at them as the things they act like, and not the things they are, you might say they’re way too different to like each other, right? 

but,,, if you think about the fact that they’re both putting on this act,,, this performance of idealised versions of themselves,,, you can see that they are The Same. They Are Both Gay Repressed Loser Aliens Who Try To Act Like Things That They Aren’t!

Imagine you’re Odo. 

Imagine that you’re Nothing, because you’re not like anything anyone has ever seen- and because you are Nothing you don’t fall in love with anyone for years and years. since who could love something that isn’t like them at all?

But then one day this Thing shows up in your path and you just hate it. Because it’s not like anything *you* have ever seen. It’s disorderly and looks grotesque and it’s criminal to boot.

It’s all the things you learned would make a “Bad Person” It’s everything you aspire not to be, because if you were any of those things you would BE PUNISHED.

But the trouble is, eventually he’s not an “it” anymore, he’s “Quark” and you see him every day of your miserable little life because you live on the same damn station in space and it’s hard to avoid each other.

He also happens to be one of the only things in your life that are constant. He will never leave because he is stubborn and greedy and you just *hate him so much* that you’re convinced he must be doing all of it to spite you. And yet you also can’t seem to leave him alone.

So Odo Must Hate Quark. everything else is a non sequitur for him. he can’t not hate Quark.

because Quark is, and i’m sincerely sorry to apply christian fucking imagery to this, The Forbidden Fruit.

If he liked quark he’d admit some kind of moral failing. it would be the end of his act. but on the other hand...it might be a good thing, because at least he could have quark.

but Odo can never go through with biting into this apple because the consequences are horrifying to him. he could never have quark because, according to his performance, he would Never like quark to begin with.

and here’s a take for you: Odo's Brand Of Internalised Homophobia Doesn't Stem From Heteronormativity. It Stems From The Fact That He Was Kind Of Assigned Asexual At Birth.

and the show sort of alludes to this, for real! not just subtext! canon! except the writers used the wrong person. 

because instead of Odo having these Forbidden Feelings for Quark he has them for,,, Kira.

but since this is My Quodo Manifesto you’ll understand that i am 100% willing to just toss that part of canon out the airlock.

so Odo does canonically have that mindset of “no one could ever love me”  for decades he repressed any and all feelings of love to avoid getting hurt. in the show he breaks this cycle of repression when he takes a chance and enters a relationship with Kira. yay?

but we all know that aint it chief. and part of the reason why That Ship Ain’t It is the fact that Quark is Right There. and he is simply the more interesting choice for odo.

he and Odo literally share the same problem and have weird intertwined character arcs! they are both dreadfully afraid of not conforming to the ideal versions of themselves, so they reject everything that could challenge their Performance!

on some fucked up level they hate each other *and* themselves individually. and this hatred makes them reject parts of their real identities for the sake of protecting their image. which. yknow. in gay people. is internalised homophobia!

so you can see that they’re both repressing A Lot even if you view them as Friends, but the most important thing in this kind of romantic dynamic is usually,,, when the characters *stop* repressing.

and the thing is. the thing that Kills Me with these two. They Never Get That Moment. Thats Why You Need The Brainrot To See Them As Romantic.

The Ascent gives us an example of what happens when they both take their act too far. I mean, who could forget “Fascist!” and “Fraud!” That is what odo thinks of quark’s performance and vice versa, but we don’t really hear them adress the fact that they *are* playing these roles to a ridiculous extent.

We also never get an example of what would happen if they dropped their act instead of over-performing it. or rather we don’t get to see both of them drop it.

And the reason why we never get that moment is because there’s this one key difference between Quark and Odo. 

Quark knows that he’s constantly repressing his true nature and his feelings for odo. We pretty much hear him say so in the iconic root beer scene in Way Of The Warrior. he knows that he’s not a good ferengi but he keeps up his act.

So quark is aware enough to feel that sweet sweet self loathing. But Odo isnt self loathing as much as he is just self sabotaging.

and this subtle difference between them is why, at the very end of the show, we get “That man loves me, can’t you see? It was written all over his back!”

this moment is quark dropping his act and asking odo to do the same. he wants to hear a genuine Goodbye from him because they have known each other for Decades and they are Friends. but odo is so unable to express the feelings he’s been repressing all these years. that he self sabotages again and just walks away.

even though this is like. very anticlimactic. considering I just spent 2000 words talking about how Odo and Quark are Most Certainly Gay For Each Other.

The fact that their ending is so Weird is the reason why quodo is so engaging and appealing to me? especially post-canon quodo.

like, the amount of “what if’s” this ship has are Astounding.

What if either of them had dropped their act a little sooner? What if they both did, for just a moment, and it was the straw that breaks the camels back?

What if Odo comes back after a few years? What if Quark comes to get him?

What if, in that moment in the finale where Quark drops his act, Odo had returned the gesture? What if Gag-Reel Quodo Kiss.gif Real?

with the depth that I read into their relationship, those what ifs are really fun to think about.

anyway its 1 am and i’m not an english major so literary analysis is not like, my strong suit. plus most of this was written in a late night screaming session with a friend who has the exact same opinions as me. i just think aliens hot and in love. thats all.

#the SOUND of my HEAD hitting my DESK with TERMINAL VELOCITY #quodo #star trek

[lunaathorne]

not to be the moral police that tumblr so hates, but you guys really and effectively hijacked a story about a dark skinned Cuban woman and appropriated it to become "an inspiration/adaptation" of the life of your favourite white woman and honestly it's disgusting. you can come for me all you like but i said it. it's pretty disgusting.

the only quotes i see about evelyn hugo repeated again and again on this goddamn site are the ones where she talks about fame or celia. why don't you perhaps include the ones where celia and monique comments how beautiful she looks with her blonde hair against her dark skin or the part when the maid starts criticising her in spanish making an assumption that she cannot understand the language, or evelyn's guilt about whitewashing herself or her first thought while accepting the little women movie offer being "jo march was a white woman". why don't you talk about her leaving New York for Aldiz in Spain to mark the symbolic end of her journey: from a child of Cuban immigrants ready to trade her identity for fame, to a woman willing to heal and spend the rest of her life with her loved ones as well as reconnecting with her cultural roots, reconnecting with her deceased cuban mother?

don't get what i'm talking about?

"you see pictures of E back in the day with her brassy blond hair, those dark, straight-as-an-arrow eyebrows, that deep tanned skin, those golden-brown eyes" (evelyn hugo's coming clean, ch 1)

"straight, thick eyebrows....ever-so swollen lips...her tanned skin next to her light hair looks beachy but also elegant. I know it's not natural- hair that blond with skin that bronze- and yet I can't shake the feeling that it should be" (ch 2)

"your name is evelyn diaz." "so?" "i can't put you in a movie and pretend you're not mexican." "i'm cuban." "for our purposes, same difference."// i met with an elocutionist, who banished spanish entirely" (ch 6)

she didnt say "so you are latin." or "i knew you were faking it." she didnt say that it explained why my skin was darker than hers or don's. (ch 17)

she was speaking in spanish right in front of me. "la señora es tan bonita, pero loca." // "i'm cuban...i've spoken spanish my entire life." "you do not look cuban". "pues lo soy," i said haughtily. well, i am. (ch 31)

but as i looked around.., seeing no pictures of my family, not a single latin american book, stray blond hairs in my hairbrush, not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, i realised luisa hadn't done that to me. i had..and instead of trying to make my way in the world as a cuban woman, i simply forsook where i came from. (ch 31)

i even started speaking spanish again. and then, over time, i found myself proud of how easily it came to me. the dialect was different- the cuban spanish of my youth was not a perfect match for the castilian of spain- but years without the words had not erased many of them from my mind. (ch 59)

is it because these are not as compelling points as the love story? or is it because the discrepancy in this part of the story prevents you from effectively making it about whichever white person you want to project upon? i'm being harsh here but as a bisexual woman of colour, and born to second generation immigrants myself, i'm sick of wandering through the tag only to find whitewashed edits, literal conspiracy theories, no talk about evelyn's heritage whatsover and stripping this beautiful story down to......yeah. just. do better. you are doing precisely what evelyn regretted doing to herself in her youth. you are erasing her racial narrative.

#the seven husbands of evelyn hugo #evelyn hugo #taylor jenkins reid #anti kaylor #anti-kaylor #do not bring t*ylor sw*ft into a woc space and claim it #tshoeh

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About Loki (Season One)

(Sorry this is later than it should have been. I may or may not be experiencing burnout from reviewing every episode of the gayest show Disney has ever produced)

Salutations, random people on the internet. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Do you want to know what's fun about the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It is now officially at the point where the writers can do whatever the hell they want.

A TV series about two Avengers getting stuck in a series of sitcoms as one of them explores their personal grief? Sure.

Another series as a guy with metal bird wings fights the inner racism of his nation to take the mantel of representing the idea of what that nation should be? Why not?

A forgettable movie about a superspy and her much more mildly entertaining pretend family working together to kill the Godfather? F**king go for it (Let that be a taste for my Black Widow review in October)!

There is no limit to what you can get with these movies and shows anymore, and I personally consider that a good thing. It allows this franchise to lean further into creative insanity, thus embracing its comic roots in the process. Take Loki, for example. It is a series about an alternate version of one of Marvel's best villains bouncing around the timeline with Owen Wilson to prevent the end of the universe. It sounds like just the right amount of wackiness that it should be too good to fail.

But that's today's question: Did it fail? To find out my own answer to that, we're gonna have to dive deep into spoilers. So be wary as you continue reading.

With that said, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Loki Himself: Let's get this out of the way: This isn't the same Loki we've seen grow within five movies. The Loki in this series, while similar in many ways, is still his very own character. He goes through his own redemption and developments that fleshes out Loki, all through ways that, if I'm being honest with you, is done much better in six-hour-long episodes than in past films. Loki's story was already entertaining, but he didn't really grow that much aside from being this chaotic neutral character instead of this wickedly evil supervillain. Through his series, we get to see a gradual change in his personality, witnessing him understand his true nature and "glorious purpose," to the point where he's already this completely different person after one season. Large in part because of the position he's forced into.

Some fans might say that the series is less about Loki and more about the TVA. And while I can unquestionably see their point, I still believe that the TVA is the perfect way for Loki to grow. He's a character all about causing chaos and controlling others, so forcing him to work for an organization that takes that away allows Loki time to really do some introspection. Because if his tricks don't work, and his deceptions can't fool others, then who is he? Well, through this series, we see who he truly is: A character who is alone and is intended to be nothing more than a villain whose only truly selfless act got him killed in the end. Even if he wants to better himself, he can't because that "goes against the sacred timeline." Loki is a person who is destined to fail, and he gets to see it all with his own eyes by looking at what his life was meant to be and by observing what it could have been. It's all tragic and yet another example of these shows proving how they allow underdeveloped characters in the MCU a better chance to shine. Because if Loki can give even more depth to a character who's already compelling as is, then that is a feat worth admiration.

The Score: Let's give our gratitude toward Natalie Holt, who f**king killed it with this series score. Every piece she made is nothing short of glorious. Sylvie's and the TVA's themes particularly stand out, as they perfectly capture who/what they're representing. Such as how Sylvie's is big and boisterous where the TVA's sound eerie and almost unnatural. Holt also finds genius ways to implement other scores into the series, from using familiar tracks from the Thor movies to even rescoring "Ride of the Valkyries" in a way that makes a scene even more epic than it already could have been. The MCU isn't best known for its musical scores, partly because they aim to be suitable rather than memorable. But every now and again, something as spectacular as the Loki soundtrack sprinkles through the cracks of mediocrity. Making fans all the more grateful because of it.

There’s a lot of Talking: To some, this will be considered a complaint. Most fans of the MCU come for the action, comedy, and insanely lovable characters. Not so much for the dialogue and exposition. That being said, I consider all of the talking to be one of Loki's best features. All the background information about the TVA added with the character's backstories fascinates me, making me enthusiastic about learning more. Not everyone else will be as interested in lore and world-building as others, but just because something doesn't grab you, in particular, doesn't mean it isn't appealing at all. Case in point: There's a reason why the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has lasted as long as it has, and it's not entirely because of how "scary" it is.

There's also the fact that most of the dialogue in Loki is highly engaging. I'll admit, some scenes do drag a bit. However, every line is delivered so well that I'm more likely to hang on to every word when characters simply have honest conversations with each other. And if I can be entertained by Loki talking with Morbius about jetskis, then I know a show is doing at least something right.

It’s Funny: This shouldn't be a surprise. The MCU is well-known for its quippy humor in the direct acknowledgment that it doesn't take itself too seriously. With that said, it is clear which movies and shows are intended to be taken seriously, while others are meant to be comedies. Loki tries to be a bit of both. There are some heavy scenes that impact the characters, and probably even some fans, due to how well-acted and professionally written they can be. However, this is also a series about a Norse god traveling through time to deal with alternate versions of himself, with one of them being an alligator. I'd personally consider it a crime against storytelling to not make it funny. Thankfully, the writers aren't idiots and know to make the series fun with a few flawlessly timed and delivered jokes that never really take away from the few good grim moments that actually work.

It Kept Me Surprised: About everything I appreciate about Loki, the fact that I could never really tell what direction it was going is what I consider its absolute best feature. Every time I think I knew what was going to happen, there was always this one big twist that heavily subverted any and every one of my expectations. Such as how each time I thought I knew who the big bad was in this series, it turns out that there was an even worse threat built up in the background. The best part is that these twists aren't meant for shock value. It's always supposed to drive the story forward, and on a rewatch, you can always tell how the seeds have been planted for making each surprise work. It's good that it kept fans guessing, as being predictable and expected would probably be the worst path to take when making a series about Loki, a character who's all about trickery and deception. So bonus points for being in line with the character.

The TVA: You can complain all you want about how the show is more about the TVA than it is Loki, but you can't deny how the organization in question is a solid addition to the MCU. Initially, it was entertaining to see Loki of all characters be taken aback by how the whole process works. And it was worth a chuckle seeing Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in the universe, get treated as paperweights. However, as the season continues and we learn about the TVA, the writers show that their intention is to try and write a message about freedom vs. control. We've seen this before in movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Captain America: Civil War, but with those films, it always felt like the writers were leaning more towards one answer instead of making it obscure over which decision is correct. This is why I enjoy the fact that Loki went on saying that there really is no right answer for this scenario. If the TVA doesn't prune variants, it could result in utter chaos and destruction that no one from any timeline can prepare themselves for. But when they do prune variants along with their timelines, it takes away all free will, forcing people to be someone they probably don't even want to be. It's a situation where there really is no middle ground. Even if you bring up how people could erase timelines more destructive than others, that still takes away free will on top of how there's no unbiased way of deciding which timelines are better or worse. And the series found a brilliant way to explain this moral: The season starts by showing how the TVA is necessary, to later point out how there are flaws and evil secrets within it, and ends things with the revelation that there are consequences without the TVA keeping the timeline in check. It's an epic showcase of fantastic ideas met with exquisite execution that I can't help but give my seal of approval to.

Miss Minutes: Not much to say. This was just a cute character, and I love that Tara Strong, one of the most popular voice actors, basically plays a role in the MCU now.

Justifying Avengers: Endgame: Smartest. Decision. This series. Made. Bar none.

Because when you establish that the main plot is about a character getting arrested for f**king over the timeline, you're immediately going to get people questioning, "Why do the Avengers get off scot-free?" So by quickly explaining how their time-traveling antics were supposed to happen, it negates every one of those complaints...or most of them. There are probably still a-holes who are poking holes in that logic, but they're not the ones writing this review, so f**k them.

Mobius: I didn't really expect Owen Wilson to do that good of a job in Loki. Primarily due to how the Cars franchise discredits him as a professional actor for...forever. With that said, Owen Wilson's Mobius might just be one of the most entertaining characters in the series. Yes, even more so than Loki himself. Mobius acts as the perfect straight man to Loki's antics, what with being so familiar with the supposed god of mischief through past variations of him. Because of that, it's always a blast seeing these two bounce off one another through Loki trying to trick a Loki expert, and said expert even deceiving Loki at times. Also, on his own, Mobius is still pretty fun. He has this sort of witty energy that's often present in Phil Coulson (Love that character too, BTW), but thanks to Owen Wilson's quirks in his acting, there's a lot more energy to Mobius than one would find in Coulson. As well as a tad bit of tragedy because of Mobius being a variant and having no clue what his life used to be. It's a lot to unpack and is impressively written, added to how it's Owen Wilson who helps make the character work as well as he did. Cars may not have done much for his career, but Loki sure as hell showed his strengths.

Ravonna Renslayer: Probably the least entertaining character, but definitely one of the most intriguing. At least to me.

Ravonna is a character who is so steadfast in her believes that she refuses to accept that she may be wrong. Without the proper writing, someone like Ravonna could tick off (ha) certain people. Personally, I believe that Ravonna is written well enough where even though I disagree with her belief, I can understand where she's coming from. She's done so much for the TVA, bringing an end to so many variants and timelines that she can't accept that it was all for nothing. In short, Ravonna represents the control side of the freedom vs. control theme that the writers are pushing. Her presence is necessary while still being an appealing character instead of a plot device. Again, at least to me.

Hunter B-15: I have no strong feelings one way or another towards B-15's personality, but I will admit that I love the expectation-subversion done with her. She has this air of someone who's like, "I'm this by-the-books badass cop, and I will only warm up to this cocky rookie after several instances of them proving themselves." That's...technically not B-15. She's the first to see Loki isn't that bad, but only because B-15 is the first in the main cast to learn the hidden vile present in the TVA. It makes her change in point of view more believable than how writers usually work a character like hers, on top of adding a new type of engaging motivation for why she fights. I may not particularly enjoy her personality, but I do love her contributions.

Loki Watching What His Life Could Have Been: This was a brilliant decision by the writers. It's basically having Loki speedrun his own character development through witnessing what he could have gone through and seeing the person he's meant to be, providing a decent explanation for why he decides to work for the TVA. And on the plus side, Tom Hiddleston did a fantastic job at portraying the right emotions the character would have through a moment like this. Such as grief, tearful mirth, and borderline shock and horror. It's a scene that no other character could go through, as no one but Loki needed a wake-up call for who he truly is. This series might heavily focus on the TVA, but scenes like this prove just who's the star of the show.

Loki Causing Mischief in Pompeii: I just really love this scene. It's so chaotic and hilarious, all heavily carried by the fact that you can tell that Tom Hiddleston is having the time of his damn life being this character. What more can I say about it.

Sylvie: The first of many surprises this season offered, and boy was she a great one.

Despite being an alternate version of Loki, I do appreciate that Sylvie's her own character and not just "Loki, but with boobs." She still has the charm and charisma, but she also comes across as more hardened and intelligent when compared to the mischievous prick we've grown to love. A large part of that is due to her backstory, which might just be the most tragic one these movies and shows have ever made. Sylvie got taken away when she was a little girl, losing everything she knew and loved, and it was all for something that the people who arrested her don't even remember. How sad is that? The fact that her life got permanently screwed over, leaving zero impact on the people responsible for it. As badass as it is to hear her say she grew up at the ends of a thousand worlds (that's an album title if I ever heard one), it really is depressing to know what she went through. It also makes her the perfect candidate to represent the freedom side of the freedom vs. control argument. Because she's absolutely going to want to fight to put an end to the people who decide how the lives of trillions should be. Those same people took everything from Sylvie, and if I were in her position, I'd probably do the same thing. Of course, we all know the consequences that come from this, and people might criticize Sylvie the same way they complain about Thor and Star Lord for screwing over the universe in Avengers: Infinity War. But here's the thing: Sylvie's goals are driven by vengeance, which can blind people from any other alternatives. Meaning her killing He Who Remains is less of a story flaw and more of a character flaw. It may be a bad decision, but that's for Season Two Sylvie to figure out. For now, I'll just appreciate the well-written and highly compelling character we got this season and eagerly wait as we see what happens next with her.

The Oneshot in Episode Three: Not as epic as the hallway scene in Daredevil, but I do find it impressive that it tries to combine real effects, fighting, and CGI in a way where it's all convincing enough.

Lady Sif Kicking Loki in the D**k: This is a scene that makes me realize why I love this series. At first, I laugh at Loki being stuck in a time loop where Lady Sif kicks him in the d**k over and over again. But a few scenes later, this setup actually works as a character moment that explains why Loki does the things he does.

This series crafted phenomenal character development through Loki getting kicked in the d**k by the most underrated badass of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's a perfect balance of comedy and drama that not every story can nail, yet Loki seemed like it did with very little effort.

Classic Loki: This variant shows the true tragedy of being Loki. The only way to survive is to live in isolation, far away from everything and everyone he loves, only to end up having his one good deed result in his death anyways. Classic Loki is definitive proof that no matter what face they have, Lokis never gets happy endings. They're destined to lose, but at least this version knows that if you're going out, you're going out big. And at least he got to go out with a mischievous laugh.

(Plus, the fact that he's wearing Loki's first costume from the comics is a pretty cute callback).

Alligator Loki: Alligator Loki is surprisingly adorable, and if you know me, you know that I can't resist cute s**t. It's not in my nature.

Loki on Loki Violence: If you thought Loki going ham in Pompeii was chaotic, that was nothing to this scene. Because watching these Lokis backstab one another, to full-on murdering each other, is a moment that is best described as pure, unadulterated chaos. And I. Loved. Every. Second of it.

The Opening Logo for the Season Finale: I'm still not that big of a fan of the opening fanfare playing for each episode, but I will admit that it was a cool feature to play vocal clips of famous quotes when the corresponding character appears. It's a great way of showing the chaos of how the "sacred timeline" works without having it to be explained further.

The Citadel: I adore the set design of the Citadel. So much history and backstory shine through the state of every room the characters walk into. You get a perfect picture of what exactly happened, but seeing how ninety percent of the place is in shambles, it's pretty evident that not everything turned out peachy keen. And as a personal note, my favorite aspect of the Citadel is the yellow cracks in the walls. It looks as though reality itself is cracking apart, which is pretty fitting when considering where the Citadel actually is.

He Who Remains: This man. I. Love. This man.

I love this man for two reasons.

A. He's a ton of fun. Credit to that goes to the performance delivered by Jonathon Majors. Not only is it apparent that Majors is having a blast, but he does a great job at conveying how He Who Remains is a strategic individual but is still very much off his rocker. These villains are always my favorite due to how much of a blast it is seeing someone with high intelligence just embracing their own insanity. If you ask me, personalities are always essential for villains. Because even when they have the generic plot to rule everything around them, you're at least going to remember who they are for how entertaining they were. Thankfully He Who Remains has that entertainment value, as it makes me really excited for his eventual return, whether it'd be strictly through Loki Season Two or perhaps future movies.

And B. He Who Remains is a fantastic foil for Loki. He Who Remains is everything Loki wishes he could have been, causing so much death, destruction, and chaos to the multiverse. The important factor is that he does it all through order and control. The one thing Loki despises, and He Who Remains uses it to his advantage. I feel like that's what makes him the perfect antagonist to Loki, thanks to him winning the game by not playing it. I would love it if He Who Remains makes further appearances in future movies and shows, especially given how he's hinted to be Kane the Conqueror, but if he's only the main antagonist in Loki, I'm still all for it. He was a great character in his short time on screen, and I can't wait to see what happens next with him.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Revealing that Loki was D.B. Cooper: A cute scene, but it's really unnecessary. It adds nothing to the plot, and I feel like if it was cut out entirely, it wouldn't have been the end of the world...Yeah. That's it.

That's my one and only complaint about this season.

Maybe some scenes drag a bit, and I guess Episode Three is kind of the weakest, but there's not really anything that this series does poorly that warrants an in-depth complaint.

Nope.

Nothing at all...

…

...

...I'm not touching that "controversy" of Loki falling for Sylvie instead of Mobius. That's a situation where there are no winners.

Only losers.

Exclusively losers.

Other than that, this season was amazing!

IN CONCLUSION

I'd give the first season of Loki a well-earned A, with a 9.5 through my usual MCU ranking system. It turns out, it really is the best type of wackiness that was just too good to fail. The characters are fun and likable, the comedy and drama worked excellently, and the expansive world-building made me really intrigued with the more we learned. It's hard to say if Season Two will keep this momentum, but that's for the future to figure out. For now, let's just sit back and enjoy the chaos.

(Now, if you don't excuse me, I have to figure out how to review Marvel's What If...)

#marvel cinematic universe #mcu reviews #loki tv series #loki #sylvie #mobius #ravonna renslayer #hunter b 15 #classic loki #alligator loki #he who remains #kang the conqueror #what i thought about

[beneaththetangles]

Tangles Writers Do Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Arc 2: To Drop or Not to Drop

Greetings, Tangles readers!

Yesterday, Twwk posted an excellent article to kick off our deep dive into the Bunny Girl Senpai series. Twwk’s article focused largely on Sakuta’s character: his selfless, genuine love for Mai and his transparent, authentic self. But of course, Sakuta’s character isn’t all sunshine. As Twwk points out, he tends to dance on the line of commitment to Mai throughout the show, and often gets himself into trouble with his speech and conduct.

And if you’re looking for a perfect example of these negative characteristics which Twwk discussed, look no further than Tomoe’s arc. In some ways, this arc presents Sakuta with no filter—authentic and honest, sure, but also hurtful and demeaning. Today, I’ll be writing about how episodes four through six of Bunny Girl Senpai almost compelled me to drop the show. I’ll reason through why I ultimately decided to stick around. And I’ll describe how my personal struggle with this arc of Bunny Girl Senpai finds its place not only in Tomoe’s story, but also, perhaps, in your own.

Got all that? Good. Let’s proceed.

Before we continue, enjoy a coffee break, sponsored by best girl Rio Futaba. (Look out for her article in a few days!)

I’ve always had a strained relationship with Bunny Girl Senpai. Let me be clear: I’m 90% into this anime for the cheeky banter between Sakuta and Mai. It’s fantastic. So I really liked the first three episodes of the show. Episode four, in contrast, presents the first signs of genuine conflict between the two, as Tomoe’s Adolescent-Syndrome-caused looping leads to a misunderstanding with not only Mai, but the whole school. Ultimately, Tomoe and Sakuta end up feigning a relationship for Tomoe’s sake: Her friends think that she’s dating Sakuta and she feels uncomfortable admitting their mistake.

Already, the flashing lights were going off in my head. Mai’s gone and Sakuta’s pretending to date someone else? It all seems foolish and immature and out-of-character. (And where’s my Mai dialogue?) Regardless, I was willing to forgive those minor setbacks to see how things would go in Tomoe’s story. But as things progressed, it became very clear that the dynamic between Sakuta and Tomoe was far different than that between Sakuta and Mai. In some ways, it was endearing. Sakuta’s sort of like a big brother to Tomoe, hanging out with her, bringing her food when she’s sick, and lending her an ear amidst her struggles.

But as many big brothers are wont to do, Sakuta pokes fun at Tomoe. And many times, it goes way too far. Now, I’m willing to admit that some of the discomfort I felt at Sakuta’s jokes might say more about my boundaries than the show itself.1 But much of what Sakuta says to Tomoe in this arc could genuinely be classified as sexual harassment, and there’s times when the jokes genuinely trouble Tomoe. It threw me off, to the point that I was ready to cast the show away out of sheer discomfort.

Amen, Tomoe. Amen

Why, then, did I decide to stick with the show?

Before I continue to answer that question, I’d like to clarify the tension I’m describing here a little. I don’t mean to imply that watching Bunny Girl Senpai violated my conscience. Stay away from shows like that—but I’m talking about something a little different. Bunny Girl Senpai doesn’t violate my conscience in these scenes; it violates my moral standards. These scenes don’t tempt me to sin; they portray sin as a good thing. They don’t inspire shame but anger: anger at wrongs going unpunished.

Maybe a few examples will help to clarify what I’m trying to say. When I think of problematic anime, I think of Made in Abyss, which contains several scenes that arguably sexualize minors. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, one of my favorite shows, runs into the same issue with the relationship between Lucoa and Shouta. And The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a fan favorite, has its own issues with sexual harassment as well. These are all shows which clearly contain scenes which violate moral standards in such a way that no one could be blamed for dropping them outright.

Of course, all the shows that I’ve listed, including Bunny Girl Senpai, are shows that I watched through to the end. So why didn’t I drop them? There’s a lot I could say here, but in short, it’s because each show, despite its flaws, had something worth staying for. Haruhi drew me in with its absurd yet hopeful celebration of the oddities of this world. Kobayashi reminded me that sometimes it only takes a dinner table to welcome those who share nothing in common with you. And Made in Abyss presented a stirring tale of adventure with its own moral quandaries to boot.

What about Bunny Girl Senpai, then? Well, if it’s Sakuta’s personality that turned me off, it’s the same personality that kept me coming back. Again, despite his flaws, Sakuta is abundantly authentic. At his best, he hates lies and misunderstandings; he doesn’t pull punches; he says exactly what he’s thinking. And for Tomoe, who’s struggling with fitting in and finding her own identity in the midst of the chaos of adolescent social interactions, Sakuta’s bluntness comes as a great reassurance. Regardless of how her friends treat her, she knows Sakuta will always treat her the same way he always has. He’ll always be there for her.

In fact, I have a theory. I think that Tomoe’s struggle to reconcile Sakuta’s good and bad sides isn’t too much different from my own. Even as she finds herself angered and frustrated by the things Sakuta says, she knows there isn’t genuine malice behind them, because she knows Sakuta is for her. His bluntness sets her on edge, but it also sets her at ease, because she knows he’s willing to tell her what she needs to hear, and to help her grow in the process. It’s because Sakuta is Sakuta that she knows that she’ll be loved no matter where she’s at. It gives her the confidence to move forward.2

And in the end, I think the moral tensions that I’ve described in this article aren’t too much different from the same tensions we experience in all our lives. It’s really easy for us as people to polarize reality. That artist or that book or that show is problematic, so anyone who supports them is problematic. Alternatively: that artist or that book or that show is good, so anyone who discredits them is wrong. But life is more complex than that. I should know: I find that complexity in my own heart, as I vacillate between good and bad intentions and desires and actions. Like Sakuta, I can issue a word of wisdom in one moment and a word of mockery in another.3 I need grace in every moment of my life. We all do.

So what if, instead of polarizing reality, we learned to live as children of grace? What if, when people hurt us, instead of responding in anger, we responded in gentle love? What if, when ideas harmed us, we wrestled with them rather than smacking them down? What if, when media unsettled us, we stopped to ponder intentions, rather than to assume them?

I don’t have answers to those questions. It’s certainly a hard task, to show the grace we’ve been given. But, at the very least, I hope I’ve shown that it’s okay to wrestle with these tensions rather than to find cheap answers. That is, after all, what Bunny Girl Senpai is about: learning to live in a world where there are no cheap answers, and demonstrating kindness and faithfulness in the meantime. Those are lessons worth learning—even if there are a few rough patches along the way.4

=====

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai can be streamed on Funimation.

1 To be fair to the writers of the show, some of the worst jokes from the light novel source were toned down for the adaptation. The comments still make me deeply uncomfortable, though. 2 I want to be very careful here. I don’t mean to say that Tomoe shouldn’t feel angry at Sakuta for the things he says. I’m simply pointing out that she’s facing the same tension I am in deciding whether or not to stick with the show: the antithesis between affirming what is good and confronting what isn’t. 3 Again, in an abundance of caution, I’ll say that while both Sakuta and myself exhibit these sorts of moral tensions, that doesn’t reduce the weight of Sakuta’s sins. I’m not excusing Sakuta; I’m condemning both him and myself. 4 Much of what I said in this post was inspired by Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with the Dead, which argues for reading classical literature because of its ability to confront our sensibilities and form us into better people. In some sense, I think his argument can be adapted into a case for watching anime in the same sort of way, and that’s what I’ve tried to do here.

#Anime #Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai #Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai #Grace #Sin #Articles #Author: sleepminusminus

[wanderbythewayside]

I think one of the things I really like about ToG is that there is no cheap redemption (it can actually be argued that there is no redemption since being good isn’t actually a requirement of being a main character here and no one does shit to deserve it. 

I’ll have to dip into other fandoms to explain my point but I’ll try to stick to big ones so most people can follow along.

Because so many shoujo mangas/animes are targeted towards younger people there’s this sort of unspoken rule that if a character is going to be in the main cast they have to be good, or at least on their way to being good. But when you combine that with too many side characters that you can’t spend any real time on them or if it’s an adaptation of something and the writers are trying to make a character more palatable you end up getting this forced, awkward sudden turn around or a ‘surprise! they were good all along! they just had (bad) reasons to act like a shitty human being.’ And not only is it majorly unsatisfying if you take any time to analyze these characters but it creates this sort of precedent of victims being expected to forgive their abusers or, in the worst case, outright victim-blaming in an attempt to make the “redeemed” character look good. The latter is usually by the fans of said redeemed character and it’s gross.

Before I go on let me make this clear, you can have bad characters, you can have redeemed characters, you can have problematic characters and relationships, half the reason we have media is to explore that shit, but don’t try to tell me or make me believe a morally wrong character is actually good when you’ve put none of the work in. 

Fairy Tail and Naruto were really bad for this. One of the main signs they were trying to make a bad character look good is if they keep flashing back to their Tragic Story whenever that character is doing something shitty or when that character is apologizing. It’s a great flashing “See! This character isn’t that bad! Pity them! :P”  And asking the audience to forgive a character after 20 seconds of sad footage with absolutely no set up is one thing, but having their victims only ever forgive them and move on is not only lazy it massively under-represents real life victims. And you see the clash in the fandom, people who love the redeemed characters just rage on fans who accurately point out that an apology or a sad past does NOT equal redemption or forgiveness and it is UNCOMFORTABLE to watch. 

I get that you relate to this shitty character but please don’t pretend that you loving them makes them a good character.

In Naruto Itachi’s grand “He’s a good person!” reveal comes after he tricks Sasuke into killing him, which comes after he tortured Sasuke twice (something he wasn’t forced to do unlike some of the rest of the shit he did) and so many fans decided he was a perfectly good person and ignored how even that last act, meant to be about Itachi punishing himself for the shit he himself did, fucked over his brother, but I’m still supposed to believe he was a good character all along. And in Fairy Tail Minerva beats the shit out of Lucy for no other reason than that she can, but later I’m supposed to believe that she suddenly had a change of heart with no other set up than the, also, abusive Guild Master was no longer there to encourage it or that she’s actually done anything to deserve that redemption.

Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t like these characters, or that you shouldn’t like morally questionable characters, but if you can’t like them without distorting them in your head to make them good maybe you should take a better look at why you like them. 

In ToG literally no character gets a redemption arc despite the fact that they have all done some pretty awful things. The greatest example of this that I can think of is Hoaquin. As an audience we’re in the train being told how terrible and awful this guy is and then we get hit with a flashback, and it shows us that he does have some sad shit; all he ever wanted was the approval of his father, and it is his father’s callous disregard and neglect that causes Hoaquin to go to such extremes. And it’s following the shoujo formula, or at least the start of it. But then in that same flashback (sort of) we’re also told that Hoaquin had no intention of ever letting one of his siblings lead their weird body-horror-group-project and deliberately mislead them as to what the spell would do. It is so important that he is roughly the same age in both scenes because we are, in fast succession, given a reason to sympathize with him, and then a reminder that even that young he was a manipulative little shit that cared about no one’s life or ambitions more than his own.

Instead of some ham-fisted attempt at getting my sympathy so I’ll accept that he’ll work with Baam or Baam will work with him I am (implicitly) told exactly what he is: He’s a shitty, morally dark character, he’s just ALSO a fleshed out character with reasons and motivations for the way that he is. I am not supposed to think he’s a good character, I’m not supposed to think he is worthy of redemption, I am just shown who and what he is and get to decide whether or not I like it for myself. And I do like him, not because I think he has the capacity to be good, but because I find him deeply compelling in his complete lack of justification for himself or any hint of remorse. ToG doesn’t try to tell me what to think of it’s characters, it just let’s me learn about them, and I fucking love that.

#tog #tower of god #character analysis #redemption #tropes #fairy tail #naruto #itachi uchiha #sasuke uchiha #hoaquin #minerva #lucy heartfilia #in this essay i will

[killingeveperspectives]

Perspective: Eve Polastri and the invisibility of women’s pain

“[A woman] has to know how to love

know how to suffer her love

and be all forgiveness”

These are the final verses of the poem “Sonnet of the ideal woman” written by the acclaimed Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes, same guy that brought you Girl from Ipanema®. (Don’t start hum… too late). I remember reading this sonnet only once, but its last verses became branded in my mind like a curse. Society’s view of ideal womanhood is perfectly encapsulated in these three haunting lines. That is women’s purpose, not only for men but for humanity, her suffering frivolous in the face of the redemption to be brought forth through her selflessness. Anything else is egoistical, evil, and dangerous… for everyone. From Pandora in ancient Greece, to biblical Eve, to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, to 90% of all horror movies ever, women are constantly warned of the dangers of curiosity and desire, which lead to destruction and death. Her redemption is to be a vehicle of someone else’s redemption, just like Virgin Mary redeemed biblical Eve by being the vehicle of humankind’s salvation. This narrative is so ingrained in our collective unconscious that it requires an immense effort to not let it slip into its familiar nest within our minds.

The biblical story of Eve’s fall from grace is arguably the most pervasive patriarchal myth to shape our patriarchal society, but if we unwrap its millennia of projections of male anxieties, the myth holds a kernel of universal truth: The flesh is weak. We are dangerously inclined to act on desire over reason by force so strong it is symbolized by the Devil: it possesses the mind. These impulses are irrational, reckless, primal and compelling. While Freud constructed much of his theory on the fascination of unconscious drives, I believe no one has said it better than W.H. Auden: “We are lived by powers we pretend to understand”. Our lives and livelihood depend on striking a fine balance between restriction and satisfaction of impulse, and to those who have ever fell in passion with someone or something, passion can be one of the most disruptive experiences of a lifetime. Thus, Eve’s myth carries layers of meaning both as we understand our nature and also as to how we project these anxieties onto womanhood.

Eve Polastri is not just Eve, she is Eve, she is the proverbial woman. She is morbidly curious, tempted by desire, gives in, and destroys the world around her. But Killing Eve is no cautionary tale, Eve Polastri Is not committing a forbidden sin against a narrative moral code which commands an imposed narrative punishment. Thus, Eve Polastri embodies and transgresses the biblical myth: she is the woman exploring her own impulses in her own story and becoming authentic through it– which makes her a remarkable character in her own right. At the core, the character is also us, a regular person urging to become whole, that sees in the metaphorical abyss of Villanelle’s indulgence a reflection of what she yearns: liberation. There is a courage to Eve, and we watch her entranced, because, whether we want to admit or not, we all fantasize about playing with fire. However, there can be a tacit perverted satisfaction in this story: we want Eve to fall from grace but when she does, we want to punish her for it, thus sublimating and reprimanding our own impulse, and falling back in the old narratives about womanhood. 

In Season 1, Eve seemed to have been taken as a surrogate for the audience quite unproblematically, nevertheless when desire starts to show its ugly face in Season 2, part of the audience started to feel alienated from the character, and even antagonistic. Which is unfortunate, because her face off with Villanelle in the finale was arguably the most victorious, honest and cathartic moment of the character so far. Season 3 opens with a recluse Eve licking her wounds, trying to pull herself together any way she can, after all she suffered and all she learned. She changed and change is painful – in an abstract sense, violent as well. Her initial isolation was self-imposed by the character but as the season progresses Eve becomes more and more distant, which creates a parallel to how women’s suffering is perceived in real life.

Ironically, when Eve is shutting down from the world around her in the beginning of the season, she is more open to us than she will ever be in the remainder of the episodes. We are allowed to exist with the character through her painfully dull, mundane day-to-day, as the extent of her suffering manifests in the blunt messiness of her exterior life and her valiant effort to keep it together with the help of a budding alcohol and cigarette addiction. Eve is not a strong woman; she is a woman that claimed herself at a great cost. This cost was depicted with frustrating realism, just like in real life, once the thrill of the battle is over, it’s time to tend to the wounded, drag the corpses and count the dead. It’s inglorious. No wonder Eve literally and metaphorically hid, she burned the bridges with the world around her. How could she possibly explain what she went through and how could an outsider possibly understand? A question that mirrors the feeling of many a person, especially women, that entangled themselves in violent dynamics: Alienation and loneliness.

Initially, the character continues the apophatic self-definition, Eve says no a lot, symbolizing her efforts to reassert control over her life. From Villanelle, to Carolyn, to her job, Eve is trying to play by her rules and her truth, she knows what she wants not, but the interesting question posed at the end of Season 2 is “Now that Eve reclaimed herself, what will she do of what she has become?” – Sartre style. However, there is a major shift in Eve’s character after her interactions with Villanelle in episodes 3 and 4. The character’s arc becomes centered towards admitting her feelings for Villanelle as the source of conflict, however one could argue that the main source of conflict is the existence of these feelings itself. Therefore, merely admitting them shouldn’t solve the main conflict, on the contrary, due to their inherent contradictory nature it should exacerbate it. 

This sleight of hand not only impoverishes the character’s emotional landscape, motivations and general arc, but also echoes the verse: ”A woman must know how to suffer love”. Like countless women before, Eve’s story is subtly telling us that the misery comes from her rejection of a phagic “love” and the metaphorical self-annihilation intrinsic to the experience, instead of the authentic ambivalence and paradoxes of the character’s inner self. Eve’s conflict should be at its core about herself not about Villanelle – who serves as a symbolic element.  In the end, good women are expected to erase themselves and to become vessels of God and of others. Coincidentally, Eve’s character becomes oddly redeemed when she becomes a vessel for Villanelle’s need to belong.

Here is where the writers quite painfully abandon an once intriguing and compelling character. Eve doesn’t find nothing new to say about herself, no new path nor synthesis of her desires, and identity – which could and should have given Eve agency in renegotiating her dynamic with Villanelle, especially if it was to bring them closer. Eve ceases to be defined by her own inner conflict and becomes defined by her attraction to Villanelle alone. As Eve obsessively seeks Villanelle, who is in turn occupied with a story of her own, at no point the audience is asked to care about Eve’s suffering nor does the writers bother to interrogate the character about it, let alone let the character process it. Eve is deprived from exploring herself and facing her own pain, almost as if Eve was so devoid of individuality that the character itself is alienated from the obvious pain and conflict it should be experiencing. But nor Eve, nor any other character and, most importantly, nor the audience is asked to care. In the emblematic scene where Eve jumps into a dumpster to literally look for scrapes of Villanelle’s supposed affection as a way of reconnecting with her, no effort is made to reframe it or question the length at which the character lost itself, because no one cares. When in the finale, Eve, who is oblivious to Villanelle’s change of heart, is interrogated with a relevant question “Did I ruin your life? Do you think I am a monster?”, the character straightforwardly reassures the anti-hero at the expense of the rich internal conflict that should have been derived and fleshed out from these points, because no one cares.

Eve believes in Villanelle unconditionally, despite all conceivable lines being crossed, despite the destruction and conflict this relationship has brought her, because Eve is doing precisely what her character is supposed to be doing: erasing her individuality, enduring her pain in the name of this love, forgiving no matter what they do to her so that they can be redeemed through her. “A woman has to know how to suffer her love and be all forgiveness”. Thus, Eve as a character becomes a device in Villanelle’s story arc occupying the same restricted space female characters were always allowed to inhabit. Villanelle goes on a somewhat muddled character growth arc, filled with redemption elements which traditionally involves the presence of a source of acceptance and love, generally in the form of a love interest, that will be granted to the hero at the end of the journey. Eve’s function in the story is not as a compelling protagonist with universal struggles, but as both enabler and trophy in Villanelle’s story. The narrative finds itself trapped in the old tales ingrained in our collective unconscious, in a jarring contrast with the previous seasons’ transgression and uniqueness.

Paradoxically, this precise abandonment gives the season the richest opportunity for the audience to interrogate the place of women’s pain. Eve’s abandonment mirrors the invisibility of the suffering of countless women, who painfully sacrifice their livelihoods in the name of their loved ones, be it Nicos, or Villanelles, or family, or friends, or their communities. Who, day in and out, are responsible for caring and supporting others through their struggles while left stranded with their own conflicts. After all, when so much depends on their self-sacrifice their pain is unimportant, even an expected part of this glorified martyrdom. Are we keen on looking at these women who inhabit these confined roles and acknowledge without judgement the enormous burden they carry? Are we ready to empathize with them when they rebel, when they fail and break, and even more so when they acquiesce? Having a queer twist on this narrative is not enough to claim it transgressive, as this cultural recipe perpetuates itself also into homoromantic relationships, as women often see themselves trapped in this dynamic with their female partners as well. Women are no less oppressed by patriarchal ideas of womanhood if these ideas are perpetuated through their relationships with other women.

 Akin to Eve’s biblical story, the erasure of female pain is also layered, as we all crave unconditional love, and its redemption, so we can be at peace with ourselves – completely satisfied, accepted and safe – which is naturally symbolized by “The mother”. Therefore, it is easy to impose these fantasies in the ideal of womanhood, as easy as it is to relate to Villanelle and romanticize the role Eve plays in her development, her acceptance of Villanelle’s character being a powerful cathartic release for our own need and fantasies of belonging. 

In this context, hidden in Season 3’s oblivious narrative, lays an interesting invitation to evaluate how we individually, and as a society, negotiate our urge to be nurtured and the necessity to nurture others and how these roles are culturally and socially informed by patriarchal ideas we collectively and individually carry about womanhood, and to what extent we are ready to challenge them.

#killing eve #killingeve #killing eve analysis #ke s3 #ke #Eve Polastri #eve polastri retcon #killingeveperspectives #killinge #eve polastri analysis

[allet-space]

Homeworld Bound: That One Scene

It is time to place my own textpost on the pile of theories about the new scene we got: Steven using White Diamond’s powers to “talk to himself”

Spoilers for the episode, obviously.

What I’ve seen a lot is people say is that this is Steven hating his diamond half and trying to harm himself/relive his trauma, which is something he’s definitly done before with Jasper. That gem yeeted him into the air by kicking him in the fucking guts and he decided “yep, this is exactly what I need”.

I’ve heard people say it’s 50/50, or mostly him harming himself, or that he purposefully protected WD by turning his intrusive thoughts against himself instead, etc.

It wouldn’t be outside of what he’s done before, but... I can’t say I can fully agree.

The only evidence we have is his “I’m... I’m a diamond” at the start. But during the scene itself, we clearly see a bigger Steven puppeting small pink WD. We hear “Too bad” in HIS voice. While, yes, there’s also his voice begging himself to stop, I’d say that’s a factor in how her powers work.

Now, i don’t think White was fully present, or saying anything. She saw what happened, as evident by the look of horror on her face when it’s over, but she’s not actually doing anything.

Steven was hallucinating and dissociating. He has mindscape powers of his own, and they may have interfered with White’s. He saw a flashback of what White did to him, and clearly what bothers him is that this is WHITE DIAMOND. Not just A diamond. If it were A diamond, then he’d have had flashbacks to all the diamonds, maybe even to his mother, reminding him that he’s one of them.

He only had flashes of what WD did. In addition to that, his “She’s the one who should be afraid” is definitly aimed at WD, but it’s also... a gem/diamond/steven thing to say. I don’t think his human half would say that to his gem half. That definitly sounds like something both his halves, as Steven, would say to White Diamond.

It’s very possible this was an intrusive thought, as others already mentioned, and this thought was given a second body due to the nature of WD’s new powers. Intrusive thoughts are powerful, and we don’t actually know what it feels like to be split into two bodies. The thought, the desire was strong enough to take over the entire process and cause him to dissociate in the first place.

I also feel compelled to mention that Steven wanted the small WD to hit her head against the pillar, aiming his strike at her gem. Steven doesn’t have his gem on his head. Sure, he can crack his skull, but we’ve got confirmation that while it hurts, he can recover from that kind of thing fully, a little how gems can reform their bodies if they’re damaged. If he’d actually wanted to harm himself, or his gem half, he would have done something different. But, no, this was aimed at White Diamond’s gem.

(I want to edit in here that harming onesself isn’t ALWAYS done in a way that harms someone permanently, and I in no way invalidate or am trying to talk down self harm that does damage in a way that can be healed. It’s still self harm nonetheless, and should be seen as such.)

People say, though, that in reality he was puppeting his own body to hit his head against the pillar, and that’s what he ended up hurting in the end.... but that’s not what the scene wants us to see in that moment. We see things from Steven’s perspective. This is his show. And from his perspective, HE is the one puppeting and moving HER. He isn’t seeing himself in that pink White Diamond. He sees himself as the one doing the puppeting.

Lastly, he asks Spinel for vengeful thoughts, not self loathing or intrusive thoughts. Specifically vengeful ones, as something of a side explanation to the audience that that’s what he had.

My point being that there’s very little evidence to support the fact that he was trying to harm himself, but rather that this was a trauma response triggered by a flashback. A trauma response that turned into something of vengeance, into trying to harm someone.

And, I get it. That’s not something we see Steven DO, usually. It’s not something he truly likes doing. It’s his way of trying to cope, badly. But that’s how trauma works. I don’t think, or at least I can’t see any evidence that he was purposefully aiming his harmful behavior towards himself in order to not hurt WD, and I feel like that is trying to downplay what actually happened.

It feels a lot to me like this fandom continues to try and find some reason or way to justify or downplay Steven’s actions in these last few episodes. While Steven definitly has the tendency to turn his trauma inwards instead of outwards, THIS is a scene where he turned it outwards, and this was shown to us very, very clearly. We even hear the chilling tone in his voice when he says “Too bad.”, and I think that was on purpose. To really make us see that these are his actions.

Now, don’t get my wrong. Steven doesn’t like hurting people. But I find it hard to chalk this up to self harm entirely, and it doesn’t change the fact that he wanted to hurt WD. It was his, albeit bad, way of trying to shoulder the trauma he felt from the flashback, it was his way of trying to cope with the fear he was so intensely reminded of. Its a bad way of coping, but it happened.

Why am I so insistent on saying this? Because Steven has to accept that he, too, is capable of these things. He has to accept that he feels this way, and it doesn’t immedietly make him some irredeemable monster. In order to move on, he has to accept that he doesn’t like WD, not in the way that he feels he should. And while wanting to hurt her is understandable, it’s also harmful, and something he knows he shouldn’t act out on.

But in order to move on from those thoughts, he has to accept that they exist, and if he or we continue to pretend that this was entirely him trying to harm himself and he’s too pure and nice to ever wanna harm anyone ever, and he actually directed his thoughts towards himself last moment in some self sacrificing manner, then it has the potential to halt his progress.

Because to me, it’s clear that that is not what happened. Steven, or at least a part of him given shape and form with WDs new powers, tried to hurt WD. Potentially crack or even shatter her, and he’s definitly still swept up high on emotions from the past 3 days that he spent with Jasper and from accidentally shattering a gem 12 minutes ago.

That’s what trauma responses can be like, especially if he so recently is coming out of a bad place. Especially if he feels desperate to fix his emotions, more so than ever now that he’s hurt someone. Even more so if he internally feels that he’s a Bad Person anyway now that he’s shattered someone, and doesn’t feel like holding himself to his high moral standard is even possible anymore.

To conclude... we have to accept he did this. He has to accept he did this, and in order to move on, he has to acknowledge this as a part of him, and only then can he work on directing that energy elsewhere or dealing with his trauma in other ways.

#suf spoilers #suf #homeworld bound #su #suf theory #suf analysis #self harm

[what-if-questions]

The Good Place Finale

Here are my opinions regarding the ending of The Good Place.

Keep in mind that these are my own opinions, I’m not forcing you to agree with me. If you thought the finale was perfect, good for you! Personally, though, I am not satisfied.

TL;DR (more detailed rambling under “Keep Reading”):

loved that Michael became a human

loved that Tahani became an architect

liked that the door turned them into those little voices of morality instead of just obliterating them from existence

hated the idea that people in the Good Place were experiencing eternal boredom/apathy rather than eternal happiness

hated that their solution for this was basically encouraging everyone to commit suicide

hated the idea that death somehow gives life meaning and purpose

basically I like the new concepts from the finale, but I hate everything that was set up in the “Patty” episode

the show should have ended with the “Mondays, Am I Right?” episode

Let’s start with the good before we move on to the bad and ugly.

I love that Michael became a human. Remember in season 2 when the others made him an honorary human? Now he gets to actually be one. Michael has always been fascinated by humans, so letting him experience what being one is really like is a great way to end his story arc on the show. (Sidenote: The scene where Michael was told he was going to become human was when I started crying.) (Sidenote #2: I choose to believe that when he dies, he’ll live in the Good Place as a human would for a while, but eventually he’ll become an architect again and hang out with Tahani and Janet instead of walking through the door.)

I love that Tahani became an architect. She (and the others) have done a lot to fix the afterlife system, so I find this to be a fitting resolution for her. In fact, I think an ending like this would have been great for all four of our humans. It would have been especially interesting in contrast to Michael—the architect becomes a human and the humans become architects. (And it definitely would have been a better ending than having them walk through the damn door.)

I have some mixed feelings about Janet. She didn’t get a real ending, she just continued to be her charming herself. On the one hand, it feels unfair that all the other main characters received some sort of a resolution, and my favorite character from the show did not. It feels like all she did in the episode was support the others; she deserved more than that. On the other hand, Janet is absolutely forking amazing the way she is, and it’s good to know that she’ll get to keep being amazing forever. (Sidenote: Loved the glimpse of her in the purple pajamas. :o) )

In regards to Eleanor, Chidi and Jason…

Jason essentially turning into a monk by accident—and not as a torture method—was not what I’d call a happy ending, but it was a funny ending, so I’m okay with that. (Sidenote: After that scene where he was first meant to walk through the door, I called it that he wouldn’t walk through yet and he’d make a surprise appearance later.)

I like that walking through the door didn’t simply destroy the humans but turned them into those little voices in people’s heads. It felt true to the show. The show is about learning to be better, and Eleanor always said that it was a little voice in her head that was compelling her to do so. To see her become a good person and turn into that little voice for someone else, to teach and guide others with what she’s learned… It seemed very appropriate that walking through the door would have this effect. However…

I do not like the idea of the door existing in the first place. At all. This is something I hated as soon as it was brought up as a concept in the “Patty” episode, and I still hate it, even now that we got to see what it does. I really, really wish this had not been an aspect of the show’s ending.

First of all, I just don’t understand how spending eternity in the Good Place (where you can get and experience anything you could possibly want, including real magic, things that would be impossible in the real world) could lead to eternal apathy and boredom rather than eternal happiness. The very idea of that is something I disagreed with and disliked. They have magic doors that can take them to any reality they want! They have Janets, who can make anything they want for them! The time is infinite, yes, but so are the possibilities! Honestly, if I had been in the Good Place and started to feel unhappy, I’d just ask a Janet to make me some magical piece of candy that, if I eat it, will stop me from feeling bored and apathetic and make me feel happy forever. Bing! Problem solved, no suicide-door necessary.

Which brings me to the second thing I hated: this dumb problem had an even worse solution. People in the Good Place are not satisfied, and the solution is to create a forking suicide-door? Really? They basically said: “Are you not having fun in the afterlife anymore? Don’t bother trying to make yourself feel happy again. Just walk through this door and kill yourself! It’s painless! :)” What a depressing message to end the show on, especially after spending four seasons by telling us that we shouldn’t give up when things are hard, that we should keep trying to better ourselves and the world. They spent four seasons telling us that people can become better and improve their lives if they stick together. The ending then had them leave each other one by one to kill themselves because they thought that their lives (/afterlives) couldn’t improve anymore. How is that a fitting ending for the show? Answer: It’s not.

(And don’t come at me with any “death is what gives life purpose and meaning” because that’s absolute bullshirt in my opinion. If that’s how you look at life—you do you, but I do not share this worldview.)

I’ve seen a bunch of people call the finale “satisfying” and “comforting,” but I really don’t see it that way. At all. No matter what the show tried to say, the fact is that people don’t kill themselves when they’re happy and at peace. People kill themselves when life becomes so miserable that death starts to seem like the lesser evil. Seeing three of the main characters end up like that… Being told that, in this fictional world, everyone will end up like that… That’s not satisfying. That’s not comforting. That’s forking depressing.

Maybe I’m biased, I don’t know, but, to me, creating the door honestly felt a lot like a pro‑suicide message. And you know what? In real life, I’m not against letting people who don’t want to live anymore die. Life is not a fairy tale. Sometimes people get terminal illnesses that cannot be cured and they have to spend the rest of their lives in pain. Life can reach a point where all hope is lost and the best thing to do is end it before it gets even worse. But this is, like, the most depressing thing about life. I didn’t want this show, which had previously been making me so very happy, to suddenly remind of that fact at the end. I didn’t want this show to endorse the idea that life just sucks beyond repair and there’s nothing we can do to fix it (especially since they made it sound as though life will always end up sucking, no matter what—even if you’re living in literal paradise where you can get anything you want).

I’m not saying this just because I personally prefer stories with happy endings over depressing ones, which admittedly I do. Strongly. But honestly, even if I pretend that I don’t have this preference, I still think this was not a good ending for the show. It did not suit the show. There were almost four entire season full of hope, and the ending got suddenly hopeless. Four seasons that promoted trying to improve, then suddenly an ending that endorsed giving up. Four seasons about sticking together, then suddenly an ending about leaving each other. Four seasons full of fun, then suddenly an ending that bummed me the fork out. And sure, sometimes you have stories where something that was true throughout the whole thing is suddenly changed in a surprise twist and whatnot (see the season 1 finale), but why would you want to abandon something that’s been so positive for four years and give it such a negative, depressing twist? On a show like this? On a comedy show about bettering yourself, the final twist is that everybody gives up? That just doesn’t feel right to me.

Frankly, I would have liked it a lot more if the show had ended with the “Mondays, Am I Right?” episode. That ending would have been a lot more satisfying, comforting, hopeful and happy than the real ending was. Plus, if they had not done the last 2/3 episodes, then instead they could have stretched the first 11 into 13/14. Frankly, I thought there were things that were rushed and not explored enough, mainly the creation of the afterlife tests. (Sidenote: Ooh! I just had an idea: imagine how cool it would have been if the series finale had been about Michael going through these tests! Over and over, gradually improving, until finally passing and thereby truly cementing his redemption from a literal demon. Or maybe the finale could have been about all the six characters going through the tests; I bet Janet would have nailed hers on the first try, hee!) (Sidenote #2: Also, with this added time, we could have gotten to see more of Disco Janet, hehehe. That could have been fun.) In the end, the show would have said goodbye by having the characters set off for the Good Place. The way the real Good Place looks and works? In spite of the show’s title, I do think this could have been left to our imaginations and it would have been just fine (definitely better than what we got…).

In my opinion, if the writers really wanted to see the Good Place before the story ended, they shouldn’t have made it so stupidly flawed. And if they really wanted to have a stupid flaw, they shouldn’t have solved it in such a stupid way. They could have found a solution that didn’t sound like glorification of suicide. They could have found a solution that would have been nice to see, and then they could have let the four humans become architects instead of making them want to kill themselves. They could have (should have, in my opinion) given this show a happy ending. This show has always been so fun and full of hope—it deserved a happy ending. It deserved an ending that was not depressing and hopeless. Sadly, that’s the ending we got.

I should say, however, that even though I am not happy with the way the show ended, I still love the show as a whole. Also, even though I am not happy with the way the show ended, it was still better than the end of HIMYM. :D

Peace!

#The Good Place spoilers #TGP spoilers #The Good Place #spoiler #original post #OOP #I wrote the first draft of this right after I watched the episode #but it was more of an emotionally charged rambling than a coherent text #so I figured I’d sit on it awhile and rewrite it with a clearer head #but then I kind of stopped being active here #but I’m here now so here you go #enjoy my rant

[words-writ-in-starlight]

🍪 take a cookie because you deserve it :),, also please tell me about geralt and yennifer and also is the witcher easy to watch without knowing much about the source material ???

I watched three episodes of Witcher with zero context whatsoever, understood everything, enjoyed it hugely, read about 200K of fic, watched three more episodes, read the first book in the series, and finished the show.  As long as you are prepared for the fact that, A, the timelines of the three main characters converge, they are not concurrent, and, B, it’s not Game of Thrones and it’s not trying to be Game of Thrones, you will be ABSOLUTELY fine.

(Do critics just…not use critical thinking skills?  Half of everyone I’ve talked to said that this show was impossible to follow.  It is not impossible to follow.  Yennefer and Geralt are just really old.  Also, everyone and their cousin is like “well it’s not GoT” yeah???? Obviously????  “This isn’t chili” “No, it’s chicken pot pie” “I wanted chili” “Then go have some chili I guess???  This is chicken pot pie.  Still a food, just not that food.”  It’s not Game of Thrones.  If you want Game of Thrones, go watch that instead, or read the books, or maybe watch some Avatar and calm down.  Stop crucifying every fantasy product for not being Game of Thrones II.)

TL;DR: Yeah dude you’ll be totally fine, watch this show.  And then if you don’t mind spoilers for the rest of the (book and game) series, read Astolat’s Witcher fic.

ANYWAY

Geralt and Yennefer.  This got…very long.

Here’s the fairly unique emotion I’m feeling about this relationship: I think it’s absolutely in-character and believable, I’m completely convinced that Geralt and Yennefer would end up together, and I am equally convinced that their relationship has a pretty hard expiration date on it.  I’m not sure I’ve ever actually been interested in a relationship dynamic that I took one look at and went “oh, wow, this is going to break down hard the second your need to help people even when they hate you and her need to get revenge on people who hate her are in conflict.”  That’s very novel for me, because normally I like endgame relationships.  I find breakup drama exhausting.  I have dumped two people ever and both times I was very nice for ten minutes and then very short-tempered for the rest of the conversation.

But I’m really invested in the breakdown here.  And I’m really invested in how completely inevitable the relationship is, despite what I consider to be the equally inevitable calamitous breakup.

The thing is, Geralt has lived his entire life as a witcher, which means that the world is divided into two groups for him: people who are dependent on him as a witcher, and people who hate and fear him as a witcher.  (There are also Other Witchers, but with so few of them left that they fall pretty heavily into the ‘people who depend on him’ category.)  There is a not-inconsiderable amount of overlap in that Venn diagram, but that’s pretty much how it is on this bitch of a Continent.  The people who Geralt is drawn to, in whatever context, tend to be the rare handful who fall outside that binary metric in some way.

Renfri could use help from him, but she’s more than able to handle herself.  In fact, when the chips are down, her final gamble is to just remove him from the field of play, and try to resolve the situation alone.

Triss needs him in a professional capacity, but she brings just as much to the table as he does, both in terms of political knowledge about the striga situation and in terms of dragging his battered ass out of the castle before he can quietly bleed out.  She’s not looking for a rescuer, she’s looking for a tank to complement her glass cannon.

Jaskier needs Geralt to save him (in the show)…but only because he was usually the one to get them into trouble in the first place.  And he sticks around once he’s been saved, once he isn’t depending on Geralt to get him out alive anymore.

Even Ciri, who is absolutely dependent on him in a very literal and legal sense, is distinctly different from the general populace, who need a witcher to pull them out of trouble.  She’s one of probably very few people who’s ever been dependent on Geralt as a person, rather than a hired killer.  Sure, it’s helpful that he can kill anyone who looks crooked at her, but she also needs to eat, and to learn to use a sword, and to be trained in things like magic and languages, and all the things that a kid needs from a parent.  That’s radically different from Geralt’s experience of being depended on as a witcher.

But Yennefer…Yennefer doesn’t need Geralt.  She’s not dependent on Geralt.  She’s not afraid of Geralt in any way, let alone just because he’s a witcher–in fact, she barely seems to notice that he’s a witcher, except in the way that it makes them alike.  Geralt’s taste in partners is obviously “people who are not afraid of him” with very few other requirements, and Yennefer is a powerful mage, someone who would be able to take down a witcher without difficulty.  She’s also well-educated, very clever, and completely fearless about the world in general.  That’s everything Geralt finds compelling, all with the added bonus of an extremely pretty face.  It makes complete narrative sense that Geralt is in love with her.

Incidentally I do not believe that Geralt wished for Yennefer to be in love with him, because it wouldn’t track with the rest of his character and would be a level of vulnerability he works hard to avoid.  I do believe that he might have said something rash like “I wish I wouldn’t lose her” and now they are here.  It’s important to think your wishes through when dealing with an angry wish-granting being.

On Yennefer’s end of things, she has only ever wanted two things: to be respected and to be wanted.  In any capacity that might be available to her.  I think this is really the major driving force of her desire to have children–she’s not overwhelmingly interested in children as a phenomenon, and I think that in another life she wouldn’t want them.  But she said it herself, she wants a child because she always wanted to be important to someone.  It’s not about the kid.  She’s obsessed with the idea that she will always be important to a child.  A child would be completely dependent on her, completely devoted to her, no matter what.

(Side note: this is a bad reason to have kids!  Geralt is right and she would be a bad mother.  She’s also obsessed with having kids because she can’t handle the revelation that she’s not happy with the deal she made, and she’s focused all that discontent into the literal, tangible loss of being able to carry a child.  But “Yennefer actually probably does not want a child and is rampantly projecting all her issues onto the most readily available problem she can find” is a separate post.  Probably the first pregnancy-centric plotline I’ve ever been able to handle without feeling violently dysphoric, though.)

The thing is, when she meets Geralt during the djinn fiasco, he needs her.  He’s dependent on her.  She’s important to him because of what she can do for him, which is how she’s set up her life.  When he comes back to save her, though, he’s not doing it for payment, or for a favor, or for any of the other clean, linear exchanges that Yennefer is used to.  He just…comes back.  For her.  Because she’s a person.

Yennerfer has never been important just as…a person, before.  She’s important as a mage, she’s important as a student, she’s important as a project or a protector.  But from the second Geralt comes back for her, she’s important to him as a person.  The fact that almost any person would be on the level of “important enough to save from a rampaging djinn and their own stupidity” to Geralt is completely superfluous to how hard that hits Yennefer.  Of course she’s in love with him.  Of course she keeps looking for him, keeps pouring on the charm whenever she’s with him–she wants him to keep wanting her.  Because that’s how she knows to make herself important to someone, is to make them want her.

(This is also where it gets interesting with Ciri, because…well, if Yennefer really just wanted kids, she could do worse than the news of the girl who’s Geralt’s daughter in the eyes of the law.  But she’s furious, because her views of family are intensely skewed and limited by her experiences.  Also a separate post that I will probably make after reading some more of the books.)

Regarding the inevitably dramatic breakdown of their relationship (beyond the falling out over the djinn thing, which, see above), I think they’re under the impression that if they do it right, they could stand the test of time.  They’re both extremely long-lived, so the test of time has the potential to be a while, but I frankly don’t think they’d make it outside of a conflict-heavy environment (like, say, a war).  When they have a mutual goal, or at least a mutual enemy, Geralt and Yennefer work together like a right and left hand.  When they do not, they fall apart something fierce, because they’re driven by intrinsically different motives.  Geralt, for all that he tries to be as cynical as possible, has been trained his entire life to protect people, and considers it a worthwhile goal in and of itself.  Yennefer, on the other hand, is as innately self-motivated as Geralt pretends to be, which means that she’s driven heavily by what feels best for her in the moment.  Sometimes that means healing a wounded bard and talking quietly with a witcher about their mutual scars!  Sometimes that means leaving a woman to die for calling her a worthless bitch!  This is a morally neutral statement that I’m making, there’s a generous and an ungenerous way to read Yen’s decisions, but I think we can agree that she’s not exactly following a rulebook here.  Yennefer has her goals and she’s going to achieve them, and fuck you for getting in her way.

Including Geralt.

I think that, virtually without question, Yennefer’s self-oriented hedonistic drive and Geralt’s protection-based code will clash, and their relationship will break down in spectacular fireworks.  Having to self-determine, during peace time, is practically guaranteed to bring those two motivating factors into conflict eventually.  Because during peace time, Geralt will be back to being the hated witcher and Yennefer won’t have a better enemy to focus on than the civilians he risks his life for on the regular.  And Geralt demonstrably does not respond well to that.

#the witcher #witcher #netflix witcher #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #geralt x yennefer #...sort of #starlight writes stuff #anyway yes i am fascinated and also absolutely convinced of the fact that their relationship will eventually go supernova #this is actually only a fraction of my thoughts on the subject as evidenced by my plethora of parentheticals #but it got so long that i had to shut up and go to bed #i didn't even get into my weird emotional state on yennefer #i don't like her much! ...MOST of the time! #when she's around geralt i really genuinely like her as a person #and that GLARING difference is really interesting to me #because it doesn't scan as completely manipulative i think she really does care for him #but she's also showing him SUCH an incredibly different side of herself that he would be denounced as a liar if he ever mentioned it #i think she's really latched onto their shared magical mutation with the assumption that he's as angry as she is #and it causes her to show him a whooooole other self #i'm fascinated #i do not believe they would work out and i don't think it would be good for them (esp geralt) if they tried #but i am fascinated #my gf bought me witcher 3 and i've been reading the books so it's safe to say that i have more comments #jothjimbo #asked and answered #a queue we shall keep and our honor someday avenge

[tessatechaitea]

Justice Society of America #3

In this issue: old guys versus monkey monsters! I don't know how this issue didn't win a Harvey.

This comic book might have won a Harvey. What am I? Wikipedia? An adult capable of doing research? No, I'm a lazy, cynical, piece of shit who purports to be a comic book critic but who really just uses the medium as a confessional. And most of my confessions are lies to make me sound cooler than I really am! Which is still pretty cool, actually. This issue begins with an old guy stowing away on an Ultragen train car while suffering from sever cramps or possibly even a heart attack.

Is this a super hero comic book or an Alfred Hitchcock movie?

Now that I'm an older man (not old! Just older!), I don't fetishize old men like I did when I was five. But I'm guessing, at 21, I still had a bit of that zest for old man content. What else could drive me to purchase ten issues of this comic book about old men whose glory days are long past but they keep trying to relive them as their wives sit at home rolling their eyes? The stranger stumbles into Doctor Mid-Nite's offices. I guess he's named that because his medical practice stays open all night? The man has something wrong with his stomach. Judging by the strange colored splotches all over his clothing, I'd say he ate too much chili. Or he's bleeding out from a gut shot. Both are probably pretty painful but I can only speak for one. You'd be surprised which one. No you wouldn't. I was just trying to sound cool again. The mystery man from the end of the last issue was Johnny Quick and, judging by how much I'm now yawning and how my head keeps nodding forward, I'd like to apologize for claiming that revealing his identity would have been more exciting and sold more of the third issue. Len was right to conceal his identity. While the Justice Society were keeping Ragnarok from happening, Johnny Quick got a gig endorsing nutritional supplements on late night television infomercials. He was laughed at by scientists when he tried to figure out why his nonsense formula made him so fast. They were all, "You know that's idiotic, right? We can do actual science tests to find out why you're fast. It's probably the Meta(l)gene, you know?" But Johnny didn't want to hear their scientific mumbo-jumbo (which might make him an ignorant jerk in our world but he lives in the comic book world where science can't explain everything and I sometimes why it even bothers to try to explain anything. I mean, X-ray vision? The power of flight? Helmets that grant magic powers by possessing the wearer with an ancient Great Old One of Order? Batman visiting heaven and Constantine visiting Hell? It's like an Anti-Vaxxer's dream reality come true). Instead, Johnny decided to visit a bunch of religious kooks who deal in utter nonsense every day. Unlike the scientists who needed proof and evidence of how his power worked, they were happy to say things like, "Oh, yeah! Your formula is a magic mantra that focuses your chi!" and "It's a message from God to grant you magic speed powers for being such a morally upstanding human being!" and "What exactly do you want to hear and how much will you pay me to hear it?" So after realizing that his super power came from believing in himself, Johnny Quick decided to tell everybody else to believe in themselves too! Did he invent The Secret? Because, as a narcissist, I understand why The Secret is so compelling! Doesn't everybody want to believe that they themselves are the reason all the best things happen to them and also want to believe that everybody who is poor or sick or devastated by random tragedy did it to themselves like big dumb suckers who just weren't strong enough to believe in themselves?! Obviously the only reason I didn't fall out of a tree and die when I was twelve years old was because I believed so strongly in myself and not because I was just another lucky asshole who somehow survived childhood. That's enough about Johnny Quick for the entire ten issues of this comic book that I own. I'm never fucking mentioning that jerk again. I don't care if he becomes super important to the plot! I'm erasing him from history right now! Although I'll probably still discuss Jesse Quick when she turns back up because she's hot. Oh what the hell. One last parting shot at Johnny!

Maybe if you spent less time trying to find the secret to your nonsense formula and more time trying to find Libby's clitoris, you'd still be together! By the look on Ted's face, I bet he could have helped!

Doctor Mid-Nite arrives to let everybody know that their favorite jazz musician died in his arms last night because he was too blind to save him. Probably. But what he discovered was that the man, Reggie, had signed up to become a test subject for Ultragen! He was locked away with a bunch of half-man, half-animal creatures as Ultragen searched for a drug that could make people youthful again. Apparently what the writer is saying is that corporations are the new Nazis. Maybe that's why I bought ten issues of this comic book! Because I was all, "Yeah! This analogy is so apt! Fucking corporations think they can get away with whatever they want! Where's my current girlfriend so I can mansplain this shit to her?!" I don't want to get too cynical here but what else am I supposed to do when a comic book asks me to just buy into this whole Doctor Mid-nite thing. So he goes blind when a grenade goes off in his face. But he discovers he can still see in the dark because, you know, fuck you and comic books and all that shit. We've already established that science doesn't live here. But I don't have a problem with that! Okay, great! So he can see in the dark but not in the light. His reaction to this is, "I should use this new power to fight crime! I just have to wait until a bank robbery happens in the middle of the night with a new moon perpetrated by a bunch of robbers who forgot their flashlights and whiz bang! I'll have the advantage!" I know, I know! He invents dark glasses so he can see while pretending to be blind. I guess that helps him catch muggers who prey on blind people. And then he created smoke bombs which are conceivably his best idea, creating pockets of dark where he would have the advantage against the criminals. But it's not like his eye-sight based super powers gave him the ability to fight well or gave him invulnerability in case of a lucky shot in the dark or allowed him to protect other people at the scene of the crime from stray bullets fired wildly out of the area of effect of his smoke bomb! Doctor Mid-Nite's whole deal is so implausible that it breaks even my capacity for disbelief while reading super hero comic books. It simply makes me think, "This guy sounds like a bad idea from a desperate writer looking for another big super hero hit." Which is what it was! Which is why it breaks the entire comic book! I'd be okay if it simply made me think, "This guy's an idiot with a dumb idea! It's going to get him killed! Ha ha! That'll probably be funny!" While Doctor Mid-Nite is conferring with the Justice Society about what to do with Ultragen, Ultragen is raiding the his free clinic. Luckily Johnny Thunder just happened to be stopping by, probably to get a check-up on his genie. He gets shot and his genie appears to help when a young girl comes up and is all, "Oh hey! I recognize that genie! It's a Badnesian Hex Bolt!" And the genie is all, "Yes, I am! Do you want me to inhabit you for awhile so I can get rid of this old guy (who isn't that old for some reason? Probably a reason that has to do with me living inside of him?)" I just feel like, with Jesse Quick appearing earlier, this series is headed toward creating a younger JSA so the older members can simply fall into the role of mentors. The Atom, Wildcat, and Doctor Mid-nite head off to investigate Ultragen's experimental laboratory and they make a discovery that causes me to literally kill myself because I was too stupid to call it.

This is Grunion Guy's assistant Pickle Boy. I think I'm supposed to make a naughty joke caption here? Like, um, "What is that guy's pee-pee doing inside that kangaroo?!"

Justice Society of America #3 Rating: Does anybody know how to get blood out of shag carpeting? Also, if a person's will is found written on used tissues (hopefully for his nose), is it legally binding because I don't want to inherit this blog and all of its debt.

#Justice Society of America #DC Comics #DC #Len Strazewski #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan

[comicbookuniversity]

Joker: A Review

TL;DR: Hated it.

Art, regardless of medium, is the sharing of a dream from one person or group to a wider audience, and a dream by its nature is an emotional experience of reality where the predictable and unforgiving laws of reality bends to the reactionary subjectivity of the heart. When it comes to narrative art, the goal of any narrative is show a transition from one emotional state to another of at least the protagonist, if not a larger number of characters. There is a conflict between wants and needs, and a rise and fall in emotional status until a final state is achieved. And the audience should have a parallel emotional transition as they experience the narrative. Whether we're talking about a beloved children's book or an Oscar Best Picture winner, they will all follow the same basic patterns of  arcs. Now, you might be asking what does this 101 definition have to do with anything? I bring it up because the Joker fails as a story in the most basic of understanding of what a story is supposed to accomplish.  

Let me be clear: I wanted to like this film and I tried not to create too many expectations about what it would say or do. I am, as many who know me, a massive superhero fan. I have encyclopedic knowledge of the multiverses that compose superhero worlds and of the lives of dozens of writers and artists who have worked within the relative niche industry that now serves as an IP farm for movie studios. I've read and watched plenty of teams tell stories with the same sets of characters with different tones and ideas, and I've enjoyed plenty of them. So the idea of a dark, gritty origin story for the Joker, perhaps the most famous supervillain of them all, was one I was interested in, if it could be pulled off by the team doing it. After all, the Joker has famously been without a true origin story for decades and this air of mystery has been a part of his gimmick from the start. And I'm all for a compelling villain; I don't have to agree with the moral choices or philosophies of "evil" characters in order to find them entertaining within the narrative. So bring it on, if it can be brought. 

But, it was not brought, and I sat through a two hour slog pretending to be art that made me mad, because it was a waste of talent, time, money, and was frankly insulting to their character it was supposed to be about. 

To be fair, Joaquin Phoenix clearly tried his best to bring his A game to this role that was so squarely centered around him, and he nearly carries the film to being in the territory of OK instead of bad on his performance alone. But the script fails him so hard that even his performance can't overcome it's shortcomings. And to continue to give praise where it is due, the production crew did a great job creating that NYC in the '70s on the brink of collapse look, and Phillips actually does a good job creating a Martin Scorsese direction facsimile. The problem is that the story fails so hard that anything where there was any talent put in was undone because it's all wasted in a story that goes nowhere. 

I don't want to spoil the plot, if it can be called a plot, but the emotional journey of Arthur Fleck, who will become the Joker, basically starts as a sad, angry man on medicine, gets shafted every chance the director can create, and ends with a sad angry man not on medication who is now violent. That's not a journey or even a mental breakdown. That's a man on medication to a man not being on medication who's grievances or needs never change, and who lashes out violently in a manner that's far too predictable and boring as hell. And the only noticeable difference between medication and the lack of it is a minor uptick in violent tendencies. He kills five people in the film, and three of them were while he was medicated. So there's no cathartic release for the audience, because there's no pay off to speak of from watching him go from employed Arthur Fleck to incarcerated Joker. 

The film wants us to feel for Arthur- to make you understand why he becomes the Joker, but fails to create any real reason for us to feel for him. They just keep presenting us with one indignity and injustice after another as if that were simply enough, but that’s not how stories work. Stories are about people in situations, so if you have a common/mundane situation, then you’re characters must be interesting/entertaining to compensate. Conversely, the reverse is true, so if your characters aren’t particularly interesting/entertaining, then the situation and the ideas embedded within the situation must be compelling or experimental. Arthur simply is not interesting, relatable, or entertaining; nor is his situation intrinsically exciting or uncommon. He’s sad, angry, and violent; and the greatest change is that he puts on makeup not related to his job, which could be representative of a dramatic psychological shift towards this larger than life persona, but it isn’t representative of any real internal change and merely a change in circumstances. 

There are villains who are compelling and entertaining, despite their moral choices, and their origins make them relatable. Look at Hannibal Lecter, Tyler Durden, Darth Vader, Erik Killmonger, and Michael Coreleone among a few select examples of villains with similar star power who are complex, sympathetic, and fascinating for their own reasons. They all serve as proof of villains as being central to good stories. Arthur is perhaps most similar to Tyler Durden, but Tyler had conflict with his desires and his desires had larger sociopolitical implications. Arthur has no conflict and his desires are not political. Basically, had he been given a little respect and found a job, then he’d have never become the Joker. That could be interpreted as the film showing the universal quality of the Joker identity; that it only takes one bad day to push us over the edge. But that’s insulting to the character and myth of the Joker. The Joker is not anybody who snaps after a series of bad events. He’s the clown prince of crime, and a monster so sadistic and feared that mobsters and supervillains alike tell stories about him as if he were a Boogeyman. Arthur Fleck is not as scary as some real life killers- let alone a tenth as scary as the reputation of the Joker built up over decades of stories. And then when you compare Phoenix’s Joker to all the previous Jokers who have come before him, not only does his Joker seem mild, he comes across as incompotent. It’s not as if comparisons can be ignored or are unwarranted; the Joker is an iconic figure. 

I would criticize how the subplots of the film don’t support Arthur’s journey, but there are no other subplots. Subplots would imply that there are other characters beyond Arthur the film wants to actively invest time in to create an emotional journey, but all other characters props for Arhtur. They don’t change and only exist to explore Arthur’s psyche. There’s an evolving idea of political unrest among the poor residents of Gotham and protests against the government and rich, but there’s no other character who is suffering as a direct result of the causes of the unrest or give voice to the concerns and issues. This is as close to a subplot that we are given. We primarily learn about this unrest through radio, TV broadcast, and an occasional line from a character. The film even attempts to connect Arthur’s actions to this unrest by making him an unlikely figure in it, but it never really explains why this is the case. The film simply expects the audience to accept that he has become this figure, and then despite his very public violent action, criminal confession, and public disavowment of the unrest, that he is accepted as some kind of folk hero by those who have for some reason made him into a symbol as they riot. 

The film has nothing to say as a result. It’s not about anything, and then it further perpetuates the idea of the mentally ill as dangerously violent. To recap, there’s only one character who remains static throughout the film, there are no other characters because they’re basically props, and it horribly wastes time and talent trying to tackle an iconic character with a story about nothing. And to top it off, it unnecessarily tries to tie itself to Batman’s origin by showing the Waynes getting killed on film for what might have been the 800,000th time. Gross. 

#the joker #joaquin phoenix #todd phillips #dc comics #joker

[timeisacephalopod]

Belated

I thought hmm, lets write a little Tony/Eddie/Venom thing for Reasons. And yeah I know Tony’s bday was two days ago but still. I’ve decided that this is a thing I have written for a fictional character’s belated birthday!

*

Tony’s half buried in paper work ready to throw all caution to the wind and throw himself out a window when Eddie walks in looking pleased with himself. Probably means he sniffed out a good story and he’s found something compelling but he doesn’t look like an absolute human disaster so he’s not too deep into it yet. Once he is he kind of looks like he’s homeless and Rhodey doesn’t really get the charm but Tony once watched Eddie overheat to the point of just fucking losing it and sitting in a lobster tank at one of the fanciest restaurants in Manhattan so he thinks Eddie is the best. Venom being around doesn’t seem to help that except now maybe he’ll eat the lobsters instead of just bothering the hell out of them.

“Happy birthday,” he says, walking over to him and behind his desk, greeting him with a kiss.

Except Tony’s kind of confused. “Wasn’t my birthday last week?” he asks and Eddie frowns.

“No, honey its today. I... who forgets their birthday? And why would you assume everyone in your life also forgot your birthday?” he asks. He looks extra confused but that’s probably just the way Eddie’s expressions work. Rhodey finds his over expressing annoying but Tony thinks it's endearing.

“You all have lives, its fine,” Tony says. Pepper’s always busy running around doing things for him, Eddie seems to have found himself some new thing to rip apart for the next couple months, and Rhodey regularly gets shot at so he figures they all have more pressing concerns. 

Eddie sighs. “Sometimes I think you’re a prick and then you do something sad like make excuses for why everyone in your life would forget you were born. We didn’t forget, Tony, you got the date wrong. How did you forget when you were born?”

He shrugs, “I don’t memorize useless details. And in your defense I am a prick,” he says. They both know it, though Eddie is obviously a lot less hostile then when they met. He seems to have fallen for Tony’s charms, which he’s been reliably informed are pretty disarming.

Eddie leans in and gives him another kiss, “no you’re not, but you play one well,” pulling away and dropping his bag on Tony’s desk. Its disrupted his thread bare attempt at organizing his own life- not exactly his strong suit admittedly not that he’d tell Eddie he's managed to mess up what little organization he had. He pulls a stack of files out of his bag and drops them on top of Tony’s already too large pile of paper work. “Happy birthday, an organized list of all the moral and ethical problems I have with your company,” he says, grinning like its the best gift ever.

Tony snorts and starts laughing, shuffling closer to Eddie. He lays one hand on Eddie’s hip and pokes at the pile of folders with the other. “Well this is... intimidating.”

“Yeah, but you’ll look through it all because you do genuinely want to be a good person. You should be glad I didn’t go with V’s gift,” he says, wincing.

Fuck, Tony can only imagine when one of the first five things he did in Eddie’s body was eat several people’s heads. Sure, V turned out to be an overly sappy romantic ass goo alien but that’s a pretty rough start to things and now Eddie has to live with kind of eating people that one time several times. “Was it flowers?” he asks.

Eddie laughs, “that was suggestion like... fifty two. After I banned violence, drugs, sex- don’t give me that look it was a soft ban because that’s not a present, terrorist activities, harassing children, petty crimes of all varieties, eating heads, murder, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, space, possession, and about a half a dozen other things. He’s not too good with presents.”

“Well, he did alright with the cat,” Tony points out. V doesn’t really get Christmas, turns out his species wasn’t too cuddly and had no holidays, but he does have all Eddie’s memories of it. Conveniently, he tends to lean more towards Eddie’s view of Christmas as mostly a capitalist holiday that’s far more about big businesses making money, overworking retail employees, and present buying pressure that leads to suicide than the happy stuff. And that doesn’t even touch on Eddie’s view of religion. Though to be fair V probably gathered a lot more religious vitriol from Tony than Eddie.

“He’s threatened to eat that cat at least once a day since he decided to pick it out. Claims he’s a dog person,” Eddie says.

“Dogs are bigger, usually, so I’m not really surprised. More meat.” Given the look on Eddie’s face Tony’s going to assume V has agreed with that statement.

“We are not eating dogs,” Eddie hisses. Mostly he only does that around Tony, but its hilarious when he does it in public because most people don’t really recognize him anymore so he looks like a homeless loon being led around by a celebrity. Or at least he did before he became recognizable again through Tony’s fame and yeah, Tony knows all Eddie’s opinions on celebrity culture. None of them are positive and yeah, Tony can see why that is.

“Tell V to go hunt New York rats at night. He might have fun with that,” Tony says. “Wait, does Venom have a birthday? That a thing his species does?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Says he doesn’t have a proper earth date translation for his hatching day and I know he didn’t come from an egg so that’s a horrifying term to use. Do not enlighten me, V. I’m happy to stay in the dark.” He makes another face and Tony assumes V has let out some detail Eddie didn’t want to hear.

“That ever get annoying, the voice in your head?” he asks. Feels like it’d be exhausting. Tony doesn’t even like his own voice in his head let alone some random alien who decided pretty much on a whim to save the world strictly because he likes Eddie. Though to be fair Riot was an asshole and Tony was sick of being compared to Carlton Drake anyway. Guy was like cartoonishly evil. Though Tony will admit that he was good looking and damn smart, even if that didn’t really turn out to be a good thing later.

“Sometimes,” Eddie says, “but mostly  V offers some good entertainment on human customs. Turns out his species tended to eat each other to solve problems. He thinks our petty politics is fun to watch.”

Yeah, an alien would find that funny. Or everyone outside of America at least until America decides to invade for oil or some other resource. “So who did he want to possess?” Tony asks, grinning.

“No!” Eddie says, presumably to him and Venom.

*

Tony’s laying in bed pretending to have died when Eddie walks over and crawls over him, laying his entire weight on Tony’s back. He sighs because of course Eddie would find the most inconvenient way to get him to stop taking up the entire bed. “This is a king and you’re like three feet tall. How is it that you take up so much space?” Eddie asks as Tony starts wiggling around.

“Ask the cat, she’s a hell of a lot smaller than me and she always manages to take up at least half the bed.” Eddie rolls off and Tony props himself up. “Thanks for the present by the way, half the stuff you pointed out happens to be things I was already looking to fix.” But Eddie is a fuck of a lot picker than him and its nice to have someone trying to hold him to account. And Eddie has no problem doing so, he gives Tony his opinion on a lot of things all the time whether or not he wants to hear them.

“Yeah, I got you something else too but its taking eighty years in the mail so I had to improvise,” Eddie says.

“Let me guess, you refuse to use Amazon,” Tony says.

“Look, that fuckstick can’t even pay his workers and he’s the richest guy in the world, and what’s all that crazy shit about pissing in-” Eddie starts but Tony cuts him off before he really gets going.

“Jeff Bezos is a prick, I get it. Actually, might get stuck at the same charity event with him next week so I can bring you along if you want to punch him,” Tony says.

The bright look of unbridled glee in Eddie’s eyes makes him smile. Yeah, he’s maybe argued a lot about Tony’s wealth, but he at least appreciates that Tony does his best to spread it around a little. Its just that he has trust issues and he knows how corporate charity works- its all tax write offs and siphoning money out of most of the ‘donations.’ So he does his best to do his research and lucky him Eddie is probably a little too good at it so he’s got some more reputable charities to share with. And he thinks its fun to pay off random people’s debt. If he’s having a bad day he’ll pick a person and bam, debt free. He likes making people happy so Eddie only kind of side eyes his money.

Generally that means he only brings it up like twice a day instead of non-stop and if nothing else Tony can appreciate that he’s passionate about his views. Rhodey thinks he’s annoying but Rhodey isn’t dating him so he can deal with it.

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie says but the way he says it tells Tony that he’s not talking to him.

“Do not eat his head, V!” Tony says, panicked. “I do not want to deal with the fallout of that. Just ruin his life like a normal person. Get JARVIS to help, he’s been helpful in my long standing efforts to ruin Hammer.”

“Yeah, pretty sure all you two have managed to do is turn Hammer into the knockoff version of you, but he uh... seems to like that so I don’t know.”

Tony damn well knows he looks offended because that’s the fucking rudest shit he’s ever heard. “What did you just call Hammer?” he asks.

Eddie realizes his mistake right away and Tony fucking resents that he looks a little dead behind the eyes because he was the one who damn well decided Hammer was good enough to be the anything version of him. “I would sooner take Carlton Drake as the cheap version of me than Hammer,” Tony hisses. “At least Drake was actually smart and hot! What’s Hammer? He looks like he came out of the womb dressed as the class clown who decided to be an accountant!”

Honestly Tony resents that Eddie sighs at that. “No V, you can’t eat Hammer’s head,” Eddie mumbles.

“Yes you can,” Tony tells him.

*

Tony’s attempting to make coffee while also ignoring Eddie due to his previous transgressions. Compare him to Hammer on his birthday. The disrespect. Eddie walks out of their bedroom and Tony resolutely ignores him as he starts looking around the pent house for some reason. Tony side eyes him as he moves a bunch of papers around- Eddie’s, not his, knocks the pillows off the couch, and picks up the cat. He looks at Cotton for a moment, frowning before he shakes her a little. She meows in an annoyed, disgruntled way and Eddie sighs, releasing the cat.

“Uh, the fuck are you doing?” Tony asks eventually.

Looking for me says a voice in his head and Tony throws his coffee cup, startling so badly his entire body jerks and he slips, falling on his ass.

“Oh thank god I thought he went and possessed some random secretary so he could go eat heads!” Eddie says, rushing over to him.

“Oh no, you stay back there you don’t get to come near me or V after comparing Hammer to me!” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Eddie sighs. “Tony-” he starts but Tony has already picked himself up and turned around with his arms crossed, ignoring him.

So rude. Venom agrees. We should eat Hammer V says, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Tony sighs and it pains him to do this, truly. “V, we can’t actually eat Hammer,” he says in perhaps the most dejected, upset tone he’s ever produced.

Eddie gives him, Venom technically, an offended look. “You decided to crawl into him in the middle of the night and risk killing him so you could eat someone?” he asks, hand pressed to his heart quite like an offended PTA mom. “V, you better get your ass back in here!” Eddie tells him, pointing at himself.

He compared you to Hammer. We should leave him, go sight seeing V says.

Tony rolls his eyes. “V you aren’t going to manipulate me into carrying your ass out of here because Eddie put you in the dog house.”

“Venom!” Eddie says, voice rising.

Tony swears to god he feels Venom extend from his body and that is some worrying fucking shit how’s Eddie put up with that? “Tony thinks you sound like an offended PTA mom,” Venom tells Eddie and Tony squints.

“Since when the hell are you a rat?” he asks.

Venom turns to face him, “you take that back! I am not vermin!”

“No, technically you’re a parasite now get back here,” Eddie tells him.

“Maybe I will find a new home with hosts who appreciate me,” Venom says, sinking back into Tony and he does not like that.

“How do you get these things out?” he asks.

Eddie walks over and leans in, squinting at Tony shrewdly except he’s actually looking at Venom and Tony’s not sure how he knows that. “If you don’t get back in me I will play Bohemian Rhapsody at top volumes with Tony pressed against the speaker!” he hisses.

“That kind of sounds like fun minus the speaker thing,” Tony says.

“They don’t do so well with loud noises and vibrations,” Eddie explains and oh, that makes sense. Tony watches as black goo extends from his hand to Eddie’s and it almost looks resentful for it. Or maybe Tony’s imagining that.

Tony gives Venom a sad look as the last of him disappears back into Eddie. “I’m so sad he won’t ever experience Freddy Mercury like the rest of us,” he says, hand pressed to his heart.

Eddie sighs. “V says your music taste is heinous and he would rather listen to my music.”

He listens to exclusively shitty electronica music. “I’m leaving you both,” Tony tells him, turning and walking away.

#tony x eddie brock #tony x eddie brock x venom #fanfiction #alternate universe

[glorious-sea-pancakes]

*steeples fingers thoughtfully* ..... I personally believe Genji makes more sense as an Aromantic character.  And this is coming from an Aro/Ace person. Genji very much reads to me as an Aro person because I see some of myself in him. No ship I’ve seen him in really reads as... 100% sincere to me. I can definitely see him being VERY close to Angela because of obvious reasons. Same thing with Zenyatta. Same with McCree and Lucio. But not... romantic. At least not what most people would understand as romance. 

Maybe it is because I just don’t find any of the Genji ships very compelling. But, then again, I may find them compelling if I perceived actual chemistry there. Instead I find it WAY more compelling to have him as confused, conflicted, and strangely relieved as I am.  

I need more depictions of clan Gengoo not really giving his lack of relationships a second thought. Because Genji sure as fuck doesn’t read as asexual. I mean, come on, kid was surely a junkie for any kind of thrill and rebellion. Having tons of lovers and complete freedom to be an absolute hedonist seems to fit him well. Not to mention he was attractive, rich, and powerful. No way he wasn’t getting more ass than a public toilet seat.

I can see spoiled and selfish but well meaning genji hopping from bed to bed, maybe trying out relationships that would tie the clan elders in knots but never staying long. Because he really did like that omnic but he also enjoyed the company of that poly amorous trio as well as that man and that woman and and and. But this is not a poly genji! No, genji wasn’t attached That Way to any of them and didnt feel any regret when he wandered off. He missed them but not in a Airborne Toxic Event “Sometime Around Midnight” sort of way. The way you would miss a friend. Maybe a little more than most people miss a friend. But he can live without them easily and he definitely wouldn’t feel moved to cry. 

Maybe he tried to be friends with some of his lovers after breaking up and was a little confused why sometimes people just couldn’t move on the way he could. The way he did. He might have felt a little like a bad person for causing someone he cared about heartbreak. Maybe he would feel a little bit like a bad person for not feeling heartbreak himself like he has been told by culture he should be feeling. Genji TRYING to channel that Sometime Around Midnight feel but just can’t muster it up in his heart. Hell, the dramatic little turd may have pretended and Hanzo’s reaction to that would be interesting and pretty funny. Because Hanzo loves like the average person and he can read Genji like a book and throws darts at Genji until he knocks it off.   Then Genji is a broken and lonely man. His big brother turned on him. The only person he really loved because family is a love he understands. Their parents may have already broken Genji’s heart and trust long ago but Hanzo is a deep cut. THIS is heartbreak. I doubt romantic love once crossed genji’s mind while he was in blackwatch. He was too busy coming to terms with his body and obsessing over what happened. Anyone stupid enough to flirt with or connect with genji would find a sword at their throat. Because genji is too disgusted by his body to enjoy physical pleasure and how DARE they try to know him.  Fast forward to genji post zenyatta, now at peace and happy. He’s better than he ever has been. He’s grown up, grown some self awareness and maturity while rediscovering his childish wonder and playfulness. Not everything is easy but all life has its challenges. He has accepted his body as much as he can and doesn’t resent it for what it is anymore. There are good days and bad days. Genji may still miss his fully human appearance, may feel a little uncomfortable indulging in sex again. Crossing that bridge would be a very slow reluctant journey. 

And yet! The appeal of sex has waned too. Because he has finally embraced his true moral compass without the clan stifling him. He has seen his flaws and his strengths and is a better person. So... shouldn’t he feel more attached to people? Surely that lack was a symptom of his selfishness. He isn’t that selfish boy anymore, right? Imagine genji trying out a romance and being so bewildered and conflicted because he STILL feels insincere and still could take or leave being tied to someone. It isn’t that he doesn’t care, not at all. He adores this person. He just hasn’t fallen in love. 

Maybe he is doing it wrong! But trying has mixed results and ‘try’ isn’t a great operative word in such circumstances. So maybe he just... shouldn’t worry about it and do his own thing. And so he does. And he still pauses when he cares about someone and wonders if this is what a Love feels like and isn’t really sure. He adores Zenyatta and Mercy and McCree and Lucio. He wants to keep them around, to keep living with them and seeing them every day when he wakes up. But he still doesn’t really love them in quite the right way. 

Sometimes he feels like his lack of romantic angst is a bit of a cop out, that on some level not aching over a relationship was the easy way out. Or his lack of emotional attraction a result of the agony he endured, a sign that he’s broken and not fully put back together, just as piecemeal as his body. Genji would have to balance that pain and uncertainty over what happened every day for the rest of his life even having moved on. That’s life. And his lack of romance is one of those things that bothers him a little yet can’t really be resolved. Just like his body.

One of the main themes with Genji is freedom. His nickname is sparrow and clasically bird = freedom. Genji’s entire backstory was that he was too wild and free to be kept by the Shimada clan and had to be put down for it. Then he was caged by his grief and feeling of betrayal for so long only to be set free again by Zenyatta. To a degree, one could say Genji being aromantic would be another symbol of that freedom. 

#overwatch headcanons #genji #genji shimada

[dhominis]

drunkblogging. Obvious CWs for alcohol use, brief mention of emesis. Also introspection.

(Until alcohol, I’d never experienced consciousness without rapid-fire dialectical barrages of thought.)

Until alcohol, I’d never experienced consciousness without rapid-fire dialectical barrages of thought. My experience of self is a constant stream of new topics and analysis and morally neutral whataboutism -- my brain is constantly sealioning -- nothing goes unexamined, though frequently poorly examined -- and I love it, I do, I enjoy existing as this self, but it never shuts up. Sleep: every night, at least half an hour (and generally more like an hour) of herding the thoughts into a little corner, telling the brain patiently parent-like no we’re not thinking right now we’re blank we’re pretending the whole world isn’t interesting --

Just this side of unsustainable. Every night; every minute of every day. It never shuts up. And the warnings about even mild alcohol intoxication -- drinking makes you stupid, doncha know? Until I started, I’d never understood the appeal of stupidity, but it makes sense. Not stupidity, but for once in my life, peace and quiet.

As much as I claim to hate my homeland, I sure drink like a native. Not beer, at least, there’s still that, but sizable quantities of liquor... the cheap stuff, shitty vodka that raises BAC fast. No lingering taste of hops. Low volume of liquid.

Sober, I cannot even aspire to unselfconsciousness. Even when it’s good. Successes I analyze to death: these are the actions I’ve taken, these are the aspects of my personality that contributed, these the environmental factors, these the key figures. This mind does meaning-making exceedingly well; this mind is beautiful but high-maintenance. I need people -- I need many friends, many mentors. I need polyamory, too. It is impossible for a single person to fulfill all of one role in my life. Except the self, because even if it’s impossible I have to; can’t have anyone fill in for me, for what I am to myself.

The mind is beautiful but the person, the I, the metacogniteur -- the self gets tired. When sober, at least.

Drunk I can listen to music and be engulfed. I can lie down and listen to a good song and that’s enough for the intoxicated mind. I can think, I can analyze, but it requires focus -- sober the base state is endless extrapolation of endless potentialities and eventualities and externalities. Drunk I can do this but not at as high a level, much slower, and only voluntarily. That’s the key; when drunk it’s voluntary. Sober a wide fast river filled with junk -- but not a river, a rushing estuary with the tide coming in --

I wasn’t sober while writing this post, though likely you’ve already picked up on that (or not? theory of mind goes downhill too). After two or three drinks, inhibition begins to plummet and my brain quiets a bit. Right now I’ve had... well, not two or three. More like four or five before starting to write, and more in the process. Excess, probably -- not something I indulge in often (two or three typically is enough for stress reduction, for sleep), but enough to be confident in saying excess. Enough to be drunk, and enough so that cognition is entirely unintrusive when I’m not trying to bring it to the surface. (When the self isn’t trying, rather. Good and accurate to think of I as instead the self.) Enough nausea I’ve been careful to ensure I have a suitable receptacle for vomiting... and that safeguard took a few minutes to put in place, but cognition still works when I’m drunk, just slower.

Slower. Usually I’ve got a sublime mismatch between the speed the brain is built to handle and the speed at which the consciousness moves. The quasireligious quasipsychotic experiences in which this brain specializes, those local maxima in meaning-making, they’re absent when the cognition of the self is impaired.

A hypothetical counterfactual billboard on one of my beloved Midwestern highways, right next to a warning of eternal damnation: Budweiser. Neurotoxicity you can trust. Not a real ad but not unrealistic. I don’t trust my homeland’s culture. Is this bad, though? Unhealthy? More unhealthy than my baseline?

Not a question I can answer. Yet. Probably yes, I know, but even so I’ll give it a while before [I decide|the self decides]. I don’t do this often and on both sides of the family there’s a history of alcoholism and other abuses of psychotropics. One parent uses (both use, if we’re being a bit more lenient) alcohol for purposes more related to coping than to enjoyment. In writing this: frequently I must backtrack, fix typos. It’s difficult. Accurate and coherent text is easy, usually, for me. This is (I think) coherent, if concerning in style and content, but this limited coherence required as much editing as my poor poisoned frontal lobe can take. The posting is more impulsive; generally when I present a facet of myself to any sort of public, it’s after quite a bit of deliberation.

Motor function is impaired. I am past the point of caring. So what if I struggle to stand? So what if the speech is slurred? Those traits shouldn’t be stigmatized, after all. (The willing induction of them should be, maybe -- the sober self would find that a patently convincing argument but the current self doesn’t care quite enough to find it even slightly compelling. Luckily the sober self is the one that makes that initial decision to imbibe.) And the brain is for once cooperative, it has at least shut up, the constant stream of thoughts has slowed to a trickle or even when lucky to a void vacant gully, a streambed. And so even if the body’s movements are fluid and unpredictable, I always have cared more about cognition than about motion. This I need, now.

There should, I know, be general takeaways from this disjointed painstaking impaired sequence of word-vomit... a gully filled less with void than with a heavingly toxic efflux, an unusually unselfconscious ejection of an overly verbose teen’s inner monologue. This is what it sounds like, in my brain; imagine not being able to step back. Imagine not being able to close the tab! Read this aloud to yourself and imagine it never shutting off, imagine whatever inner voice comes most naturally reading this aloud. This will, reader, last the rest of your natural life. Except when drunk.

I know later I’ll think this is stupid and overwrought and likely I’ll be right. Maybe. Either way it’s off-topic. The high-effort subset of the intoxicated self says I should search for takeaways and for once it took effort to ask myself that question...  and that’s useless effort, even, because I don’t know. Likely I’ll regret this disclosure in the morning.

Sober I find it easy to conclude a train of thought; the end of a sober monologue ties everything together. My text output isn't good, not always, but there’s always a conclusion. Usually that’s very important to me, connecting the style to the substance, ending well. Now, drunk and exquisitely slow and stupid, public presentation and infosec and narrative and ending well are orders of magnitude less important than that old joke. You know the joke or at least you should. Takeaway: what’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?

I don’t know and I don’t care.

#okay to reblog #I am more okay than this implies #(it is Just Like Me to try to write a brief thing but in fact produce >1k wds introspection!) #(I don't have the insight to say rn but it's also Just Like Me to [while drunk] present current insights as representative of general mood!) #fair warning: may delete this later #original post #news from meatspace #you will not want to come back #emetophobia cw #personal cw #alcohol cw

[paganchristian]

Underneath the pier, on the white sand beaches where I once lived nearby.  A place where sharks dwell.  No swimming within a certain distance, because of that reason, the sharks coming after the fish attracted by the fishermen on the pier.  This also reminds me of the torii gates of Shinto shrines, which torii gates mark the entrance to Shinto shrines, the gate from the mundane into the spiritual realms.  This looks like a slanted, swaying or knocked off balance path of torii gates, many doorway after doorway.  In the torii gates where there are many in a trail, the ones further along are said to lead to higher spiritual levels or something like that, and I think there are three levels.  Putting all these images together it makes me think of a crooked path to spirituality, where sharks roam, and an initiation that is dangerous and foolish, because of the slantedness of the pillars and the sharks.  Then I think, of the left-hand path when I think of a crooked path to spirit, but though that is often conceived of as being harmful and selfish in Western spiritual paths or paganism, and such, with Hinduism, it is not thought of as being harmful so much as just taboo, and using unconventional, sometimes stigmatized ways to reach higher states.  It is thought that some peoples’ nature requires them to use the left-hand path because they can’t abide or follow the same path that the sattvic, more peaceful practices of other Hindu sects require.  The left-hand path is not about really hurting anyone or being totally self-centered in every way.  It still considers morals, compassion, and things like that.  But it’s taboo in a few ways that general mainstream Hinduism avoids.  In the dark you can find answers, in the shadow like the ouroboros, eating its own tail, becoming a self-regulating, self-feeding system in and of oneself, by integrating the dark, the confusion, the limits and weaknesses, problems and biases of oneself and of life in this world, ...  as oneself where you meet the world, the life and world where we have to live and you have to be you living in this world. 

The path I can’t walk that my family, my husband and religions ask me to walk, or can I swim and can I transcend instead, float, above, find the way out by flipping the whole thing upside down, seeing outside the paradigm.  These are thoughts that come to my mind now.  If people can’t let me find them, because they put themselves too beyond my reach or my ability to ever reach, then I don’t have to make my life about reaching them.  My husband might demand more than I can give, try to take more than is fair, control more than is right, stifle what is good, fail to appreciate my gifts, silence my reality, make me fake my whole reality because I can’t speak it but not only that I can’t even feel it.  The things I need to do to live when I am just being myself lead to his anger and attack and control.  So even if I don’t tell him about it, the way it makes me feel makes me have to act in certain ways to deal with my feelings, my worries, my confusions, questions, and needs, but when I try to just act in those ways, even trying the best I can to keep it all out of his sight, it causes me to have to act in ways that end up triggering his attack, his control, his strangling away of my life, my mind, my voice, my self-expression.  He demands for me to give him things that I can’t give him if I’m to be true to my own reality, because it takes more than I can muster up, however I try.  I have to revolve my life around fakeness to give him what he wants.  But it’s not so much that he’s incredibly wrong and bad and extreme, but more than I’m incredibly abnormal and can’t give and can’t conform and can’t fake it and can’t hide things and can’t hold back in the ways that others do, ...  And this extends into my relationships with my family, my relationships with religions, my relationships with society, and culture, too. I have tried to change myself, heal myself, give myself therapy or seek that outside of myself in the available forms, follow spiritual and self-help paths and positivity and natural healing and meditation and hobbies and new age things and whatever, so many things, I have tried so much and it’s helped me so much but still I can’t help but be what others can’t even stand to be around, and what many others would try to distort, contort me into a shrunken person, a distortion, a shadow, a pale fog of who I might have ever been, ...  People like my husband would try.  They would engage me in endless hateful verbal abuse and severe crazy-making, manipulative abuse, to truly make me feel I’m losing my mind, my heart, every shred of energy, dignity, hope, joy, meaning, and sense in my world.  Narcissistic, sociopathic-seeming abuse and manipulation.  He seems far worse than the average covert manipulator, because from what I’ve read the others’ tricks are more clearly visible to me, but his tricks are very devious indeed, impossible to argue against, hateful and trickier than any examples I’ve seen given in books and websites about manipulative abuse.  He is extremely intelligent, but it seems that this part of his personality is operating at some kind of subconscious or altered state of consciousness.  It makes no sense, but it’s highly intelligent.  He is capable of seeming like a totally different person, caring, considerate, loving, responsible, normal in every way, mostly, but when this side of him comes up, it’s like a monster has been unleashed, and like he’s lost his mind entirely.  Before I had my daughter, for many years, he was so abusive in this way.  It really started getting bad a few years after we married.  And he was this way for so much of the time then that it left me paralyzed and despairing, miserable, lost, totally out of touch with myself, my deep inner true self.  Hiding from him, hiding who I was, to stay a bit safer, but I still was not safe and was totally miserable.  Now it’s much better but remnants of this kind of abuse still linger enough to stifle my true self, sometimes, somewhat.  Yet I know that the world would not let my true self exist either, because it doesn’t fit in the world, either, and so it would die, not always from abuse, but often from neglect, from mockery, a much milder form of abuse than narcissistic, entrapped abuse in an abusive marriage, but still mockery, yes if you want to call that abuse, or worse than mockery but still, the kind of cruelty that you can escape because you’re not married to the person.  And the world gives me abandonment and neglect and mockery and scorn and attacks and complete misunderstanding, and being completely ignored at best, in my deeper self, oftentimes.  I can’t live this way because my social needs, my needs for supporting myself, for work that I can tolerate, without becoming depressed or physically ill with my many sensitivities, those needs aren’t met nor even seen as valid by this world.  Religions, society, culture, my family member, my marriage, all say I’m not acceptable, not worthy, not wanted, have to follow rules I can’t follow, can’t be who I am because it’s hated and untolerated.  But I’m not some horrible person, it’s just that I have fragile, subtle, delicate needs that the world is not willing or ready to make a place for.  So there is a witch-hunt, demonizing things and people who are really harmless and good, and this is something that happens sometimes when you’re too far outside the norms of culture, norms, society or typical human nature either. 

Maybe I could make or find a life or patch a life together in which I can have what I need, a safe place to be, to be well, to be myself, for my mental and physical health needs, and personality and self-expression needs, and spiritual self and soul and the needs for my psyche, my self-exploration, the drives I can’t let go of to find answers and meaning and self-expression, absolutely compelled to do these things, so life better find a place for me or I might just not make it.  

But when there are too many things trying to make me take care of them all at once, and there is no way to move because I’m crowded in on all sides by others shoving and pushing, holding me down, forcing me along in directions I didn’t need or want to go, or holding me in place, unable to move where i need to go to get done what I need to do, or even trampling me over in the rush to do what they need or want to do but what I need and want to do are left rotting in the dust of nothingness.  There is no room.  All the hopes that sooner or later the peaceful harmony of life with my daughter, of homeschool, and housework, and arts and crafts and of my spiritual path and of nature, and whatever else, these little things that help me hold on for another day and try to find what I may as realizations rise up when and if they do and how they do if I can hold on to them before they sink down under the murkiness once more and are drowned again.  All that which is supposed to let me just make it, maybe it will become trampled too in time.  Sometimes there is not enough relief, enough peace or hope, love or joy or meaning, not enough of any of that to have faith, to feel anything worth feeling, or to do anything worth doing, or know anything worth knowing, and not enough to believe in anything worth what feels like it is worth believing in at all. And I’ve been there before.  

And so I can’t help but feel like I need to vent about this, I need to say it like it is.  I need to admit the full array of slowness, stagnation, completely covered in nothingness, drowned, unconsciousness and going crazy, forgetting who I am, losing my heart, that seems to get lowered down over me, choking out my life and mind and heart, against my will, powerless, and I don’t have to lessen the pain of that reality, by pretending it’s not how it is, not as bad, not as potentially hopeless.  I know that it might be hopeful too, but it’s not the guarantee people try to make it out to be.  

There often will be this extremely compromised state I am put into where the best thing I can have or do or be or try or even dream about trying, the very best I could hope or aim for is still horribly much lower than what anyone is willing to accept as tolerable, acceptable and valid.  Religions, moral systems, cultural norms, advice, friendship and family, marriage, whatever, none of these things accept a place for me and role for me where I am able to exit just as I am.  Where I’m able to be who I really am, take my time, process things as I need, go so slowly as I need, be stuck however long I need, focus on the earthy things if I need (like religions say not to), get down to that earthy level and the survival issues like the root chakra, and that analytical level like the third chakra, and the sacral chakra, childhood issue and inner child, and sensuality and pleasure, creativity and happiness. And the dreamy, surreal and otherworldly, ungrounded self too, the whatever chakra that would be.  lol  And the throat chakra, the self-expression, my uniqueness.  And my heart chakra, my need for love, for interaction, relationship, in the ways I need, the kind of love I need, not just this totally selfless love, but an interactive love that meets the needs of my personality and passions and preferences and a really compatible kind of fulfilling love.  And sexuality, to need to have that part of my identity fulfilled in a way that is healthy and loving for me, when the world seems to not have the kind of romantic relationship I would need that I can see, but only much misleading, much use and abuse and much mistaken feeling of love which leads to wrongness, hurt and use and abandonment.  Finding my romantic and sexual needs met safely and happily only by spirit and astral love, because all human love in that way feels extremely using and hurtful and unpleasant, totally not enjoyable to me at all, the opposite of that, disgusting.  So I’m totally traumatized in that way after all I’ve seen and learned of people and relationships, but I still have to be a wife to my husband and his expectations, demands, and anyway, ..  the world doesn’t have what I need, but only seems to want to use and twist me into something I can’t be, am not, choke the very life out of me, and then throw me away.  Or to throw me away before all the abuse, for the less damaging ones.  But throw me away, either with living decay, thrown away, desecrated, a living death, though not literally thrown away or actual literal abandonment.  

[boobtubedude]

My Top 10 Shows Of 2017

Hi. Here’s a top ten list. People like these, right? 

Close But Not Quite: GLOW, Speechless, Insecure, One Day At A Time, Brooklyn Nine-Nine 

So what’s 2017 been about? Not about TV, really. Not for me. Hasn’t been the focus. It’s been there, like it always has, but not in the same what. What was an omnipresent obsession turned into something else. It didn’t go away, but it transformed, mutated, evolved, got pushed to the back. But what stuck really stuck, not really programs but lifelines, ways to make sense of senselessness, to realize there was a point to all of this. I didn’t watch nearly as much TV as I had in recent years, but taking a step back meant everything had to count. It had to mean something. It couldn’t be a way to pass the time but a way to define how I should spend it.

10) Wynonna Earp

It was a year in which listening meant more than speaking, when shutting the fuck up was more valuable than trying to articulate anything. Mansplaining my way through this calendar year, whether consciously or inadvertently, would have been the bad way to go. So it was more about looking for blind spots, having them displayed in ways that made me rethink what it meant to be not just a critic but a citizen. Being the former without the latter just means you’re an outsider observer rather than an active participant. Supporting voices that had been screaming to be heard was more important than sharing my own. Even a list like this is probably bullshit, but that’s why I’m not really talking about the shows at all.

9) Jane The Virgin

The shows are important, obviously. They are more than just TV shows but reflections of what’s possible. You can judge shows by how closely they reflect reality and how close they envision how life SHOULD IN FACT BE. I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong way to approach the medium. I do know that shows that simply state how futile it is to do anything other than what’s in one’s own self-interest are lazy and terrible and fairly close to immoral in this stage in history. We all know that life sucks. We won’t need a show to only remind us of that. We need shows that remind us that there’s light in the darkness, that there are options, that happiness is a possibility even when we can’t see it for ourselves.

8) Chris Gethard: Career Suicide

We need to know that other people feel as terribly as we do, and that doesn’t make it freaks but rather makes us human. The idea that we have to hide those kinds of thoughts and vulnerabilities for fear of shame or ridicule cripples us more than we know, and I know this because I’m only this year realizing how long I’ve been this miserable. I chalked it up to “normal” Irish-Catholic upbringing, something that was not worthy of even discussing because relative to so many it’s so fine that it’s not worth even mentioning. And while there are obviously a lot of degrees to this, I chose to just suck it all in for the first 40+ years of my life rather than even contemplate the fact that my left foot taps incessantly for almost every moment of every day I’m awake. I’m constantly aware of how anxiety-ridden and unhappy I am. The very idea of having to go out to meet people at an event I agreed to go to stresses me out, even while being at home all the time makes me wonder why I have so few friends. I can intellectually rationalize the insanity of that contradiction, but I live it all the same. The best stuff on TV doesn’t offer a solution to any of that, but lets me know I’m not alone.

7) American Vandal 

We get stuck in routines. We get defined by what others think of us, which in turn reinforces actions that fit that description. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince strangers online that I’m a certain type of person, and that has calcified around someone I’d both like to be and mostly hate. All writing is performative to some extent, and it doesn’t matter if I do it in 140 characters or 5,000 words, it’s all a performance to some extent. You don’t see the crusty-eyed, hairy, smelly weirdo that’s typing any of this on his phone or his laptop. You don’t know me, because I don’t want you to, even though some part of me absolutely positively wishes you did. If you ever wondered if it’s exhausting being a narcissist with crippling low-self esteem, let me tell you: It is. 

6) Twin Peaks: The Return

Nothing about this year makes any sense, which means that absurdity often reveals more than “real” life ever could. I’m a lapsed Catholic, so the idea of a God watching over everything seems peculiar, but I’ve never lost faith in the idea that there’s more than just the stuff that happens before we shuffle off our mortal coil. We’re connected to something, whatever it is, because without that connection we’re truly in an abyss. People that do the right thing should be judged differently than those that don’t, and I like the idea that the cosmos has some way of addressing that. Whether that’s through mathematics or morality, I can’t say. But we all sense there’s senselessness just around the corner, and even while that’s mighty tempting at times, there’s a fundamental need for order at the heart of existence that transcends mortgages, commuting to work, and the busyness of everyday life. That meaning is reflected on the inside of our eyelids, played across a screen that becomes impossibly vast once we go to sleep. It’s hard to literally interpret, but it’s there all the same.

5) The Good Place 

Actions have consequences. As they should. The rising fear in 2017 centered around the idea that causality had been flung into space, a vestigial element of a life that no longer existed. Actions that once had consequences no longer seemed to have any, and the entire agreement between earthly citizen had seemingly been eradicated by those for who shame had been surgically removed. We all knew things were bad, but there seemed to be no mechanism by which to compel those that didn’t feel like abiding by the normal rules of nature to do so. Once that reality set in, nothing felt real, and action after action buried the actions before those. What was strange was how…familiar everything felt, even while nothing was the same. The post-apocalyptic fantasies gave way to benign realities: We still did more or less the same things while also feeling like it mattered less than ever before, or that by doing the same thing we were perpetuating the problem. Hashtags only get you so far. Many of us marched in January but were exhausted by June. We might as well have been arguing with the tides.

4) Review 

What’s fascinating about making a bad decision, or indulging in a dark thought, can perpetuate itself and create its own logic loop from which it’s nearly impossible to escape. So people double down on a bad decision rather than admit it was one, and before long you’re so far down the wrong path that finding your way back to the main road is impossible. Mounting evidence of error yields entrenchment, resistance, and a further erosion of trust in anyone else that doesn’t march in lockstep with your worldview. At some point, objectivity turns into a quaint idea, and you can go insane so slowly that you don’t realize that you’ve been scrolling through tweets for the last ninety minutes because the onslaught of bullshit isn’t stopping but in fact picking up speed. There’s a self-perpetuating cycle with enough power to light up the entire United States but instead might just engulf it in flames. Driving off the cliff becomes preferable to looking in the rearview mirror at all you’ve lost on the way to the precipice. We’re ultimately and irrevocably alone in the bubble we’ve built for ourselves.

3) Better Things

That’s not true, but that’s how it felt for a lot of the year for many of us. I have the lottery ticket of life as a straight white American male, and if I felt this bad this year, I can’t begin to imagine a tenth of a tenth of what it was like for anyone else. That doesn’t mean I don’t have sympathy, but I can’t pretend to have empathy in a way that’s meaningful for anyone but myself to hear. The world is profoundly different than in was in 2016, but much of that change doesn’t come from something suddenly introduced so much as suddenly pushed into discussion. These aspects of life have always been here, and while it shouldn’t be a surprise to so many to hear them uttered, it is all the same. In that dissonance is opportunity: opportunity for those able to articulate what’s been under an unfortunate cloud for so long to speak out loud in voices both defiant but also hopeful. These are voices that show both an ugly truth but also a better way. These are voices that, now introduced, cannot and should never be silenced again. 

2) BoJack Horseman

Instagram is a fairly new app, but the idea of papering over one’s less-than-ideal qualities has been around for, well, forever. We collectively decide we’re not going to talk about it, and we bottle it up, and then we slowly go bald and fat. Or so I hear. I wouldn’t know anything about that, with my luscious locks and 30’’ waistline. 2017 was, for me, a year in which I realized just how corrosive that rot was within myself, how much I was talking about everything other than what was on my mind, with TV a great way to talk about “important” things without having to deal with my own shit. “Of course everyone knows I’m writing about me,” I’d tell myself, usually after a few drinks, and yet I doubt anyone knew or anyone even cared to consider that option. I speak to 28,000 strangers a day on Twitter and have maybe three friends in my life. My family and I love each other and also are the primary sources of our respective problems. I have a wife that used to see me at my best and now usually sees me at my most exhausted. I didn’t see any of this as a problem because I thought I was too privileged to have problems. That doesn’t mean my problems are equal or more or less than anyone else’s. I’m not trying to lump myself in with anyone or anything. I’m just here and realizing how miserable here is and realizing it’s OK to admit that it’s not OK. I don’t know what the fuck to do with this information a month after my forty-second birthday, but it’s still something akin to a breakthrough for someone that’s really good at analyzing theme in narrative television and absolutely awful at looking at the themes that consistently undermine my attempts at anything approximating consistent happiness.

1) The Leftovers

Recently I came across a bunch of handwritten report cards from my high school that my folks saved for me. Each one said something along the lines of, “I don’t know how Ryan does all the things he does and still excels.” These were wonderful things to right and absolutely cursed me to viewing any moment of inactivity as a wasted moment on the path to death. If I wasn’t being productive in some capacity, I was throwing away a chance to maximize my life, as if life was something to be conquered rather than experienced. That message carried through into college, and into my 20s, and once writing about TV became a possibility, drove me through a decade in which I worked on average about 10-14 hours a day. When I took vacations from my day job, I took the opportunity to just do more writing, watch more screeners, do more podcasts. I was here, but I wasn’t here. Not in a meaningful way. I was an outline more than a fully fleshed-out figure. Recently, I’ve been using my weekends to do anything other than something productive. Stepping off the treadmill is antithetical to my nature, and something that I’m admittedly not comfortable doing. I spent so much time wondering what people I’ve never met thought of my writing and almost no time wondering how it’s been a year since I’ve seen cousins that live ten miles away. Television taught me a lot for the past decade, and introduced me to a host of super smart people that did more for me than they’ll ever know. But looking at that screen (and the second screen, for that matter) for this long has come at a cost: It took way too long to see it, but it’s maybe not too late to do something about it.  These shows all helped me get to this place in my life, which is why they are my top ten shows of the year.