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shadowqueenjude · 7 months

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Lucien x Nesta friendship drabble

Nesta introduces Lucien to her chosen family! @sonics-atelier I wrote it :)) Nesta surveyed the Autumn Court male coolly. She could see the similarities between his face and Eris’s. Her sister had not overstated his cruel beauty. Since she was now married to his brother, and he was in turn mated to Elain…she supposed she would have to get to know him now. That didn’t mean she was going to make it easy on him. She let pure dismissal freeze over her stare as she looked him over. Lucien Vanserra did not balk from her stare. A ghost of a smirk flitted across his face as she continued to stare him down. “Are you admiring my metal eye, or just contemplating killing me, Nesta Archeron?” Nesta couldn’t help the small smile that spread over her face. There were few who could tolerate her spiciness. Cassian had been unable to; he had loved her spiciness, sure, but only when it was directed at others. Not him. But both Lucien and Eris loved it. It must be those Autumn court genes.

“I was just wondering…” She gestured to that eye. “I forgot who made that for you. Or did you make it yourself?”

Lucien laughed. “By the Cauldron, no. I have a very dear friend in the Dawn Court who specializes in this sort of thing. She herself has a metal arm, you know.” Nesta straightened. “What is her name?”

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just for a friend,” Nesta said evasively. Lucien snorted. “You’re going to have to give me more than that horseshit if you want me to reveal her name.”

“What’s the big deal?” Nesta snapped.

“I don’t know you,” Lucien said simply. “I’d like to know why you want to know. You’re married to a brother I haven’t had a proper relationship with in centuries and possess incredible powers in the Dread Trove and that death magic you got going. Forgive me for being cautious.”

Nesta sighed. She wanted to argue further, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. “Fine. One of my friends, Emerie, is an Illyrian. The Illyrians have a barbaric practice of cutting their women’s wings. So… I was wondering if this friend of yours could possibly make her metal wings.”

Lucien gaped. “Are you fucking kidding me? How is such a practice still occurring after all this time? Hasn’t that stupid Inner Circle done anything about it?”

“Apparently not,” Nesta said. “But about the wings…”

“This seems within her ballpark. Why don’t I take all of you to see her? Nuan will be able to judge better than me.”

Nesta nodded. “Let me talk to Gwyn and Emerie and get back to you.”

Later that day, Gwyn and Emerie arrived in tow with Nesta. “Do you really think she’ll be able to make the wings?” Gwyn asked. Her teal eyes were as large as saucers and filled with hope. Emerie was taut as a bowstring by her side, not daring to voice the hopes in her mind. Lucien only smiled gently at Gwyn. “Nuan hasn’t failed yet.” As if in emphasis, Lucien’s metal eye whirred to focus more fully on Gwyn. Emerie jumped away, cussing, but Gwyn grinned. “That is so cool.”

Lucien smirked. “It gave me the ability to see things that nobody else can see. So, in a way, losing my eye was a blessing.”

“How did you lose it?” Nesta asked.

Lucien turned to her. “You probably know that Prythian was ruled by that tyrant Amarantha for fifty years.” Nesta nodded. “Well, I told her to go back to the shit-hole she crawled out of. So, she clawed out my eye.” Emerie’s jaw dropped, and Gwyn murmured noises in awe. Nesta raised her brows, impressed against her will. “That’s exceptionally brave of you.”

Lucien shrugged. “I don’t respond well to threats or tyrants.” Flame sizzled in his brown eye. Nesta smiled. “Neither do I.” Lucien laughed. “I figured as much when you made a death promise to the King of Hybern.”

Nesta smiled at Lucien. She didn’t know him well, but she had already decided she liked the male.

“I’m not sure I can winnow all three of you,” Lucien said. “You should probably bring my brother, Nesta.” Nesta nodded and came to get him.

Lucien was left alone in the room with Emerie and Gwyn. “Who cut off your wings?” Lucien asked. Ok, maybe not the best icebreaker, but they’d asked about his eye so it was only fair. Emerie grimaced. “My father.”

Lucien swore, low and vicious. “Asshole father. I can relate.”

Emerie scoffed. “Wonder what it’s like to have decent parents?”

“Beats me,” Lucien said. He turned to Gwyn. “Do you know?”

Gwyn shrugged. “I barely remember mine.”

“That’s a step up from being traumatized by them, I suppose,” Lucien said, and the three of them laughed. Nesta returned to the room with her husband in tow. “Lucien, can you take Gwyn and Emerie?” “Yes,” Lucien said. He avoided speaking to his brother. “Hold on tight, my ladies,” Lucien said softly to Nesta’s friends. Gwyn was positively beaming at him, and Emerie was little better. Nesta wasn’t sure if she should be glad the two of them were so comfortable in another male’s presence, or irritated that they’d fallen for the Vanserra charm so quickly. Not like she could talk, though. Eris had a shit-eating grin on his face as Nesta faced him. “Looks like my brother might just steal your friends away from you.” “That would only make me as friendless as you, Eris.”

Eris chuckled. “Why do I need friends when I have you, Nesta Archeron?”

Nesta blushed as Eris winnowed them away.

The dawn court was exquisite. The colors in the sky were so soft and comforting, like honey. It wasn’t quite as beautiful as the Autumn Court, but it had its own charm. It was a little chilly, and Lucien was about to offer Nesta his cloak when Eris beat him to the punch. He shrugged, offering his cloak to Gwyn instead, who gladly took it. He led the way to the metal workshop he had frequented countless times to hang out with his good friend. Nuan squealed in delight when she saw him, running over to hug him. “Lulu! I missed you!!”

Nesta turned to Lucien incredulously. “Lulu?”

Lucien rolled his eyes. “She earned the right to call me that after she made my eye.”

Nesta and Eris wore identical smirks on their faces, and Lucien was about to roast the shit out of them when Nuan spoke again. “Are we here for the Illyrian?”

Emerie stiffened ever so slightly. “I stopped being Illyrian the moment my father cut my wings. I am a Valkyrie.”

“As you say,” Nuan said.

“Yes, Nuan. We were wondering if you would be able to make prosthetic wings for her.”

Nuan inspected the shredded wings. “This has been cut highly unevenly,” Nuan said. “I may have to cut a little bit more off to make it more even. Under a faerie drug, of course, so she wouldn’t feel anything.”

Nesta said, “Emerie? Are you ok with that?”

Emerie was staring at Nuan. “If I let you do that, would you be able to make wings for me? Would I be able to fly again?”

“You would need to relearn how to fly, of course, but yes, I can perfectly make usable wings for you.” Silent tears poured down Emerie’s face, and Nesta and Gwyn moved to embrace her. Lucien’s heart strained at the camaraderie, the easy acceptance and understanding. Something he had had himself, once upon a time. He shut down the thought.

“How much would it cost?”

“Seventy faerie bits, but for my favorite customer, I’ll give you a 15-bit discount,” Nuan said, swatting his arm playfully. Lucien grinned. “You honor me, my lady. And how long will it take to make?”

Nuan thought. “I was actually halfway into a wing project, which I think I can perfectly mold to fit her wingspan. Overall, probably a day?”

Lucien turned to his companions. “Are you all fine with staying?”

Nesta arched a brow at Lucien. “And do you have a place where we can stay?”

Lucien gasped in mock horror. “Of course I do! What sort of male do you take me for, Lady Death?”

“Certainly one with a death wish, foxy.”

“I’m perfectly happy to stay if everybody else is,” Eris said. “It’s not like I had anything specific going on today.”

“Same,” Emerie said. Gwyn nodded in agreement. “Then come with me, everyone.” “Are you ready?” Nuan asked Emerie. The jagged edges of her ruined wings had been evened out so that Nuan could attach her new microfiber wings. “They’re not quite bat wings,” Nuan admitted. “They’re closer to Peregryn wings, but that just means they’re softer and more flexible. And more colorful, if you’d like.”

Emerie’s eyes widened. “You mean I can make them whatever color I want?” “Of course.” Emerie grinned at her companions. “How cool would it be if I had purple wings?”

“It would match your friendship bracelet,” Nesta said.

Lucien snorted. “You guys have friendship bracelets? And you were making fun of my friend’s nickname for me.” Nesta grinned at Lucien. “Yes we have friendship bracelets, and we are not ashamed, foxy.”

Lucien shrugged. “If you say so.”

Later, Nuan carefully approached Emerie with the purple wings. “Hold still,” she commanded. The wings were very complicated, with many interlocking pieces, but finally Nuan got them on.

“Flap,” she ordered. Emerie obeyed and was stunned to feel the wings obey her. Nesta and Gwyn were squealing in the background, Eris’s hand squeezing Nesta’s tightly. Emerie sobbed over and over again, thanking Nuan for the gift, and Nuan hugged her. “It’s no better than you deserve, Emerie.”

Later, when Emerie, Gwyn, and Eris had all left, Nesta and Lucien were left alone together.

“You’re not bad, for a Fae male,” Nesta said. Lucien laughed and shook his head. “A glowing recommendation. I’m going to tape that to my wall. Nesta Archeron said, and I quote, ‘you’re not bad.’” Nesta smiled. “You must be very well-connected, if you know a tinkerer like Nuan.”

Lucien shrugged. “As the youngest of seven sons, I wasn’t particularly needed or wanted. Perhaps it was a good thing. I was able to study for longer than my father allowed my brothers before shoving them out the door to rule over some territory within our lands, and I could train for as long as I liked, since no one believed I’d be dumb enough to kill my way up the long list of heirs. And when I grew bored with studying and fighting … I learned what I could of the land from its people. Learned about the people, too.” “That sounds far more High Lord-like than people like Beron or Rhysand ever will be.”

Lucien let Nesta see all the power simmering in his veins. “That’s why my brothers tried their very best to break and kill me.” Nesta smiled. “Perhaps you could take over the Spring Court from Tamlin. Or rule over Hybern. There’s a power gap there, isn’t there?”

Lucien nodded. “I don’t know you very well, but I can’t think of anyone more suited to rule,” Nesta said. Frank. Honest. “You’re not so bad yourself, Nesta Archeron.” They may not be friends just yet, but there was a budding relationship there. It hadn’t taken long for both to grow to respect the other immensely.

#nesta archeron #pro nesta archeron #lucien vanserra #pro lucien vanserra #eris vanserra #pro eris vanserra #nesta x lucien #neris #the valkyries #emerie of illyria #emerie #gwyneth berdara #pro gwyneth berdara #nuan acotar #lucien x nuan #fanfic

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groenendaelfic · 1 year

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Do you think Simon would actually be willing to become the Prince Consort tho?! Like yes he LOVES Wille but I don't think he'd ever wanna officially set a foot in that system let alone give up his career for being a working royal

The quick answer is yes, I think he’d thrive. Go read my fic Becoming Prince Simon for details.

The long answer is that I think that just like we tend to make Wilhelm into this social justice prince who’d love being a house husband and hates being a royal, when in fact he is quite comfortable with ignoring staff while he walks past them in a ratty old t-shirt and sweatpants because there’s nothing more normal than living in a palace and having staff cater to him for him, and he actively enjoys ordering Jan-Olof to send him food to the middle of nowhere Hillerska, to name but two examples of how Wilhelm very much doesn’t mind being royal or privileged, and just hates being told what to do or say and having to act like someone he isn’t, Simon, too, isn’t this grand idealist.

Sure he’d like being treated fairly, who doesn't, especially when you always draw the short straw even while following the rules while your classmates get away with breaking them without problem, but the truth is he’s rather pragmatic.

He gets back in contact with his drug addict, alcoholic and to a currently unknown degree abusive father so that he can acquire alcohol for his underage classmates to drink so that Sara can attend a party, and then steals drugs to among other things pay for math tutoring because he wants good grades.

I’m not saying Simon would jump at the chance to join the royal family, but he’d come to see the advantages, and I’m not just talking about him being with Wilhelm, but also all the good he can do. He doesn't need to be a monarchist for that.

So yes, I don’t only think Simon would be willing to become Prince Consort, but that he’d thrive once he got accustomed to the idea.

After all modern day Sweden isn’t Czarist Russia or pre-revolutionary France, you can’t just burn that shit down (and get the Soviet Union or Emperor Napoleon), because that wouldn't work and attempting so would do more harm than good.

You need reform and systematic change, and to change a system you need to interact with it, for example from the inside, and as spouse to the Crown Prince and later King, Simon would be in the ideal position to affect that.

He doesn’t need any actual power to highlight problems and topics important to him or for people to pay attention and listen. It doesn’t always have to be Diana shaking hands with a man with aids in the 80s, it can be something as trivial as the irl second in line opening a fairytale trail in her duchy as a toddler.

What the royal family does (and doesn’t! do) gets publicity and is reported. Simon knows that. He grew up seeing it all the time.

And the people most likely to take note of what the royal family does? Those I dare say are also some of the ones who could do with a bit more exposure to the causes Simon would highlight.

Also not to be mean but give up what career? We know Simon enjoys making music and he wants to get out of small town Bjärstad, but as far as we know he has no great, specific career ambitions he’d have to give up.

I’m gonna end this with a potentially triggering and extreme example, so take care.

When the royal court announced that the irl Swedish crown princess had an eating disorder I was in junior high. I'll always feel sorry for what she had to go through so publicly and it definitely is another point on the list of why monarchies and celebrity culture are the worst, but I also cannot overstate how much good that publicity did when it came to bringing awareness to the topic of eating disorders.

Suddenly that was something that was seriously discussed as an illness by people in power and who otherwise never would have, and not just in a ‘haha those silly teenage girls wanting to look like Kate Moss’ kind of way, because it was the crown princess and not some random pop starlet, and if that can happen to someone like her, then who is to say it can’t also affect our own children etc?

We were taught about it in school, in detail, when my older cousins never were, how to recognize them, how to help, where to go for help. More, there suddenly were places to help, places that were actively advertised which hadn’t been before.

There were clinical programs being opened and awareness campaigns launched, and not just in Sweden. (I’m not saying she was the only reason, it was the late nineties, it was really, really necessary, but she was a big deciding factor when it came to the amount and speed at which things changed)

It sucks that royals and celebrities highlighting important issues can make such a difference, and I’m the first to go yell abolish all systems of inequality irl, but Simon could do a lot of good as a working royal, and he’d actually care about changing things, instead of just finding it a boring necessity like irl royals and the YR royal family including Wilhelm do, which is why I think that in a few years, given time, he would very much be willing to become part of the system if only to bring what change he can, especially when no one else can take his place and do it instead of him.

#king wilhelm ftw #prince simon ftw #ask me anything #young royals #young royals meta #random ramblings

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shimmershae · 2 years

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My thoughts on the Walking Dead Series Finale, Rest in Peace.

Or did they change the title?

No matter. Spoilers ahead. So tread carefully through the lengthy landmine of my consciousness, lol.

Placing behind a cut because reasons. Oh and typos abound because it’s 3 am and I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since this episode so.

Some general thoughts about Season 11 and TWD in general—much like the season, this is gonna be all over the place so BEWARE and read accordingly

· Carol and Daryl deserved a better ending than that.

· Except for the images of all the characters we’ve loved and the ones we’ve lost along the way saying “we’re the ones that live”? I basically hated that Richonne coda. It was too long, too detailed, and too ambitious for a show that all too frequently in its latter season dropped the ball on the little things that would have paid off big.

· I’ve lost count of how many fucking time jumps this show has taken over the span of its entire run, but I do know there have been too many. Not only that but they’re always skipping valuable character moments and arriving at their “end destination” without any build up because, yep, they skipped it. What could have been forgivable a few times turned into one of this show’s biggest liabilities.

· So many characters just disappeared with little to no explanation. Off the top of my head? Heath. Cyndie. Hell. All of Oceanside was hand waved away this season. Virgil. Like did the dude die or what? And what of Annie? Negan’s insta-wife carrying his redemption-baby? After having comparable screen time to the show’s leading lady (c’mon, you know it’s true, especially in 11A and 11B), she just vanished.

· Speaking of screen time, what in the actual fuck were TIIC thinking sidelining their leading lady, their most talented actress, the heart and soul of the whole damn show? As Carol, Melissa McBride is an incomparable actress. Absolutely phenomenal. And as one of two OGs, she should rightfully have figured very prominently in the main storyline threads this entire season, not just had her appearances sprinkled over the last 8 episodes.

· Inexplicably, it seems Carol’s screen time was “given” to Maggie so that she might have a circular argument with Negan for 2/3’s of the season and only see any real forward momentum and emotional realism in the last handful of episodes. The final episode really. Given that she has her own spinoff with Negan, it makes very little sense and made for an extremely dull first 2/3’s of the season watching them basically meep, meep like the Road Runner on a treadmill going nowhere.

· About that “heart to heart”—I cannot overstate how much it pains me to call any moment between Maggie and Negan that, especially when the pair most deserving of a bonafide heart to heart only got the skim milk version when they should have gotten the full fat, vitamin D version-- in the final episode, it was overdue and I loved that Maggie didn’t pull any punches with Negan because the man murdered her husband with more glee than most children open presents Christmas morning and that’s saying something. He can seek redemption all the day long and keep “proving” himself. But does that mean he will ever “deserve” Maggie’s forgiveness? Personally, I don’t think so and feel it is selfish to want it. Negan suffering the realization of what he cost Maggie and Hershel frankly isn’t enough, IMHO. I don’t care how much the fangirls cry about his woobie face. He’s come a long way and morphed into a character I find multi-faceted and entertaining if not wholly likable during Angela Kang’s tenure and I appreciate that. But as his exclusion from Team Family’s Thanksgiving-esque feast following their last battle proves at least to me? He’s a bad man that’s done some good things not a good man that simply lost his way because lovelies? That road was lost ten thousand detours ago.

· Random observation. Or more like questions, lol. Just who in the hell prepared that big ass feast Team Family enjoyed in the finale to the tune of Stevie Nicks’ Landslide? Who had the energy? It couldn’t have been too long after the battle because generally Walker bite victims don’t tend to linger terribly long, unless TIIC threw their usual conventions out the window with Rosita. Which, come to think of it, wouldn’t be outside the norm. They’re always changing things to suit their current needs.

· Ah, Rosita. I knew she’d been bitten soon as she fell into that sea of Walkers and the fact she didn’t have any torn or disheveled clothing was an eye-rolling moment for me. Also that she wasn’t bleeding because that, to me, suggests the bite didn’t break the skin and you know. Maybe I haven’t paid that much attention to all the various Walker bites in the past, sometimes I simply look away because of the gruesomeness of it all, but usually it takes a break in skin for infection to spread. I guess she got the Bob treatment, come to think of it.

· All that nitpicking aside, Rosita’s sendoff actually had some very lovely moments. Once I pushed back on how pissed I was that TIIC were leaving another child motherless. Were killing a WOC who had only recently enjoyed added dimension in her character and story (although…Rosita, like Carol, seemed be to relocated to the back of the class in Season 11 after having much more impactful screen time in Season 10, a far superior season). Her goodbye scenes with the people she loved, particularly Eugene, hit hard. But even those didn’t tug at my heart near as much as her trying to soak up every last second she could of her remaining time with Coco. That made me ugly cry.

· Know what made me ugly cry that I was in no way expecting? Luke’s death scene where Yumiko and Kelly and Magna and Connie were covered in his blood and their tears, sobbing as they fought futilely to save him. I don’t know. I wasn’t attached to him. I liked him well enough in the very small doses we got of him. But I didn’t actually expect to cry over him dying. Especially since we hadn’t seen him all season and he was obviously brought back to be sacrificed for a bloody death. Angel Theory, Eleanor Matsuura, Nadia Hilker, and Lauren Ridloff were very convincing in their love and grief for him.

· Carol and Daryl were no less convincing in their worry for the little Ass Kicker they both love but to be honest? Judith coming to in the nick of time and finding superheroine strength while being seemingly severely injured (I mean, she had blood coming out of her mouth) to rescue Uncle Daryl in the opening scene took me out of the moment so bad I had a hard time taking the ensuing scenes with her life being in jeopardy seriously. That and she might as well be wearing chain mail because Scott Gimple done fucked up once (and many times afterward, he’s a rambling, riddler of a perpetual fuck up) before by killing Carl and you’d hope AMC would have learned their lesson by now. I personally think not, but let’s move on from that, m’kay? I’ll address more on the Carol and Daryl front later. If I do so now, that’ll be all I talk about because I have a lot of feelings.

· Was Jules’ death a callback to Noah’s in that revolving door because it kind of felt like it?

· Sorry I’m bouncing around a lot here but these “reviews” of mine are always stream of consciousness and hey. I’m basically a human Dug, lol.

· So Daryl wakes up in that hospital bed with a massive shiner and gauze wrapped around his head. How’d he get there? Who else felt cheated by not getting to bear witness to Carol seeing her Pookie passed out cold on that hospital lobby floor alongside Judith? Who do you think she went to first? Judith or Daryl? Who helped her get them to safety? She’s the only one that has been shown to have the bare minimum of medical experience and it makes little sense she wasn’t taking lead on amputating Luke’s leg, at the very least assisting; I’m not discounting Connie’s bravery. Anybody that’s managed to survive in their world and make their disability their “superpower” would have to be, but I don’t see her taking that initiative. Assisting, yes. But holding the knife? No. Same thing with Kelly. So that part rang a little false for me but whatever. Anyway. Don’t you love how we have all these time skips and scene cuts that skip the parts we’re always curious about? Just me then? Okay.

· I can’t be the only person distracted by the increasing visibility of Norman Reedus’s real life tats. I mean. Daryl keeps having all this ink showing up, continuity be damned.

· Carol stroking Judith’s hair while she’s lying on that stretcher makes me wish we’d gotten more scenes of the two of them together. Maybe one where Judith, missing her mom, asked Aunt Carol to brush her hair at bedtime. Maybe even braid it. I mean, they established in one of the earlier eps Carol had been taking care of the kids in Daryl’s absence. They definitely could have spared a minute or two giving us a heartwarming scene like that to show a few things—how much Carol loves Judith despite trying to keep her somewhat at arms’ length, how very much she still misses Sophia, and where she was sleeping in Daryl’s apartment when he wasn’t there and if she and Dog were still missing him and sharing cuddles. 😉

· They really missed the boat big time not having Carol help Siddiq in the infirmary at Alexandria. I mean, sometimes I felt like they were hinting at it. Remember when Siddiq called Carol on the radio for Ezekiel and Dante answered? He was like “she’s right here.” I’ll forgive them not doing more with that though because Season 10 was chockful of Carol and she had so much going on. I didn’t feel the need to fix-it fic her into the fold because she was quite literally the fabric of the whole season but again. Let’s not dwell on that because feelings. I got lots of them.

· Mercer’s reunion with Princess was cute. She scaled that big man like a Sequoia, lol. It reminded me of how much I loved the idea of them earlier in the season. I really hate they got the fast-forward insta-couple treatment thanks to those oh-so-lovely time jumps and scene cuts because their courtship would have been something else. Literally so much of Maggie and Negan’s storyline could have been skipped over in favor of them and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference other than the audience actually being more entertained and less exasperated.

· Okay though. I have to wonder two things about how the fuck Lydia and Aaron came to be back at the Commonwealth. How in the world did Lydia manage to stay upright much less walk with as much blood loss as she sustained? Also? That blood loss had to have her smelling like a Happy Meal to those Walkers. I mean, logic says so anyway, but I guess we all know logic doesn’t live here in this place.

· Rosita finding and rescuing Coco and there being a baby each for her, Eugene, and Father Gabriel made me laugh, not gonna lie.

· The callback to Shane blocking Rick’s door with the stretcher was a nice touch.

· Come on. Am I the only one LMAO at the obvious doll legs and feet in those shots of Eugene and Father Gabriel climbing that pipe? I mean, it was definitely distracting. Again, I ask how the fuck a Walker bit through the thick material of Rosita’s hoodie. It’s not like those assholes have shark teeth. Oh well, abandoning all measures of believability, I enjoyed how much of a fight Rosita put up and was inwardly cheering her on even as I had to refrain from rolling my eyes.

· We were robbed of witnessing Carol and Daryl’s reaction to seeing Lydia. Robbed, I tell you. Then again, we’ve been straight up pick pocketed all season.

· Negan looking concerned for Judith and flanking Lydia was an obvious blink and you miss it ploy to remind us he’s not all bad and it worked a tiny smidgen because JDM’s a softie with kids.

· I love that Aaron has come around where Lydia’s concerned. She’s a sweetheart of a kid that deserves all the love and Aaron has a lot of love to give at his core and experience with the situation she’s now in but dammit. Carol was right there and Melissa and Cassady would have literally brought us to our knees with nothing more than another tearful hug to mirror their last embrace. Why AMC? Why?

· Gimple’s version of Negan could never. That apology was a long damn time coming. Long damn time.

· Finally, I don’t feel resentment towards Eugene’s scenes this episode. Like for so very much of this season, Eugene and Maggie have been Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, gobbling up all the airtime with stories we felt no emotional connection to or were just tired of hearing about because nothing novel happened but in this episode? They were stripped down to the heart of the matter. Somewhere along the way I fell a little bit in love with Eugene’s friendship with Rosita. I never expected to. There was an ick/cringe factor in the very early days. That changed about the time Rosita firmly friend-zoned him. I felt sympathy for the guy then even as I cheered Rosita on for saying the words he needed to hear. So him sussing out the truth of Rosita being bitten and her reaction to that? It broke my heart more than I ever thought it would. Their “I love you’s” were sweet and made me tear up and they were shaded so much differently than another pair of “I love you’s” that touched a nerve with a certain faction of fandom. I bet you can all guess who I’m talking about without my naming names. 😉. I mean, it’s not the first time the two relationships have been in direct juxtaposition with each other, demonstrating the true differences between platonic and romantic love.

· The silent look that passed between Daryl and Carol as they sat vigil at Judith’s beside was intense and full of all the things they’ve never dared speak between them. No two do it better than Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus and that’s 100% fact. That said, the time for their long, long, long overdue “heart to heart” should have been right there in that very moment. Or at least the beginning of it. Because all that chilly distance Daryl’s been keeping between them all season melted with that look at her. He already knew his feelings. He tried to tell her then show her why it wasn’t like that before the cave in. And being faced again with the fragility and brevity of the one life they’re given? It just seemed like the perfect time for confessions to be made, even if they were in the form of a simple “I can’t lose you” echoed back to Carol this time. For apologies to be spoken and accepted. But the lazy AMC scribes relied on the power and magic of Melissa and Norman’s chemistry to do all the work for them like they have basically all season and seriously. Fuck that. Those intense gazes have lit me on fire each and every time all season but goddammit. We’re past time for words here. They’re the OGs. The OG ship. The ship to end all ships on TWD whether some people want to admit it or not. The least they warrant is an actual honest conversation where they stop dancing around the hot pink elephant in the room—they are in fucking love, your honor. Anyway. Let me nudge these thoughts along before I write ten more pages about that.

· Carol’s stroking Judith’s hair again and I can’t help feeling that the walls she’d erected around her heart to protect herself after losing Lizzie/Mika/Carl/Henry started melting like an ice cream cone on a hot summer’s day because she hasn’t been shown to be that tactile with Judith since the Grove. In that respect, what comes later, her staying to help care for the kids, isn’t as much a WTF moment as it could have been.

· The ensuing moment, however? Judith’s comment to Daryl—“Sorry I didn’t tell you before. I was scared that you would leave, too” and Daryl’s response of “I’m right here” definitely adds to the WTFuckery of Daryl’s ultimate exit.

· Ezekiel’s pontificating is an obvious setup for what comes next for him. And like, it’s been obvious all season. But I will say this. I personally resent the fuck out of him leapfrogging Mercer, a figure that’s already been established to have celebrity status with the people of the Commonwealth, someone that’s been there since the beginning, and having a leadership position. Their positions should have been switched but again. Logic has no rightful home in this place.

· It’s the small things. Carol and Daryl barely letting each other out of sight the whole episode makes my heart sing.

· Father Gabriel letting the people inside the walls, especially after the way he was introduced, really makes it strike home how much he’s changed.

· There would have been something poetic about Walker Lance ending Pamela, not gonna lie. But then we wouldn’t have gotten Carol being Queen of Sass with her so.

· Okay. The scene where they’re trying to corral all the Walkers to end them should leave me with more than the thought of “Wow, what a waste of all that fuel, it’s not like there’s an endless supply.” It was anticlimactic but whatever. I’m not here for the fights or explosions or the damn zombies. They could have mentioned it in a line of dialogue and I would have been largely satisfied at this point because we’ve lost so much time this season with so many characters. Carol was criminally underutilized until 11C. I’ll never forgive TIIC for that. Ever.

· “We already had to make an ugly decision. Kept you alive.” LMAO, I love it when Carol’s a savage queen. “…At least we don’t have to worry about who gets your house.”

· Glenn was beautiful, Maggie. So beautiful. I still miss my baby.

· The scene between Maggie and Negan where she tells him she can’t forgive him? It is literally the best scene Maggie has had all season. I don’t want to remember Glenn like that either.

· Who cooked a Thanksgiving feast? Who?

· Eugene watching Rosita with Coco. Mercer and Princess cuddled up. Carol smiling and laughing. Dog. All to the tune of Landslide. My heart is so full.

· Rosita watching it all and confessing to Father Gabriel about being bitten with Judith noticing had me teary again and I’ve always been in the WTF camp with Rosita and Gabriel. Cailey’s little face, though. The child has a bright future.

· Carol and Maggie helping Rosita to bed and saying their goodbyes. The way Rosita seemed to squeeze Carol a little extra hard. I mean, everybody seems to just sink into a Carol hug and I’m pretty sure that’s all thanks to Melissa. Wouldn’t you? I know I would.

· “We’ll see you again someday.” When Father Gabe said that to Rosita, I let out a little sob and I never liked them as a ship. I was full on crying when Rosita told Eugene she was glad it was him with her in the end.

· Another fucking time jump. When will they ever end?

· Eugene and Max naming their baby Rosie was a sweet touch.

· I still can’t get over them making Ezekiel Governor instead of second in command to Mercer.

· Sounds like Daryl and Connie only see each other when he visits the different communities. I have many words for that but I won’t say them, lol.

· Lydia looks happy. She deserves it.

· Negan giving Judith her compass back—I’d honestly forgotten she gave it to him, it feels like forever ago. So I’m guessing he finally left like Carol tried to get him to when Maggie first returned. That’s what I got out of that scene anyway.

· They didn’t show us the whole memorial wall so all I can see is what looks like NIE, but I’m guessing Annie and the baby didn’t make it. Which is honestly too bad. In spite of her convenient insta-existence, I liked her.

· So. This time jump starts at the Commonwealth, goes to Alexandria where we see Carol with her beautiful short curls and the kids are there. The way Gracie greets Judith makes it plain Judith and RJ aren’t at Alexandria anymore. Carol’s little running hug of Aaron is adorable. Lydia and Elijah seem to go back and forth between the communities. Carol and Daryl, too, as evidenced by them traveling from Alexandria to Hilltop. Sorry for the run-on, thinking out loud commentary, lol. I’m just trying to piece everything together.

· Oh my heart. There’s no longer distance or the symbolism of distance between Carol and Daryl. They’re on the same side of the river, literally side by side. I mean, they’ve been that way the whole episode but this is different and you all know why.

· Can’t help being a little resentful of Maggie’s talk about the future that leads Daryl away from Carol’s side. Because ugh. All that talk of “we have a future” and him spending chunks of it away from her. Ugh. Did I say that already? I don’t care.

· Carol saying it’s a beautiful day to head out and Daryl looking right at her as he agrees. I’m crying.

· Nowhere in the fuck of ever has Carol expressed any interest in having Hornsby’s job so fuck whoever decided to retcon that into the narrative.

· “It’s not like we’ve never gonna see each other again.” But can you promise that, Daryl? Can you? Tomorrow isn’t promised. The world is shit sometimes. I hate TIIC for separating them and for why? Why? I know why, spinoff reasons, but narratively why? Make it make sense. You cannot. It’s not like he’s going out to look for Rick and Michonne because a year has passed and it’s apparent he hasn’t ventured all that much further than their established communities. He’s been out “in the frontier” but not so far out that he and Carol and the kids don’t have regular contact.

· So. They left Hilltop and went back to the Commonwealth? Did Carol ride home with him on his bike? Did the kids take a wagon or train? Somebody explain this to me like I’m 5 years old, please. I can’t help thinking she clung to him on the bike ride home, neither one of them really talking about what Maggie proposed because they didn’t want goodbye to be even closer and then they had that emotional talk by the river and oh my heart. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

· They’re beautiful. I love them. Now and forever.

· So what? Are the kids staying with Ezekiel now? Aunt Carol? I’m a little lost.

· Judith promising to keep an eye on Dog and Daryl having her promise to keep an eye on Carol. He loves her so much. It’s almost like…you know what? I swear to god if they went canon off-screen and had their first kiss and everything but exchanged those three words…

· Judith looking at Aunt Carol while telling Daryl he deserves a happy ending too is obviously a subtlety lost on a certain faction of shippers and I cannot fathom why because it is so very loud, lol.

· The fact that Judith called him Daryl instead of Uncle Daryl makes me think he’s still involved in their lives and loves them very much but he’s not involved in their everyday lives and he’s distancing himself from them. Then again, it could just be that Judith’s growing up because Cailey has grown so very much since she first started the show.

· Speaking of growing up, dwell on this little nugget. Daryl’s been in Judith’s life from the start. Rick was only there for maybe the first 3 years. Like the man has missed the entirety of RJ’s life and the majority of Judith’s and then they had Michonne leave them basically searching for a needle in a haystack, no guarantee she’d ever find him or make it back to them, and now she’s missed what? Almost 2 years of those babies’ lives? I know the storyline was steered a certain way because of Danai’s exit from the show but it will never sit well with me that a woman, fictional though she may be, would ever leave her children to go on a search that might lead to absolutely nothing in such a dangerous world. Especially with her history of losing Andre. By the time Michonne (and Rick) makes it back, those kids could be half grown and that’s sad AF.

· That hug between Ezekiel and Daryl was a weird touch but hey. Maybe they’ve made their peace with each other and their respective places in Carol’s life.

· I mean, Ezekiel took those kids with him to give Daryl some privacy saying goodbye to her so.

· Carol waiting by Daryl’s bike. 😊 ☹. She’s never shied away from showing Daryl affection in the past. Pre the Prison falling. She’s been more reticent and careful since then unless they’ve embraced. Then she’s clung to him like a lifeline she never wants to let go of. The way she fusses over him and his poncho seems domestic AF and like something a wife would do. Plus, it’s giving her a reason not to look directly into his eyes because she doesn’t want to risk falling apart like she did a little bit at the riverside. Honestly it feels like she’s trying desperately not to ask him to stay. With her.

· Daryl telling Carol he loves her is a huge deal. HUGE. Carol saying it back to him is just as big because Lizzie is the only person we’ve ever heard her say it to. And look. I think she is trying to inject some lightness into a heavy moment because despite what she said to him while they were sitting on that bench? She doesn’t want him to go. He doesn’t want to leave her. He looks like he wants to change her mind before he rides off. She wants to make it easier for him and I want to die.

· I don’t think anything will ever hurt me as bad as watching him ride off without her. FUCK AMC for that. Because it didn’t have to be that way, solo spinoff or not. They could have still left together. They could have shared those “I love you’s” and a kiss 12 years in the making. If this episode wasn’t a springboard for the spinoffs like Gimple claimed it wasn’t? Why not give us and them the whole enchilada? It’s been more than earned. They could have gone all in on them, finally made clear that they were IN LOVE, had them leave TOGETHER, and then cut to a shot where Daryl wakes up somewhere by himself and calls out her name or vice versa. Same result. Still painful AF to think of them spending any time apart. But not without hope because they weren’t separated willingly or by some asinine reason that wasn’t even explicitly spoken. But I guess we all know why AMC didn’t do that, don’t we?

· UGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

· I’m not going to say too much about that coda. It was bad. The clips of dearly departed characters, though. The clips of all the people they and we loved and them saying “we’re the ones that live”? Those parts struck a chord and made my heart swell with remembered love for this show. They’re the parts that gave me chills. The other parts were dramatic but meh. Otherwise, I think having Rick’s voice crackle over a walkie talkie or just getting a glimpse of his silhouette or even having him wake up in a hospital bed again a la the very first episode would have been much more effective and not locked them into anything so far as the spinoff goes or given too much away. But that’s just me. Your mileage may very well vary. I did find it fitting it ending with that shot of Judith and RJ. So there’s that.

· Anywho. Those are just some of my thoughts and there’s a lot of them but this is just the tip of the iceberg. I won’t bore you with anymore tonight, lol. Er, this morning. Happy Thanksgiving, lovelies. I’m headed to catch a few hours’ sleep.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 spoilers #Series Finale spoilers #things that make me cry #for reasons #my heart

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dragonseeds · 2 years

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what is your opinion about the relationship between rhaenyra and alicent?

oh they’re so interesting to me! i think their relationship is just as tangled up and incestuous as anything that the consanguineous targs who marry or fuck or fall in love have going on. they grew up together like sisters (rhaenyra calls her sister in 1x04 and she’s out there lying for her life but i do think she means it), yet there is a sweetly romantic undercurrent to them too. i don’t think either of them truly understood it in that way, or would describe it as such, but it’s there. then alicent becomes her stepmother, the mother of her siblings, and that adds another dimension to what they are to each other. the way alicent fixates on rhaenyra’s body/sexual behavior specifically reads as incestuous to me because she acts like a parent (a mother, an older sister forced into that role or u know… my father lol) trying to correct perceived flaws in their daughter’s behavior in horribly damaging ways, but there’s so much more going on there—like there’s obviously redirected anger mixed with patriarchal and religious indoctrination, as well as about nine thousand permutations of jealousy.

alicent’s trauma can’t be overstated—she’s been through so much and for what? so her father (her family) could have his (their) blood sit the iron throne? so viserys could have a son he can’t love?—but i think she also did very real damage to rhaenyra during the time skip. that’s how i rationalize the extent to which adult rhaenyra feels muted and desperate—it doesn’t feel like just natural maturity to me idk i read trauma into it, especially the way rhaenyra adjusts herself when she notices alicent watching her. emma’s body language conveys so much about rhaenyra’s anxiety and shame to me.

but like. they’ve both hurt each other in so many ways by refusing to/being unable to see each other. so i think things get super toxic insane messy between them for a while, but it’s so clear that they could’ve reconciled. the love was still there, the tenderness and the sweetness, but that aspect of their relationship only becomes really interesting and important to me in 1x08 when they have it again for like a second, a dinner, a touch of their hands, before they lose the last chance of ever getting it back. it was right there, it was so close! but they can’t ever have it back because what that love represents—innocence, childhood, hope, all of that—is gone. you can’t go back. rhaenyra has so much love in her life from her children and from daemon too (fucked as that may be: this is what it is to be targaryen) that she’s been able to heal as much as she can, but alicent is trapped in the red keep which is actual hell. she’s stuck there: she can’t go back and she can’t move on or begin to heal. she’s forever a girl being sent into a room she doesn’t want to go in, looking out the window of her cage, even if she wields real power as queen.

i’m equally frustrated by and obsessed with all of that and i want them to have sad sad sweet saddd fucked up kind of hate but also loving sex after rhaenyra takes king’s landing. obviously this will never happen lol i maybe be stupid but. even if i thought the writers would actually go there, alicent is deeply sexually traumatized and, while i personally think she’s in love with rhaenyra and have the most fun with that interpretation, i still don’t think she realizes that or would be able to think of it in that way. rhaenyra is also very much in love with daemon in an extremely codependent way and i think they’re genuine soulmate level more myself than i am going to be the death of each other inextricable so. that complicates things, but if we’re being honest…. not as much as it would if this were a different family asdfkdgkj

#going to be murdered for tagging this if anyone actually reads it so #🫡🫡🫡#rhaecent #hotd #txt

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mermaidsirennikita · 2 years

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I’d love Sophie Turner. She’s grown a lot as an actress and looks-wise, she’s close to perfect. She also would do well with the chilly, regal vibe. but what if they went for like…Blake Lively, to give her an umpteenth chance to be a ~serious actress~ lol. She has the height and wears clothes well. Also perhaps Samara Weaving, since she’s in the Ryan Murphy stable already? Murphy’s pedigree has fallen off, but I imagine Carolyn will be a really coveted role for any white actress under 35.

I agree there are no established actors rn who could credibly play JFK Jr. It’s impossible to overstate how much of a sex symbol he was. Aaron Taylor Johnson kind of has the physique imo, but I don’t see it otherwise. Old Hollywood would yield tons of options though. They should go with an unknown out of Yale Drama or something.

I actually like Blake in certain things--like The Shallows or A Simple Favor. But she's an actress who works for certain roles, versus an actor that can adapt lmao, which is what Carolyn requires. And tbh, the biggest thing standing in Sophie's way, elephant in the room, is probably her marriage. Is it fair that getting married and having a couple babies in your twenties is often devastating for actresses? Not at all. It's a product of misogyny. But in this current environment that is churning out hot girl after hot girl with legit talent, you're showing up in JoBros roasts and music videos and having kids versus being hypercompetitive, you will get lost. I think Sophie is very talented and gorgeous. She ain't perfect (none of them... are) but she's got the ability. But I don't know if she's being considered for roles like this right now because she's been pregnant for much of the past few years. Again--it's horrible and bad. But that doesn't make it not a thing.

I think that as much as Ryan Murphy has had some stumbles, there are still a lot of legit iconic people who love to work for him, and he's not out of the count for awards season, so to me... Carolyn would be a role lots of girls will want. I could see Samara, though lookswise she ain't right for it at all lol. She's very talented, so maybe she could convince me. Carolyn was a complicated, controversial person we don't know much about for sure--were she and JFK Jr. on the outs or not when they died, was she a cokehead or not (I mean probably), what was up with the kids issue, etc etc. We know less about her than we do about him, and she's less beloved, so there's more room to play.

ATJ is inspired casting, I love that and he could totally do it. He's one of those guys who's stupid hot and very talented, and due to a combination of the how uncomfortable everyone is with his horrid marriage, that issue making him hard to market, and him honestly being a "type" that's not as in right now... It's hindered him. But otherwise, like--yeah, you might as well get an unknown. People don't get exactly how ridiculous JFK Jr. was. He was hot, he was rich, he was a big dude, he was the heir to THEE family of the United States. The Kennedys have fallen off in recent years so a lot of younger people (lmao I'm 27.........) don't get it, but like. JFK Jr. a combo that you really don't see often. And if they can't convey that in the show.... It's gonna be disappointing.

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talenlee · 7 days

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Disney's Conversion Therapy Story

There are too many possible titles for this article. You know, Did you notice the gender conversion therapy story in this movie, or that one disney movie nobody watched has some messed up stuff in it or ongoing continuation of Talen Lee’s beefing with Disney corporation every Pride Month. It’s such a shocking thing to see in a story because it requires a really breathless thoughtlessness to commit to doing it, you see.

Okay, first of all, our pieces in places. This is about the 2005, Disney for-the-family, all-ages 3d animated movie called Chicken Little. It ‘starred’ and we’ll use that term generously, Zach Braff, and Severals Others. It’s a story about uh, well ostensibly it’s the retelling of the story of Chicken Little, from Aesop’s Fables, but in this case, that would speak too highly of it. The story of Chicken Little isn’t important here because, as with so many Disney stories, the supposed narrative it’s building off is kinda just a branding thing for Disney to smear its capitalist merchandisable grundle over.

But before I go on, I’m going to talk about some really awful ways women are treated and a bad thing that happens in this movie that I cannot help but compare to and therefore need to provide a Content Warning For Conversion Therapy. The specific kind of Gender Compliance therapy – if you’ve ever been in the kind of school environment where a girl comes home to find all of her clothes changed in her wardrobe or a boy who has their dad take away their pink toys away without talking about it? That kinda thing. Like, the people who are so homophobic that the gender line needs to be enforced through proactive bullying. Oh and Spoiler Warning for Chicken Little but you shouldn’t care.

Alright, the first thing you need to know about in this story is the character of Foxy Loxy. She is uh… let’s generously say, based on the way this movie stylises bodies, let’s say she’s a ‘Fox’ of some variety. Her design is much more of like, well, Foxy Boxy, but you know, whatever, it’s fine, she’s Foxy Loxy. In this movie, she’s presented as a tomboy and a bully, a force of conflict in Chicken Little’s life, by being… well, she’s mean to him, but not in a meaningful way? like she’s unreasonable in how she treats him, she yells at him when he’s in the way, but also there’s no adult in this movie who tells her that that’s bad to do.

Not even Chicken Little’s dad.

Anyway, Foxy Loxy is the antagonist of the first half of this disjointed mess of the movie. Antagonist is a bit overstating it, she’s a bully and she’s mean to Chicken Little but she’s not actually instrumental to the plot of the story. When the time comes to bully Chicken Little over the major event of the story, she’s mean to him in the crowd of every other person in the town being mean to him.

There was a bigger role for this character in the original version of the story, where Chicken Little was a girl in a summer camp and the tension was about fearing that Foxy Loxy was the ‘real’ enemy with the realisation that she wasn’t and Chicken Little’s anxiety needed to be put at war with her need to trust.

Okay, so, Foxy Loxy. Tomboy. Semi-important bully.

Second piece in this story is Runt of the Litter. For this conversation the many sins of Runt of the Litter don’t actually apply. This character is awful, in the way that he is comprised of dreadful Fat Character stereotype rules. He’s emotional, he’s physically useless, he’s cowardly, he’s feminine in his behaviours and interests and he provides resistance against Chicken Little only when he’s doing the things that we, the audience, want Chicken Little to actually do. Runt of the Litter is The Load and we have to take the narrative’s word for it that he is Chicken Little’s best friend, because without that imposition you might imagine that Runt of the Litter is kind of an enemy the story has to overcome.

Runt of the Litter sucks.

It’s intentional, too – the story thinks it’s hilarious that a big fat guy is like this, and how he’s like, he’s called runt of the litter, but he’s actually huge! But he’s wrong somehow, he’s failed somehow, and that’s tied to the ways he behaves and chooses to be.

Now, as for the event:

At the end of the story, all the characters in town have been (temporarily) kidnapped from their homes by aliens. The reason doesn’t matter, it’s all a misunderstanding. The point is, everyone is teleported out of alien containment and into their homes. Everyone is fine, except one individual who is shown as being transported back ‘wrong.’ One of the aliens, who is voiced by Patrick Warburton and is Cop Coded, shows up and explains that they’re sorry, they messed up when they were returning Foxy Loxy to her original state.

How’d they mess up?

Well, Foxy Loxy, who, I need to remind you here is a child, is shown having been teleported back with a scrambled brain that makes her want to be a pretty, highly feminine girl with an interest in… girly things and Not The Things She Was Into. She has a tiny umbrella, a fitted dress to her new look, and Pollyanna curls. And the cop then tells our heroes that hey, they know this is wrong and they are about to change her back to who she was.

Runt of the Litter runs up and interrupts and goes ‘no no no, don’t change her back, she’s perfect now!’ And then, just because he said so, the aliens leave her this way, no adult intervenes, nobody stands up for the integrity of Foxy Loxy’s identity, and she remains this way. Now, she’s into show tunes. We know, because the ending credits of the movie are about showing her and Runt of the Litter singing and dancing and grooving along together. They’re the best of friends now, finally a friend he has who he can share his love of showtunes with and all it took was a cop scrambling her brain and then choosing not to fix it.

You may think oh, this is about dramatic punishment, this is about her being made to address her cruelty to him, that maybe she bullied him about something and now he knows this is her excuse to express something about herself she’s been hiding! That this invocation of a medical intervention to make a tomboyish girl present as something else that is literally enforced by brain altering technology, that’s being done because of something set up in the story priory to this point that justifies it, and this girl has some how done something to deserve this change to her life and mind.

Nah.

This is the first time Runt of the Litter has ever spoken to Foxy Loxy.

This is a summary of points Fox and I discuss at length on our podcast The Disney Animated Canonball episode Something, Chicken Little.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media

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havnblog · 17 days

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An Introduction to Mad Max

I recently saw a film poster to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - so I thought I’d might watch Mad Max: Fury Road again. I think I remembered it being pretty good - but after rewatching it, I thought: “Ohm, I think this is the best film I’ve ever seen??"

So I’ve spent some time the last two weeks getting into the Mad Max Franchise. I’ve always known about it, but never really had a relationship to it. But now I’m a fan!

This post is a part of a sort-of series I'm calling "Noob teaching noobs". So I absolutely don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to Mad Max, or films in general!

Worth your time

There are many famous franchises out there - but most of them take a little lifetime to get into. There’s so much Star Wars/Trek, Game of Thrones or Marvel stuff out there. But Mad Max is much more manageable, and the high notes are so great, that it’s absolutely worth your time.

You can absolutely just watch Fury Road, without doing anything else before it. If you’re going that route, you can read this little footnote for a tiny bit of background. 👉🏻 1

I watched Fury Road blind, and then went back to the three old ones - but it could also be fun to simply watch them in chronological order!

Mini reviews of the first three

Mad Max

This one is made with about AU$0 in budget, and with a bunch of amateurs (who absolutely didn’t get permits to do all of these stunts on Australian public roads!). So it’s a bit slow and weird, and campy as føck, but still worth your time I’d say! Especially as that time is about 90 minutes - the film length God intended. Some cool chases, weird bad-guys, and interesting world building. (And it’s fun to see a 21 year-old Mel Gibson being 21 year old.)

Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior)

For over 20 years, the first film held the world record for the most profitable film ever made. So with the second one, George Miller could afford to do the things he wanted to do in the first. And the result is amazing. It’s hard to overstate the influence this movie has had on everything post-apocalyptic, and the stunts and action sequences are very impressive, and still entertaining. I mean, as it is a 43 year old film, there’s plenty of questionable hair-cuts and costumes. But this is a great watch both as a piece of film history and as simply a great movie.

Mad Max (3) Beyond Thunderdome

This is pretty good, even though I don’t like it quite as much as the last one. For some reason, this has Tina Turner - and she’s pretty good! I also think it “suffers” from that a couple of things it does (like the Thunderdome itself) has become clichés after-the-fact, and that the last one was so ground-breaking. Still, it has a bunch of great actions sequences and characters, and it carries more emotional weight. Not bad!

The ultimate YouTube partner

During my little adventure, I’ve also stumbled upon a top-tier YouTube channel called Mr. Sunday Movies. And their series Caravan of Garbage (two dudes bantering) is the perfect companion, and something I love to watch after I’ve seen the films they cover. With this specific series, it’s also a bonus that they (just like Mad Max) are very Australian.

Their video about Mad Max,

Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior),

Mad Max (3) Beyond Thunderdome),

and Mad Max: Fury Road.

So, I’d watch one film, watch one Caravan of Garbage video, one film, etc. And if you’re unsure, start with Fury Road (the best). If not, it’s fun to start at the beginning.

There’s also a pretty cool comic, that' meant as a prequel to Fury Road, which can be added in-between Beyond Thunderdome and Fury Road. What a lovely day!

Max starts out as a pretty regular cop, with a little family. But in the first film, he loses everything, and becomes more … Mad. Then the general vibe, is that he wanders around, trying to mind his own business, but gets caught up in stuff. And he ends up being a bit of a hero, without really wanting to. And Fury Road is another example of a situation he just gets caught up in. ↩︎

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puttingherinhistory · 3 years

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“Covid has unleashed the most severe setback to women’s liberation in my lifetime. While watching this happen, I have started to think we are witnessing an outbreak of disaster patriarchy.

Naomi Klein was the first to identify “disaster capitalism”, when capitalists use a disaster to impose measures they couldn’t possibly get away with in normal times, generating more profit for themselves. Disaster patriarchy is a parallel and complementary process, where men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance, and rapidly erase hard-earned women’s rights. (The term “racialized disaster patriarchy” was used by Rachel E Luft in writing about an intersectional model for understanding disaster 10 years after Hurricane Katrina.) All over the world, patriarchy has taken full advantage of the virus to reclaim power – on the one hand, escalating the danger and violence to women, and on the other, stepping in as their supposed controller and protector.

I have spent months interviewing activists and grassroots leaders around the world, from Kenya to France to India, to find out how this process is affecting them, and how they are fighting back. In very different contexts, five key factors come up again and again. In disaster patriarchy, women lose their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their education, and they are pushed on to the frontlines, unprotected, to be sacrificed.

Part of me hesitates to use the word “patriarchy”, because some people feel confused by it, and others feel it’s archaic. I have tried to imagine a newer, more contemporary phrase for it, but I have watched how we keep changing language, updating and modernising our descriptions in an attempt to meet the horror of the moment. I think, for example, of all the names we have given to the act of women being beaten by their partner. First, it was battery, then domestic violence, then intimate partner violence, and most recently intimate terrorism. We are forever doing the painstaking work of refining and illuminating, rather than insisting the patriarchs work harder to deepen their understanding of a system that is eviscerating the planet. So, I’m sticking with the word.

In this devastating time of Covid we have seen an explosion of violence towards women, whether they are cisgender or gender-diverse. Intimate terrorism in lockdown has turned the home into a kind of torture chamber for millions of women. We have seen the spread of revenge porn as lockdown has pushed the world online; such digital sexual abuse is now central to domestic violence as intimate partners threaten to share sexually explicit images without victims’ consent.

The conditions of lockdown – confinement, economic insecurity, fear of illness, excess of alcohol – were a perfect storm for abuse. It is hard to determine what is more disturbing: the fact that in 2021 thousands of men still feel willing and entitled to control, torture and beat their wives, girlfriends and children, or that no government appears to have thought about this in their planning for lockdown.

In Peru, hundreds of women and girls have gone missing since lockdown was imposed, and are feared dead. According to official figures reported by Al Jazeera, 606 girls and 309 women went missing between 16 March and 30 June last year. Worldwide, the closure of schools has increased the likelihood of various forms of violence. The US Rape Abuse and Incest National Network says its helpline for survivors of sexual assault has never been in such demand in its 26-year history, as children are locked in with abusers with no ability to alert their teachers or friends. In Italy, calls to the national anti-violence toll-free number increased by 73% between 1 March and 16 April 2020, according to the activist Luisa Rizzitelli. In Mexico, emergency call handlers received the highest number of calls in the country’s history, and the number of women who sought domestic violence shelters quadrupled.

To add outrage to outrage, many governments reduced funding for these shelters at the exact moment they were most needed. This seems to be true throughout Europe. In the UK, providers told Human Rights Watch that the Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated a lack of access to services for migrant and Black, Asian and minority ethnic women. The organisations working with these communities say that persistent inequality leads to additional difficulties in accessing services such as education, healthcare and disaster relief remotely.

In the US, more than 5 million women’s jobs were lost between the start of the pandemic and November 2020. Because much of women’s work requires physical contact with the public – restaurants, stores, childcare, healthcare settings – theirs were some of the first to go. Those who were able to keep their jobs were often frontline workers whose positions have put them in great danger; some 77% of hospital workers and 74% percent of school staff are women. Even then, the lack of childcare options left many women unable to return to their jobs. Having children does not have this effect for men. The rate of unemployment for Black and Latina women was higher before the virus, and now it is even worse.

The situation is more severe for women in other parts of the world. Shabnam Hashmi, a leading women’s activist from India, tells me that by April 2020 a staggering 39.5% of women there had lost their jobs. “Work from home is very taxing on women as their personal space has disappeared, and workload increased threefold,” Hashmi says. In Italy, existing inequalities have been amplified by the health emergency. Rizzitelli points out that women already face lower employment, poorer salaries and more precarious contracts, and are rarely employed in “safe” corporate roles; they have been the first to suffer the effects of the crisis. “Pre-existing economic, social, racial and gender inequalities have been accentuated, and all of this risks having longer-term consequences than the virus itself,” Rizzitelli says.

When women are put under greater financial pressure, their rights rapidly erode. With the economic crisis created by Covid, sex- and labour-trafficking are again on the rise. Young women who struggle to pay their rent are being preyed on by landlords, in a process known as “sextortion”.

I don’t think we can overstate the level of exhaustion, anxiety and fear that women are suffering from taking care of families, with no break or time for themselves. It’s a subtle form of madness. As women take care of the sick, the needy and the dying, who takes care of them? Colani Hlatjwako, an activist leader from the Kingdom of Eswatini, sums it up: “Social norms that put a heavy caregiving burden on women and girls remain likely to make their physical and mental health suffer.” These structures also impede access to education, damage livelihoods, and strip away sources of support.

Unesco estimates that upward of 11 million girls may not return to school once the Covid pandemic subsides. The Malala Fund estimates an even bigger number: 20 million. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, from UN Women, says her organisation has been fighting for girls’ education since the Beijing UN women’s summit in 1995. “Girls make up the majority of the schoolchildren who are not going back,” she says. “We had been making progress – not perfect, but we were keeping them at school for longer. And now, to have these girls just dropping out in one year, is quite devastating.”

Of all these setbacks, this will be the most significant. When girls are educated, they know their rights, and what to demand. They have the possibility of getting jobs and taking care of their families. When they can’t access education, they become a financial strain to their families and are often forced into early marriages.

This has particular implications for female genital mutilation (FGM). Often, fathers will accept not subjecting their daughters to this process because their daughters can become breadwinners through being educated. If there is no education, then the traditional practices resume, so that daughters can be sold for dowries. As Agnes Pareyio, chairwoman of the Kenyan Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board, tells me: “Covid closed our schools and brought our girls back home. No one knew what was going on in the houses. We know that if you educate a girl, FGM will not happen. And now, sadly the reverse is true.”

In the early months of the pandemic, I had a front-row seat to the situation of nurses in the US, most of whom are women. I worked with National Nurses United, the biggest and most radical nurses’ union, and interviewed many nurses working on the frontline. I watched as for months they worked gruelling 12-hour shifts filled with agonising choices and trauma, acting as midwives to death. On their short lunch breaks, they had to protest over their own lack of personal protective equipment, which put them in even greater danger. In the same way that no one thought what it would mean to lock women and children in houses with abusers, no one thought what it would be like to send nurses into an extremely contagious pandemic without proper PPE. In some US hospitals, nurses were wearing garbage bags instead of gowns, and reusing single-use masks many times. They were being forced to stay on the job even if they had fevers.

The treatment of nurses who were risking their lives to save ours was a shocking kind of violence and disrespect. But there are many other areas of work where women have been left unprotected, from the warehouse workers who are packing and shipping our goods, to women who work in poultry and meat plants who are crammed together in dangerous proximity and forced to stay on the job even when they are sick. One of the more stunning developments has been with “tipped” restaurant workers in the US, already allowed to be paid the shockingly low wage of $2.13 (£1.50) an hour, which has remained the same for the past 22 years. Not only has work declined, tips have also declined greatly for those women, and now a new degradation called “maskular harassment” has emerged, where male customers insist waitresses take off their masks so they can determine if and how much to tip them based on their looks.

Women farm workers in the US have seen their protections diminished while no one was looking. Mily Treviño-Sauceda, executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, tells me how pressures have increased on campesinas, or female farm workers: “There have been more incidents of pesticides poisonings, sexual abuse and heat stress issues, and there is less monitoring from governmental agencies or law enforcement due to Covid-19.”

Covid has revealed the fact that we live with two incompatible ideas when it comes to women. The first is that women are essential to every aspect of life and our survival as a species. The second is that women can easily be violated, sacrificed and erased. This is the duality that patriarchy has slashed into the fabric of existence, and that Covid has laid bare. If we are to continue as a species, this contradiction needs to be healed and made whole.

To be clear, the problem is not the lockdowns, but what the lockdowns, and the pandemic that required them, have made clear. Covid has revealed that patriarchy is alive and well; that it will reassert itself in times of crisis because it has never been truly deconstructed, and like an untreated virus it will return with a vengeance when the conditions are ripe.

The truth is that unless the culture changes, unless patriarchy is dismantled, we will forever be spinning our wheels. Coming out of Covid, we need to be bold, daring, outrageous and to imagine a more radical way of existing on the Earth. We need to continue to build and spread activist movements. We need progressive grassroots women and women of colour in positions of power. We need a global initiative on the scale of a Marshall Plan or larger, to deconstruct and exorcise patriarchy – which is the root of so many other forms of oppression, from imperialism to racism, from transphobia to the denigration of the Earth.

There would first be a public acknowledgment, and education, about the nature of patriarchy and an understanding that it is driving us to our end. There would be ongoing education, public forums and processes studying how patriarchy leads to various forms of oppression. Art would help expunge trauma, grief, aggression, sorrow and anger in the culture and help heal and make people whole. We would understand that a culture that has diabolical amnesia and refuses to address its past can only repeat its misfortunes and abuses. Community and religious centres would help members deal with trauma. We would study the high arts of listening and empathy. Reparations and apologies would be done in public forums and in private meetings. Learning the art of apology would be as important as prayer.

The feminist author Gerda Lerner wrote in 1986: “The system of patriarchy in a historic construct has a beginning and it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course. It no longer serves the needs of men and women, and its intractable linkage to militarism, hierarchy and racism has threatened the very existence of life on Earth.”

As powerful as patriarchy is, it’s just a story. As the post-pandemic era unfolds, can we imagine another system, one that is not based on hierarchy, violence, domination, colonialisation and occupation? Do we see the connection between the devaluing, harming and oppression of all women and the destruction of the Earth itself? What if we lived as if we were kin? What if we treated each person as sacred and essential to the unfolding story of humanity?

What if rather than exploiting, dominating and hurting women and girls during a crisis, we designed a world that valued them, educated them, paid them, listened to them, cared for them and centred them?“

#women #coronavirus #life and style #world news #inequality #Covid 19 #COVID-19 #feminism #womanism #gender inequality #gender equality #corona virus

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jechristine · 2 years

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Thoughts on what happened with Will and Chris last night😅?

So many thoughts! On Twitter I see a lot of people staking out their positions as if there’s one overarching takeaway when really this was a perfect storm of intersectionality. I think that multiple people who think they are arguing are actually correct at the same time.

I can certainly empathize in general with struggling to accept your body as is, and I admire Jada a lot for having to be/choosing to be so public with her own challenges. I will say that Jada’s done great advocating and sharing around alopecia on her own, and I know Willow has publically supported her by shaving her own head, too. The way Jada rolled her eyes and frowned at Chris in the first moment was a masterclass in communicating a clear, strong message that she could have built upon later (and hopefully still will). I’m not a Black women, but it’s not hard at all for me to understand and appreciate sensitivities around Black hair in this culture, too. I 100% understand why Chris’s joke was so offensive and hurtful. Adding to that, it seems like Chris has been pushing the envolope in maybe a mean-spirited way with the Smiths for some time. He does not come out of this looking sympathetic imo.

I think that comedians are sometimes so far up their own asses in their veneration of their often terrible jokes, in the name of supposedly “speaking truth to power” or “free speech” or whatever. The image of Louie CK jerking off at women who didn’t want any part of it has always struck as the perfect image and metaphor for how some of these comedians think of their societal role. Cancel culture sometimes gets a bad rap, but I’m a big supporter of it in general. Chris should for sure have to answer for his speech, as should everyone.

To me, it seems like Will made a rash, emotionally-driven (but not “out of control,” exactly) decision based on issues we can’t know. I think @wetheoriginals was probably correct that stress leading up to the big Oscars moment probably had something to do with it, and of course we’re all human. I feel sad for him, too, that he distracted from what was the zenith of his career so far [edited to add: and that he distracted from the Williams sisters’ celebration of their important story].

Now I’m going to talk about ideas only, and not about Will and his family because I truly don’t know about what’s going on there.

In America we have a national tradition of seeing Black men as violent and scary. Unfortunately and unjustly, any sort of altercation or even slippage from social decorum is going to bring barely submerged racist stereotypes to the surface, and then people with big platforms and egos and unexamined racist biases like Judd Apatow are going to simply use those tropes to explain the world he is seeing. I think these racist wheels would have been set in motion even without the slap, actually, if Will had just shouted “keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth” without even leaving his seat.

And at the same time—

It’s one thing to want to support & defend the people you love. There’s lots of ways to do that and the best ones rely on words imo. That loving, caring impulse, however, can bleed over into, or can be used to justify, something that I think is categorically different and insidious—a sexist idea that somehow a woman’s “honor” belongs to her male partner, too, and his self-worth depends on protecting it in demonstrative, public ways, often in ways that perform a specific version of aggressive, toxic masculinity. Sadly the greatest perceived threat to that “honor” is often the woman herself. Just as stereotypes about Black men’s uber aggressiveness and propensity to violence hurt and sometimes kill Black men, the ideas that undergird male “chivalry” lead to a lot of suffering and the literal death of women of all races. You can draw a direct line in both cases. I really don’t think I’m overstating. (I’m not speculating about the Smiths on this point at all. I’m saying that noxious ideas fester everywhere in our culture and sometimes they don’t cause any explicit harm but often they do.)

#oscars

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dyed-red · 2 years

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just saw a gifset set during s6 where dean confronts soulless and bobby about the fact that they left him in the dark for an entire year about sam not being in the cage still, and my issues with gamble era were top of mind i didn’t want to be super negative in the tags of OP’s gifset so here we are --

i can’t abide gamble era exactly because of shit like that scene.

so, for anyone interested, a ridiculously long complaint post about s6-s7 under the cut.

so what’s my issue? i can’t abide how gamble’s era prioritizes plot points above characterization.

soulless never provides a halfway adequate reason for not going to dean sooner, and never provides a halfway adequate reason for why he goes to dean when he does at the start of s6. it’s been a long time since i watched so i’m fuzzy on some particulars but i know that it just sort of amounted to “i didn’t feel like it before but you’re the best partner and i prefer working with you”

and that rings so hollow because soulless isn’t the type of guy who would not go straight to dean if he preferred him as a partner because hey, no guilt about ruining his little domestic bliss, right? but also if he thought dean would be a nuisance and hold him back from this thing he enjoys and is preferring to do (hunting), then his reasons for scooping up dean are also shallow because why now? if he needs someone to watch his back because he doesn’t trust samuel and the campbells surely there are other options than his overprotective brother who will be suspicious of his lack of sleep and will want to protect and smother him?

(edit: came back to add he does give/imply a reason -- dean would be baggage, essentially like described here -- and he returns to dean by happenstance through a case. but that still fails to satisfy me because like -- he could have avoided dean if he had half a reason or desire to?)

it always just felt to me like gamble threw a year in there to inflate angst because it fit the story she wanted to tell, rather than fitting the characters and their actual motivations. and that’s one of the things that frustrates me to no end about writers. fitting characters to a story you want to see happen doesn’t work if those characters have pre-established motives and desires and thought processes you have to work with. you need to sort out their thoughts and feelings in more depth for why and how they would get to where they are and why this chain of events would happen, and s6 has always felt to me like it doesn’t care about that, it just cares about getting us to where we’re supposed to be (where the writer wants the story to get) without spending near enough energy on sorting out realistically how and why the characters would get there.

(maybe overstating my own ability as a writer, but i’m of the opinion you can always get characters to whatever end you want, no matter how far-fetched that end, you just have to understand them well enough to know what would lead them there, and then adjust and tweak the conflicts and setting accordingly. but if you’re impatient or unwilling to dig around in those questions you just brute-force it, and it ends up shallow)

anyway if you want further proof of what i’m talking about and why i think gamble ultimately misses the mark and has a certain laziness in how she pushes characters into story beats that don’t fit -- look no further than bobby.

bobby - bobby - who kept his home open to sam and dean, who watched dean sell his soul for sam and who choked up holding dean’s face after he did, who put sam in a panic room to detox and then wrung his hands regretting and doubtful while dean held steadfast, and then told dean to fucking fix it after that broke them, who said the line ‘family don’t end in blood’ to mean that he saw sam and dean as his sons, who was possessed when a demon told sam all sorts of hurtful things about starting the apocalypse and then even after being released from possession and stabbed and dealing with his own pain and issues still took the time to tell sam that the demon was lying and essentially to affirm that he still loves sam, who was an angry old man with a disability who sold his own soul to reclaim the use of his body and to get a location on death and despite all that messy anger and grief still carried on and saw the larger picture and tried his damn best to be good to people -

that bobby? didn’t tell dean that sam was alive? despite knowing like the entire time?

that bobby????

like yes okay bobby has referred to sam as being full of character defects, and people like to focus on that but they ignore the rest of what he’s saying and why he’s saying it!! he literally follows it up with explaining how sam is a hero and how they’re too hard on him and that if anyone can beat the devil, it’s sam. i’ve seen people say that no one believed in sam when it came to defeating lucifer and bobby literally says like two lines after the character defect one: “then you know Sam will beat the devil.” like sure ok, he follows that up with “...or die trying.” but then he immediately follows that up with “that's the best we could ask for.”

i get so annoyed seeing that defects line taken out of its original context and being used to say bobby didn’t love sam or treated him poorly. sam literally ditched bobby for months after dean’s death and bobby could not find or contact him, wouldn’t have known if he even died, and bobby didn’t even begrudge him for it. bobby loved sam and he believed in him. he loved dean and understood him. he asked dean, after that speech about how sam could beat the devil “so I got to ask, dean - what exactly are you afraid of? losing? or losing your brother?”

he! gets! dean! he watched dean sell his soul for sam and he watched sam turn monstrous and he helped pull them back together when their jagged edges were cutting each other raw and he wasn’t always nice and he wasn’t always right or righteous but he understood dean enough that he was able to talk dean around to giving sam his blessing with the whole lucifer plan because he understands that dean fears losing his brother more than he fears the literal apocalypse.

and then season 6 came along and bobby suddenly has let dean believe sam is dead for an entire year.

i just - i could scream that in all caps with a million emojis because it makes me so incredibly angry but instead i’ll just. i’ll just leave it. at that.

so anyway gamble era destroys bobby’s character through and through. as showrunner she’s willing to see him used for convenience and man-pain (killing him off to motivate dean in s7) rather than treat him like a 3-dimensional character whose thoughts and motivations she (the narrative) has to consider. there is a lazy line in there about how bobby was happy dean got out and had a family and was safe and it’s such utter goddamn bullshit because, as established in my rant up there, bobby knows dean better than that, and he’d never in a million years do that to dean, and he’d never in a million years believe sam would do that to dean either, nor would he trust a sam who told him to lie to dean about him being alive. that would raise his hunter alarm bells so fast and loud and he’d be on the phone with dean before sam would be three steps off his lot.

for the record him being a ghost is also the dumbest plot i’ve ever seen. the man is a fucking hunter whose wife was possessed by a demon and then came back as a zombie; he’s seen all manner of things including more than enough ghosts. i don’t believe for a second that the bobby we knew in s1-5 would stick around. i mean unless quite specifically it was a “i’m pretty sure i’m going to hell and i know that’s a real thing and also how shitty it is so maybe i’ll become a vengeful spirit and slowly wither into nothing that sounds nicer” but that’s not at all how it’s presented, it’s not some rational choice it’s just that he can’t let go because he’s attached to sam and dean and too pissed off about dying, and it just... fails to ring true to the character.

(don’t get me started on how he reacts to re-souled sam; gamble drop your location i just wanna talk)

anyway - i know a lot of folks praise the gamble era for the motw stuff but i mostly found them unremarkable. and yes gamble clearly understands how sexy jared padalecki is and like hallelujah ma’am, but i’d give up every single canon shirtless scene in all 15 years in a heartbeat, wave them happily goodbye, if it meant having s6-7 with more depth of characterization.

and like - there are some really funny episodes! soulless sam, once we know he’s soulless, is kinda fun! i like the alien/fairy episode a lot! and the french mistake is one of my all-time favorites. season 7 time for a wedding is fucked up but fun to watch! balthazar is interesting! castiel has a great and interesting storyline! and we got soul-fisting!

there’s also some good emotional moments like the lisa and ben fallout! and weekend at bobby’s had some interesting character insights, and frontierland is great in so many ways! and this era introduces both garth and kevin and i love them both so damn much! and the scene in mommy dearest with eve looking like mary and biting dean is deliciously fucked up! weird oedipal bullshit is where spn is at, ba-bey!

and appointment in samarra is a really good episode! (even if everyone is acting dense saying that putting sam’s soul back in him could kill him when like - if sam’s soul is in the cage he’s dead, like that soul is not alive on earth, and the soulless version of him that you’re ‘killing’ will still be part of him but no you’re not killing sam even if putting his soul back in him kills his earthly body, because even then his soul would go to heaven like? why was this a debate between these smart and interesting characters except that the writers needed to artificially raise the stakes of this course of action?)

anyway. it was a really good episode for the dean and death side of it.

so there’s lots i liked about the gamble era too, but the problem is they’re mostly one-off things written into single episodes by people other than gamble, rather than (other than the cas storyline) actually part of the fabric of the seasons or direction or characterization that a showrunner should be in charge of keeping on track.

because like -- the mains plots? i hated the hallucifer plot and the way sam’s trauma was handled, with only a few good moments and most of them in the first two eps of s7. the alphas failed to inspire even though the alpha vamp was just a fun character. the leviathan look dumb as hell, even if there’s something interesting going on there with their ultimate goal and how they aim to achieve it. sam campbell felt goddamn pointless and again like he was added to fill a desired plot rather than really thinking character dynamics through -- like literally there was no purpose for that character to be their resurrected grandfather, any hunter would do, the family bond was deeply under-explored and included for what??? for me to be disappointed?

so anyway this is the most negative post on this blog by a massive margin but i just needed to rant and get it out of my system.

i see a lot of sam fans praise gamble’s era and i love that sam receives so much focus in her era, but i honestly think gamble’s writing strength comes in the most with dean and how she intuits his character.

long as tangent here, but look at the actual episodes gamble writes (not counting any she co-wrote in s1 with Raelle Tucker who imo elevated gamble’s writing) -- like yes you’ve got Houses of the Holy and Heart and AHBL but you’ve also got Bloodlust (introduces gordon and that turning point for dean), Crossroad Blues (dean-centric), and the Kids are Alright (introduces lisa). even in Houses of the Holy, the central arc is dean having his lack-of-faith shaken. gamble wrote ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ and that episode is !!!! for dean’s psyche. Jus In Bello is bibro but what’s central is dean and his tension with henricksen and his refusal to play ruby’s games, where sam’s little tiptoe into ‘maybe we kill the virgin?’ is important but not the focus.

like “are you there god it’s me dean winchester” and “the curious case of dean winchester” ??!!!!!! “it’s a terrible life” is about the angel’s manipulations on dean. it’s all dean!

gamble writes dean exceptionally well and her episodes almost all do something really fascinating with him. why don’t we talk about that more?

but of course i’ll grant you there’s some sam focus! Heart invokes sam’s fears of becoming a monster (even if sam acts shy for waaaay too long being flirted with, it’s hard to suspend disbelief); AHBL1 is an amazing episode focused on sam; Fresh Blood has the holy fuck razor-wire scene; Time is On My Side has unhinged bros; When The Levee Breaks is a fucking masterpiece.

and in fairness, both Bloodlust and “the curious case of dean winchester” have sam gaining an upper hand by being more level-headed than those around him, and both eps have men flirt with sam, which i love. “the song remains the same” is beautifully bibro in its little moments even though i find it more dean-centric. “two minutes to midnight” is an incredible episode with Death, even if that most memorable moment is the conversation between Dean and Death it still has a lot of implicit focus on sam and who he is, with the final conversation between dean and bobby (the one about sam being able to beat the devil) as essentially sam-centric.

(literally how did gamble write that episode and “death’s door” with such insight into bobby but still have him not tell dean sam is alive for a year???)

this incredible writing for dean carries through to her own era. i just complained a bunch about the start of season 6 and soulless and bobby, but dean is perfect in 6x01 and entirely believable. appointment in samarra, which i praised above? dean is 100 in that. “let it bleed” where dean leaves lisa and ben behind and has cas take their memories? the dean-centric plot there is devastating. and imo only one of gamble’s eps in s7 is genuinely sam-centric and it’s “the born again identity” where he ends up in a mental health institute because of hallucifer, and even there she has dean being focal, sorting through his inability to forgive cas, and she shoe-horns cas in with memories loss as “emmanuel” as this truly bizarre deus ex machina cure for sam’s hell-trauma that comes totally out of left field and feels intensely un-earned. it’s another thing that is just there to push the plot to where it ‘needs’ to be rather than taking time to figure it out in more depth.

(this is the same shit we criticize bucklemming for - and yes they’re way way worse for it and just worse writers like whoa, but why are we giving gamble a pass! look i actually think gamble is an incredible writer, i think her episodes are always interesting and they explore the characters and i’ve never hated a gamble ep and in fact love quite a few of them, lots of my faves. but i don’t enjoy her as a showrunner and i’ve tried really hard to get into her other properties and i can’t.)

anyway this is just my own biased reading so take it with a grain of salt, but i feel like gamble adores sam to the point where she prioritizes what she wants for him rather than what suits the character or story. she writes dean better because dean aligns well with her own adoration of sam and gives her a vehicle for it. we get bamf!sam moments and smart!sam moments from her on an episodic basis because of that love, so yay! but she writes dean with more genuine depth and a lot of her best scenes are of him, a lot of the best emotional arcs she writes are his.

final point - putting my wincestie goggles on here - i don’t feel like she invests in the codependency. and if i’m fully honest that’s why i don’t enjoy her seasons. (i can forgive bad writing but i can’t forgive ignoring the erotic codependency). imo if any showrunner came close to breaking the dependency, it was gamble. while her dean is obsessed with sam, her sam does not read (to me) as mutually obsessed. he is at times reliant and desperate, but not devoted. some of this is soullessness but after that it’s all ??? to me.

where it crops up in the gamble era, it’s typically in an ep written by either dabb (the og domestic brothers stan) or edlund (thank you for the french mistake with the complaint that they aren’t even brothers in that world, mr. edlund, and also for the insane 7x02 cut-sam’s-hand-to-kill-hallucifer scene. godspeed.), or else kripke’s final episode (aka “the man who knew too much” -- what a work of art -- with that fundamental understanding of sam who overcomes his own internal fracturing and wakes up because he knows he needs to get back to dean).

anyway that’s all probably unfair but 🤷‍♂️ i’m a kripke-era stan and a carver-era truther so i’m just gonna own that.

#whenever i'm procrastinating work i write long ass tumblr posts #sigh #wank for ts #fandom wank #canon crit #anti gamble era #anti gamble #sorry all s6-7 lovers #gamble's era is objectively better put together than the dabb era but at least in the dabb era it's easy to just #ignore the other characters and scenes and only focus on the bros #(that also makes the episodes short lmao there's so much less j2 screentime late seasons)#in s6-7 the bro moments often (not always) fail to satisfy #they're so plot driven rather than character driven #maybe that's the crux of my issue #anyway #negativity for ts

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spneveryseason · 3 years

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I'm watching 14x19, Jack in the Box. What is your take on that episode and how and why Sam went along with Dean's plan.

Hey! Oh, Jack in the Box...so much happening here that leads into the conclusion in Moriah. I think this needs a whole breakdown to discuss fully and get into Sam’s mindset:

Mary’s Death

It cannot be overstated exactly how huge this was, for everyone involved. Out of context, it’s a big deal: losing your mom is huge, and learning someone who consider your son killed her is a horrific situation to be in. The scenario itself in any context is gut wrenching. In the context of the show, however, it gets even worse: the entire show was predicated on avenging Mary, and getting her back in s11 was the only big win they had ever had. The trials and tribulations they all faced in getting to know each other weathered multiple seasons, and they seemed to lose her multiple times only to get her back in the end.

This time, it was permanent. This time, they got to know her as a person, as Mary, before she died. This time, they were missing a person instead of a mythologized figure that they shouldn’t gotten to know even better. And, since we’re talking about Sam’s mindset specifically here, he has mentioned that he felt like he didn’t get to know her as well as Dean did. And now, he would never have the chance to again.

Jack’s Actions

So, getting the one-two punch that Mary’s death was actually caused by Jack, the adopted son?? Horrifying. What’s worse too, is that I don’t think they were ever told specifically what happened here. Like, I think Jack mentioned that it wasn’t his fault, but they don’t know beyond that, you know? They don’t know if he’s lying, or if he’s trying to cover it up, as being soulless means his morals aren’t all there. And even if they tie it at face value, it’s not even clear that he did this completely unintentionally. They could very well be picturing him lashing out with her with the intent to hurt but not to kill, and her dying as a result. I think, if that’s the image they had in mind, it would be a lot easier to be angry at Jack about it. So, Sam is angry in the immediate aftermath of Mary’s death, and I think this is what he pictured had gone down.

On top of this, I feel like Sam is simultaneously feeling another type of betrayal from Jack here alongside the killing of his mother. He’d been staunchly defending him from the beginning, he embraced him as part of their family (which Sam specifically does not do often at all), he mourned his death, and he’d seen him as a kindred spirit, as somebody he could mentor and someone who he understood. He even defended him against Dean, which he rarely does, especially in later seasons. However, in doing this, it feels to Sam that Jack has taken all of these connections and vulnerability and tossed them out, and had proven Dean right in the matter of including him as family. In a sense, doing this has also trampled on Sam’s own sense of goodness, as he identified with Jack very heavily.

So, we are left with a Sam who is grieving his mother and is feeling anger, justified or not, towards Jack.

Cas

Cas’ role in this with regards to Sam’s mindset is in his absence. When it comes to Jack, the show at that point has been very clear about where everyone stood: Dean was more suspicious, less likely to trust, while Cas and Sam took him in almost immediately. Cas was Sam’s confidante and trusted coparent when it came to Jack, as they had similar philosophies on how to treat him and protect him. They relied on each other often in that regard.

In this particular situation, though, Sam is caught in the middle. Dean has made it clear that he has turned against Jack. Cas has made it clear that he will stand with him. But Sam, Sam is the wild card. And it is up to whoever can convince him either way which side he will land on.

And Cas leaves to find Jack, to find answers. Now, I’m not saying that Cas had to stay to convince Sam: he had to do what he could to help Jack. However, without Cas there to be the angel on Sam’s shoulder, to play his role as his ally in Jack’s case, then Sam was faced solely with Dean to slowly convince him to turn against Jack. Whoever won Sam over would determine what came next, and in this case, it was Dean.

Dean

Now, Dean.

So, Dean plays a greater role here than simply as the side of Sam that wants to blame Jack entirely for Mary’s death. There’s a whole series of events, of baggage, attached to Dean and his value judgements, of what he thinks is right and wrong.

Up to this point, it has been made very clear to Sam that he should defer to Dean for his moral judgements. Every time Sam has made a choice outside of Dean, especially if it runs counterintuitive to what Dean wants or if he disagrees with it, it has turned out to be wrong. The narrative has done this every time. The only time he was right was Jack. And, as it turns out, that’s looking less and less likely by the minute after Mary got killed.

So, some time after season 11, Sam stopped making his own value judgements. He runs it by Dean first, makes sure that they’re on the same page before making any huge moral decisions. Again, the only time he didn’t in recent history? Jack. And again, he’s supposedly been proven wrong. Again, Dean has been correct. So, how could he disagree now? How could he say no when Dean tells him that is what they have to do? When Dean tells him they can use his mistake (his closeness with Jack, always being “in his corner”) to fix the problem (call him down)?

And so, Sam breaks. He agrees to go through with it.

The Box

Now, the act itself.

The scene where Sam has to convince Jack to show up is brutal. The decision has been taken, but Sam clearly regrets it already. He’s visibly distressed, practically tearing up, fidgeting. He’s stammering out his words, repeating his sentences, not at all convincing. He keeps trying to get Dean to give up (“i don’t think this is gonna work”, “guess he can’t hear”). But Jack can’t read his tone, can’t tell what he’s feeling. He shows up because Sam asked him to, and it’s Sam he ultimately listens to when he climbs into the box. Dean does most of the talking, but it’s Sam who makes that final request. If not for Sam, he wouldn’t have gotten in, or even showed up.

And Sam knows it. He’s got guilt pouring off him so heavy it’s physical. He knows it’s wrong, and yet, he doesn’t take the steps himself to get Jack out. Why is that? Is it Mary? Is it the personal betrayal? Is it Dean? A combination of these things? In any case, Sam goes on hating himself and keeps Jack in that box.

Consequences

Then, Cas shows up.

He reams them out, and Sam can only say his name in response. But it’s too late, and Jack breaks out of the box. We end the episode with Sam’s voice saying Jack’s name. It’s his mistake, he owns it. It’s his attempt at an apology but it’s too late. Again, he has made the wrong choice. Again, he cannot trust himself anymore.

I think he tried to remove responsibility from himself here, because he hated the idea of what he was doing so much. But in doing so, he went against his conscience and refused to stand up for Jack and what he thought was right. And I think that probably haunts him for the rest of his life.

In conclusion: evil, evil episode

#does this make sense?#spn #supernatural #sam winchester #dean Winchester #castiel #jack kline #Mary Winchester #spn meta #speaks #asks

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 3 years

Text

And now I’ve watched episode 3 of Walker because of reasons. (You guys asked, that’s reasons.) #2

If you guys haven’t seen part 1, go see it immediately. Because of reasons. This time, reasons is Slutty Glitter Cowboy Stripper. No, it’s not a joke.

Yeah, I’m not sure what’s happening either.

I can’t believe they’re airing cowboy strippers in Supernatural’s air slot and Dean Winchester isn’t there. I think this is why they had to kill Dean, because otherwise he would have ripped through the CW’s show layout and appeared in Walker sponteneously, instantly adopting Walker’s entire family and friends as his own and single-handedly implementing the depolicement of the state of Texas, with Castiel rolling his eyes at him in the background while he murders ICE agents at the US-Mexican border.

*slides the CW a twenty euro bill* so I have an idea for season 2 of Walker

Anyway, there’s this lady Walker and Ramirez are doing a stakeout on, a woman called Torreto who is presumably part of some criminal organization since they’re doing a stakeout on her, and who’s bisexual given she was being entertained by a lady and a guy at a strip club. Which is like, fine, not problematic at all, alright.

So the stripper straddles her and is like ~wanna come with me in the back, and she’s like ~maybe another time, and he’s like ~torreto i saw cops outside you probably wanna come to the back with me, and she’s like ~mmm yeah that sounds like a good idea. We were rooting for you, slutty glitter cowboy stripper! We were all rooting for you! Or not.

Meanwhile, Walker has horrible car manners.

Also, he asks her how her parents were to her growing up, which is a question you normally ask to people you’re not close to when you want to do some small talk. For some reason she brings up a friend she had some ~crazy teen years~ with, called Garrison, which doesn’t make me think of angels in Supernatural, no, I am a normal person.

But then people start coming out of the strip club, but not Torreto. So they go in.

Torreto is not there, so Walker just stops the first person he sees and he’s literally like ~excuse me, do you know if there’s someone in the back. The visual is hilarious

“Excuse me, sir, have you seen my brother from another show, I suspect he might be here”

Give me a spinoff about this strip club.

Anyway, the guys answers, “No, why, you two interested?” to which they immediately answer “no!” at the same time, and share a look which makes me think we’re supposed to be like ~~ooh, talking in unison moment! or something...?

Meanwhile their truck gets stolen, and Walker yells that his bobblehead is in there. Cue disgruntled Jared face.

Oh man. We are at the title card. It’s less than 6 minutes. This will never end.

It was night, now it’s day, and Stella and August are walking around Austin. He’s mimicking David Attenborough, describing the teenagers around them as though he was doing a documentary about animals.

Two girls approach them, bringing up a party that’s taking place tomorrow. She says it’s not the best idea with her court date approaching. The girls are like, your dad can figure something out, he’s an elite ranger or something and also owes you for disappearing for a year. She’s like, he’s being kind of cool, I don’t want to ruin this, and the girls “call BS” because this is like “the best party of the year”.

Ruby, the girl August has been hanging out with, appears and August goes from “nah the party is not my thing” to “I’ll totally be there” in like 0.02 seconds.

I cannot overstate how much I am not interested in high schooler drama.

Meanwhile, at the Walker Seniors’ place, Walker’s parents are preparing the table for a family dinner. From their banter we can infer someone’s who ~is like family although he isn’t “blood”~ is coming for dinner and Grandpa Walker doesn’t like him at all and actually expects the guy to steal their china and bourbon. “It’s been years, could you please give him a chance?” Grandma Walker says, and he accepts, although she grabs the fancy bourbon from behind his back.

Meanwhile, at the police station, all the cops are having a briefing about Torreto, the woman at the strip club. She apparently steals weapons all over Texas and sells them over the border at triple the cost. Remember that Torreto escaped from Walker and Ramirez because she stole their truck while they were inside the strip club. Ramirez is worried she’ll already become the laughingstock of the precinct.

Uh. James plays security camera footage from outside the strip club. Walker and Ramirez’ truck was stolen by Torreto and the cowboy stripper himself.

Obviously the other cops laugh when Ramirez admits it was her truck.

James tells them to find Torreto, find the truck, and find out who the naked cowboy is.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Then Walker drives home, and as soon as he gets out of his car, you know how in the Supernatural pilot Dean gets into Sam’s apartment and wrestles him before revealing it’s him to ~test if his fighting skills are rusty and laughs when Sam realizes it’s him? Alright, now think intensely and guess how Walker’s like-a-brother best friend is introduced. Think intensely! It’s really difficult to guess!

Something something about violence and male intimacy except this is too ridiculous to, you know, write something serious about it.

“Oh, man!” the guy laughs, lying on the ground where Walker threw him. “The look on your face!”

“You son of a-”

“Oh, c’mon man, don’t talk bad of a mother I never knew.”

I’m facepalming soooo hard. This is the first thing we learn about him (well, after the fact that he definitely stole something from the Walkers’ house in the past), that he never knew his mother!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

GUYS

I AM SO SORRY

I am faceblind I didn’t realize

THE GUY IS THE STRIPPER

I REPEAT

THE “DEAN BUT IN JARED PADALECKI’S MIND” CHARACTER IS THE SLUTTY GLITTER COWBOY STRIPPER

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I SWEAR MY HANDS ARE COLD AND CLAMMY

I AM EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS NO WORDS EXIST IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE

Oh my god guys. I am so sorry.

“You did your touchdown victory dance before you stole my partner’s truck!” Walker exclaims. “I should arrest you right here and right now!”

The guy acts like he has no idea what Walker is talking about, and says he’s in town to see his best pal.

Walker keeps accusing him, but then his mother appears, super thrilled to see him, and Walker lets is go.

They’re at dinner (NotDean brought wagyu steaks, which obviously means he does crime for a living) and Walker’s mother tells him to say grace, which he does in a semi-serious, semi-mocking way. Obviously NotDean does not believe in god, but he’s grateful for the people around him.

Stella calls him uncle, in case you missed that this is supposed to be a friend whom Walker loves likeabrother.

He talks about jobs he did here and there, and Walker and his brother tease him asking if he’s been to some prisons around the country. Stella doesn’t get the joke and NotDean explains it to her, adding, “now, from what I hear, I’m not the only outlaw in this family”. Grandpa Walker leaves the room.

NotDean asks Stella if she’s going to the bonfire (the party they were talking about earlier) and tells her that her mother started the thing when they were young. She didn’t know that. This is supposed to be a Meaningful moment.

Meanwhile the stolen truck is found... at Walker’s ranch. Gasp! What a shocking turn of events.

NotDean gives Stella advice on how to act in court to get on the judge’s good graces, “which means acting”. “Please don’t get legal advice from a criminal” walker’s brother Liam says. Is the gay brother also a NotDean of sorts, to be fair? Well, CriminalNotDean tells her to dress her best and cry. ActualbrotherNotDean tells her to use the correct legal arguments. Walker just stops them, quoting something Ramirez said earlier in the episode, “nobody benefits from the easy route”. Stella is like, what does that mean, which, mood, but Grandma Walker interrupts bringing in a plate of different hot chilis. Apparently they have a tradition of a competition. Which we don’t even see. Boo.

Ramirez finds the truck... right outside the Walkers’ house. Grandpa Walker, who’d gone outside, points a rifle to her and she explains what she’s doing there. They introduce themselves and she is like, sir why is the man who stole my truck inside your house? “Wife invited him to dinner.”

She’s like, I need to arrest him. But he’s like, I bet there’s not enough evidence to arrest him, or my son would have done it. Join me for steak and burbon in the bunkhouse! As one does. So they have wagyu and bourbon together, and she asks him what’s the guy’s story.

So NotDean and Walker grew up together, NotDean had a rough life, “my wife has a soft spot for strays, she can’t give up on him”. But Grandpa Walker doesn’t feel the same. He tells her that she cannot arrest him tonight, but it’s only a matter of time before the guy gives her enough rope. He adds that Walker has a blind spot for faces from the past, and needs someone to fix that.

Meanwhile dinner’s over and NotDean calls a uber. He and Walker arrange to meet the next day and hang out like old times. Eventually, Walker tells him that if he is involved in this case, he will have to take him down. “Theoretically, if you catch me.” They do a manly hug with manly pats, and the guy leaves. “Theoretically, go to hell,” Walker says after he’s left.

The next day, NotDean brings Walker to a storage in the middle of nowhere... full of cursed objects, no wait, wrong show. What’s inside the storage is the red Mustang. Walker is shocked that he hasn’t lost it in some bet - which apparently is how he got the car from Walker in the first place. Now NotDean says that, after everything Walker’s been through, he deserves a chance to win it back.

Glowy flashback of Walker and his wife in the car, right after the scene in the beginning of the episode. They bet it during poker night, decision of Emily, because Walker is “starting to get attached to her”. Emily teases him for calling the car a she, and Walker decides to call the car Stella.

They gave their daughter the name of a car they lost at poker.

Oh. She tells him she’s pregnant.

So, apparently, they had their first daughter when they were broke, to the point they had to try and get money at poker for a bigger place and baby things. That’s... kind of irresponsible.

Meamwhile, Ramirez goes to James to tell him about the thing, but James already figured NotDean was involved, because apparently stealing things and returning them is just something he does. “Why are you so calm about this?” she asks. He says because they cannot pin anything on him. Questioning him could scare the big crime lady. So he tells her to just keep an eye on him. “Walker, Torreto or Hoyt [NotDean]” she asks. “Yes” he answers.

Blah blah. I apologize, I’m being too detailed. I’m just bored by this. Ah, a butcher’s truck was stolen right after the strip club thing, guess where NotDean got the wagyu steaks.

Walker and NotDean go to the bar with the bartender who’s their friend, and NotDean flirts with her. They start playing poker, when Ramirez arrives, and has some banter with NotDean and spills some glitter on him that she found in the truck. He buys her a drink and she arrests him for trying to bribe a police officer. Walker is shocked.

At the precinct, he says they cannot prove he’s working with big crime lady. But she brings up he stole the wagyu steaks.

She calls him out for trying to be everyone’s friend even if they do something wrong, also with Stella.

She says she can hold NotDean for 24 hours, long enough to figure out the big crime lady’s plans. Common trope in cop shows. Arrest someone without proof, you have to release them after 24 hours, but the cop finds proof and bam, forgiven for arresting someone without proof.

I know you’re bored, I’m bored too.

Actually, nope, it goes differently and kind of worse. In the interrogation room, Ramirez offers NotDean a deal: he tells her where the big crime lady’s weapon deal is happening, and walks free. He points the location on a map and he compliments her. Walker is watching from the cameras and is shook.

Meanwhile the bonfire is happening, and Stella is there with her girl friends. So is August, breakdancing to impress girls. We don’t care.

Meanwhile, a lot of cops in serious cop gear surround the location NotDean pointed at. Nobody’s there, though.

What is there, is the red Mustang with the creepy bobblehead in it and a letter from NotDean that says he gives him the car back because it was always his wife’s.

Walker figures out where the deal is actually happening - the storage where the red Mustang was before.

Meanwhile, at the bonfire, August is drunk on booze he stole from Grandpa Walker and brought to the party. He asks Stella if she’s trying to drive their father away, breaking the law and all, he asks if she wants him to leave again. Then he throws up. She calls Walker but he obviously doesn’t answer. So she calls her uncle, who’s doing shopping with his partner or something. They’re buying cake? Doing cake testing for their wedding? Maybe.

Meanwhile, NotDean calls Grandma Walker to tell her he cannot go mushroom hunting with her tomorrow but needs to leave town, and he’s sorry to let her down again. She tells him that just because his family’s bad, doesn’t mean he is too. “You saved my boy, and I’ll never forget that” she says. Oooh, that’s so intriguing!, nobody says. They share a cute moment and then he hangs up, while the weapon deal goes down around him.

Uncle Liam and his partner pick up the kids, and Stella asks him if he’ll be in court with her tomorrow. He says he can’t, because it’s her father’s decision to make.

August turns up music and they all sing in the car. It’s funny how everyone’s got better chemistry with everyone else except with Walker. I know it’s, like, on purpose for plot reasons, but still, Walker’s interactions with everyone feel so stilted compared to anyone else. And it’s not the other characters are that compelling.

The police arrives at the location of the weapon deal, and NotDean gets arrested trying to steal the truck again. Ramirez gives a speech how that’s hard but it’s the right thing to do. Walker makes a comment about tough love, implying Stella needs to get that too.

The next day, they leave for Stella’s court thing on the red Mustang. It took Walker three episodes, but now they also have a cool classic car to show off! Yay! *eyeroll*

Meanwhile, Grandma Walker and Grandpa Walker have a conversation about their failing marriage or something.

Ramirez goes to the bar to apologize to the bartender for arresting NotDean. They have a drink together and if lesbians were watching this they’d start shipping them, but no lesbians are watching this. They’re wiser than me.

Stella got like a gazillion hours of community service and her license suspended. She’s upset, but since she has her license for one more day he teaches her how to drive the Mustang.

Wait. Americans don’t learn to drive normal cars when they get their license?? They only learn to drive cars with automatic gear?? What the hell??

They drive while August runs after the car to get over his hangover or something.

Would be a cute moment if the entire thing wasn’t so cheesy and weird.

Well. We know NotDean is a recurring role so we’ll see more of him. (Well, I’m not sure I will be there to watch, because this is boring af.)

This episode used all its interest coins in the strip club scene and then became dreadfully boring. I don’t even have some witty line to close this post.

This was a rollercoaster that went my brain go through a blender in the first six minutes or so and then killed the remaining braincells through boredom.

That’s it guys. What can I say. This is the CW’s Walker. Yee.

#marghe watches walker for some darned reason #cw's jared: legit texan

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hawkinsschoolcounselor · 3 years

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I disagree with your assessment of Ted as "not a bad guy," and I think you're playing down Ted's issues. Sure, he's not outright violent or cruel, like Lonnie, Dr. Brenner, and Neil, but there's more than one way to poorly parent.

Ted is a father in name only. He treats his children and wife with little more than apathy. (There are some scenes in which he treats them with care, but they're few and far between). Speaking from experience, having a parent who believes you're a disappointment and doesn't really care about you is very damaging. I'm not trying to play down Will, El, or Max's issues with their (step)fathers. I'm just saying that Mike doesn't have a great one either.

It just goes to show how good Karen, Joyce, Mrs. Henderson, and Mrs. Sinclair can be! They're the true MVPs of Stranger Things.

Anyway, thank you for your wonderful blog (congrats on 1200 followers!), and I hope this question finds you well!

It's fair if you think I'm downplaying Ted's issues, but I think you may be overstating them. Agree to disagree, I suppose, but I've just noticed a segment of the fandom that really seems to hate Ted.

The thing is we just don't know Ted that well. We only see glimpses of him, and what we see is often not flattering at all, but he's had moments.

When Will went missing, it was Ted who asked if he should go talk to Mike. He helped Mike get ready for the funeral. In season 3, we see him napping in his recliner, with an equally napping Holly laying on top of him. He goes on carnival rides that make him uncomfortable simply because his wife and daughter are excited to do so. We even see him try (and fail) to discipline his kids, which, while less pleasant, is what a father needs to do at times.

We go on about how Karen gave up on whatever she may have wanted in order to have the ideal family. What about Ted, though? When does he really look happy? He spends most of his time looking bored or asleep. Mike and Nancy don't respect him, and neither do their friends, apparently. He doesn't even know how to speak to his wife.

Mike doesn't have a great father, no, but he doesn't have a terrible one, either. I just think he deserves better than to be treated like some dead weight Karen has to cut herself free of.

Honestly, every time I look at the season 4 movie board and see True Lies, I can't help but relate it to Ted. So much about it fits. A man with a boring job and a dying marriage, a wife who is restless and looking for excitement and considers an affair. I don't think Ted will really end up being a badass government agent, but it's hard to ignore. Even for a show like Stranger Things, Ted's cluelessness seems to stick out. I want to believe there's a reason for it.

I mean it when I say Ted isn't a bad guy. I like to think that being a boring man coasting through life isn't enough to qualify for that. I think he's as much of a victim of societal pressure as Karen is. He just might not be as aware of it as she is.

#stranger things #ted wheeler

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phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust · 3 years

Note

Re: the prompt post: 19, 13, 7 (any!)

7. “You’re a terrible liar.”

December 17th. 1971

John and Paul had taken Julian up to Liverpool; they were staying at Mendips for Christmas, hoping to capture some domestic bliss away from the chaos of being a former Beatle, as well as letting Julian get to know his external family a little better. Since the divorce, Paul had encouraged John to continue seeing Julian most weekends, dropping in on weekdays too, and more recently, start taking Julian for most of the holidays. Cynthia didn’t mind so much, she had a new partner she was seeing so it was nice for her to be able to take a break from Jules every once in a while.

John had in fact almost drifted away from his own kin at one point, but Paul insisted he maintained some sort of relationship with him. His problem was really that he didn’t understand children, he couldn’t relate to or connect to them. A psychologist could spend hours searching the index of his mind, but why bother? What it all amounts to is simply that though John wanted to be able to connect with kids, he just didn’t know how. Paul on the other hand just understood how to interact with kids. Perhaps it was boyish charm ever present in his spirit, but he just understood them far better than John ever could. Still, perhaps they balanced out well as a couple.

Paul unlocked the door to the home - he’d just from his dads, visiting some family. He didn’t bring John with him today (though he would in a few days’ time), because his father still wasn’t comfortable with the arrangement – though he’d have to get used to it, because John and Julian weren’t going anywhere.

“‘M back!” He chirped, shaking the snow off from his shoes.

“Were in ‘ere Macca…” John called out – his speech was slightly slurred, so that of course provoked a few questions in Pauls mind.

Entering the living, he couldn’t help but notice the bottles of beer scattered across the table. His lips plastered into a small grin as he asked, “Have you been drinkin’ love?”

“No…” John denied cheekily. Putting on a faux queen’s accent, he added, “I most certainly have not.”

“Well, I dunno about that. Think all those bottles might suggest otherwise.”

“They’re not mine.” John said with an attempted nonchalance. He was acting as though they were still teenagers, getting caught bunking school only to pop off down the pub.

Turning to Julian who lay upon the carpeted living room floor, Paul said, “What do you think Jules? D’you think yer da’s been drinkin’?” Jules nodded his head with cheeky grin overstating his face, “I saw him!” he said.

“Oi - I told ye not to tell on me!” John snapped, though with no real anger in voice.

“John, it has to be said, yer a terrible liar. I mean, yer truly crap mate.”

“Yeah, well, I never would’ve been caught if Jules hadn’t told on me.”

“Christ John,” he looked around him just to ensure a certain someone was not following behind him before continuing, “im not Mimi, im not gonna tell you off you know.” He picked up the shopping he had bought – Mimi had asked for a couple things – and as he walked into the attached kitchen, he joked, “Besides, think you might be old enough to legally drink by now.”

Following him into the kitchen, John started, “So what’d ye get up to with yer da’ then?”

“Nothing much y’know; just catching up with him and Mikey.” Paul said casually as he unloaded the shopping in his bags onto the table. “Mike’s girl is pregnant, d’you know.”

“Boy or a girl?”

“Dunno yet. They’re hoping for a girl, but they don’t mind so much either way. Da’s girl, Angela, is excited to have some grandkids on the way though.”

“Yeah, well – she might wanna lower her expectations for us. Don’t think we’ll be pushing out any of our own anytime soon.”

Paul dismissed this, continuing, “She’s lookin’ forward to meeting Jules in a coupl’a day’s time.”

John appeared to ignore this, asking with a smirk and sly rhetoricism, “Yer dad still doesn’t like me, does he?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say he doesn’t like you, but y’know,” Paul whipped him a smile as he continued unloading the bag, then added, “don’t think you’re his favourite Beatle.”

“If only you’d gotten with George or Ringo,” John quipped back sarcastically, as he made his way through the small kitchen, over to Paul. He placed a hand on Pauls waist, and brought his other hand up to his hair, to fiddle flirtatiously with the dark locks. “‘M sure he’d be content enough for you to marry either of them.”

Paul let out laugh, “Don’t think he’d be too happy with me marrying any guy to tell you the truth. ’Sides, don’t think George or Ringo would want me.”

“Definitely not George.” John joked back, still twirling his fingers through Pauls hair.

“That reminds me actually, I wanted to give him a ring soon. Wish him merry Christmas and that.”

“We’ll do that later…” John said as he angled Pauls face, bringing him in for a kiss. With some tender passion they kissed in the ever-familiar kitchen, embracing the delight of domesticity - but shortly after, they were sternly interrupted by a shrill from Mimi of, “John, I will have none of that in my house.”

Pulling away from Paul, he groaned, “Alright, Mimi,” though his tipsy voice still remained relatively unburdened. Paul stood there smiling, and fidgeting with Johns hands until Mimi said, “That goes for you too Paul. None of this silliness in my house.”

John just rolled his eyes in response, “Like a bloody boarding school in ‘ere.” he whined, but Mimi ignored the retort.

Dragging Paul into the living room, he kissed him once more as he pulled him down onto the sofa. They made out a little, embracing one another like adolescents, with Paul resting himself on half on the sofa, half on John’s lap – and John entangling his hands around his lover’s legs.

But Paul, being the more responsible of the two, broke away at last to ask, “Where’s Jules?”

“Why’s it matter?” John moaned.

“I don’t want him to see us like this.”

“He doesn’t bloody care!” John insisted.

“I bet he does - how’d you like to walk to walk in on yer own dad neckin’ it with someone?”

“I have walked in on me dad neckin’ it, and I didn’t give two shits-like.”

“Yeah, well, Jules is different,” he added a mocking, “plus, Mim’s isn’t standing for any of yer ‘silliness’ now.”

“Always eager to please the in laws aren’t ye Macca.” John said defeatedly, as Paul crawled away from his lap.

***

Look, I dont even care that its June. I like Christmas. I wanted to write a Christmas fic. I dont even care, im shameless!

Also, ive got quite a few other requests and like, im working on them I promise, but I always like to put in effort y'know so who knows when they'll be out haha. But ill try get another one out today <3

#asks #mclennon #anon #fanfic #my work #domestic

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olivish · 3 years

Text

Some thoughts about Melanie Cavill and her beautiful mind.

I agree with others that Mel is neurodivergent/ autistic. I think this helps explain her passion and focus, and also why, in S1, she was so adept at “putting on a mask” and pretending to be someone else. Basically, I think she had been masking in some way or another her entire life, so when the time came to create the “Hospitality Melanie” persona, it was already second nature.

I think this also explains why it took Melanie so long to see Wilford for the monster he is, and why he was able to control/ manipulate her for most of her life, despite her superior intelligence. On that note, here are some of my MC HCs (I hope it goes without saying, I don’t mean to imply that anything described below is necessarily an “autistic” trait. This is simply how I imagine Melanie the person, who also happens to have autism.)

1. Before meeting Wilford, Melanie struggled to find her place in the world. She dropped out of high school because she was bored with the lessons and couldn’t be bothered to complete assignments. She had no friends, and most adults wrote her off as a trouble-maker.

Her family was poor, so she “borrowed” things they needed for the farm (some of them rather LARGE things), which earned her a juvenile record for theft.

2. Because of this, Melanie believed she’d never go to college. That was fine, she thought, she wouldn’t fit in there. She didn’t fit in anywhere. The only person who didn’t make her feel like a misfit was her father, John Cavill, who was a patient man who loved farming, and who taught his daughter everything he knew about the trade.

It wasn’t long, however, before John ran out of knowledge to share. Melanie was 8 when her father took her to the local library. “So,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

From that moment on, John watched his daughter surpass him in every subject, every field of study. It was hard, not because he was prideful, but because it felt like he was losing her. But not completely. At least, not yet.

Because for years after that, Melanie would seek her father out, and she’d talk at length about the topics that interested her, and he listened, enjoying her company, even after he ceased to understand a single word that came out of her mouth.

I mean that literally.

“Certains nématodes posent problème en agriculture parce qu'ils parasites des plantes ou des animaux d'élevage, mais la plupart stimulent la croissance en améliorant le cycle des nutriments.” “Mellie.” “Oui, papa?” “You’re speaking French again.” “Oh. Sorry.”

3. Melanie’s mother was a different story. Shanon Cavill, nee Shanon O’Connell, was stern, intelligent and, due to an undiagnosed mood disorder, emotionally unstable. She’d lose her temper at the drop of a hat, and although she loved her daughter, she didn’t understand her. Shanon didn’t understand why someone so brilliant was throwing her life away. Dropping out of school, getting arrested, fooling around with boys, and girls, who didn’t care about her, and who only got her into trouble.

Shanon said many words in the heat of many moments that she could never take back. Foolish. Reckless. Lazy. Quitter.

The day Joseph Wilford showed up at the farm looking for Melanie, Shanon peered at him through the porch screen door. “Did she steal something from you?” she asked. “Because whatever it is, we can’t pay you back, so you’d best just leave before I let the dogs out.”

Looking back, Wilford deeply regrets not heeding the lady Cavill’s advice.

4. Melanie saw Wilford as her missing piece. Melanie always knew she was “bad with people”. To her, human beings were confounding black boxes. INPUT > [???] > UNEXPECTED RESULT, USUALLY BAD.

But Wilford. Joseph Wilford was a social magician! She watched in awe. Everyone adored him. He’d tell a joke and everyone laughed. Anything they needed for their work - funding, IP rights, permits, materials, labor - he procured through sheer force of charisma.

He was just like her, except he had that one missing piece.

It was the apparent gap in their interpersonal skills that led Melanie to conclude that she could never be a leader like him. That’s why she allowed Wilford to take credit for her work, why she believed him when he said it was better for all involved if she remained a ‘silent partner.’

That’s also why she never tried to run Snowpiercer as herself. Despite having all the skills, Melanie couldn’t imagine anyone would follow her leadership.

(I think she was wrong about that...)

5. It was Wilford who sent Melanie to college, and it was Wilford who coached her on how to “mask.” As a sociopath, nearly all of Wilford’s social interactions are theatre. They have to be. So when he met Melanie, he immediately saw what her problem was - the silly girl wasn’t acting!

So he sat her down one day and gave her a gift. “A chess game?” she said.

“Not a game. This box contains the secret to the universe.”

She smiled, but he was serious. As Wilford set up the pieces he explained, “This is the whole world. Every type of person you’ll ever meet is here. Pawns, knights, bishops. They all have their rules, their own little scripts. The trick is, figure them out, while revealing nothing about yourself.”

She didn’t understand, but in time, she would. Wilford taught her how to survive, but not as herself. He taught her to hide, to blend in, and to trust nobody but him.

And it worked, to a certain extent. Melanie earned degrees from MIT and Yale, graduating with the highest honors, lauded as a prodigy. A recruiter from NASA asked if she’d be interested in applying for the astronaut program. Elon Musk asked the same thing, but he offered more money.

Melanie could have worked anywhere. Done anything. But she went back to Wilford, partly out of loyalty, and partly because she believed he was the only person in the world who truly knew her, and saw her, and valued her for who she was.

They weren’t lovers, but Melanie considered him just as close. For many years, he was her one partner and closest friend.

6. When Melanie got pregnant with Alex, she was afraid she’d be a bad mother. She worried that she wouldn’t have that mysterious ‘maternal instinct’ that seemed to come naturally to other women. She thought maybe she was “broken” in a very particular way and shouldn’t be a parent.

Those worries disappeared once Alex was born. More than that, Melanie’s deep connection with Alex made her consider that maybe she’d underestimated herself. In motherhood, Melanie found courage. She built stronger friendships with Ben & Jinju, and she began to interact with Wilford on a more equal footing.

She started speaking up about things she never dared interfere with before. She didn’t like the company’s environmental practices. Their anti-union stances. Their parental leave policies were atrocious. Wilford was beside himself. He didn’t recognize her. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what happened.

At a loss, Wilford blamed his catch-all word for human behavior that fell outside his bounds of understanding.

“Sentimentality.”

7. When Melanie lost Alex, she lost faith in herself. It wasn’t just the grief, or the guilt, though those were enormous. Melanie understood now: Alex was her missing piece. Alex was the one thing that made Melanie feel like she could do anything.

It cannot be overstated what a colossal blunder it was for Wilford to return Melanie’s superpower to her. He thought he was being clever in saving Alex, but from the moment Melanie blew up Big Alice’s connector and Alex gave her that grudging look of respect, all bets were off.

Melanie remembered who she was. The awakening started with Layton, but it ended with Alex.

Final thoughts: Melanie’s particular neurology has been a hot-button issue in the past, so I’m a little nervous posting this. Please reach out to me with any comments or concerns. Everything here is written with an open heart in good faith, and while I’m allergic to argument, I am addicted to discussion. <3

#Snowpiercer #fanfiction #hc

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