jodibodie

[jodibodie]

Of all the things Chloe expects to find on Lucifer’s bookshelves, a book of fairy tales isn’t one. Only, it’s no ordinary book and curiosity has consequences. This magic tome traps Chloe in its spell, and she has to make her way through nine tales to escape its pages!

Welcome to the Filii Hircus Fairy Tale Storybook Project! This is a collaboration (and labor of love) by 16 authors and artists. A new illustrated story will be posted every two days (or so). We hope you will join us as we follow Chloe through a magical storybook…

#filii hircus fairy tale project #lucifer fanfiction #lucifer fanart #deckerstar #fractured fairy tales

[jodibodie]

Great messages from a comfort show.

Lessons Lucifer Season 6 Left Me With:

Life on Earth doesn't matter when compared to eternity.

A child of a previous relationship isn't as important as a child of the partner you're currently with.

Trauma makes you who you are, and you shouldn't want to erase that.

Everyone is deserving the chance of redemption, no matter what they do.

Free will is an illusion. No matter how much you fight for it, we all end up following God's plan.

If you like your job enough, you won't regret abandoning your child and the woman you love for it.

A parent abandoning their child is acceptable, as long as it's the best thing for them.

God was right to do what he did. In fact, he was the one who made the sacrifice by abandoning Lucifer, because it was painful for him. Casting Lucifer into Hell to be a torturer, letting him grow to hate himself to the point he thinks he's a monster incapable of love, it was all for a reason.

[jodibodie]

Imagine you want your child to grow up to be a therapist.

In order to do that though, you decide they need to experience some of the hardships their future patients have, in order to assist them successfully. They must fall, and then learn to rise again, before helping others do the same.

So when they become a teenager, you kick them out of the house. Not onto the streets, but into a shelter you built below ground in your backyard. It is dark and desolate, devoid of hope, life, and even music. There, they are assigned a task, which they repeatedly do, in the hope of pleasing you.

Neither you, nor their siblings, speak to them again until they've spent the majority of their life down there. The only contact they have with their family is with one brother, who takes it upon themself to force them back into the basement whenever they manage to escape.

You're aware of this, but you do nothing. You're also aware when your child is distraught, despairing at a parent who refuses to acknowledge them. You're aware that most of their siblings hate them, and that everyone who knew or has even heard of them does too. You're aware when they're forced to kill their brother after they attack them, you're aware when they start to self-mutilate thinking they can escape your control, and you're aware when they start to hate themselves so much that they think they're a monster, incapable of love. And still, you do nothing. You always do nothing.

Not until the day you decide they're ready to leave, at which point you introduce them to someone who will guide them towards them being the therapist you always wanted them to be. Eventually, they do, but it means leaving that guide, the woman they fell in love with, and their unborn child, devastating them once again.

Still, they find happiness in the work, and help a great amount of people, even though they have to return to and work out of that very same shelter they grew up in. Just like you always planned.

Was it worth it? Are you a good parent?

Because as far as the writers of Lucifer are considered, you are. Your child is Lucifer, and you are God. Which makes the situation even worse, because that shelter is Hell, that job is torture, and that self-hatred physically manifests in a monsterous appearance.

But hey, it was all for a reason.

And traumatising your child is acceptable if you think it's the best thing for them.

[jodibodie]

This sums up exactly my feelings on Deckerstar.

I keep seeing this argument that Deckerstar is a bad pairing. It really wasn't. It was, in fact, extremely organically done up through the Fox era. Understand that it's not that Chloe and Lucifer's relationship wasn't developed past S2. It develops through S3 just fine. A key part of the narrative is that they're regressing and sabotaging themselves precisely because Lucifer isn't taking his own advice to his mother that they can only move forward not back. Deckerstar stagnates and starts to crumble in S3 because they won't let it move forward, and Lucifer realizes he has to take the leap at the end and tell her the truth so they can move forward together. So through S1-3, Deckerstar is fine. Well developed, even.

The Netflix era is where it all goes to shit, and it does for two major reasons, which I go into below the cut:

1.) Misogyny. I cannot stress how ridiculously sexist the Netflix era is. Joe and Ildy hate women. They don't realize they hate women, but they do. It infiltrates every part of the Netflix era narrative.

Up until S4, Chloe is the straight man to Lucifer's more manic behavior, but she is NOT a flat character by any means. Her acting and characterization is more subtle, but it is very complex. In fact, we know more about details about her character's backstory than we do his since the show never bothered to touch what actually happened with the rebellion. I'm not joking when I say I used to recommend this series precisely because of the female characters: not only were they well done, but they weren't young, sexy twenty-somethings. They were mature women in their thirties with lots of baggage and emotional complexity.

From S4 onward, the dive in the quality of the female characters is staggering. Linda becomes a mother and that's all she wrote, y'all. It subsumes the majority of her character's plot purpose. The therapy scenes dive in quality along with it. She goes from being one of the most interesting side characters to just...a terrible friend and therapist who serves little real plot purpose. (For that matter, TWO women get pregnant in the Netflix era, and not a single fucking moment is spent with them thinking over the choice to have this baby or how it would impact their lives, even though these are both women in their forties with difficult life situations that would make babies extremely inconvenient. It's just automatic that they want them because lol women made 4 making baby, right? Yet the two father have entire episodes dedicated to their fears and anxieties over it. Unbelievable.)

Ella was always boring and fairly flat (which is fine - she's a side character, they're supposed to be less developed!), but she finally got interesting in S5A only to be given an extremely gross storyline where her love of bad boys accidentally leads her date to a serial killer, where we then get to watch her internalize that guilt and horror in S5B instead of grappling with it meaningfully. S6's solution to this is to let her meet the man she "needs" to treat her right. Also gross. (At least she got to grapple with it somewhat, I guess. You know who also dated and was manipulated by a serial killer but never got any of her pathos over it examined? THE LEAD FUCKING FEMALE CHARACTER.)

Maze is just....completely fucking off the rails. Her character is abrasive and abusive but never has any meaningful repercussions for any of it but is then framed as badass and assertive. Punching people doesn't make her a strong woman. She's just a violent asshole who expecting everybody to serve her emotional needs while overlooking theirs.

Goddess goes from having one of the most complex, fascinating, and moving antagonist arcs in the whole series in S2 to showing up in S5B just so she can take her abusive husband back. In other circumstances, this would be fine because they're gods and human rules, power dynamics, and morals don't need to apply, but compounded with all of the other misogyny around it, it's awful.

Eve is...holy shit. I cannot even begin to start with how clearly she was only ever designed to be a Deckerstar cockblock who shoves Chloe out of the colead role so they don't have to develop her. She's great in S4 right up until they no longer need her, and than she just goes completely off the rails. They literally make her the crazy, hysterical ex girlfriend wrecking Lucifer's life. When she showed up in 5B, I nearly had a fucking aneurysm, y'all. Imagine having such a great character and completely fucking wasting her the way they did. Moreover, imagine sticking her in an f/f pairing that had so much incredible potential to be interesting but which was just thrown together because lmao, bisexual people just be like that, right? Our love lives don't require development or complexity. (Or sex! Because you can bet that once these women are in romantic, loving, monogamous relationships, their sexual desires barely exist. It's all tepid kisses and sultry jokes but passion goes out the door, apparently. Bis and gays can marry, y'all, but we apparently can't fuck. Oh, and we definitely got to Hell at the end of the day, too!)

Oh, but I can imagine wasting her because the most wasted female character of them is Chloe Decker, the literal fucking colead. What goes wrong in the Netflix era is a lengthy list of issues, but perhaps the biggest one I see people skimming over is that they never bothered to give their female colead an actual character arc. After S3, Chloe stops being a person. She's just a thing to move around on the chess board for Lucifer's character. Her character background is routinely gutted to serve the plots of other characters, particularly male characters, usually in the pursuit of ANGST. We spent three seasons watching Chloe deal with things in a fairly logical, rational manner, even when she was scared or didn't understand things. In S4, we toss that all away because having Chloe turn into a hysterical women who runs off to another fucking continent so we can have some dumb betrayal plot that splits Deckerstar apart AGAIN for an entire season and so we can shove Chloe's storyline aside so they don't have to tackle the miracle reveal. S5A manages to be a brief, shining moment where my bad bitch S1 Chloe returns, but then right back into S5B we're shoving her into a passive role where she exists to be sad about Lucifer and....nothing fucking else. S6 is...I cannot even begin fam. They gut her character's history of having her father literally murdered and her daughter kidnapped by a corrupt cop so they can prop up Amenadiel's story by making her the stupid white woman who doesn't understand racism and thinks the system is perfect.

SHE WAS MARRIED TO A LATINO MESTIZO MAN. HER DAUGHTER IS A MESTIZO LATINA GIRL. IN WHAT FUCKING REALITY WOULD SHE NOT KNOW WHAT RACISM IS? SHE LITERALLY HELPED LUCIFER AND AMENADIEL IN TWO DIFFERENT SEASONS GET A YOUNG BLACK MAN OFF UNFAIR CHARGES. IN WHAT REALITY DID CHLOE DECKER EVER FUCKING THINK THE SYSTEM WASN'T FLAWED? SHE'S LITERALLY A VICTIM OF POLICE CORRUPTION. JESUS CHRIST. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY.

And then there's...God, so much else in S6 that's just jaw droppingly sexist, the kind that's almost shocking on television in the year 2021. She can't have the piece of the blade because power makes her going fucking insane, apparently. She finds out she's going to be a mother in episode 5 but literally doesn't bother checking that she's pregnant until four episodes later??? Her daughter from her previous marriage stops mattering as much as the one she has with Lucifer?? What?? She suffers through six seasons of obstacle to be with Lucifer, gets a whole six months with him, and then she spends the rest of her human life alone, raising two children by herself, having to lie and traumatize her children to maintain some stupid goddamn time loop. (How insulting to stay at home and single parents to act as though the work they do every day isn't extremely difficult, time consuming, and draining.)

No big deal, though, guys, because life is just a blip you see! The writers told us so! (We won't get into how grossly evangelist that thinking is, not to mention thematically contradictory - if life is a blip, why the fuck is it determining human eternity?? Why does fixing racism or other damaged human systems matter??) Because women literally exist just to suffer for the men to do what they need to in this story, apparently. Their feelings and desires don't matter. Chloe watches her daughter fade away in 6x10 telling Lucifer to abandon her and apparently has not one word to say edgewise. It's all good!

One final note on the miracle reveal...let this go down as the single most outrageously wasted thing I've ever seen introduced in a show. You literally have a character who is a gift from God, and that's what you come up with? Literally, thousands of options to play around with why she was put there, abilities and purpose that could have linked her arc to Lucifer's to develop alongside his to prop up the narrative...and they blew it. They had THREE SEASONS to come up with something interesting, and they just don't. It's just mindblowing to me. I cannot imagine being that incompetent as a writer.

But conclusion: they didn't view Chloe as a person the way they did Lucifer. They didn't see her story as valuable as his, so they never bothered creating an arc. The problem is that she is the COLEAD OF THE NARRATIVE and a huge part of Lucifer's life, so by crashing her narrative, they also crashed his, because the two are intertwined.

2.) The writers saw Deckerstar not as key part of the narrative that drove Lucifer's character development and propped up a key part of the found family theme but as a way to consistently frustrate the audience and keep them engaged by constantly keeping them waiting for the payoff that never came.

Think of all the great moments Lucifer and Chloe have with other partners that they never have with each other. Think of all the great couples moments that get handed over to other, less important couples in the show.

Eve gets the devil face kiss with Lucifer. Chloe never gets anything like this with him.

Marcus gets Chloe's an emotional confession about the pain of her father's death. She never even gets to discuss this with Lucifer after.

Eve (and lots of other men and women) gets to have fun, kinky sex with Lucifer. Chloe has passionate, public sex with Pierce. Lucifer and Chloe never do either of these things together. They're the lead couple, and they get a whole two barely PG-13 sex scenes, one of which canonically leads to pregnancy.

Eve and Maze get a big wedding scene. Amenadiel gets to commute and be with his family and see them grow. Lucifer and Chloe get neither of these things.

Trixie gets to talk about her mother being happy with Pierce in S3. She has a big, powerful family moment with Lucifer and Eve in S4. In S5B, Lucifer doesn't hold Trixie and Chloe in their moment of grief over Dan's death, while other characters openly embrace in the background. Instead, Deckerstar has two fights across two episodes instead of finding comfort with each other. In fact, all of the great little family moments we expected with TRIXIE after S5? Went to Rory instead. Trixie gets tossed to the side.

Rory's sole purpose in the narrative, just like Eve, is to split Deckerstar up.

The thing that should kill you is that they did this on purpose. They told us they did. Joe openly said they wanted to frustrate fans. They basically damaged their own story and found family narrative, stripping away all the emotional intimacy from S5B and S6 that would have propped up the underlying themes in order to make fans want more by giving them nothing. For six seasons, we waited to see Deckerstar get together and be happy together...and we couldn't even have that. They never get a fucking break. Amenadiel gets handed the story and rewards of a narrative that Lucifer did all the work to receive. In the end, Deckerstar literally exists just to generate angst. We were asked to invest and then never got paid the dividend of that investment.

tl;dr it's not that Deckerstar is a bad pairing. It's that the writers actively sabotaged it by being sexist idiots with no respect for their lead characters' narrative. They went for the laziest, most superficial route possible to drum up drama and pretend it was deep. Great job, guys! You gave D&D a run for their money for fucking up the landing, that's for sure.

[jodibodie]

Now that we have the script for Lucifer's final episode, can we stop pretending Joe and Ildy's random headcanons spouted during (some, but not other) interviews are canon?

Canon was what they wrote. Canon was what they showed. Regardless of what they've sometimes said during interviews, it's clear they intended Lucifer to be a happy slave in Hell forever and for Chloe to live a "blip" of a celibate life raising two fatherless children, at least one of whom is miserable and angry. The finale is the end of Lucifer's "vacation" on Earth (the only place that's ever felt like home) and the start of Chloe's long, sexist slog before she dies and goes to work as a happy co-slave. So much for Chloe being more than her work, I guess.

You can like the ending—I can't imagine why anyone does, but I'm a firm believer in different strokes for different folks—but let's not pretend the commuting the fandom has latched onto to cope with the ending is anything but canon divergence. That's valid! But it's not canon. The writers wanted their characters and audience to be miserable because they mistook ham-fisted angst for cleverness. It is what it is. But maybe we could at least be honest about what was shown on screen? It's just a thought, really.

[jodibodie]

This is too gorgeous not to reblog. <3

DECKERSTAR in every episode

[jodibodie]

Forcing suffering on female characters over and over again to prove how strong they are doesn't make you a feminist, it makes you sort of sadistic.

[jodibodie]

I Can Relate

I can totally relate to Chloe Decker and her eye-rolls.  I once had a judge in a civil trial ask if I could please stop rolling my eyes every time the opposing party said, something.

#lucifer #chloe decker #i can relate #luciferseason6 #lucifer spoilers

[jodibodie]

Chloe "I Just Solved Another Murder" Decker

[jodibodie]

I Have Some Feelings

To start let me just emphasize how much I love and adore this show and always will. This was my covid show. Both of my kids loved “Lucifer” and always said I should watch so at the start of covid I binged it and when I say binged, I mean all 4 seasons in a few days and have rewatched so many times I’ve lost count. I think it is timeless, engrossing, original and all around amazing. The writing and the cast were all excellent. The writing was smart and consistently strong and that is so rare.  Funny, sad, poignant, it hit all the notes with very few plot holes or missteps. There is not one episode in the entire series that was not engaging. Even if I didn’t like an episode, it was still well done. What a rarity.

The cast is scary good. Completely underrated. Just all phenomenally talented.  I don’t remember the last time a cast was this strong.  From the core group to both reoccurring and guest stars, the cast was just fantastic.  

Tom Ellis, no words.  The man deserves to choose whatever he wants to do acting wise. He should have people breaking down his door. He can truly do it all and do it all well. He took a character that if portrayed by a lesser actor could have come off as a complete asshole and made him one of the most sympathetic and loveable characters in recent history. Ellis made a crime solving devil, a promiscuous man-child that occasionally breaks into song and the evidence room into a beloved character that has become an icon.  

Lauren German, WOW.  She is just so damn good. She can break your heart one second and have you laughing the next. She makes Chloe real, and people don’t realize how hard that is. Chloe is smart, kind, tough and gorgeous but she’s also an insecure dork.  She’s us and German just brings it.  

DB Woodside I’ve loved since “Buffy”.  He is a phenomenal actor and who knew he could bring the laughs so well? His expressions were classic. Clueless angel indeed. Amenadiel could have been very one-dimensional but because of Woodside’s talent he became fully fleshed out and full bodied.  

I have no doubt Lesley-Ann Brandt has a huge career in front of her.  She took a character that very well could have been hated, a demon and made her into one of the most human characters on the show. Kudos to her for taking a tough role and making it her own.  

Kevin Alejandro is another actor I’ve loved for a long time.  He also took a character who if we’re going to be honest here did so many unlikeable things that he should have been truly despised but because of Kevin’s portrayal he was beloved. Great actor and a terrific director.

Rachael Harris IMO is the downlow MVP.  She was literally the rock and again, with a lesser actress the role could have been a throwaway. The normal human, the sounding board but Harris imbued her with so much more.  Her spit takes, sarcasm and her obvious compassion was what made Dr. Linda an unforgettable character. Once again just perfect casting.  

Aimee Garcia was a great addition. She made Ella a fan fav and put so much heart, joy and sincerity into Ella never once did you doubt that she would prevail no matter what was thrown at her.  Garcia was just fantastic, and I want her skin care regime.  

Scarlett Estevez pulled off the one thing I thought almost impossible.  She took the role of a young child and made it so I didn’t want to cringe. She portrayed Trixie so beautifully from day one that she was a true pleasure to watch.  Even though Trixie was super precocious Estevez never made her obnoxious. I loved Trixie and I have never said that about any child character in an adult show.  She was wonderful and has an amazing career in front of her.

That said, I’ve got some feelings now that I’ve seen the finale and have had some time to digest it all.  I love that Chloe and Lucifer had eternity and I agree that they had to be separated for Chloe’s lifetime. Didn’t like it but it’s the logical path. She’s human, he’s not. The ageing thing alone necessitated them not being together long term on earth and that’s just to start the list. They had to had to be apart for the short term to get their eternity but the duality of Lucifer's ending and Amenadiel's didn't sit right. Amenadiel as God got to have it all. His calling, his family etc. while Lucifer had to give up everything.  I also don’t buy the “If he came up from hell, he could never leave them again” defense.  I call bullshit.  Amenadiel managed, plus, missing out on the day to day is a huge sacrifice and by Lucifer missing out on the day-to-day Rory could still have had the hatred she needed to drive the story.  Popping in for birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc., the big stuff does not a father make.  Not being there for skinned knees, first heartbreaks, and all the little things a daughter needs her dad for can build up tons of resentment.  Boom, absentee father, just like his dad was. That provides all the millennial angel angst you could ask for. I have a daughter; it doesn’t take much.

The Trixie issue was huge for me. Can Chloe see her in Heaven? Will she be able to travel to Heaven and visit Trixie, Penelope, Dan, her father?  Chloe hesitated leaving Heaven in 5x16 because she couldn’t bear saying good-bye to her dad again. It seems as if Chloe sacrificed everything for Rory including Trixie. I want to preface this by saying. I liked Rory and loved the actress. I didn’t however like how it was as if she were their only child.  When Lucifer spoke of family Trixie was not mentioned. Their family day, the same thing. She didn’t need to be there, I get that the explanation regarding Rory would have been way too much to get into but just a mention of her, how awesome it would have been to share this day with her would have worked. It seemed as if Lucifer went from, “I would do anything to protect that little Urchin” to “Trixie who”. Trixie was a character that we watched grow up and she meant something to us. I hate to say this, but the writers did Trixie and the viewers dirty in this regard.

This show was built around a few premises.  Free will, honesty, redemption, sacrifice and family, both blood and made. The ending completely negated almost all of these.  Chloe and their entire family were made into the one thing Lucifer abhorred the most which are liars. Their daughter was brought up surrounded by lies. What did they tell Trixie?  The poor kid just lost her dad, and she was pissed at Lucifer when he went back to hell the first time. Did she grow up hating him because as far as she knew Lucifer left her mom again without saying good-bye and this time it was even worse because Chloe was pregnant.  I get that the actress who plays Trixie had limited availability but seriously. A quick good-bye.

“Hey Urchin, you won’t understand why for a long time, but I have to leave. You know I never lie so I can’t explain why but know that I love you and your mom and one day I hope you can forgive me.”  

A 30 second scene would have worked.

As all the characters learned throughout the series, omission of the truth is just a form of lying and there are always repercussions i.e., Chloe and Father Kinley, Dan shooting Lucifer, Maze finding out about Lilith and even Ella not being told. As far as free will, both Chloe and Lucifer had their free will taken from them in the end. By Rory forcing them to abide by her wishes, their free will was forfeited. It was a huge manipulation on Rory’s part and considering how much Lucifer hated manipulations it just didn’t sit right.

Parents making huge sacrifices I get. Chloe and Lucifer sacrificed everything for their child. Unfortunately for me this sacrifice, the way it was written seemed contrived to pull out maximum and IMO unjustified angst. I love angst.  Hell, this is my favorite show.  I thrive on the angst. But as I wrote earlier, all the anger, angst and hatred towards Lucifer could have been achieved without having Lucifer completely out of the picture. I have two kids and my husband, and I have made huge life altering sacrifices for them as many parents do but being there for the day-to-day little things was what made the difference in their lives and cemented the close relationships we have with them.

“Yeah, dad you were great. Showing up for the fun stuff, always swooping in for the big finish to play the hero then ditching us when things got tough. When Grandma was dying where were you?  Nice that you showed up for the funeral but the six months leading up to it…we needed you and once again you weren’t there. When T got sick, when Jen broke my heart, blah, blah, blah…”

Even the whole Chloe dying scenario. They could have written it that rage Rory traveled minutes before Lucifer got there. Have him pop in right after Rory comes back. There were so many ways to achieve the end game they wanted other than the way they went. It seemed contrived and as if they took the easy way out to get where they needed to go. The Rory rage that was the catalyst for her traveling back in time and Lucifer finding his calling could still have been accomplished without the whole Lucifer disappearing storyline.

Now that I’ve finished my diatribe there’s a couple of additional things I would like to say.  Lucifer is and always will be one of my favorite shows of all time. There are not enough words to describe the comfort and enjoyment this show has brought me. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the producers, cast and crew. You truly created something special.

To the fandom. Please do not let a polarizing conclusion rip apart the fandom. The only other fandom I was a part of tore itself apart so badly that the FBI got involved.  Hence why I waited for 15 years to dip my toe in again. Everyone invested in this show has the right to their feelings.  Debate is fine, baiting and bullying are not. The Lucifer fandom like the show is very special. Without the fandom we wouldn’t have gotten any conclusion so don’t let opposing viewpoints tarnish what has been a magical journey.  

#lucifer #season6 #spoilers #lucifer spoilers #lucifer season6 spoilers #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #trixie espinoza #rory morningstar #luciferseason6 #tom ellis #lauren german #db woodside #lesley-ann brandt #rachael harris #kevin alejandro #scarlett estevez #brianna hildebrand

[jodibodie]

Reblog if you’d be okay if your friend came out as transgender

let’s see how many transphobics we can weed out

[jodibodie]

Aimee made a couple of really interesting comments in this interview. *SPOILERS AHEAD*

At one point she said the reason they were all singing and dancing was that Dad/God was playing around and Katie said, “Kind of like a puppet master” and Aimee responded, “Yes, he’s getting old, you know, a little janky.” 

When I heard this I immediately went to the spec that Dad/God was always preparing Lucifer to take his place in Heaven.  Earlier in the interview Tom mentions that Dad acts like nothing is wrong, as if there’s never been an issue so I’m wondering if they’re going the “Lucifer taking over as God was always the plan” route.  I’d be ok with that as endgame. Not a fan of making Lucifer mortal so for me this would work.

Also have to say, Lauren German is the Queen!

#lucifer spoilers #lucifer season 5 #lucifer #lucifer speculation #aimee garcia #tom ellis #lauren german

[jodibodie]

Sums up my feelings about Trump perfectly

#TrumpIsACockroach

[jodibodie]

I completely agree

#TrumpIsAFailure #TrumpIsALaughingstock

reblog if you're gay, not gay, slightly gay, or if you just want to launch donald trump into a dying star

there is not a single reason to not reblog this