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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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The Bad Batch: A Crosshair Analysis

Hello, Star Wars fandom! I have just completed watching—and loving—The Bad Batch, which you know means I now need to dump all my thoughts about the first season into the tumblr void. Specifically, thoughts on the complicated drama that is Crosshair. I have no doubt that the majority of what I’m about to say will be old news to anyone who watched the show when it came out (I’m slow...), but I’m writing it all out anyway. Largely for my own sanity enjoyment :D

I want to preface all of this by saying that the above is not an exaggeration. I love the show and I love the entire cast. My enjoyment in each of the characters is directly connected to my enjoyment of the season as a whole, which I say because I’m about to get pretty critical towards some of the characters’ choices and, to a lesser extent, the writing choices that surround those. Does this mean I secretly hate The Bad Batch? Quite the opposite. I’m invested, which is presumably just what Filoni wants. I’m just hoping that investment pays off.

But enough of the disclaimers. Let’s start with the matter of the inhibitor chip. I’ve seen fans take some pretty hard stances on both sides: Crosshair is completely innocent because he’s definitely been under the chip’s control this whole time, no matter what he might say. Crosshair is completely guilty because he said the chip was removed a long time ago and he chose to do all this, no moral wiggle room allowed. However, the reality is that we don’t know enough to make a clear call either way. The audience, simply put, does not have all the necessary information. What we have instead is a couple of facts combined with claims that may or may not be reliable. Let’s lay them out:

Crosshair was definitely under the chip’s control at the start of the series.

He was able to resist it to a certain extent, resulting in a pressure to obey orders coupled with a primary loyalty to his squad. See: telling Hunter to follow the Empire’s commands—which includes killing kid Padawans—but not turning his team in as traitors when they did not. It’s an in-between space.

Crosshair’s chip was then amplified to an unknown extent. I’m never going to claim I’m a Star Wars aficionado—I’m a casual fan, friends. Please don’t yell at me over obscure lore lol—but within TBB’s canon, no one else is undergoing that experimentation. The effects of this are entirely unknown, which includes Crosshair’s free will, or lack thereof.

Crosshair then becomes a clear tool of the Empire, hunting down innocents, killing on a whim, the whole, evil shebang.

In “Reunion” he’s caught by the engine and suffers severe burns to his face. One leaves a scar that covers precisely the place where the chip would have been extracted.

Removing the chip leaves its own scar behind. If Crosshair’s was removed, we can’t see that scar due to the burn.

After these events Crosshair seems to mellow a bit. He does horrible things under the Empire’s orders—like shooting the senator—but is still loyal to his squad—killing his non-clone teammates to give TBB a chance, saving AZ and Omega, etc.

Crosshair claims that his chip has already been removed. However, Crosshair is arguably an unreliable source if he’s been lied to or if the chip is still there, encouraging him to manipulate the team.

Crosshair claims it was removed a long time ago, which is incredibly imprecise. As we can see from just some of the events listed above, precisely when the chip came out—if it came out—makes a huge difference.

Hunter realizes this and presses for clarification, but Crosshair dodges giving it. Again, a legitimate belief that it doesn’t matter, or evidence that he can’t say because something else is going on? We don’t know.

Hunter checks Crosshair’s head and finds the burn scar which proves… nothing. As stated above, they wouldn’t be able to see the surgery scar one way or another: its existence or its absence. It’s useless data, as Tech might say. I’ve seen a few fans claim that Hunter was also feeling for the chip with his enhanced senses, but 1. I didn’t catch any evidence of that in the scene and 2. Even if we assume Hunter did that anyway, the chips are notoriously hard to spot. Fives and AZ couldn’t find the chip at first when examining Tup. Ahsoka had to use the force to find it in Rex. TBB themselves couldn’t find it at first in Wrecker. If machinery consistently fails to find the chip on the first couple of tries—it’s meant to be a hidden implant, after all—why would we believe Hunter’s senses could pick it up instantly? Maybe he missed it, or maybe it wasn’t there at all.

Crosshair appears to be struggling with a headache in the finale, just as he was at the beginning of the season and just like Wrecker was for the first half.

The point of listing all this out is to emphasize how ambiguous this whole situation is. I don’t want to use this post to argue one way or another about whether Crosshair’s chip is really out. I have my preferred theory (the chip’s still in, but only partially functional), but at the end of the day none of this is conclusive. The writing takes us in what I hope is deliberate circles. Crosshair says the chip is out? Crosshair is not a reliable source of information until we know if the chip is out. What other evidence is there that the chip is gone? A scar? We can’t see if there’s a scar. Hunter’s abilities? He only checked once for a canonically hard to find implant—if he actually checked at all. And why would the Empire want the chip out? Well, maybe it has to do with that push towards willing soldiers, but if that were the case, why leave Crosshair behind and have the “clones die together”? By that point he was one of the most willing, chip or not. Did they have to take it out because of the engine accident? Pure speculation. We just don’t know and THAT is the point I want to make.

Because it means the rest of the Bad Batch didn’t know either.

The core issue I have here is not whether the chip is in or out, or even how long it may have been in if it is out now. The issue is that TBB spent 99% of the first season believing that Crosshair was under the chip’s influence… and they didn’t try to do anything about that. They abandoned him. They left a man behind. Does this make them all horrible monsters? Of course not! This shit is complicated as hell, but I do think they made a very large mistake and that Crosshair has every right to be furious about it.

“But, Clyde, they couldn’t have gone back. It was too dangerous! Hunter had a duty to his whole team, not just Crosshair.” True enough and I’d buy this argument 100% if Hunter hadn’t spent the entire season throwing his team into dangerous, seemingly impossible situations to save other people. Crosshair became the exception, not a hard rule of something they had to avoid. They went back to Kamino for Omega, a kid they’d only had one lunch with, despite knowing how dangerous the Empire was. They went into the heart of an occupied planet to rescue not just a stranger, but one belonging to the Separatist government. They helped Sid when she asked and there was plenty of compassion for the criminal trying to take her place. Most significantly, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation to go rescue Hunter when he was under the Empire’s control, in precisely the same place. Every explanation I’ve seen fans come up with—Kamino is too fortified, they don’t know where Crosshair is, they can’t risk Omega being captured, etc.—also holds true for Hunter, yet there wasn’t a second of doubt about needing to at least try to help him. And his rescue was arguably far more dangerous given that TBB knew they were walking into a trap. Going after Crosshair would have at least had some element of surprise.

I think the problem with these justifications is most easily seen in “Rescue on Ryloth” and, later, “War-Mantle.” In the former, we do watch Hunter decide that going on a rescue mission is too much of a risk, only for Omega to talk him into considering it.

Hunter: “It’s a big galaxy. We can’t put ourselves on the line every time someone’s in trouble.”

Omega: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?”

Hunter: “It’s not worth the risk.”

Omega: “She’s trying to save her family, Hunter. I’d do the same for you.”

The arguments that sway him are ‘Soldiers should help people’ and ‘Soldiers should specifically help their family.’ So… what does that say about their feelings for Crosshair? They’re willing to put themselves on the line for the parents of a girl they met once at a drop site, but not their own brother? That’s the message the writing sends. “But, Clyde, the difference is that they had an advantage here. Hera’s knowledge of her home planet tipped the odds in their favor.” Yeah… and Crosshair is stationed on TBB’s home planet. Even more than them collectively having the same knowledge that Hera does, “Return to Kamino” reveals that Omega always had additional, insider knowledge of the base: she has access to a secret landing pad and the tunnels leading up into the city. That knowledge was given and used the second Hunter’s freedom was on the line, but it never once came up to use for Crosshair’s benefit.

“War-Mantle’s” mission puts this problem in even sharper relief. Another claim I’ve seen a lot is that TBB only took risky rescue missions because they needed to be paid. The guys have got to eat after all. Yet Tech makes it clear that going after Gregor will lose them money. They’re meant to be on a mission for Sid and deviating for that won’t result in a payment. He explicitly says that if they decide to do this, they won’t eat. They do it anyway. No money, no intel, a huge risk “on a clone we don’t even know.” But that’s not what’s important, the show says. All that matters is that a brother is in trouble. This time it’s Echo pushing that message instead of Omega. When Hunter realizes that they’re about to try and infiltrate an entire facility and they don’t even know if this clone is still alive, Echo points out that they took that risk once before: for him. “If there’s a chance that trooper is being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”

Yes! Exactly right! So why doesn’t that apply to Crosshair?

“Because he tried to kill them, Clyde!” No, that’s the easy, dismissive answer. A chipped Crosshair tried to kill them. AKA, a Crosshair entirely under the Empire’s control. The only difference between his enslavement and Gregor’s is that Gregor’s chains were physical while Crosshair’s were mental. And again, the point of everything at the start of this post is to show that no one knows when or even if that chip was removed. TBB definitely didn’t have any reason to suspect that Crosshair was working under his own power until Crosshair himself said as much. We might have been able to make that case at the start of the season, but “Battle Scars” removes any possible confusion. The entire team watched Rex reach for his blaster when he learned their chips were still in. The entire team watched Wrecker become a totally different person and attack them, just like Crosshair did. The entire team forgave him instantly and had their own chips removed. So why in the world didn’t anyone go, “Wow, Crosshair has a chip too. He was no more responsible for attacking us than Wrecker was. We need to try to get him out, no matter how hard that might be, just like we had to try for all these other people we’ve helped.”

But they didn’t. No one even considered rescuing Crosshair. They only went back for Hunter and, when they realized Crosshair was there too, they didn’t change their plans to try and rescue him as well. He’s treated as a particularly threatening inconvenience, not another team member in need of their help.

The problem I have with how this all went down is that the team treated Crosshair like an enemy despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Omega outright saying that this isn’t his fault, it’s the chip, the group seems to decide that he’s gone crazy or something and that there’s nothing they can do. “It’s fine,” I thought. “They don’t really get what the chip is like yet. They don’t understand how thoroughly it controls someone.” But then “Battle Scars” arrives and Wrecker is treated with such compassion (which he deserves!) only for the group to continue acting like Crosshair is somehow different. It’s easy to say, “But Crosshair shot Wrecker” and ignore the easy pushback of, “and Wrecker nearly shot Omega.” Up until Crosshair’s own accusations and Omega’s ignored comments, TBB’s understanding of the chip’s influence and the lack of responsibility that accompanies mysteriously disappears when the show’s antagonist becomes the subject of conversation. This is seen most clearly in how Hunter tries to frame things during his talk with Crosshair:

“You tried to kill us. We didn’t have a choice.”

“Can’t you see that they’re using you? It’s that inhibitor chip in your head.”

“You really don’t get who we are, do you?”

Hunter mentions the chip, but he acts as if it’s Crosshair’s responsibility to overcome it: “Can’t you see…” Of course he can’t see, that’s the entire point of the chip, the thing he currently believes Crosshair still has stuck in his head. But Hunter and the others—with Omega as a wonderful exception—never seem to have accepted this like they did for Wrecker. When Crosshair “tried to kill us” it’s seen as a deliberate act that he chose, not something forced on him like with Wrecker. When Hunter talks about their ethics, he subconsciously separates the team from Crosshair: “You really don’t get who we are, do you?”, revealing a pretty ingrained divide between them. Even Wrecker gets in on the action, the one brother who truly understands how much the chip controls someone: “All that time, you didn’t even try to come back.” What part of he couldn’t try is not hitting home here? Again, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn’t matter whether Crosshair was chipped this whole time or not. The point is that TBB believed he was chipped… and yet still expected him to somehow, magically overcome that programming, writing him off when he failed to do that. He’s consistently held responsible for actions that they were told (and, through Wrecker, saw) were completely outside of his control. Even when we factor in his claim that the chip was removed, TBB has ignored all the evidence I listed at the start. No one, not even Omega, challenges this super vague and strange claim, or seeks out proof because they don’t want to believe that their brother could willingly do this. There’s just this... acceptance that of course Crosshair went bad. Why? Because he was an asshole sometimes? Taking it all as written, it doesn’t feel like the batch considered him a true part of the team. Certainly not like Wrecker or Hunter. As shown, the batch will go out of their way, risk anything, forgive anything, for them. They have a level of faith that was never shown to Crosshair.

“Severe and unyielding,” Tech says and he’s absolutely right, but I’d seriously challenge this idea that any of the others would have automatically done better if the situations were reversed. It stood out to me that each batch member has a moment of doubt throughout the series, a brief glimpse into how they think the Empire isn’t that bad, at least when it comes to this particular thing. Basically, a moment that could lead to a very dangerous line of thinking without others to stomp it down. Wrecker announces that he’s happy working for whoever, provided they give him food and let him blow things up. Tech finds the chain codes to be an ingenious strategy and is clearly fascinated with their development. Hunter initially wants Omega to stay on Kamino, despite knowing that this Empire has already, systematically killed an entire group of people: the Jedi. Doesn’t matter. She’s still (supposedly) safer there than she would be running with the likes of them.

There’s absolutely no doubt that those three made the correct choice in defying the Empire, but I believe that their ability to make that choice is largely dependent on them having each other. They survive together, not apart, and it’s their unity that allows them to make the really hard calls, like setting out on their own and opposing such a formidable force. But if Tech’s chip had activated and he’d been left behind, would he have muscled through to escape somehow...or would he have gotten caught up in all the new technology the Empire offered him, succumbing to both his chip and the inevitability that if his squad no longer wanted him, why not stay? Would Wrecker have escaped, or been easily manipulated into a new life of exploding things? Would Hunter have been able to push through without his brothers, or would he have become devoted to a new team to lead? Obviously there’s no way to ever know, but it’s always easier to make the right decisions when you have support in doing so. Crosshair had no support. His team left him and yes, they had to in that specific moment, but the point is that they never came back. As far as we saw throughout the season, they never planned to come back. They all talk about loving the Crosshair who existed when life was easier, but they weren’t willing to fight for the Crosshair that most needed their help. When he says “You weren’t loyal to me,” he’s absolutely right. The same episode, “Return to Kamino,” gives Omega two powerful lines that the group rallies behind:

Omega: “[The danger] doesn’t matter. Saving Hunter is what matters.”

AZ: “You must leave.”

Omega: “Not without Hunter.”

The key word there is “Hunter.” Danger, stakes, risk, probability… none of that matters when Hunter needs help. Crosshair did not receive that same level of devotion.

Which creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The group is upset that Crosshair isn’t rejoining them, but they fail to realize that he has no reason to trust them anymore. He’s not joining the Empire because he’s inherently evil and that’s that, end of discussion. He’s joining it because above all Crosshair wants a place to belong… and TBB has made it clear—unintentionally—that he does not belong with them. The horrible actions that Crosshair took under his own free will (theoretically) came after he realized that doing bad things while under the Empire’s control was, apparently, unforgivable. If it wasn’t, his team would have come back to rescue him. They could have at least tried. But they didn’t, so Crosshair is left with the conclusion that either what he did under the Empire’s control is something the group can’t forgive him for, or they can forgive that (like with Wrecker) and he’s the problem here. He’s the one not worth that effort.

“The Empire will be fazing out clones next,” Hunter says. To which Crosshair responds, “Not the ones that matter.”

He wants to matter to someone and events show he no longer matters to his brothers. So why not stay with the Empire? I mean, we as the audience ABSOLUTELY know why not. Self-doubt and feelings of isolation aren’t excuses for joining the Super Evil Organization. Crosshair, if he is under his own control, is still 100% in the wrong for supporting them, no matter his reasons. So it’s not an excuse, but rather an explanation of that very human, flawed, fallible thinking. He needs to be useful. He needs to be wanted. Crosshair is an absolute dick to the regs and I have no doubt that a lot of that stems from the harassment TBB has experienced from them (with a side of his inflated ego), but I’d bet it’s also due to Crosshair’s intense desire to be valuable to someone. He keeps pointing out the regs’ supposed deficiencies because it highlights his own usefulness. When Crosshair fails to find Hera, the Admiral says that soon he’ll get someone who can, looking straight at Howzer at the door. It makes Crosshair seethe because his entire identity is based on being useful, yet no one seems to need him anymore. TBB seems to no longer want him. The Empire no longer wants clones. Now even regs are considered a better option than him, the “superior” soldier. Everywhere Crosshair turns he’s getting the message that he’s not wanted, but he’ll keep fighting to at least be needed in some capacity, no matter how small. Even if that means overlooking all the horrors the Empire commits.

“All you’ll ever be to [the Empire] is a number,” Hunter says and he’s absolutely right. But to TBB recently, Crosshair hasn’t even been that. He’s been nothing. Nobody worth coming back for. To his mind, at least being a number is something.

I hope that all of this resolves itself into a conclusion that is kind to each side (preferably without a Vader-style death redemption), especially given the still ambiguous state of the chip, but from a writing standpoint I’m admittedly a bit wary. We’re obviously meant to believe that the batch all love each other, but as established throughout this entirely too long post, this season did a terrible job imo of proving that they love Crosshair. Or, at least, proving that they love him as much as the others. If this was really meant to be just a matter of miscommunication, with Crosshair making terrible life choices because he only thinks he was abandoned, then we as the audience would have seen the batch trying and failing to get him out. Or at least establishing a very good reason why they couldn’t take that risk, hopefully with entirely different side-missions so the audience isn’t constantly going, “So you can risk everything for Gregor... but not Crosshair?” I’m VERY glad that Crosshair was allowed to air his grievances to the extent he did, but the end result of that—Hunter continually denying this, Omega walking away from him in their rooms, neither Tech nor Wrecker actually sticking up for him and acknowledging the chip’s influence during at least some of all this—is making things feel rather one-sided. It’s like we’re meant to take Crosshair at his word and accept that he’s this garden-variety antagonist who joins the Empire because yay being on the winning side… despite all these complications that clearly have a huge impact on how we read the situation. It doesn’t help that the show has already embraced an inconsistent manner of portraying chipped-clones. We know every clone has one, we know only a couple clones are aware of the chip’s existence (and can thus try to get it out), we know they enter a “Good soldiers follow orders” mindlessness once activated… yet towards the end we see a lot of side character clones thinking for themselves. Howzer decides that he’s no longer loyal to the Empire, giving a speech where a couple other clones throw down their weapons too. Gregor was arrested because he likewise realized how wrong this all was. But how is that possible? Do the chips completely control the clones, or not? Are these clones somehow exceptions? Are the chips beginning to fail? All of that has a bearing on how we read Crosshair—what were his own decisions, how much he was capable of overcoming the chip, whether that changed at all during certain points—but right now that remains really unclear.

It’s details like that which make me wonder if all these other questions will be answered. Will the story resolve all those ambiguous moments surrounding the chip, or brush them off with the belief that we should have just taken Crosshair at his equally ambiguous word? Will the story acknowledge Crosshair’s points through someone other than Crosshair, allowing it to exist as a legitimate criticism, rather than the presumed excuses of an antagonist? I’m… not sure. On the whole I’m very happy with TBB’s writing—despite what all this might imply lol. Until my brain picks over the season and discovers something else, my only other gripe is not allowing Omega to form a solid bond with Tech and Echo, instead putting all the focus on big brother!Wrecker and dad!Hunter. I think it’s a solid show that does a lot right, but I’m worried that, unless there’s a brilliant answer to all these questions and an intent to unpack both sides of the Hunter vs. Crosshair debate with respect—not just falling back on, “Well, Crosshair is with the Empire so everything he says is automatically bad and wrong” take—we’ve just gotten the setup for a somewhat messy, ethical story. For anyone here who also reads my RWBY metas, I’m pretty sure you’re not at all surprised that I’m invested in going, “Hey, you had one of the heroes suddenly become/join a dictatorship and do a lot of horrific things, but within a pretty complicated context. Can we please work through that carefully and with an acknowledgement of the nuance here, rather than throwing the ‘evil’ character to the proverbial wolves?”

God knows TBB is leagues ahead of RWBY, but I hope things continue on in not just a good direction, but one that tackles the aspects of this situation that many fans—and Crosshair—have already pointed out. As much as I adore the cast—and I really, really do—it was discomforting to watch a found family show where 4/5th of that family so completely wrote off one of the members and crucially have, at least so far, refused to acknowledge that. I want complicated, flawed characters, but that’s only compelling when the storytelling admits to and grapples with those flaws. We have quite firmly established Crosshair’s flaws in Season One. I hope Season Two delves into the rest of the team’s too.

Aaaand with that meta-dump out of my system, I’m off to write TBB fic. Thanks for reading! :D

#The Bad Batch #TBB #Crosshair #Star Wars #SW #mymetas #do I take my life in my hands #by posting SW meta?#probably lol

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firebunnylover · 3 years

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LoSH S2 discussion

I love Legion of Superheroes. And i love season 2, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about how it could have been improved. In terms of quality, it varies more than season 1. Some parts are top tier while others… eh.

Season 2 is darker than season 1. And there’s the inherent stigmatism that darker means better. But it’s not true.

A horror schlock film is not inherently better than an animated film.

I don’t blame the staff on all its shortcomings. Kids WB was on its deathbed, so they probably had less time to work and iron out ideas. And executive meddling.

The second season had a lot of good elements, but there are things that weighed it down. I am here to discuss how to improve said things.

Heads up: ended up editing part of this post after rewatching the episodes.

This first bit is more of a personal preference, but instead of the 41st century, maybe move the original source of conflict to a farther region of space, one that the UP doesn’t interact with, and has been growing in terms of turmoil until they finally resort to bringing the Legion over. In other words, it has just been put aside by everyone else to the last minute.

Parallel to Brainy’s relationship to Brainiac. He doesn’t want to deal with it. He never brings it up. But maybe if he did, he wouldn’t have gotten corrupted.

This place still has plenty of old documentation of the original age of superman, so Kell is disillusioned with the ideal glory days. Keep Kell Edgy.

Kell’s home and K3NT still gets destroyed - reflects Krypton’s own destruction.

SPEAKING OF KELL:

Make his story more apparent that it’s one realizing that kindness is not an inherent weakness. And neither is being soft. He was raised for fighting and killing Imperiex, and was taught to think that they were weaknesses. Have him realize his identity can be beyond the Clone of Superman made to kill Imperiex. Or rather, have him react more to realizing that he’s moving beyond his given identity.

To clarify; they do address his development in the show a few times, but I want more continuous development instead of the rapid nods we get. Have him try to interact in a more humane way with others. Especially with other members of the Legion. Where they have to take a double take in seeing him acting not that edgy. Maybe offer more flashback of him fighting Imperiex in comparison, and how he treated allies then.

Also put K3NT’s story under the microscope. I doubt Imperiex just came out of nowhere with his attacks. Plus the fact they went far enough to send a hitman after a fucking child? That screams yikes and maybe we need to double check the story.

And an overall issue to be addressed is what rights do robots have and what conditions need to be met? Because let’s face it, we make robots to do complex work for us. But Colu is a culture where the main people ARE robots. Like in Transformers. What line do we draw between non-sentient robots vs the sentient ones in the 31st century? And what about cyborgs/people who give up their original bodies for robotic ones?

Plus Imperiex himself came to be because of the perfected combination of organic tissue and robotics. This topic of robots and individuality/personhood could have been a fun topic to explore.

Don’t sideline the girls. Leave TG alone.

Don’t put SG in a coma for nearly the whole season - seriously it’s the reason why the guys make one bad decision after the other. Although with that said, it’s because she’s not around we got the majority of s2 plots. She’s the goddamn mom of the squad. Just make her busier and unable to keep an eye on her idiot boys for the plots based on bad decisions to happen.

Or have her deal with after-effects of what Esper did to her. Maybe after a whole season of being the emotional support character, have her be the one in need of emotional support or not being able to help directly, especially when the group needs emotional support. Emotional support paradox.

Maybe don’t make Cosmic Boy appear as much as a dick in the episodes where he does show up. He’s trying to hold this goddamn team together, and there’s a goddamn tyrant trying to conquer the galaxy. HE’S FUCKING TIRED AND STRESSED. AND IM SURE THERE ARE A BUNCH OF JERKS WHO WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO DISSOLVE THE LEGION. Better yet, throw in some more backstory with him and his little brother Pol!

And in regards to Imperiex… The dude has a lot of potential. I like his voice actor, Phil Morris. The guy voiced Dr. Sweets from Atlantis.

But his writing needs help.

In the original DC comics, he’s the embodiment of Entropy. Anyone who’s seen Madoka is probably familiar with what that is. But if you're not, here’s a definition: “ the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work...” He’s the embodiment of that energy that cannot be used for anything. And Entropy grows over time.

Another definition of what Entropy is “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

In the comics, he’s more of a cosmic being as a result of him being an embodiment of unusable energy. He’s been in existence since, well, the beginning. He had destroyed the universe and recreated it multiple times. Okay, so that lines up with how the show portrays him. And technically, he does get the universe to reset itself in the 41st century when he alters the 31st century enough.

But I personally feel that making him a cosmic being is kinda… meh?

I personally prefer more personal villains most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, an Eldritch being done right makes a great character, but I can’t see Imperiex as one. At least not LoSH’s version.

Plus I like it when the protagonist sees the villain has a point and has changed as a result for the better.

You know, over a year ago, I used to think that it was impossible to make a tyrannical villain who’s presented as real evil seem complex.

And then… I was introduced to TFP Megatron.

Now for you LoSH fans who haven’t watched Transformers Prime, Megatron was once Megatronus. A low caste member who worked in the mines and Gladiator games. He wanted to fix the growing corruption of Cybertron. To make things better.

But his worse personality traits took over, and he lost that good motivation. Now he’s just fighting to win and defeat Optimus Prime.

But despite the change of goals and ideals, he doesn’t want to simply abandon his relationship with Optimus. He and Optimus, or as he used to be called, Orion, were fighting for the betterment of society. And they meant something to each other. Megatron doesn’t want to just get it over with. He wants fanfare for his victory over Optimus. And he doesn’t want anyone else to rob him off that. But he isn’t opposed to getting Optimus/Orion back on his side. It’s because of this you can still argue that there is a remaining shred of good in him.

They were the best young lovers anD NO I AM NOT CRYING OVER THEM!

Also, the fact we know he was part of a minority group in the form of the lower cast that was enslaved can make us sympathize with Megatronus of the past, as well as understand how he came to be.

It doesn’t mean we forgive him for his actions - and he has done a lot of shitty things. And I mean a lot.

But his history is more understandable. TFP Megatron’s a fall from grace.

OK I’m done dissecting TFP Meg’s writing.

We know Imperiex was a slave, and was originally organic, who’s from a society where his purpose is literally just to fight, and was gradually stripped of his original body. He was originally stripped of any agency before then though.

But he says this was a good thing. Calling his original body a weakness. And refers to his old self as a pathetic slave.

He gave up whatever softness he had.

Also, this is where K3NT’s story needs to be reexamined. Imperiex was made during what K3NT described as “A Time of Extended Prosperity”. That time had freaking slaves. And K3NT says that when Imperiex did rise up, they were unprepared. So… they were prosperous, but lacked defense to prevent anything like that happening? Or perhaps those who were in charge were that unpopular that it was easy for Imperiex to start the war.

What made him decide conquering the galaxy was the next thing to do after he had every bit of his original self stripped away? Why go as far as destroy it?

What I’m trying to say is that they could borrow a few pages from the Megatron book. Maybe he was once trying to better the society he was part of, but he decides to play the violent card at some point. And somewhere along that strategy, he starts to lose sight of the initial goal. With that, being the victor and in control becomes the main one.

Or perhaps he has grown cynical of the galaxy as it is and decides it just needs to go all together, and then start from scratch.

Like the second definition of Entropy, he gradually declines in predictability and descends into disorder.

Maybe to juxtaposition the fact that Brainiac became the main threat at the end, make him the opposite or foil to him. Rationality or logic do not serve as first-or-second influences to decisions under pressure. Emotions and his own perceived ideas do.

Speaking of Brainiac, maybe offer more of the OG Brainiac. Give us more of that smooth-voiced Corey Burton.

Or TFA Megatron.

Seductive Bastard.

I’m sorry I have fallen for the shady-business-mafia-boss-but-morally-grey robot.

Also, the members of the legion that only get one episode focus? Give them more screen time. You can’t just introduce superman’s new adopted son Karate Kid and just not bring him for another speaking role again!

Actually, that brings me to another point.

As @spandexinspace pointed out, his episode is not the best, and is arguably the worst written of the whole series. Things that are issues do get brushed off to the side.

So a proposal on potential rewrite:

First, have the legion look over its current rules and what exceptions/changes they need to make.

Explore the subject of kids having to participate in these fights.

To clarify, kid shows are meant to be escapism for kids.

Shocking, I know.

So it makes sense that some characters would be the same age as the viewers.

But while this is good representation, as you get older, you find yourself going “WHY WOULD THE ADULTS LET THEM ENDANGER THEMSELVES?!”

Kids having to fight at that age does have consequences. Batman Beyond certainly addressed it. So did Steven Universe Future.

Steven ended up being responsible for so much, that when he no longer needed to take care of things, he was unsure of who he was. And then there’s the fact he ended up with PTSD because of him having to fight so much. Then you have the fact that Greg and Rose never intended to raise him like their caretakers did... but as good as their intentions were, they still caused damage. Rose for… all the gem stuff. And look, Greg is a great dad, but not enforcing anything for Steven when he’s growing up still has it’s cost.

With Batman, he’s obviously going to do his damn best to keep kids safe, including the Robins. But sometimes, it’s not enough. He wasn’t able to keep Tim safe in the event with the Joker in Batman Beyond. Where he was held captive and tortured.

But the Batkids are never expected to resolve this stuff by themselves. Because Batman knows how much you can get screwed up as a kid. He fucking cares.

And to be fair, in most continuities I’m aware of, the other sidekicks came out pretty okay overall.

Except Jason Todd.

So my proposal?

Have Val originally with Grimbor, as a sort of Protege. But have the legion capture him, only to go “uhhh this is a child with no powers”. And Superman, being the good, wholesome paragon we all love, takes him under his wing.

In all honesty, I want Superman pulling a batdad for Karate Kid in his intro episode the whole time. That was the best part of the episode for me.

Plus after the events of “Cry Wolf”, the Legion should examine the no-killing rule. Because they do need to kill Imperiex to save the universe. But that goes against the code. But they can argue it’s a necessity. But Mar Londo is also a monster. He’s the everyday monster some of us have grown up with.

When do you need to make exceptions to kill someone?

And my final main suggestion:

Add more Mekt.

What the heck were you guys expecting? You all KNOW me by now. I LOVE MY GARBAGE BOY.

Joking aside, here’s what I would do.

Have the Chained Lightning episode pushed back, but have Mekt with Imperiex earlier. Most of us would yell “Why the heck would you join the guy whose main goal is to destroy the galaxy?!” But this is one of the easiest things to address.

Explore more of his past. Use the comic sources with him being outcast for being a solo on Winath. With that in mind, him deciding to side with Imperiex can make sense.

Why try protecting something that has done nothing but hurt you?

There’s actually a pretty good reason why he would side with Imperiex, as seen in Champions and Lightning Storm. Remember, Mekt was willing to cheat to get ahead of the sports competition he was introduced in. And also was thrilled when fighting Garth and was beating him on his own. He likes being in power.

Imperiex offers him that.

As for why Imperiex would bother with Mekt? That’s a little harder to answer. He knows that Mekt has a soft spot for his brother, and in turn sister, which proves to be the reason why the Tachyon Cannon fails. You’d think Imperiex would remove a huge fatality.

But he doesn’t.

Maybe he could hold another type of value for Mekt. Perhaps... nostalgia?

I’m still sold on the idea that they were sleeping together.

Also, give us a conclusive answer on where Mekt stands with the LSV. In the comics, he was the leader, but that role was given to Tyr in the cartoon more or less.

OK I think this has been polished enough for me to post now. What you guys think? Feel free to add on!

#legion of superheroes #legion of super heroes #losh #OH GOD I STARTED THIS IN SEPTEMBER #IT'S FINALLY DONE

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thestateofuforia · 5 years

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Xena is better than every male antihero from the past 20 years of prestige dramas and I will prove it with my extensive TV knowledge and feelings

What makes a “great” television show? We all know that there is no single definition, as people have different preferences and experiences, etc. etc. But what are the shows that critics have universally agreed are masterworks of television? The kind that sweep awards shows and influence the direction of entire industry? The kind that your professors uphold as the zenith of television’s potential?

Dark, character-driven dramas. TV’s chock-full of ‘em now, but for the sake of illustration, let’s just use The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men as examples of this phenomenon.

Aside from genre trappings, and writing/directing/acting quality, what do they all have in common? Why do people give so many shits, so intensely, about these shows? What could possibly be at their center?

Answer: A broody, complex antihero with a dark past/present who struggles with the moral quandaries of existence, while remaining simultaneously vulnerable and withholding to both the viewer and those around him. I use “him,” because this character is always male.

Where are all the female antiheroes? Well, there’s at least one who is constantly forgotten, probably because she hails from a wildly different kind of show. One with Greek gods, sword fights, and whooshing sound effects. But don’t let the aesthetics of this show fool you – at its heart, it’s a drama about the redemption of one of TV’s finest antiheroes.

Xena is better than Tony Soprano, Walter White, and Don Draper combined, and I’m about to show you why I can make this audacious (and extremely biased and opinionated) claim!

Let’s take a look at the competition. You’ve got:

Tony Soprano

Mob boss with Feelings™. He’s in therapy for the panic attacks he’s been having lately, because this very sensitive man is simply not cut out for the mafia. He’s killed strangers, friends, even his best friend, and he feels real bad about it. At the same time, he’s struggling to maintain the closest relationships in his life, particularly with his family. His kids are growing up, his marriage is strained, and he’s constantly trying to reconcile his brutal, immoral actions with the belief that he could be a good person. Tony wants to be good, but he knows he is destructive force to everyone around him, and the cognitive dissonance is tearing him apart. In spite of therapy, he makes very little progress towards becoming more in touch with his emotions.

Walter White

High school chemistry teacher-turned-meth-cook whose entire life falls apart. It starts as a means of paying for his cancer treatment and providing for his family after he’s gone, but when the cancer goes into remission, Walt keeps on cookin’ just because he likes it. I’m not putting words in his mouth; he actually says this. He leads a double life, and, like our boy Tony up there, wants to believe he can be a good person, a good father, a good husband, while simultaneously devolving into cruel, manipulative (sociopathic??) drug lord. Even at the end, when the jig is up and he’s off in hiding, he still wants to provide for his family as some kind of compensation for everything he’s put them through. It’s too little, too late, but we get the idea – he’s a tortured soul, yada yada. Also, Walt, like Tony, is not one for heart-to-hearts with the fam.

Don Draper

1960s ad-man with a dark past, who buries the truth about the tobacco/cancer connection in order to sell cigarettes, and schedules cheating on his wife in his day planner, all while trying to be a good father/person. The most irrepressibly charming guy on this list, Don lives a lie, after stealing the identity of his commanding officer, killed alongside him in combat (whom he may/may not have had a hand in killing). Not even his name is real (Although who wouldn’t pick “Don Draper” over “Dick Whitman?”). He starts the series living the “perfect” life with a wife he plucked from a lineup of models, who, thanks to his closed-off attitude, knows absolutely fuck-all about him. They are in the midst of raising two children before he finally tells her that his father beat him as a child. He’s a stranger to his own wife. That’s how little this guy talks about his feelings.

So why do we watch these antiheroes? They’re shitty people, right? From Tony choking a man to death while on a college tour with his daughter, to Walt watching his best friend’s girlfriend die of a heroin overdose and doing nothing to save her in order to win back complete control of his “friend,” to Don rejecting his long-lost brother who then goes on to hang himself, these guys are Not. Good.

But, they are compelling characters. We have to care about them in order to tune in every week/binge five years of television in one weekend. And as far as I can tell, we like them because they feel bad about what they do. That’s oversimplification, of course, but it touches on the premise that makes these disparate characters somewhat relatable:

We all have done bad things that we regret, and we all need to believe that, at the end of the day, we’re good people.

Enter: Xena

In terms of sheer kill count, Xena has all these tortured main men beaten by a long, bloody mile. I can’t list all of her deeds, but suffice it to say, when Xena begins her journey in the first episode of her series, she’s at Genghis Khan-levels of slaughter. The character of Xena began as a warlord on Hercules’ show, but the whole truth of her villainy is only revealed bit-by-bit throughout the next six years of her journey. She’s killed thousands, razed entire villages to the ground, betrayed those close to her, and essentially been a Really Bad Person for most of her life. It’s arguable, but many see the act of burying her armor in the pilot as a self-sacrificial suicide attempt. Undefended, in a land brimming with uncountable numbers of wronged individuals who would love to see her head on a spike, she’s a lamb waiting for the slaughter.

Enter: Gabrielle

A tiny village is under attack, and in a sudden twist of morality, Xena begins using her combat skills for good. She saves, among others, a plucky village girl who immediately starts following the warrior around like a puppy. But Xena, ever the classic brooding antihero, feels undeserving of gratitude and rejects her. Multiple times. But Gabrielle refuses to be left behind. Xena acquiesces, and the two begin their journey together. Gabrielle’s unrelenting faith in Xena pushes the ex-warlord onto a path of redemption.

Over the course of the series, Xena and Gabrielle spend most of their time walking through forests until someone Evil Xena has wronged stumbles into their path and she and Gabrielle have to face another demon from her past. But no matter how many souls she saves, how many wrongs she rights, Xena never fully accepts that she is a good person. She wants to be good, and she sees goodness in Gabrielle, but always regards it as a quality just out of reach for herself. Her past haunts her, and she doesn’t know if she can ever fully atone for what she’s done.

In addition to undergoing a transformation of purpose, Xena also changes as a person. She begins the first season as a cold, near-Vulcan warrior with an impenetrable exterior and a steely gaze that never totally softens. But with time, and through the force of her relationship with Gabrielle, she chips aways at the wall she’s built around herself until she’s (more of) an emotionally communicative person. She allows herself to be vulnerable, and shares even the darkest secrets of her past with Gabrielle. And although she always braces herself for Gabrielle to have seen too much of the darkness inside Xena and finally leave her, Gabrielle stays by her side every time, and Xena heals a little bit more.

You know what that’s called? Growth.

And it’s hella satisfying to watch.

And, in this definitely-biased lesbian’s opinion, this is what makes Xena a more compelling character than any of the aforementioned male antiheroes. Her story is unique. Tony Soprano struggles with morality, but never truly changes. Walter White gives in to the darkness and lets it consume him. Don Draper reaches for redemption but always falls short. And yes, there is something exciting and interesting about all those stories. As you could probably tell, I’m a huge fan of every show I just mentioned. Hell, I had the idea for this post in the midst of a Mad Men binge at 3am last night. And, for the record, no, I do not hate all men, or all stories about men. But I was wracking my brain for an example of a female antihero in a prestige drama, and suddenly I realized I was looking in the wrong place. And that this would be a completely insane post that could ruffle some feathers online, which meant I had to get it out there on the World Wide Web.

Finally:

You might argue that Xena’s story is so different, and the series itself is so unlike these prestige dramas, that to draw a comparison among these characters is misguided, at best, and totally freaking bananas, at worst.

But, here’s a final breakdown of what these antiheroes have in common:

1. An inner darkness that both drives and troubles them. (Check)

2. A sense of unworthiness towards those who show them love. (Check)

3. A level of charisma/general appeal that invites the audience to give a shit about them, in spite of whatever they might have done/are doing. (Check)

4. A persistent moral greyness. (Check)

5. A preternatural ability to stare into the middle distance and brood. (BIG check)

Clearly, Xena is classic antihero material. But what sets her apart is that she takes action to redeem herself. Even when she doesn’t truly believe she is good, she calls upon all her strength to do good, regardless. Instead of stewing in the darkness, pushing away her loved ones, stagnating in the nebulous state of her morality, she devotes the rest of her life to reckoning with her past and remains steadfastly fixed on redemption. She still makes mistakes. She remains flawed, conflicted, human. But she grows, whether or not she thinks she deserves to. She moves forward.

#come at me #these are my feelings and they are valid #Xena Warrior Princess #Xena: Warrior Princess #xena #xwp #xena/gabrielle #lucy lawless #television #female antihero #women in television #female television #female icons #tv icons #feminism in television #female representation #female rep #female heroes

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travllingbunny · 5 years

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The 100 6x11 Ashes to Ashes

This episode was the subject of a lot of hype, and not just because it is Bob Morley’s directorial debut, but also because there was a lot of speculation and expectations and rumors of different kinds, caused partially by the info that it would contain Echo’s backstory, and partially by a photo of a writing staff’s board with half-joke descriptions of episodes, including the one for 6x11 that read: “people sitting around, talking about their feelings”. It also has a very misleading title, which does not refer to what everyone thought it would, but which caused speculation that someone would die in it. (Someone did die, permanently or temporarily, but not any of the major characters.)

As it turns out, it is a solid episode that works as a bridge between Clarke’s return at the end of 6x10 and her upcoming mission to infiltrate Sanctum, with some important plot movements and setup, And, indeed, it did have several scenes where people were talking about their feelings, in one way or another, but no more than most episodes of this season. The most important one of those scenes was the one between the Blake siblings, which was a long time coming. Gaia and Miller also reflected on their role in the Blodreina years, and Miller had his best character moment in quite a while. Madi and Sheidheda about murdery feelings, and Echo and Ryker talked about the necessity and consequences of committing murder, before he failed in trying to murder her and then she murdered him, and we got an Echo flashback that was pretty good in itself, but its meaning and importance in the narrative is something that the fandom doesn’t seem to agree on and that needs to be analyzed. We also got an introduction of some minor characters from Children of Gabriel, Layla and Nelson, and Layla expressed some angry feelings for Gabriel about the death of her brother Xavier and the fact that Gabriel had lied to her for 10 years. Bellamy and Clarke were showing feelings for each other, as they tend to always do – not so much through words, but through looks, soft touches, and things that were left unsaid.

The opening scene with Madi and Sheidheda in her mind space had a wonderfully creepy atmosphere – the two of them sitting on thrones in a half dark room, lit by many candles, playing chess on with very weird chess pieces. The rooks look like the tower in Polis, but more interesting than that are strangely lifelike human figures in somewhat disturbing poses – one of the figures (bishop?) seems to be tied to a pole, another (pawn?) seems to be dying, while another (knight?) has been pierced by a spear. The king and queen are the only ones who don’t look injured or dead. Interestingly, Sheidheda played with the white chess pieces, and beat Madi with his white queen getting right next to the black king for a check-mate. (Foreshadowing, perhaps?)

All of this feels very Star Wars-like, and while it may not be very original or complex as a story, the sinister atmosphere makes it work. While she seems to be acting fully evil to anyone on the outside, Madi is still resisting Sheidheda in her mind, if only by questioning his most extreme suggestions. It was enough for her to only attack Jackson so she could get away, but without trying to kill him, because she considers him innocent and “one of us”. The way Madi is using the pronoun “we” when talking to others and the fact Sheidheda asked her why she didn’t let him go for Jackson’s throat suggests that Sheidheda has almost as much influence on Madi’s external actions as she does, though, for now, she is still not giving him full control.

I really like the angles in this scene where Clarke wakes up, next to a very caring Bellamy – we get an outside look, close-ups, a shot from Clarke’s perspective, and a shot of Gabriel, who is in sad thoughts when Clarke mentions that the fact that Josephine is dead-dead and the drive is empty. Bellamy seemed to have been by Clarke’s side all the time, waiting for her to wake up and comforting her by saying he was still there. As Clarke gave him heart eyes while saying “You saved me”, Bellamy’s face showed a combination of love, concern and guilt, and for a moment, it seemed like he wanted to tell her something more, but stopped himself. It’s very interesting that Bellamy told Clarke he was sorry for not having protected her even though he knew she was a target. He didn’t know about the bodysnatching, but yes, he did know about the Children of Gabriel – but how was he supposed to protect her from being kidnapped by an apparently harmless guy who danced and flirted with her and had sex with her? It’s not like Bellamy is her bodyguard who constantly goes with her and watches over whatever she does? Unless… he regrets that he wasn’t there for her in some other capacity (let’s call it that) that would mean she wouldn’t have needed to look for someone else to hook up with…

Some of Bellamy’s guilt was, no doubt, over the fact that he left his other people, including his actual girlfriend, in danger because, as Josephine pointed out in 6x09, he cares for Clarke more than for the others. When he asked “how do we save those I left behind?”, Clarke tried to reassure him that he did the right thing because, if Josephine were still alive, not only would she be dead but so would everyone else – and she specifically named “Echo and Madi”, because Echo is who she thinks Bellamy cares about the most. However, when Clarke suggested going as Josephine to fool Russell and lower the radiation shield so the others could get in, Bellamy immediately opposed that plan and kept opposing it, until the decision had already become a done deal due to circumstances, because he wasn’t willing to risk Clarke again. When Gabriel outlined the plan and Clarke pointed out that the mission isn’t just about their people, Bellamy heatedly stated that for him, it is. But the plan was, in fact, no riskier – arguably less so – than the plan Bellamy went on to propose a bit later, or any other plan they could have come up. It was only riskier for Clarke. Which begs the question, when he said it was all about his people for him, was he mostly thinking that it is all about her safety?

It is great to see the character development Clarke has gone through this season, especially in 6x07. The things she went through in the previous 5 seasons, especially Mount Weather in season 2, had traumatized her and made her lose almost all of the moral certainty she used to have back in season 1, when she believed in trying to save everyone, instead of accepting the motto that everyone is just trying to save “their people” (which culminated in her views we heard in 5x01, that there are no good guys, and it is all “kill or be killed”). She has now realized that being a good guy matters and that they need to fight evil, while also trying to save all the innocent lives. The current situation is, as she pointed out, like a repeat of Mount Weather in many ways. Back then, Clarke and Bellamy were desperate to save their people, but they were also trying, to the last moment, to spare the innocents – such as children and the people who helped them, like Maya – but unfortunately, other people’s actions and betrayals backed them into the corner and put them in a situation where the only options were to let all their loved ones and themselves be killed horrifically and to let the evil techno-vampire overlords win, or to save their people by killing all the Mountain Men with radiation. They made the only right choice in those circumstances, but what they had to do broke them, strained their relationship and has haunted them ever since. It is very important that now they are getting a chance to have a do-over. Not because they were bad people then – they were not – but because they can now try to plan things differently and not get in a situation where these are the only choices. Of course, Josephine was completely wrong about Clarke when she thought Clarke would kill everyone in Sanctum – because Josephine didn’t actually understand Clarke even after seeing into her mind, and projected herself and her own views of people into what she imagined Clarke to be life.

Let’s get something right: Bellamy didn’t “revert” to a “pre-season 5 Bellamy” who supposedly doesn’t care about killing people from the enemy faction if it saves his people, or any similar BS I’ve been reading these days. That could not happen for the simple fact that this Bellamy never existed. Bellamy was never OK with killing innocent people, especially not children, or killing people in any situation other than battle. He would sometimes say things in anger, such as “I will kill everyone in this mountain” when he was trapped in the cage in MW (just as Clarke angrily said “I will kill Mountain Men, all of them” after the missile had hit Tondc), but when he got to see things up close and see the actual people who would get hurt, he immediately started insisting that they need to find a plan that doesn’t kill everyone. In early season 2, he tried to stop Finn from killing a captured Grounder thief. In season 3, he agreed to participate in killing 300 warriors that Pike believed were a potential threat to people in Arkadia – while they were sleeping, rather than in a battle, but that was during a time when he was particularly vulnerable and afraid of not being able to protect his people, but he both tried to prevent the others from killing the wounded, and immediately felt guilty over all of it – and it went on to haunt him to this day. In season 4, he was doing everything to save people, not just as an abstract group but as specific individuals, whoever they are, including potentially jeopardizing a future rescue for his people and himself by freeing slaves (people he didn’t even know, most of them from various Grounder clans Azgeda had captured) that were suffering in that very moment. What was going on here, again, is that Bellamy was very worried, angry at the Primes, and on edge, because he is worried about what the Primes and their brainwashed followers may be doing to his people, and most of all, because of what he went through thinking Clarke was dead, and now having to see her risk her life, again. I wish people would stop doing that thing where they pretend that saying things in anger is the same things as doing them. And, frankly, I can’t blame Bellamy for being frustrated with the non-Prime Sanctum residents for their sheep-like mentality, but if he got in the position to see them killed, I’m sure he would try to save them.

People hate on Abby for not realizing that “Clarke” was really Josephine, but what about the fact that Gabriel managed to fool Layla into thinking he was her brother Xavier, for 10 years?! Wow.

Who is more incompetent, Sanctum guards or Children of Gabriel? According to the poll I recently ran, most people think that both suck equally.

While we will not get another red sun eclipse, because not enough time has passed, I’m glad that the red sun toxin is an important plot point, again. Bellamy did some quick thinking when the CoG captured them, coming up with the plan to release the toxin to cause chaos. But instead of a massacre that would probably come from the release of the full capacity toxin, the plan that Josephine and Gabriel came up with involves a milder dose, which is supposed to cause, I guess, just people being more open about their feelings and having hallucinations? This should be fun.

We now know at the Adjustment Protocol is – Josephine’s and Simone’s experiments to have the Sanctum people go nuts and have strong hallucinations, which happened to involve them seeing the Primes as gods or angels (no surprise, since they were already conditioned to see them like that), but also massacres where the most devout would start killing the less devout. (We’re constantly learning new details about how evil the Primes are.) I have a bad feeling that we’ll see something like that after all, because things tend to always go wrong on The 100.

The scene with Octavia and Bellamy in the cave is one of the most important moments of this season. Octavia finally doing some serious self-reflection, admitting that she had lost her way and apologizing to her brother is something that I had wanted a long time. I don’t think she was saying that it was his responsibility to be her moral compass, as some fans have interpreted it – I think she was just trying to tell him how important he was for her. Bellamy was obviously very emotionally affected, trying to fight back tears, but at the same time, it’s realistic that he cannot fully forgive her immediately, and that he needs to see her change in action. His line “You’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility” is a good start for a healthier relationship between these two. Their relationship was dysfunctional from the start, because Octavia was isolated for the first 17 years of her life and had to hide, while Bellamy was taught to see Octavia as his responsibility since he was 6, becoming her pseudo-father and devoting his life to her. Now they have a chance to try and have a normal sibling relationship, for the first time.

However, since I read the longer version of this scene from the original script, I’ve been really upset that we didn’t get to see all the lines that were cut. I wish we got to see these lines that show Octavia’s self-reflection on their entire relationship since they came to Earth (the only thing I disagree with is the idea that Aurora shouldn’t have had her) and the exchange about Medea – which shows how much Bellamy feels hurt personally by Octavia’s treatment of him. It’s not just about him being critical of her actions in a detached way, as if it had nothing to do with him. Which should be obvious, but it’s something some fans are trying to ignore.

The visuals in season 6 have been so amazing, and this episode has some really beautiful shots of the vicinity of the Anomaly, especially the shot with Octavia in the glowing forest and the Blake siblings in the glowing cave.

The first practical signs of Octavia’s big change is the fact that she is arguing, together with Clarke, in favor of sparing innocent lives as much as possible. And in spite of Bellamy’s problems with the plan because of Clarke’s safety, he and Clarke agreed that they should try to spare the innocents and do better “for Monty”. In season 2, Monty, Jasper, Raven and others were thinking “What would Clarke do?”, and now Clarke and Bellamy are wondering “What would Monty do?”

Raven, Abby, Jordan and Emori were all absent from this episode, but Miller and Gaia got a good scene where they talked about the guilt over the role in Blodreina’s regime, which Miller in particular has been struggling with, and the necessity to rebel against authority in other to do good (which, in Gaia’s case, means opposing Madi’s orders to save Madi and save people from her), and as Gaia put it, to “transcend”. This led to a nice moment where we saw the return of my favorite version of Miller, the one from season 2, who is fun and knows how to use his thieving skills for good.

Now that his wife is kind of dead and his daughter missing, Russell has become quite unhinged and increasingly acting like a classic villain. We’ve all been comparing Russell to Dante Wallace and Josephine to Cage, and that comparison made sense – but Russell is now starting to fulfill the Cage role, not just because he’s definitely the main villain now that Josephine is dead, but also because he’s the guy escalating the situations with his ruthless and not-well-thought-out actions which are putting our protagonists in danger, but which are likely to ensure his own destruction. (Dr Tsing was the cold, rational villain like Simone, and she also died early.) He almost publicly burned the Earthkru, calling them criminals, but now he wants to Echo as a host – as a punishment for trying to assassinate him? He may as well announce to the whole of Sanctum that he’s been lying to all of them for 200 years, and that everything he has told them about how it is an “honor” to be a host and that it means “being one with the Primes” was just BS, and that the Primes really have been preying on them all along. How long until a number of people turn against him? At this point, the only reason they are not doing it is fear of those who are still loyal to the Primes.

The angle and lighting even gave Russell a demonic look. He really is living up to his name “Lightborne” (Lucifer). There was a lot of religious symbolism and mentions of demons, in particular: Sheiheda is called a demon by Gaia, while Gabriel was considered a demon by Russell and the other Primes and was supposed to be burned at the stake (but Ryker released him).

Ryker seemed like he could play the season 2 Maya role and do the right thing, but instead, he is the anti-Maya. At this point, I’m really annoyed by him and his wishy-washiness. He knows what the Primes are doing is wrong, but he still wants to continue doing it. He never wanted to stop the resurrections – because he benefits from them.

I can’t say I’m exactly upset with Echo for killing him – however, it’s not something she had to do, as she, Miller and Gaia would have easily subdued and captured him, and it’s interesting that the show framed it through Echo repeating a line by her mentor/abuser, Queen Nia: “Hesitation is death”. The flashback itself was good, though not very surprising – we knew that Nia was one of the cruelest people on the show, and we knew from Echo’s story in 6x04 that she was originally an orphan from people who were conquered and killed by Azgeda. The one thing that was a surprise was the twist that “Echo” is not even Echo’s real name, and that she was forced to take the name, skill, and identity of the friend she had to kill to survive. (I’m not sure that Ash was her real name, either. It could have been a nickname given to her by Nia, or else it would be too much of a coincidence that this was the name of a girl rescued from a burning house.) The show basically gave Echo a backstory that’s a mix of Don Draper, Mr. Eko and Grant Ward. However, the question is, how does this new information affect her story going forward? The fact she changed her identity means nothing to any of the people she is close to now. It can only be relevant to how we see her. Echo probably told Ryker the story just to stall, maybe garner some sympathy so she could stall more – because the real message she drew from it is definitely not something she would’ve wanted to tell Ryker (or it would have made him kill her), but I think that maybe she wanted to tell someone, but was too ashamed to tell any of her friends (even though they wouldn’t actually judge her), or unable to open up so much, so she told it to someone that she knew would either kill her, or would soon be dead when she killed him. I don’t think this flashback was just there to explain why Echo became the way she did, or to garner sympathy – because if that were its purpose, it would have worked – probably better – at any point in the previous two seasons. I think there are two things we can take away here:

A lot of people complained about Echo’s writing in S5, because viewers assumed that was supposed to be accepted as someone who has changed and been redeemed, without the show giving her a redemption arc. This was based on Bellamy saying, when defending her to Octavia, that Echo had changed and proven herself on the ring. The latter didn’t make much sense, because the ring was conflict-free, just 7 people living there and apparently struggling just with boredom, Murphy’s negativity and the lack of tasty food. And what we saw of Echo suggested that she hasn’t changed fundamentally, she just became loyal to different people. She was still someone who, when she was following Bellamy’s decisions, had the instinct to go for pre-emptive kills as the first option. Season 6 took all these criticisms and showed that they were correct, but that this may be a part of Echo’s characterization. In 6x02, Emori taunted her for being a follower who always obeys her master (implying that her master now is Bellamy) while Echo had hallucinations of her training as a child spy/assassin. In this episode, we see that Echo still believes and acts on those same lessons. It’s not surprising that Bellamy saw a different side to her on the ring – because he saw her peaceful side during the time of peace. Now, people have said that the fact she showed compassion for and mercy-killed the unfortunate man in the Offering Grove in 6x06 shows that she has changed. But that man wasn’t someone she had reasons to see as a threat. Echo was able to feel compassion in season 4, too – she looked sad when she thought she had killed Octavia, and was affected by Bellamy’s speech in 4x05 about the way that war makes people into murderers and that we can try to be different – but she was always able to repress any such feelings and go for the kill, even pre-emptively, whenever thought someone was even a potential threat, physical or political (such as the leader from another clan who suggested a council rather than Azgeda rule, and was immediately killed for that). This is something that has been ingrained in her too strongly. Is this going to play a role in the remaining two episodes? Probably. Maybe because of something Echo will do, or maybe it was just meant to explain why she killed Ryker, which may be important. (They could have tried to use him as a hostage or for negotiation with Priya, if she decides to turn against Russell, realizing that he’s putting them all in danger?)

The revelation that she took someone else’s identity may be relevant if Echo is going to have an identity crisis. In a way, she has always been an echo of whoever she is working for – she was trying to act like Nia after her death in season 4, and the biggest change in her post-Praimfaya is that she is now following Bellamy as her leader and is a part of Spacekru/Earthkru, people with very different morality and methods from those of Azgeda. And now we learn that she is also an echo of the original Echo. Who is she, really? She’s learned to be efficient, to kill without hesitation, to make herself useful and to be loyal, in order to survive and be accepted. But who is she, and does she have emotional needs beyond that? In spite of spending 6 years with Bellamy, Raven, Emori, Murphy, Monty and Harper, and in spite of dating Bellamy (for however long), she has never told them the most important things about herself (or only told Bellamy about her parents recently, after being forced to). Her relationship with Bellamy is both empty in terms of intimacy, and incredibly unbalanced – she is more like his loyal lieutenant/sidekick, not his girlfriend, and it must be now obvious to Echo that Bellamy loves and values Clarke a lot more. Why would anyone want to stay in such a relationship? Everything about Echo this season is showing that this she needs to try to find her own identity outside of Bellamy and finally get real character development.

I don’t know what plot significance the fact that Echo’s Nightblood will have, but Gaia’s reaction to that information was a little weird. Why would she be impressed with artificial Nightblood? She’s seen it before with Clarke. And we know that Grounders consider the idea of putting the Flame into artificial Nigthbloods a blasphemy, which makes me find this theory very unlikely.

Murphy continues to play his trickster role and play both sides, but this is far more understandable in his case than with Ryker, since he is doing it save Emori, who is being directly threatened by Russell. But his real loyalties are now much more obvious than they were in 6x08 – for instance, in the way he gets important info to Echo and tells her to pretend that she hates him, so he can keep playing the role of traitor for Russell. Clarke is right not to trust him and to fool him into thinking she is Josephine – just like Russell, she knows he would choose Emori’s life over everything else. But she has also noticed how angry he is with the Sanctum guards, so she is probably aware that he would be on her side if Emori were safe. Bellamy, on his part, understood Murphy when Murphy explained why he was doing what he was doing – and, after risking everything for Clarke, he isn’t going to hold that against Murphy. Murphy tried to be a good friend by telling Bellamy about Echo being in danger. (Bellamy’s reaction was quite subdued – I’m sure he does care about Echo, but the difference between that and his reactions whenever Clarke is in danger are obvious.)

Eliza has been amazing this season playing Clarke, Josephine, Josephine pretending to be Clarke – badly, Josephine pretending to be Clarke – a little better after getting coached, and now we get to see her playing Clarke playing Josephine – really well. I’m going to enjoy more of this. Not only is Eliza great actress, but so is Clarke. She has tricked Jade, Murphy, and then even Russell himself. Of course, she has the advantage of having gotten to know Josephine quite well in her mindspace. (I loved it when she told Russell, supposedly about using the neural mesh to stay in Clarke’s body: “Turnaround is a fair play”. I see what you did there). She has even managed to endure her toughest test – pretending not to care about Madi, when she sees her in pain.

Hopefully this do-over of Mount Weather, with a role reversal of Bellamy preparing cavalry outside and Clarke as the inside wo(man), will go right this time and help Clarke and Bellamy resolve their old trauma.

Rating: 8.5/10

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nebulawriter · 6 years

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Annhilation

This is as close to a Changeling: The Lost movie as we’re ever going to get, isn’t is?

Overview: Smart movie, I probably want to watch it exactly once more to try and figure out some details, but it’s definitely more of a think-y movie than a sit-down-and-enjoy-stuff movie. But it IS imaginitive, visually stunning, thematically cohesive, and...a little horrifying. Like. More horrifying than I am traditionally comfortable with.

Note: this review turned more film analysis-ish than even I intended, so I apologize to those on mobile.

Like, as much of a sci-fi nerd as I am, sci fi horror stuff is almost always too much for me. I just can’t handle the gore and jump scares. Because of this, I don’t have INCREDIBLE experience with this kinda genre stuff, so I don’t have a good measuring stick to judge this as well.

In fact, I MIGHT have not seen this one all together if it weren’t for a) the all-lady cast, b) Tessa Thompson c) the weird shiny fantasy look to everything and d) I have moviepass now and it doesn’t cost me any extra to go to it.

I think I should do brief summary in case you’re reading this without seeing it for some reason, but uh, SPOILERS. Lena is a former soldier turned biology professor whose husband stayed in the military and went MIA (arguably KIA) about a year ago. And she’s not over it. Then, *GASP* he comes home, but he’s super out of it and sick, and he and she are both immediately captured by weird agents. There, a psychologist named Ventress shows her the Shimmer, a place off the coast that’s changing weird stuff, and no matter what they send in, nothing comes out. Except Lena’s husband Kane. She meets a team of cool lady scientists who are going in, and signs up, hoping to find a cure for her husband. They go in, there’s weird mind-fuckery, there is constant debate over if this is really happening or if they’re going insane, Lena finds clues left by her husband, 2 people get eaten by a bear, one person....turns into a tree I think? And finally they reach the lighthouse, the center of the incidents. Dr, Ventress explodes?ish? and then theres a LOOOOOT of mindfuckery, and I think I get like....60% of it? but, in the end, the lighthouse gets burned down and the shimmering stops. Kinda.

So! Annhilation. I’m going to go broad and whittle down for the review, going from themes into characters and plot. Annhilation is about one particular concept really that, like all good sci-fi, is over-exaggerated into the fantastical. Today’s concept is Self-Destruction. Specifically this gets focused onto cancer and suicide, and both of these themes are sot of....mutated together, not unlike the creatures in this film. I know it wasn’t but I really hope the shark-crocodile was in the pitch for this movie, like “It’s a think piece movie with a mutant shark crocodile. Money please.”

See, there’s a weird thing about Self-destruction, mirrored in this film, of, is it outside forces, or was it internal, something inside you? And that is the question this movie continues to pose, is the cause internal, or external?

Now lets look at the characters. The team, minus Lena, was chosen because they all had issues in their lives, and so were not going to be too terrible to lose in the likely event they died going into the shimmer, just like all the previous teams were chosen (this is important)

We’ll go in death-order, starting with Cass, and....kinda Anya. Cass clearly lost a daughter to Leukimia. There’s a story in here that I don’t know if I just caught onto subtext, or missed the reveal, but I’m 70% sure her partner at the time was in fact Anya, (Anya’s canonically wlw, Cass mocks her for hitting on Lena, maybe a bit too passive aggressively, Anya was most distressed by Cass’s death) Now, Anya’s problem was drinking and drugs, likely taken up after their daughter’s death. Through that, Cass left her, and now they’re on this mission together, and likely going to die. So there we have, self destruction before now. Their daughter’s death: External, outside of their control. Anya’s drinking, though, is her choice, how she chose to handle it: Internal. Cass leaving Anya, leaving them both completely alone: Internal. Kind of.

Cass’s fear she talked about with Lena, getting her to choose to come out first when Lena and Ventress sense trouble. Internal, her choice, almost, but a reasonable one. The bear eating her, obviously External.

Then, Anya becomes a villain of the piece, blaming Lena for Cass’s death. Internal choice, she suspects Lena, going through her things. External, she finds out Lena HAS been lying about her connection to the soldier Kane, and could very well have gone insane and been the one to kill Cass. Internal choice: She ties up her teammates, trying to determine if they’re crazy, but now we have an interesting pickle, don’t we. Are they crazy, or is SHE crazy for tying them up.

In my opinion, neither, while they’re all under enormous amounts of stress, and their bodies are LITERALLY changing, it doesn’t seem to be having a direct influence on their sanity. there is logic in Anya’s actions, and Lena’s and everyone’s. but it just...clashes in traumatic ways.

Finally, Anya hears Cass’ voice. External. She goes to chase it. Internal. It’s actually a horrifying bear monster that eats her. External.

Moving onto Josie. In a team full of scientists, she’s the nerd, which is sweet, but she’s also overly shy and doesn’t much speak up. Cass informs Lena, and us, that she has self-harm scars on her arms. This is pretty clear-cut (pun not intended I swear) self-destruction. But Cass also states, she wasn’t trying to kill herself. She was trying to live.

We’re never given a reason for Josie’s self-harm, but...and here’s where it gets a bit personal....as someone who’s struggled with self-harm in the cutting sense, I get it. It’s not about wanting to die. It’s trying to find something to live for.

Josie throughout the film doesn’t feel like she has that, which is why she’s chosen for the assignment.

Her fate is the....least clear, though its heavily implied she turns into one of the plant people, a statue. In this sense, she gets to live. She chooses this fate, in some ways, choosing to become part of the shimmering world rather than die in it like Cass and Anya. I think. There’s also her decision to save Lena by killing the weird demon bear, an internal choice, which I’m guessing plays into that, but. thats a bit more detailed for me.

Now, Dr. Ventress. Ventress is the psychologist who’s been sending people into the shimmer, choosing people who fit the profile of nothing to lose, choosing them, and sending each and every one of them to die. Internal choice, causing extreme guilt. Then, she gets cancer. Sort of an external force. Kinda. Cancer is a weird disease, really. It’s not something attacking you, going in, ripping out your guts and destroying you. No, it’s...it’s you. Its your body, just....making more of itself, doing it’s job to keep you living, but it works overtime, taking over the REST of your body, until it destroys itself. Its a scary condition Hollywood LOVES to use, because it is TERRIFYING and REAL to the general public. Almost everyone knows someone whose had some type of cancer. For me, my mother had Thyroid cancer, and to this day, I am at risk of that from having genes with her, not to mention having ovarian cysts that could turn into cancer if I don’t monitor it and control it. You wanna know how they confirm and monitor your ovarian cysts? Its Not. Pleasant. Everyone has seen the way Cancer destroys lives, and if I were to put money on it, I’d guess one or multiple of the creators of this movie has seen it too.

Anyway, VENTRESS. She’s going to die no matter what, so she decides to lead this exposition and find the cause of all this craziness thats been killing the people she chooses. Internal choice. She pushes onward, no matter the deaths of her comrades until she reaches the lighthouse.

And then. Weird. Fucking. Shit. Happens. She...finds the source of all this...ish. An alien comet. Kind of. And she says it’s....inside her...the annhilation. AND THEN SHE FUCKING EXPLODES. AND IMPLODES. Sort of both? A light comes out of her and she like...is made into this fiery ball of changing cells and. I don’t. What the fuck.

*ahem* whatever the fuck that was, I think a combination of implosion and explosion kinda ties back to internal vs external cause pretty decently.

Now, Kane and Lena. At the beginning, we’re shown that they had a wonderful marriage, full of smiles and happiness. But....later through flashbacks we’re shown...not necessarily so great. Kane is gone a lot on assignment. This leads Lena to having an affair. Kane finds out and gets assigned to the shimmer assignment. So is it Lena’s fault Kane went? Kane’s fault for Lena’s affair? In the end, neither of them, of course, are fully capable of the other’s actions, but, there’s a contributing factor. Internal choices combined with External forces.

We only see clips of Kane’s mission, film he left behind. In the first film, what I think happens because I couldn’t watch all of it, was him cutting open one of his teammates, right in the stomach. Once it’s open, we see....something....moving inside the man. Anya’s convinced it’s a trick of the light, and that Kane went insane. While it’s true that he never explains himself, like I said, beyond stress we don’t see much indication that these people are “crazy” or hallucinating or anything. The man being cut doesn’t scream, he knows what’s going to happen. Kane and the other living soldier are Concerned. More likely, they were getting footage of what was moving in him as data, data that later teams could hopefully find.

Now as for what the thing WAS??? I’m not sure. Partially because I was COVERING MY EYES CAUSE A GUY WAS BEING CUT OPEN but partially because I think it could be one of 2 things: 1, a snake that had got inside him (external) or 2, his LITERAL ORGANS coming to life (internal)

Lena makes similar observations. She samples her own blood, seeing that it’s being mutated. She convinces Anya and Josie to keep pushing ahead, both for logical reasons, and somewhat tricking them, because she still hasn’t found what she wants: answers about what happened to her husband. And oh she gets them. Back to the trippy finale.

See, she finds a tape of Kane blowing himself up. On this tape he shows far more signs of mental instability, but that makes sense as its then shown that the man behind the camera? Also Kane. A duplicate of him, specifically. The duplicate’s existence seems to cause Kane’s distress, causing him to doubt himself. External force. But he blows up the grenade. Internal choice. Here we come to the suicide aspect. Was it really too much to handle? He professed his love to Lena in the end, so did her affair influence his choice? It certainly caused the duplicate to come to her.

Finally, Lena gets a duplicate made of herself, after Ventress explode/implodes. It mimics her...imperfectly. She attacks it, it attacks her. Not to mention she passes out several times in the fight, so we, the audience, lose track of her. whenever it

And in the CLEAREST METAPHOR FOR SELF DESTRUCTION I’ve ever seen Lena (?) EXPLODES HER DUPLICATE. Like???? do I need to explain that one???

Okay now onto the murky ending. Kane is suddenly better! but he says...he doesn’t think he’s Kane, preeetty much confirming he’s the alien created duplicate. And Lena....Lena doesn’t say if she’s the duplicate or the real one. I don’t think she knows. And while the change in her eyes would indicate, no, she’s the duplicate....I’m less sure. Is she Lena, affected and changed by the alien? Or the alien, affected and changed by Lena? Does it matter?

Oh but we’re not done yet. Now, for the last character, who I’m dubbing “Annhilation.” It’s the alien, the cause, the sci-fi part of this film. The alien is....cancer, on the land, almost directly. The comet hits the lighthouse. External force. But....

As “Lena” Says at the end, it....it doesn’t destroy, not really. It changes. It changes what was already there. It mimics, imperfectly. The WORLD is self-destructing itself, the comet is just....the catylyst. like Cancer. It’s your own cells that are actually being destructive.

In the end, Loxam smiles after Lena finishes telling her story. “So, it was aliens.” as if that answers everything.

And...yes? but it wasn’t....trying to kill. It...started something in the world and killed itself. “What did it want” Loxam asked. Self-Destruction is not that simple. Like, it changed things but...all the destruction, REAL destruction, was either self-inflicted (Kane) or inflicted from the beasts in the world (the bear and crocodile)

Self harm....in any of it’s forms.....is strange. It goes against out biological functions, but....it also goes with them. It doesn’t make logical sense, it never has. But there’s only one way to get through it, if at all possible. It’s how Kane, fake or not, got back. And How Lena got back.

The others, all of them, had nothing to live for. They were WILLING to be possibly killed on this mission, thats why they were chosen. Lena, though, Lena had a goal. She wanted to get out, She wanted to save her husband. She had something to live for.

I do have a negative thing about this showing of self harm, or....i don’t know, maybe a thing I’m not clear on. All throughout, destruction is...made beautiful. sorta. Bodies are arranged in patterns, plants grow out the sides of crumbled buildings and...i don’t know....how I feel about that.....I just. I don’t know.

ANYWAY in conclusion, very well done movie, if a bit confusing at times, Glad one of the poc didn’t die first, though was sad the lesbians also died. though. They kinda all died. so. at least we got the representation at all?

So yeah. Sorry for the book report, but I hope it was mildly entertaining?

#annhilation #annhilation movie

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dinapaulson · 5 years

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On Obsession With Mrs. Kim Kardashian West

Photo credit: SPLASH NEWS

#TBT to a celebrity think piece I wrote 2 1/2 years ago...

August 2015

The self-assertive, media-as-life-force Mrs. Kardashian West is present and accounted for, met by grievance or happy sigh; the latter, you release when she posts her latest selfie (fortunately, you don’t have to wait long). It bolted from a sex tape and grew up in a famous family; the “it” being her infamy and evolution into the queen of household reality and indisputably of the selfie, of TMZ and talk show grit, as virtual reality character, fashion line entrepreneur, and endorser of food, beauty, and household products, and now as wife and soon-to-be mother of two. Naturally, she is also very good looking.

Mrs. Kardashian West is everywhere, from front row at the MTV Video Music Awards to covering Interview Magazine with selfies in bed via the new 'smart' interview on FaceTime, to promoting brands and her lifestyle on KUWTK, at fashion weeks around the world, with her daughter resting on her lap during Hair & Makeup; add bookstores to the list, too, as she autographs copies of her debut book, Selfish, around the country.

You might think you’d escape her if you only watch NPR, but last summer she appeared there, too, on Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me! She drew criticism so sharp from its core viewers, one would think she announced a blindsighted peace deal with North Korea or a migrant policy even harsher than Hungary’s. Some insinuated they would boycott the station or were simply incredulous as to what standards the reputable 'real-news-only' station were abiding by that allowed them to see Mrs. Kardashian West as an acceptable guest.

Check out the comments on a 2014 New York Times article covering her derrière. Whether or not these readers actually unsubscribe from the New York Times, the red-in-the-face frustration one might expect seemly outlier reporting to produce is replaced here by almost vehement revulsion. People really can’t seem to stand her--those that can’t stand her, that is.

What Mrs. Kardashian West is not is an everyday woman, though she sometimes takes a stab at this, and sometimes, it does quite well. Her realest Instagram post gently defied those who attacked her body during her first pregnancy. She posted a message that resonates in the I-know-this-person-she-could-be-my-neighbor kind of way. Everyone’s bodies change during pregnancy, she reminds us. It’s the Cindy Crawford and Demi Moore shot, naked with the stomach protruding. It’s worth noting that her baring throwback launched a thousand copycats. Models from Marisa Miller and Miranda Kerr to singers like Jessica Simpson have posed in similar postures as expectant mothers.

Of course, there is nothing simple about a naked body ever, and with the pregnancy bump, viewers are drawn straight into the embrace of the Madonna. Mrs. Kardashian West knows this well. What she has done is not only make her pregnancy look normal, but at the same time garner almost two million likes of “approval” with her stance. This is a good example of how she does everything that she does.

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Kardashian West announced to the world with two pouty, cleavage selfies that she reached 45 million Instagram followers, the most in the world. Less than a month ago, she had 42 million followers. That’s roughly 100,000 new followers a day--100,000 new followers a day. Compare her number of Instagram followers with other people you might imagine have high numbers of followers. Oprah--4.1 million followers. The White House--1.1 million followers. The Dalai Lama--152K followers. These giants are falling behind.

While Mrs. Kardashian West, arguably a thought leader of her own modeling, isn’t necessarily saying globe changing things, she also is not saying things that are inherently harmful. Here are my comments on this--no, I have not read every post she has ever written on her social media accounts, and two, I say this in a very literal way--she is not promoting genocide or mountaintop removal, to my knowledge.

She may be adding weight to the notion that women's physical beauty is the right hand requisite to sexiness and seduction, but is she alone in this? This is what many beauty publications, such as Cosmopolitan, are still doing. How much more harmful is she alongside forms of print and digital journalism that pit women subliminally against other women by creating charts and how-to’s, promising here is how and who can win the big prize, the big man?

If you do find Mrs. Kardashian West attractive, isn’t it singularly about her and not a call for women everywhere to pose and post like that? Because you can’t is the subliminal message of her repertoire. This is the ground levelness of her strategy. Only she can do what she does, and masses of smartphone and tablet eyes worldwide have nodded in agreement. Inhabiting a fantasy is a frenzied, pleasurable if not frustrated state, which relies on the emotive, erotic tradition of seeking after thou that has been around since the beginning of warm-blooded humankind.

Mrs. Kardashian West is the type of fantasy that leaves the lights on and windows open. Being married didn't close them one bit, which is (again, smartly) key to maintaining her Bertolt Brecht stage with fans. Hers is the most obsessive-making fantasy of all because her viewers will never be fulfilled--they will never be with her intimately nor, for her adoring friendship fandom, get to hang out with her one-on-one.

And so, her followers will keep mounting, and people will keep watching. She has found the tick of the human genome. It’s easy to keep them coming back, ecstatic for new posts and photos, because she's always going to show up. She is fiercely loyal to her work (herself) and her fans, who crave her work (herself).

Mrs. Kardashian West spills about her business ventures and work-out routines, everyday and special moments, being a mom, being a wife, and being a sister and an aunt. She uses a lot of exclamation marks. She markets her husband’s empire, promotes lifestyle products, and ats who she wants to bring into focus. People have taken note. Hillary Clinton just took a grinning selfie with her and her husband, Mr. Kanye West, at a recent campaign event.

It seems to me if you despise Mrs. Kardashian West, she must represent something ferociously anti-feminist, anti-work, anti-genuine or a combination of the three. It is worth mentioning that America, with its complex narratives of celebrity bildungsroman, feminism, and the development of women at work, is bedding for the kind of success Mrs. Kardashian West, an American, has built. She once said in an interview, generally addressing those who say she is famous for being famous or famous for doing nothing at all, they should try to be her for one day.

I am not saying there aren’t lives more difficult than hers--I am not saying that by a long shot. What I am asking, is what is fundamentally different from her and another pop star who releases a brazen, sensationalist statement for shock effect and pulls in publicity? How different is she from other reality television celebrities in Los Angeles with her same social background who grew up in the spotlight and wealth she did? What sets Mrs. Kardashian West apart is her persistent work ethic at institutionalizing her own brand, which doesn’t make her much different, either, from a larger pool of more seriously regarded entrepreneurs who focus on one product to reach success.

Mrs. Kardashian West’s product is, of course, herself, and in the end, it may be a matter of individual exigence deciding whether what she shares is valuable. From moral theory to opinion sprawl provided by google, hashtags, and trending topics, there is no end to determining what influences how we think nor least of all finding, in an information society, an environment that makes it easy to ponder, or even, remarkably, focus on our thoughts. Instead of preaching so much dislike, live and let live isn't a bad attitude to consider, and possibly, much less exhausting. Mrs. Kardashian West as our 2020 First Lady, giving a speech in sexy entrepreneurialism? More seemly unimaginable things have happened.

#TBT #throwbackthursday #women writers #writers #essayists #kimkardashian #kimkardashianwest #obsession

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hooliganrehab · 7 years

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Bruno Mars Doesn’t Walk....he glides

It’s as if he’s perpetually ready to perform a Motown-style choreography set in front of tens of millions watching the Super Bowl (which he has done twice in the past four years)—even easing his way into a suburban L.A. pizza parlor, where moments earlier, his sexy, chart-topping 2012 hit, “Locked Out of Heaven,” was on blast, as if anticipating his appearance. Mars just has that aura. His outfit is straight Fania-era salsa/blaxploitation swag—Gucci cap over his curls; sunglasses; an open shirt, floral and teal; tan shorts; dress shoes (no socks, to accentuate those smooth legs); and minimal gold jewelry. He orders a plain slice, which he sprinkles with garlic powder, and a root beer. It’s obviously a joint he frequents, since he knows all the fellas by name, and the workers aren’t taken aback by the superstar in their midst. He walks to an open booth, wolfs down his food, controlling his urge to eat six more slices, he jokes, and proceeds to be the smoothest cat to ever have lunch at an old-school checkered-tablecloth pizzeria.

Mars learned about charm, confidence, and estilo early in life. “My whole sense of rhythm is because my dad was teaching me bongos as a kid,” he says of his father, Pedro Hernandez. “He’s an old-school working musician, so that’s where the pinky rings come from, the patent-leather shoes, the suits, and the pompadour. It all stems from watching my father. I remember at the time, me and my sisters would be a little embarrassed when he would take us to school in his big-ass Cadillac. No one had Cadillacs in Hawaii. But my dad would show up in some boat-looking Caddy wearing some silky shit, and we’d run out into the car as soon as possible. And here I am wearing the swap-meet gold, driving Cadillacs,” he says with a laugh.

Take one quick look at Mars’ recent music (the omnipresent Mark Ronson collaboration “Uptown Funk,” which amassed more than 2 billion YouTube views, the fourth-most ever, or his critically acclaimed 24K Magic) and his style (“pinky rings to the moon”), and it’s easy to see that his persona is not only inspired by his father but delivered as a conscious ode to Latino and African American masculinity. Brown and black men have long dealt with the stereotype of being hot-blooded, suave, savage animals lusting after anything with a pulse. Now Mars, 31, is embracing the Latin Lover archetype (if you’re not treating your girl right, we’re Mr. Steal Ya Girl) and giving anyone who’s offended a big middle finger. Mars’ dominance in pop culture takes on even greater resonance now, when the leader of the free world has called Latino men “rapists,” “drug dealers,” and “bad hombres.”“I hate that we’re even having a conversation about injustice in America,” he says of the current climate of social unrest. “That we are having a conversation about this in 2017; the same conversation that’s been had decades and decades ago.”Yet Bruno Mars doesn’t want to drown you with his wokeness; he just wants to make you shake what your mami gave you. The man is a musical genius—he writes, produces, sings, dances, plays instruments, and puts on arguably the best performances in the universe.

“Remembering when he was just my little brother looking up to me, staying by my side, playing music together, throwing around a football, just doing everything together—those were great times,” says Eric “E-Panda”Hernandez of his hermano and band leader. “Now he signs my paychecks, and he is my boss. I’m beyond proud of the man he has become.”But before he was Bruno Muhfuckin’ Mars, he was E-Panda’s lil’ bro, Peter Hernandez, born and bred in Hawaii to a beautiful Filipina and Spanish mom and Puerto Rock and Jewish papi from Brooklyn. His childhood musical career is well-documented on YouTube— at 4, he was the cutest Elvis Presley impersonator ever, performing with his family for oohing-and-ahhing tourists in Waikiki. As the years passed and his skills developed, Mars found himself dealing with racial-identity issues in the multicultural 50th state. “Growing up in Hawaii, there are not too many Puerto Ricans there,” says Mars, “so because of my hair, they thought I was black and white.”

The idea of not being easily categorized is something Mars has dealt with his entire life. When he moved to Los Angeles at 18 to make a serious go in the music industry, record label executives asked, “What are you? Are you urban? Are you Latin?”“There are a lot of people who have this mixed background that are in this gray zone,” he says, leaning forward to make his point. “A lot of people think, ‘This is awesome. You’re in this gray zone, so you can pass for whatever the hell you want.’ But it’s not like that at all. It’s actually the exact opposite. What we’re trying to do is educate people to know what that feels like so they ’ll never make someone feel like that ever again. Which is a hard thing to do. Because no one can see what we see and no one can grow up with what we grew up with. I hope people of color can look at me, and they know that everything they’re going through, I went through. I promise you.”All that to say that Mars is prouder than Manny Pacquiao to be Filipino, loves Hawaii more than Don Ho’s children, and, well, is as boricua as Marc Anthony eating a plate of arroz con gandules during his Todo a Su Tiempo era. Critics and those confused by his multiracial roots have insinuated that he’s ashamed of his Taino roots, truly a load of chupacabra crap, says Mars.“My last name is Hernandez. My father’s name is Pedrito hernandez, and he’s a Puerto Rican pimp. There’s no denying that.”“I’d love to clear that up in Latina magazine,” he says, raising his voice. “I never once said I changed my last name to hide the fact that I’m Puerto Rican. Why would I fucking say that? Who are you fooling? And why would anyone say that? That’s so insulting to me, to my family. That’s ridiculous. My last name is Hernandez. My father’s name is Pedrito Hernandez, and he’s a Puerto Rican pimp. There’s no denying that. My dad nicknamed me Bruno since I was 2 years old. The real story is: I was going to go by ‘Bruno,’ one name. Mars just kind of came joking around because that sounds bigger than life. That was it, simple as that. I see people that don’t know what I am, and it’s so weird that it gets them upset. It’s an oxymoron—the music business; like the art business. You’re making a business out of these songs that I’m writing. And how are you going to tell me that this song that I’m writing is only going to be catered to Puerto Ricans or to white people or only Asian people. How are you going to tell me that? My music is for anybody who wants to listen to it.”

An incredible number of people want to do just that. Mars’ combined sales for his first three albums are more than 100 million, along with his 2013 Moonshine Jungle Tour and his upcoming 100-date 24K Magic World Tour, which begins in late March and sold more than a million tickets in one day. Concertgoers will be treated to the Mars stage presence—an aura influenced by his family and the greats: Michael Jackson, James Brown, and Prince. Needless to say, Mars’ music is undoubtedly black.

“When you say ‘black music,’ understand that you are talking about rock, jazz, R&B, reggae, funk, doo-wop, hip-hop, and Motown. Black people created it all. Being Puerto Rican, even salsa music stems back to the Motherland [Africa]. So, in my world, black music means everything. It’s what gives America its swag. I’m a child raised in the ‘90s. Pop music was heavily rooted in R&B from Whitney, Diddy, Dr. Dre, Boyz II Men, Aaliyah, TLC, Babyface, New Edition, Michael, and so much more. As kids this is what was playing on MTV and the radio. This is what we were dancing to at school functions and BBQs. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for these artists who inspired me. They have brought me so much joy and created the soundtrack to my life filled with memories that I'll never forget. Most importantly, they were the superstars that set the bar for me and showed me what it takes to sing a song that can get the whole world dancing, or give a performance that people will talk about forever. Watching them made me feel like I had to be as great as they were in order to even stand a chance in this music business. You gotta sing as if Jodeci is performing after you and dance as if Bobby Brown is coming up next.”It’s refreshing to hear a pop star say it loud and proud: black music is American pop culture. Latinos and African Americans aren’t just connected by the racism and dis- enfranchisement we’ve dealt with historically; we’re also connected by our music and traditions. We hear it in J Balvin’s reggaeton heaters and in Rihanna’s Caribbean patois, as well as in the eloquent, piercing words written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Junot Díaz. We’re one. And Bruno Mars combines the best of all of our aspirations and goals into one super artist.Above all, the world has to thank his parents for nurturing his talent at an age when most kids were still using pull-up diapers. While his pops gave him his style, his mom, Bernadette San Pedro Bayot, gave him his heart. After each performance, Mama Mars would call or text to congratulate him on another gem or to say to get some rest. The memory of her sudden death in 2013 from a brain aneurysm still shakes him.“The woman who taught you to love, showed you what a woman is supposed to be,”

says Mars, his voice trembling slightly for the first time during an interview where he’s been all smiles and laughs. “When that goes away, a little more than half your heart goes away with it.”

THEY SAY IT’S HARDER TO LOSE A PARENT AS AN ADULT BECAUSE AT THAT POINT YOU’RE PEERS, YOU’RE FRIENDS. EVERYTHING CHANGES, NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME.“You just gotta know that she’s with me everywhere I go,” he says. “It’s some- thing that you can’t imagine—the pain and the things that you keep going back to: ‘I wish I would’ve done this or said this.’ You just have to see life differently. It shows you the real importance of life. Nothing else matters in this world but family and your loved ones.”When asked if his music has changed à la Kanye West when he lost his mother, Donda, Mars pauses. “I don’t know how to answer that question,” he says. “My life has changed. She’s more than my music. If I could trade music to have her back, I would. I always hear her say, ‘Keep going and keep doing it.’”

Mama Mars certainly did an amazing job. Mars’ longtime girlfriend, model Jessica Caban, definitely reaps the rewards of his having such a great mother. Mars isn’t big on sharing about his life with Caban, but social media paints an adorable #relationshipgoals idea of their courtship.I got this fire in my blood. For me, you gotta keep up

It’s all in. It’s ‘I’m going to love the shit out of you, and I’m going to fuck you up later,’” says Mars jokingly, laughing about his attraction to Latinas, obviously with Caban in mind. “It’s all in. And that’s what keeps that fire going.”

As he wraps the interview, which felt more like two bros shooting the ish, Mars dips through the back of the pizzeria, jumps in his black Cadillac and pulls to the front. He asks this reporter, “Where you going? Maybe I can give you a lift.” “Downtown L.A.,” the reporter says. “Oh! You better Uber that shit!” Mars says with a smile. It was expected. Not because Mars is too Hollywood, but because where he’s going, not many have gone.

#Bruno Mars #Bruno Mars Latina Magazine #Bruno Mars 2017 #Puerto Rican #Filipino #link #interview #bet someone will go ahead and post it and get the notes bu #t whateverrrrrr

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chawsl · 3 years

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https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/ivermectin-wins-in-court-again-for-human-rights/article_98d26958-a13a-11eb-a698-37c06f632875.html

Ivermectin Wins in Court Again: For Human Rights

By Justus R. Hope, MD

Apr 19, 2021 Updated Apr 21, 2021

One dose of Ivermectin was all it took to get 81-year-old John Swanson off the ventilator. John’s wife Sandra could not believe it. His story is remarkably similar to other cases of patients who were on their way out with advanced COVID-19 but saved when Ivermectin was added.

Ralph Lorigo is the lawyer who now has won three court orders forcing New York hospitals to administer Ivermectin to dying patients. Incredibly, these three hospitals and their lawyers fought against the patients, arguing they did not have the right to receive the drug despite a valid prescription written by their doctors. In essence, the argument was that they did not have the right to try a potentially life-saving medication.

In each of the three cases, the New York State Supreme Court Justices sided with the patient, and in each of the three cases, the patients made near-miraculous recoveries after the Ivermectin was given. In each case, these patients were in the Intensive Care Unit on ventilators, unable to breathe on their own, and universally, after the drug was given, they rapidly improved and were able to breathe on their own.

Judith Smentkiewicz made national news in January when her family hired Lorigo after the hospital refused a fourth dose of Ivermectin. Smentkiewicz's son and daughter called Ivermectin a "miracle drug" in court papers. Attorney Lorigo and his associate Jon F. Minear reported, “This lady was on a ventilator, literally on her deathbed, before she was given this drug. As far as we’re concerned, the judge’s order saved this woman’s life.”

The family of Glenna "Sue" Dickinson happened to see a newspaper article of Judith's remarkable story, and they decided to try Ivermectin as well.

Sue Dickinson, 65, contracted COVID-19 on January 7, 2021. She suffered progressive worsening and was admitted to Rochester General Hospital on January 12. She continued to worsen and was placed on a ventilator on January 17. The hospital staff advised that her chances of survival were about 40 percent.

With nothing to lose, Natalie Kingdollar, Dickinson’s daughter, reached out to their family doctor, Tom Madejski, who wrote the prescription. The hospital refused to give Sue the Ivermectin. The legal team of Lorigo and Minear drafted an affidavit from Dr. Madejski and sought an injunction. State Supreme Court Justice Frank Caruso ordered the hospital to provide the Ivermectin.

Dickinson, like Swanson, and Smentkiewicz, came off the ventilator and improved as well. The family reported on Facebook that, "She’s making progress each day, and it’s Ivermectin and God making this happen.” She has since been released from the hospital.

Ivermectin is widely used by physicians, as there are now 51 studies from around the world, with 50 showing clear benefit and one showing neutral. However, the lone study showing a neutral effect was roundly criticized as flawed in an open letter signed by a group of 120 physicians.

Experts worldwide have called for the global and systematic use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19. Physicians have recently written about a profit motive by regulatory agencies and Big Pharma to block cheap, safe, and effective treatments like Ivermectin and HCQ in favor of experimental and perhaps more dangerous and arguably less effective vaccines and medicines like Remdesivir. With *Remdesivir costing $3,100 per dose* and not reducing deaths, the choice of Ivermectin is a no-brainer say many doctors.

*Ivermectin costs about $2 per dose*. It is safer than Tylenol or most vitamins, says Dr. Pierre Kory of the FLCCC Alliance, a group of expert physicians promoting access and information through a nonprofit organization. Dr. Kory and Mr. Lorigo have teamed up to help other hospitalized patients gain access to the life-saving drug.

Dr. Fred Wagshul, a Yale-educated physician, is a pulmonary specialist and directs the Lung Center of America. He is also a founding member of the FLCCC Alliance. Dr. Wagshul notes that the typical dose for hospitalized patients is 0.3 mg of Ivermectin per kg of body weight for four days which works out to nine 3 mg tablets daily for four days in a typical 200-pound patient.

Dr. George Fareed, former Harvard professor, advocates combination therapy of Ivermectin with HCQ in outpatient cases. For the benefit of physician readers, the specific doses are provided in this link.

The big problem is that information promoting Ivermectin is often censored or silenced as quickly as it is provided. Facebook, Reddit, Change.org, YouTube, and others have recently taken down posts on Ivermectin citing violation of "community standards."

Physicians who employ good judgment and scientific studies are considered violators, as well as those who publish factual accounts of Ivermectin-based recovery stories. A recent article exposed the link between large pharmaceutical corporations and government regulatory agencies who have financial entanglements and massive conflicts of interest.

The disinformation campaign is evident with the publication of articles attempting to cast Ivermectin in a false light, referring to it as an “animal dewormer” that might be a “bad idea” for humans to use. In reality, many drugs are common to both humans and animals for treatment, including antibiotics, antifungals, and antiparasitic agents.

Ampicillin, a form of penicillin, has been widely used to treat infections in children like whooping cough, salmonella, and meningitis. It has been routinely used to treat adults for bronchitis, pneumonia, and rheumatic heart disease. It is also consistently employed in veterinary applications to treat calves, cattle, dogs, and cats.

You would never see an article attempting to smear Ampicillin as an animal drug and warn people against taking it. However, we see this propaganda daily trying to influence the general public against Ivermectin, a life-saving drug that has been prescribed safely and in billions of doses over the past 40 years for parasitic disease.

Dr. Satoshi Omura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries leading to the development of Ivermectin. In his praise for Ivermectin and its potential to help in the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Omura recently compared Ivermectin to Penicillin, “one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century.”

Currently, Ivermectin has already been adopted by 25 percent of the world’s countries to prevent and treat COVID-19. Bangladesh, where Ivermectin is broadly used in almost every home, enjoys a 99% lower per capita death rate from COVID-19 than the US. Bangladesh, with 160 million inhabitants, has half the US population. However, it has merely 10,000 COVID-19 deaths. Contrast that with nearly 580,000 US deaths in our country of 327 million.

However, censorship, corruption, hospital lawyers, and disinformation campaigns have continued to stand in the way of its widespread acceptance in the United States. Many have never even heard of it.

Ivermectin recently won in court in South Africa after a protracted legal battle. Ralph Lorigo has now won his third State Supreme Court Injunction in New York. Will legal strategies also be required in the US to gain FDA approval for Ivermectin to treat COVID-19?

Dr. Tess Lawrie has entered this David v. Goliath battle. She is an independent research consultant to the WHO, and her work has consistently been used to underpin International Clinic Practice Guidelines. In other words, she has been one of the go-to scientists on which the WHO bases their recommendations.

She has established a non-profit organization to promote the worldwide approval and adoption of Ivermectin for COVID-19. She is requesting support through this video.

We owe it to ourselves as human beings to support this work. We owe it to future generations who need medical truth, not corruption, to guide our public health policy. We owe it to the principle of basic human rights.

Signed,

Justus R. Hope, MD

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torentialtribute · 5 years

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MARTIN SAMUEL: Giving power to a bunch of cyber nerds is fatally flawed

Hednesford Town is not, after all, led by 3500 anonymous strangers, via an app. But some clubs will.

Some poor souls will be desperate, as Hednesford was undoubtedly, and eventually an entrepreneurial electrician of Wigan, Stuart Harvey, will make the promise he made to subscribers to his service to play as the Glazers. pound

OWNA Football Club is basically an Ebbsfleet United reboot. Between 2008 and 2013 Ebbsfleet was run by MyFootballClub, a web company that promised its members the immersive experience of running a football club. Decide on transfers, choose the team, and even make a phone call about replacements when it started.

What is consistent is that the goals of OWNA FC are real football clubs, with real histories and real supporters. Not many of them, of course.

Hednesford, the person who did not own the house,

Hednesford played for the first time in a local league in Birmingham with clubs (1) including Coventry City, Shrewsbury Town and Bristol Rovers, faced with the reserve teams of the founders Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion of Football League and still viable, and third on the Premier Conference in 1995-96.

The following season she reached the fourth round of the FA Cup, lost to Middlesbrough, then the Premier League-team of Juninho, Emerson and Fabrizio Ravanelli. recently, in January 2017, Arsenal paid £ 40,000 for one of Hednesford's players, Cohen Bramall.

But there is a decline. Hednesford is now the Northern Premier League team and no longer attracts more than 1,000 people. Nowadays it is closer to 350. Still, there are still 350 that do not play or go through it.

They have a club and a nickname – The Pitmen – and when OWNA FC & # 39; s interest was first put forward, many were appalled. Understandably so.

& # 39; You can not sit there and say: & # 39; I want to dismiss the manager & # 39; – that's a fantasy, & # 39; said Harvey on the weekend. it is also the fun

For taking the PlayStation / Football. [Bewerken] [lijst toevoegen] Do For the PlayStation / Football Manager element from this scheme and what remains? The small company, the boring one, that is also difficult to be successful. Ever played the Zoo Tycoon game? It sounds like a laugh that is in charge of lions and tigers and polar bears, but you spend most of your time getting the concession to make a profit and repair fences.

Running a less important football club is In the sales pitch, but also because it promises that subscribers will signing … negotiating contracts … hiring and firing personnel & # 39 ;, promises OWNA FC also select the suppliers … set access prices … manage your staff & # 39;

That sounds like a job; a routine. This is Hednesford Town or equivalent, you remember. Your staff will not be José Mourinho.

And how much leeway for brilliant entrepreneurial spirit is there in admission prices in combination with 3,500 others?

There will be a price at which place it is, a price that does not show up, and Hednesford will already charge somewhere in the middle. What are you going to do, Roman Abramovich, change that with 25p?

And let's say you are a visionary, with daring, brilliant concepts that are capable of transforming non-League football forever. Do your 3499 co-members share or understand your ideas?

& # 39; You can express your concerns and go back to the advisory group & # 39 ;, explains Harvey. & # 39;

It all sounds very sensitive – and that is exactly why the members of MyFootballClub lost their interest. his highlight, MyFootballClub had eight times as many subscriptions as OWNA FC now, but by the time Ebbsfleet was sold with the cheap obscurity looming in 2013, that number had dropped to just over a thousand.

What went wrong Reality bit.

I do not want to be a fan of football,

Hednesford is a club of the Northern Premier League. The average football fan does not even know the teams in the Northern Premier League, let alone the players.

You got the left wing at Mickleover Sports. Is he better than his equivalent to Marine or Basford United? Who knows? Who cares?

The 350 regulars in Hednesford may have an idea – but they have been declared unlawful.

It is the 3,500 others who say, those who have paid £ 49 imaging championship Manager, but really.

But instead of trading in names of households in deals worth millions, they pay the equivalent of single currency for a player who, as far as they know, stops that new reserve on the Mondeo at Mercury. -Fit last Tuesday.

The deals will be approved on the basis of anonymous statistics, because experience and real knowledge will be in dangerously short supply

A simple answer would be to the manager's preference, but again, where is the drama?

Where is the buzz as

When the demise of the deal with Hednesford became clear, two members

Then the demise of the Deal Hednesford became clear, two members of OWNA FC placed their disappointment on the fans forum of the club.

An intimate person who might have visited Keys Park, the acquisition was already over.

There was not the power of feeling that emanated from other posters, for whom Hednesford Town was not just a kind of diversionary maneuver. this does not go away

And in a week that the Football League was forced to make statements about the stewardship of Coventry City, Charlton Athletic, Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers, it is clear that the current ownership models are far from perfect.

But this? We've seen it before and we know how it ends.

It is a birth or love that can not be bought through an app for £ 49; Well, not one that is throwing Stuart Harvey.

Tadic is one who could escape

Almost every time I saw Dusan Tadic, I thought he was the best of Southampton player. & # 39; Tadic played the pass of the night … & # 39; (Southampton 1 Manchester United 2, Manchester United 2, 8 December 2014), & # 39; Tadic – arguably the most influential player of Southampton during their best spells … & # 39; (Chelsea 1 Southampton 1, March 15, 2015).

The problem was that I did not see enough of him. There was a reason for successive managers who did not start him or her, if they did, he pulled him back early. Maybe he was tired. Ajax pulled apart Real Madrid Tuesday, I was satisfied.

He was everything he had watched, especially in his first year in Southampton, before the club sold too many players to compete effectively. Perhaps English football demands a higher work-rate than Tadic thought to offer; maybe this week is his highlight in an Ajax shirt. It's just a surprise that none of Southampton rivals thought they could make Tadic's talent in England work. He can certainly play.

Almost every time I saw Dusan Tadic, I thought he was the best Southampton player

Bale is in Ronaldo and that's why he a real problem

If what remains of his career is generally pleasant, then he can put it without his agent declaring war on Real & # 39; s fans

Jonathan Barnett may be right that Bale is undervalued – although not financially – but part of the division comes from powerful claims made on his behalf. Bale's camp has turned a consistent line that forced their husbands to live in the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo and that, given his time, he would shine.

This was an enormously overplayed hand. Bale has done very well in Madrid, but he will never replace Ronaldo's influence on matches.

Without Ronaldo, Madrid is a shadow and Bale can not change that. Barnett is admirably loyal to his client, but a refusal to acknowledge Bale's comparative limitations has long been part of the problem.

Gareth Bale would never replace the influence of Cristiano Ronaldo on games at Real Madrid

Richard Scudamore was adamant that the Premier League Intenham would not stand in the way of their new stadium.

There were limits, however, there were limits. There would be a time, Scudamore said, when the integrity of the competition should take precedence. Tottenham could leave Wembley halfway through the season, but not too late. At some point they would have to wait until August.

The idea that Tottenham can open its new stadium with a quarter final in the Champions League, seems fanciful. It is hardly likely that UEFA will punish a completely new location for such a game, even if it is the second stage. The timings are just not good. The draw for the next stage of the Champions League will take place on a week on Friday. Tottenham is then scheduled to play a home match against Brighton on Sunday, April 7. The quarter final first legs of the Champions League are on 9 and 10 April.

But it is complicated. Tottenham's next home game depends on Brighton and Millwall in a quarter final of the FA Cup on March 17. If Brighton wins, they will play a semi-final of the FA Cup in the weekend of April 6 instead of Tottenham. UEFA would therefore be responsible for the grand reopening of White Hart Lane. No chance. But what if Tottenham is the first in Europe to move away?

There are some big egos at UEFA. These are people who think they are running around the world.

Tottenham & # 39; s employees are being told: & # 39; We're not going to tell you what to do. & # 39; to expect to return home in April, and Wembley is also informed;

Everyone, from Daniel Levy downstairs, is desperate to go back. But this is no longer just about the needs of Tottenham. This is about safety and integrity. Huddersfield's fate is unlikely to be influenced by one match, but Brighton's fortune changes weekly.

Nor can Crystal Palace – which should also visit Tottenham – consider survival as guaranteed. Scudamore took the decision on Tottenham away from his Premier League, but with a power vacuum at the top, they will probably ask for more say.

If Tottenham does not have their plans just before next weekend, it is

Cardiff has had real tragedies in this campaign, so that one injury is not. Yet it is a bitter blow that the news that a damaged cruciate ligament Sol Bamba will keep the rest of the season out.

Bamba was not only the best defender of the club, he is also his joint leader in the Dutch league. At this stage, and in the position of Cardiff, turns of fate can be decisive.

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