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avelera · 1 year

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More "Giving Sanctuary" Behind the Scenes - Orpheus is Super Duper Dead

So for anyone reading Giving Sanctuary who is also familiar with the comic, it's finally been confirmed in the text of the story that Orpheus is dead, super super dead. It's been hinted at since Ch. 1 but I wanted to clarify this for anyone who had read the comic and was thinking, "Wait, Dream keeps talking about his dead son, does this author not know about the living severed head of Orpheus on Naxos?" It is, after all, a rather major plot point in the comics that Orpheus's head is still alive.

Now, I will say before I continue with the "Giving Sanctuary" BTS below the cut, that I'm actually rather confused by whether or not Orpheus is "alive" (for a certain value of "alive") in the show as he is in the comic. "Giving Sanctuary" is built on the show, not the comic, it only borrows occasionally from the comic for flavor but it is in fact, very occasionally because it's been so long since I read it.

Now, in the show, Calliope asks if she can visit Dream's realm so they can finally mourn their son together (definitely an inspirational scene for Giving Sanctuary, what if Dream still can't bear to do so with his ex wife, but felt more comfortable mourning his son with a friend who had gone through the same thing?). However, this implies that either 1) Orpheus is dead in the show universe or 2) Calliope doesn't know about the living severed head of her son on Naxos.

My first impression from the show was option #1, that it's an intentional divergence to make Dream's emotional journey more real and less macabre. But upon further thought I think it might be option 2? It would feel very "TV reveal" for the reason for Dream's reluctance to be that he doesn't want Calliope to know Orpheus is still "alive".

However, that too is a divergence from the comic, because in the comic, Calliope also knows about and visits Orpheus's head on Naxos. So, I have no idea what they're going to do with the Orpheus plot in the show, thus I decided to go with Option 1 for Giving Sanctuary.

So, there is no a living severed head of Orpheus out there as there is in the comic. This is because the point of divergence is that Destiny warned Death not to grant Orpheus immortality or it would bring ruin (which is true!), and she listened. When the Maenads arrived and (graphically) killed Orpheus, he died.

However, I'm actually diverging a bit further from the comic with regards to Orpheus's life, death, and immortality, because some of the comic takes make no damn sense to me.

For example, I'm leaving in that Orpheus was able to navigate to and from the Underworld without Death's gift. Honestly, I find the comic a bit odd for assuming that the son of Oneiros and the muse Calliope would be mortal? Neither of them are, so why should their son be? So I'm going to tweak it somewhat and say he's immortal enough to embark safely on his famous trip to the Underworld and return alive. However, as the Maenads are also demigods of a sort (divine followers of Dionysus) they have the power to kill him where other mortals would not. A bit of a "you're immortal but you can be killed" style of immortality, which feels fairly true to the way Dream and other gods like the Norse gods are depicted in the Sandman universe.

Dream did genuinely think his son would live long beyond 20 years of age, indeed for millennia. It's also why he might have been a bit cold and indeed brutal about urging Orpheus to get over Eurydice - because she was mortal. Orpheus was surely going to outlive her anyway. Dream might have even fought recently with Orpheus and warned him against taking on such heartbreak, only to be rebuffed. It might better explain his cold attitude at his own son's wedding if he thinks the entire affair ill-advised, which is the overall sense I get from the whole ugly event.

This also makes Orpheus's true death all the more shocking and tragic for Dream. He might have thought, as functional immortals, that he'd have a great deal more time with his son. This was, essentially, a teenage spat of rebellion, one that Dream simply planned to weather. He was harsh and aloof because he was (rather poorly) trying to convey his disapproval and too proud to give an inch. So, he and his son parted in anger, because he really thought that showing any support at all would only embolden Orpheus on a heartbreaking, but perhaps not truly dangerous path. And then, suddenly, Orpheus was dead.

I'm going to credit this canon divergence too with why the Dream we know in Giving Sanctuary is somewhat more overtly grief stricken than his comic book counterpart, and more open to bonding with Hob over his son's death. I think comic canon Dream and maybe show Dream (we shall have to see where they go with it) might be a little less inclined to open up to Hob about his son's death because there's a big Asterisk* beside it of "Not really dead but condemned to a Fate Worse Than Death because of his father's stubbornness and unwillingness to help him in the first place," which probably sours any true mourning or exploration of grief, much less healing.

In contrast, having failed his son who should have lived much longer, only to lose him fully during a fight that seemed by its very nature to be temporary? That puts Dream on very even footing with Hob and his own regrets around his son's death. So that is the alternate universe officially where our tale takes place and if you've made it this far, I'll let you know we will be starting to explore Dream's half of the Sad Dad Sadness Club origin story very soon.

#1689 fic #giving sanctuary #sandman meta #sandman orpheus #dream of the endless #sandman spoilers

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crimson-phantom-designs · 2 months

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More info on my modern au called Sweet Tooth.

Francis Osman is the leader of the Turkish Mafia in Western Europe. Fleeing Turkey years back, he established a brutal reputation as some of Europe's most sadistic gangsters. For now, Francis and his gang are keeping a low profile due to someone close to him flipping with Interpol, which resulted in something devastating he swore to never experience again. Whilst this, they are in conflict with the Clerkenwell crime syndicate, otherwise known as 'the torture gang'. An equally malicious mob of smugglers who, since the Turkish Arifs took over London's underworld scene, their battle for territory has come close to an all-out war. What with this recent development crippling all of their profits, they are trying to strangle Francis' hold on the area and take over.

Francis is tearing through the backroads of London in his cherished Porsche to meet with his underboss Verrill Özdemir "Demi" who orchestrated a Comission with the surrounding heads to try and prevent a gang war at a time no one can afford it. He's looking for an out, maybe. Or a way to funnel money in a more advantageous way to get profits 📈 again under federal scrutiny.

He might have found both options in a happenstance encounter with a man and his spunky 13 year old at the park over his need for speed and a damn candy bar, but which one will he choose? An out for himself with this man or will he burn the man's life down to reestablish his crew through manipulation, taking piece by piece, because 'it's just business'...

This is a previously established Jacob Marley/Ebenezer Scrooge au (they were more closer in age here cause, eh)

Jacob and Ebenezer had adopted a young girl from a tragic situation shortly after marriage and raised her when Jacob died in a fatal car accident with Eb's sister Jan seven years ago due to coming to the aid of someone Eb still despises for taking so much from them, even if the loss sent him a revelation in life. Eb has a fear of car accidents taking more from him, which is why he drives so slowly, especially with Beryl.

The story is a SMAU which means it will be written, but with these post, Instagram and text conversations in between with artwork for photos.

Handles below, and the differences in personality are amusing. Francis' just kills me. These Hands. Eb is just lonely and secretly pines, even if he's given up trying to find love again and pours that into his besotted devotion to Beryl but he does gripe politics and talk bitchy about his competitors. Bob is just here for support and to follow news facts and nature groups. He takes pictures from his timeshare cabin alot(even if Eb bitches it's a scam) and is insufferable about outdoorsy events with the family. Eventually the man will move them to the woods to be one with nature, I swear. XD More characters have handles but these are the main ones seen.

Being Francis would absolutely NOT use his full name or have a public account for liability reasons, he would be creative. His account is mainly to lurk other accounts(mafia modernized) and keep updated on current events. People that follow him are in his inner circle or he's baiting them to think they are.

The Oz is a reference to yes the Wizzard of Oz because of course he would see himself that way. XD

He's the man behind the scenes running everything. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

@rom-e-o @sasha-geonn

Below are some examples of what they post before they meet.

#Demi is an OC fleshed out from the main story Fox and the Rose as well as other main OCs.#scroogeverse #SweetToothverse #SMAU #scroogeposting #oc francis osman #ebenezer scrooge #scrooge 2022

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primetimetruecrime · 4 months

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MURDERED: Jamie Ivancic

In the seemingly peaceful community of Tarpon Springs, Florida, a story of deception and horror began to unfold, a narrative that would shock and haunt the residents. Central to this tale was Jamie Ivancic, whose life became entangled in a web of manipulation and violence, spun by her husband, Shelby Nealy, also known as Shelby Svensen.

Jamie, a loving mother and daughter, vanished from the lives of her family in late 2018. However, it was not until a chilling discovery on New Year's Day 2019 that the full extent of the tragedy came to light. Concerned relatives, having not heard from Jamie's parents, Richard and Laura Ivancic, and her brother, Nicholas Ivancic, requested a welfare check at their home. The scene that greeted the police was one of unspeakable horror: the decomposing bodies of Jamie's family, along with their three beloved dogs, were found, all victims of brutal violence.

The investigation swiftly pointed to Shelby Nealy, who had fled to his and Jamie's home state of Ohio with the couple's two young children. Captured a few days later in Laura Ivancic's stolen SUV, Nealy's arrest revealed the grim reality of Jamie's fate. He confessed to the murders, which led detectives to the backyard of the couple's Port Richey home. There, buried beneath the soil, lay Jamie Ivancic, her life cruelly ended by the man she once trusted.

The community reeled as details emerged about the couple's tumultuous relationship. Family and friends, including Jamie's sister, Karma Stewart, recounted their efforts to persuade Jamie to leave the manipulative and controlling Nealy, described as a pathological liar. Despite signs of domestic violence and several arrests for domestic abuse, Jamie felt trapped, unable to leave because of her children.

During his trial, Nealy's dark narrative continued to unravel. It was revealed that he had maintained a facade that Jamie was still alive, sending deceptive texts and photos to her family, convincing them that she was just busy or unavailable. His manipulation extended to convincing his in-laws that Jamie couldn't speak on the phone, further obscuring the truth about her disappearance.

As the trial proceeded, the original charge for Jamie's death was downgraded to manslaughter. However, Nealy faced the full weight of the law for the murders of her family, pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. His sentencing, scheduled for October 14, 2024, is awaited by a community still grappling with the severe nature of his actions and the devastating impact on the Ivancic family.

This case serves as a harrowing reminder of the hidden dangers of domestic violence and the importance of vigilance in recognizing and acting upon warning signs. It underscores the tragic consequences of manipulation and control within relationships and the profound impact such violence has on families and communities. The story of Jamie Ivancic and her family remains a poignant and sobering tale, a call for awareness and action against the horrors of domestic abuse.

#true crime #prime time crime #truecrime #prime crime #murder #crime #Youtube

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goodtweetbadtweet · 3 months

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4, 9, 17, & 25 for the writer ask 🫶🏻

Aww thanks for asking babe 💜

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Out of context I don’t think there is such a word. But nestled nicely between other words in a lovely smutty passage? I really love the word ache. And brutal. I love the word brutal.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

No. But I haven’t experienced significant deaths yet, so I reserve the right to change my mind.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

I’m honestly not that big of a planner, so idk really, but .. re: love at first bite, I guess I can just vomit some of my thoughts here. Like I am trying to include a lot of typical romcom tropes, idk the names and I’m too lazy to look them up but just

-relationship based on lies & pretending to be somebody you’re not

-lies unveiled and then falling for ‘the real him’

-the guy who ‘fucks randos with headphones on’ (according to Greg anyway) meeting ‘the one’ and being fundamentally changed by love

-rich man falling for poor woman

-manic pixie dream girl -ish

-huge romantic gestures, I particularly love the idea of an airport declaration of love or running after your love in the rain but I’m not sure how that’ll play out yet

And I’m just trying to make them my own and make them .. a little more real, a little less sappy and cliche but ultimately it’s a love letter to cliches and I want that to show. A few other things I can mention just for fun:

-Gia’s sister Francesca, affectionately Franny, was born in France so their unimaginative parents literally gave her an Italian name that means ‘the Frenchman’ or ‘from France.’ People call her Francesca a lot, mostly in the sense of ‘when your mom calls you by your full name, you’re in trouble’

-Gia was named after a relative, possibly a great-grandmother. I named her after the Angelina Jolie movie Gia (1998) about the sad life of supermodel Gia Carangi. I saw the movie once sometime in the early 2000’s and never again, but the name stuck with me and shortly after that I saw Girl, Interrupted (1999) and for some time as a very young girl I was fascinated by Angelina Jolie and these tragic women she played. But that’s irrelevant.

-I don’t want to include a sex scene because it’s a romcom and an explicit sex scene would be very out of place, but also I can’t write anything without a sex scene. There’s definitely going to be a ‘fade to black’ moment and I’m probably going to release the scene as an extra tidbit because I’ll be writing it anyway.

(I hope nobody wanted a cohesive answer from me.)

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

Avery Taylor’s mother is very much alive. She lives in Florida and works as a pageant coach for teenage girls ages 13-19. She hasn’t seen Avery since Avery was five and they both prefer that, but for very different reasons. When the Jimenez scandal broke, she learned what became of her daughter and wondered what would’ve happened if she never left. This was the second time she wondered that; the first time was when she found out about Avery’s father’s suicide, People tell her she looks ‘like an older version of that girl on tv.’

#ask game

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ask-cloverfield · 2 years

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So I kind of became of obsessed with the final antagonist of Shin Ultraman wall of text under read more or if we are being generous lets call it a character study and I am obsessed with villains who are horrified by the idea of killing their rival

Zōffy is the final antagonist of Shin Ultraman. I was very curious to see how he was adapted because his final speech with Ultraman in the original series is one of my favorite moments in the franchise and I am delighted to see that Zōffy lives up to the original.

I believe he serves as an enjoyable example of an angelic villain in service of a Greater Good, whereas Ultraman is of course horrified by what they have declared lesser.

Shin Ultraman is of course the story of an alien who was captivated by Humanity and ignored a code of non-interference to land on their planet and protect them from threats too large for them.

However When he lands* he inadvertently kills a human. After this he takes his form, his memories and proceeds to try and live this man’s life to gain an understanding of the man he killed*. In doing this he violated his planet’s code to “Merge” with a planet’s indigenous species.

He is captivated by humanity in part due to their fragility.

Ultraman Lipiah is an alien from the Star of Light*. Specifically he is an Emissary* tasked with monitoring the indigenous life-forms of his sector. It is also implied they serve as something of a deterrent from anyone wishing to exploit less developed planets. His actions throughout the film continuously violate their Star’s code, and this causes the Star of Light to replace him with Zōffy.

Zōffy is there to serve as the planet’s adjudicator, the events of the film have given Zōffy a simple conclusion about humans, namely that they should be killed before they become too much of a threat. Especially as the interstellar community is aware of their capacity to become bioweapons.

And now we get to the actual discussion of the character. When he arrives he doesn’t open by telling Ultraman his decision to eradicate the stellar system.

He arrives and sees Ultraman sitting over the body of the man he killed at the start of the film. It is instantly clear to him that Ultraman has done the taboo.

“You took this man’s life, Lipiah. No, I’ll call you by the name you’ve been given on this planet, Ultraman”

And yet he says this in a sympathetic tone before allowing him to explain what happened. For a character meant to serve as the film’s final ideological villain he opens his conversation by trying to show Ultraman every courtesy he can.

He refers to Ultraman committing their culture’s greatest taboo as merely a mistake in a gentle tone before trying to argue that humans will be exploited as bioweapons if they don’t act soon. As he activates the Orbital Suppression System Zetton he tries to comfort Ultraman in a truly morbid fashion.

“The Star of Light has documented nearly 13 billion intelligent life forms. The loss of one will have no impact on the Universe”

I am genuinely captivated by his continued attempts to downplay the “consequences” of Ultraman’s actions. Ultraman of course responds that, “for the inhabitants of this planet One is all there is.” and begins to walk away.

However as he does Zōffy calls out to him in a desperate voice, “Is the intelligent life on this planet worth dying over?” as Shinji continues walking unperturbed he calls out in a slightly more frantic tone “Ultraman!”

The more I watch this scene the more I am convinced that Zōffy is of course trying to get Ultraman to escape Zetton’s blast radius. The destruction of this stellar system is to him tragic but a necessary evil, but the death of a comrade?

Ultraman goes to attack Zetton and ends up brutalized and as he falls from the sky Zōffy appears to him and says in a heartbroken tone of voice, “Resistance is futile… Stand aside and await humanity’s purge, Ultraman.”

Ultraman of course does not stand aside and with the help of humanity rises* and defeats Zetton, albeit left mortally wounded and unable to form his physical body and is left adrift in a pocket dimension.

However, much like in the original series, Zōffy finds his wounded comrade. He gently tells him to open his eyes and states with much relief that it is a miracle he was able to find him. Zōffy listens to Ultraman deliriously talk about various virtues of humanity and Zōffy quickly agrees and states Ultraman was right and they deserve protection.

However something about this struck me. Zōffy’s tone of voice doesn’t really seem to line up with someone who has changed their ways. However it certainly sounds like the voice of someone talking to someone who is going to die and wanting to convince them of a point so that he can get him to agree to come with him and get medical attention.

I cannot exaggerate the desperation in his voice in this scene. He speeds through that revocation of his view of humanity so he can state that he is taking Ultraman home and they can leave the humans in peace. The sheer relief in his voice when he says “Come. Let’s return to the Planet of Light, Ultraman.”

However Ultraman states that within him there is a human and to allow him to live he must remain on Earth. Zoffy hastily adds “You now understand him so well that you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for him. He must understand you as well. He will forgive you.”

Ultraman then states that he fused with Shinji so he can understand humans, but he realized they are too complex to simply understand and soon he desired to be human. However humanity is running out of time and in ensuring Zetton’s death other species will fear them and continue to try and exploit them so he must stay on Earth to protect them.

So Zōffy attempts to appeal to his sense of duty. He reminds him that he must face justice in the Star of Light. Of course Ultraman makes the only choice he can. He asks Zōffy to transfer his life to Shinji Kaminaga to resurrect him at the cost of his life, adding that to be human is to accept death, that the man’s friends would also wish this and he wants to grant them this.

Zōffy proceeds to ask in a heartbroken tone, “Have you grown so fond of humans, Ultraman?” and proceeds to grant his wish. As he explains what he is doing he sounds choked up*.

Zōffy claimed that humanity’s advancement and their nature to transform into a bioweapon was why he was to kill them. Yet when they are the deciding factor in Zetton’s defeat, a weapon feared across the galaxy he claims no no now they are worthy of protection. I question that Zōffy was truly convinced by this.

I instead propose that the loss of one Giant of Light would have no impact on the universe, but for Zōffy one was all there was.

*Whether or not Shinji Kaminaga’s death was caused specifically by Lipiah landing is not explicit. All that is clear is that he was behind the landing spot and sometime between Ultraman landing and killing Neronga he was hit by debris and died. For simplicity’s sake I am referring to this as the landing. The film for its part only says his “impact” killed him

*The film refers to the identity theft as merging, but everything points to Shinji being dead and for simplicity's sake I will also refer to it as merging

*Alternatively translated as “Planet of Light”

*Something left ambiguous is the scope of this task. While he specifies that he is monitoring Earth’s indiginous species the effects of his decisions affect the solar system which could imply that an Emissary is to monitor not just a planet, but the entire “Stellar System”

*Listen. I need to make this joke you don’t understand

*I feel it pertinent to note a change in Zōffy’s body language. Before Ultraman is mortally wounded he is inhumanly still, doesn’t even move when flying he keeps the same pose perpetually. Until he talks to the near dead Ultraman when he suddeny can’t stop fidgeting and uncomfortably shifting.

#shin ultraman #shin ultraman spoilers

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queermediastudies · 1 year

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The Revolutionary Transgender Representation of "Boys Don't Cry"

TW: Mentions of violence, murder, rape, transphobia, homophobia and incarceration

The film Boys Don’t Cry, directed by Kimberly Peirce is a dramatization of the tragic real-life story of Brandon Teena who strived to attain acceptance and find love as a transgender man, but sadly was met with hate and violence that ended in his death. The film illustrates Brandon’s struggles with transphobia from its inception, wherein the opening scenes Brandon is kicked out of his cousin’s trailer after a violent, transphobic attack, then relocates to Falls City. Once landing in Falls City, Brandon befriends Candace, John, and Tom after his involvement in a bar fight. Brandon continually associates with the group and eventually becomes romantically interested in another of their friends, Lana. John was always jealous of this relationship and attempts to maintain a controlling relationship over Lana throughout the film, which he excuses as “protection”; however, tensions skyrocket after Brandon is forced to confront legal troubles which land him in a Falls City Jail. Once placed in jail, Lana immediately bails him out and when Brandon is frantically attempting to explain why he was placed in a women’s cell, Lana shuts him down, affirming that her love for Brandon has nothing to do with his gender identity. Unfortunately, while in jail, the rest of the group discovers Brandon’s assigned gender at birth and reacts with anger and violence. This transphobic reaction turns into real violence when John and Tom force Brandon’s pants down to display he is “not a man” to Lana and then force Brandon into a car where he is taken to an isolated area and brutally raped by the men. These events are followed by police ignoring Brandon’s pleas for help, and finally, culminate in a horrific ending to the movie when John and Tom track down Brandon, shoot him, and even stab his lifeless body. While the casting of cisgender actress Hilary Swank as Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry is inherently problematic, these issues are dwarfed by the film’s revolutionary impact as a breakout text for the transgender community through its illustration of the positive masculinity espoused by a transgender man and his struggles for acceptance experienced in daily life.

Breakout texts are comprised of media that offers visibility to a group that has never been witnessed before in the mainstream. In accordance with this fresh visibility, one of the most important facets of breakout texts is clear, “By virtue of being the first, they exert a stronger cultural influence than similar media that come after them… They have staying power and make an imprint that endures over time until challenged” (Cavalcante, 2017, 3). Considering the massive influence of these breakout texts and how subsequent media pieces hold less power in terms of this influence, it is vitally important for breakout texts to consider matters of representation of marginalized groups in the most positive and accurate light possible. Boys Don’t Cry is able to illustrate this representation quite effectively through a demonstration that transgender men can celebrate with Brandon’s positive masculinity and, additionally, in a way that all transgender people can appreciate through the portrayal of his desperate attempts for acceptance.

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Brandon’s positive masculinity is illustrated throughout the film by his actions towards women, especially Lana, and a contrasting of Brandon’s masculinity with John’s and Tom’s toxic iterations of masculinity. The above images were taken from Brandon’s first encounter alone with Lana. When he notices she is extremely drunk, he, despite her initial protests, convinces her to allow him to walk her home. The first image displays Brandon helping Lana stay on her feet when she begins stumbling and the second features Brandon’s care in helping Lana get to bed after the pair make it home safe. Brandon engages in this mode of chivalry and care throughout the film and this positive masculinity is highlighted furthermore by the film’s contrast of toxic masculinity espoused by John and Tom. The above clip features the culmination of this toxicity and illustrates the tragic real-life event that was John and Tom murdering Brandon Teena. The emphasized positive masculinity of a transgender man, simultaneously in accordance with the contrasting of the negative masculinity displayed by two cisgender, transphobic men work in a highly impressive manner to illustrate transgender masculinity in terms of a breakout text. By positioning these illustrations in the mainstream, not only is the notion that transgender men are just as much of “a man” as their cisgender counterparts instilled in minds of the public but arguably most importantly, that heteronormative examples of “masculinity” often surface in toxic, violent manners, whereas masculinity in respect to transgender examples is illustrated as kind, caring, and compassionate. Considering that the majority of women can, unfortunately, empathize with violence experienced through toxic masculinity, this contrast works extremely well as a breakout text in gaining empathy and understanding amongst the public towards transgender men. Furthermore, the affirmation that transgender men are men, along with the positioning of transgender masculinity often as superior to cisgender masculinity, works to validate the emotions that transgender men feel towards themselves regarding their transness, and affirms their identity with both themselves and society at large.

A second way in which Boys Don’t Cry works well as a breakout text is by garnering support and understanding for the transgender community as a whole through the demonstration of Brandon’s awkward and often desperate attempts for acceptance throughout the film. The imagery above is taken from a scene where Brandon participates in a “truck rodeo”, a makeshift sport in which the driver of a truck attempts to throw an opponent off of the bed of their truck while the latter party hangs onto a rope tied to the truck bed for as long as possible. The first image depicts Brandon lying facedown after a painful fall into hardened mud and the second illustrates Brandon’s quick recovery and excitement to go again despite the likely painful impacts on his small frame. Additionally, throughout the film, Brandon frequently is displayed as trying to fit in with “the guys” and is often unsure and awkward in his attempts to do so. The desperation of continually engaging in an activity such as the truck rodeo to gain acceptance and the awkwardness of Brandon’s demeanor in conversation emphasize to the audience that transgender individuals are not to be feared and simply desire acceptance like most others in society. Accentuations such as these throughout the breakout text provide an incredible impression towards cisgender audiences by displaying relatable circumstances to attain a better understanding of transgender people amongst the audience and furthermore, acts to afford validity to the struggles of transgender individuals who feel self-conscience in these circumstances depicted in the film.

While the aforementioned casting of a cisgender woman as Brandon (pictured above) is problematic, it does not nullify the positive aspects of representation in the film. One problematic aspect of representation does not have to override positive aspects, “Though I have argued here that trans inclusion in fashion often employs a neoliberal logic of individuality and self-empowerment, I must also acknowledge the joy in seeing trans women of color emerge in the pages of fashion magazines not as victims, but as powerful, fashionable, and worthy of attention” (Zhang, 2022, 19). While this article is referring to transgender women of color in fashion magazines, the problematic nature of both this representation and representation in Boys Don’t Cry draw parallels since both instances accompany harmful drawbacks despite positive representation being the nominal goal; however, also occurring in both situations is a real, positive representation of transgender individuals, which should not be discounted solely predicated on negative aspects of this representation. The positive results of better and more extensive mainstream understanding and empathy toward transgender people and the validation that transgender people experience when watching the film position the overall scope of representation in Boys Don’t Cry as overwhelmingly positive.

Additionally, just because a media work utilizes actual transgender people as actors does not mean that the representation is inherently positive. This problematic tendency is clear in Ryan Murphy’s Pose,

There are, sadly, many young LGBT youth who are rejected by their families and are either forcibly removed from the familial home or choose to leave it because of the conditions therein. However, in Murphy’s hands, this trope seems to only play out when there are characters of color involved… These gay and trans actors of color function as a shield for Pose’s problematic representational politics. (Martin, 2018)

Not only is this racist, homophobic, transphobic representation clearly inferior to representation in Boys Don’t Cry, but it is devastating to the community as any criticisms lobbied towards the rich, white, cisgender, producer Ryan Murphy for his harmful portrayals of gay and transgender communities of color are obfuscated and then imposed on the actors themselves. While identity-based representation is certainly important for communities to relate to, the critical factor in evaluating whether representation is beneficial or harmful to a community is the real quality of said representation.

As someone who recently began transitioning from male to female, my own subject position played a heavy hand in my analysis. While consuming the movie, I believe that I maintained a critical lens throughout since I am highly aware of negative representations of the transgender community and, therefore, am confident that the quality of representation was overall positive. That being said, I may have overlooked problematic aspects of representation in the movie due to my own bias. For instance, the casting of a cisgender woman as a transgender man was rendered trivial to me through my joy regarding the positive manifestations of representation during the film; however, it is impossible for me to ascertain exactly how problematic this cisgender appropriation of a transgender person is since I cannot speak for the transgender community as a whole regarding the importance of authentic transgender visibility in film and it is additionally unrealistic to concretely deduce whether this illusory representation harbored negative effects on mainstream audiences and their perception of transgender people.

References:

Cavalvante, A. (2017). Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences’ Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. Canvas. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://ucdenver.instructure.com/courses/491234/files/17330839?module_item_id=3730197

IMDb. (1999). Boys Don't Cry. IMDb. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171804/.

Martin, A. L. (2018, August 2). Pose(R): Ryan Murphy, Trans and queer of color labor, and the politics of representation. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/poser-ryan-murphy-trans-queer-color-labor-politics-representation/

Tabberer, J. (2020). Hilary Swank portrayed Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry in 1999 and went on to win an Oscar for the role . Metro. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/06/hilary-swank-on-disappointing-reaction-to-her-living-as-a-man-for-boys-dont-cry-trans-role-i-was-really-upset-with-the-human-race-13230976/.

YouTube. (2008). Assassinato de Brandon. YouTube. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHX-NyAAZpg.

YouTube. (2013). Boys Don't Cry. YouTube. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stFD3UQmCE0.

Zhang, E. (2022). “She is as feminine as my mother, as my sister, as my biologically female friends”: On the promise and limits of transgender visibility in fashion media. Oxford University Press Communication, Culture & Critique, 1–19.

#boys dont cry #transgender visibility #transphobia #trans representation #breakout text #brandon teena #queer media #queer media studies #Youtube

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truecrimecrystals · 2 years

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Julia Niswender was a young student with her whole life ahead of her when her life was tragically cut short in December 2012. The then-23-year-old was a student at Eastern Michigan University, where she was studying communications. At the time of her death, Julia lived with a roommate in an off-campus apartment in Ypsilanti. It was inside this apartment that Julia was brutally murdered. Julia's roommate was reportedly not present at the time Julia was killed. The two were keeping in touch via text, but at some point, Julia stopped replying. She also abruptly stopped communicating with her other friends and family members. Julia's loved ones began to have serious concerns when they learned that she had not shown up to a friend's Christmas party, nor had she shown up to work. Police were subsequently asked to perform a welfare check at Julia's apartment on December 11th, 2012.

When authorities entered the apartment, they found the residence in disarray. However, nothing appeared to have been stolen. Inside the bathroom, officers stumbled upon a tragic scene: Julia was dead. She was found face down in the bathtub. Her clothes had been cut off, and her phone was found beneath her body. Julia also had ligature marks on her wrists, suggesting she had been tied up at some point before her death. Julia's death was quickly classified as a murder. An autopsy declared that her death was caused by asphyxiation due to drowning, but authorities maintain that she was deprived of oxygen prior to being put in the bathtub. DNA was collected from the murder scene, which was matched to two different males. Investigators also found seminal fluid on Julia's body, which was linked to a male who had gotten a vasectomy. Julia's stepfather, James Turnquist, was labeled a person of interest early on into the investigation. Turnquist had undergone a vasectomy procedure, so there was speculation that the seminal fluid found on Julia's body belonged to him. Additionally, a friend of Julia's told police that Turnquist had sexually abused Julia during her childhood. Oddly enough, said friend would later deny making such claims. At some point throughout the investigation, Turnquist was arrested on charges of child pornography. However, those charges were later dropped. Turnquist reportedly underwent two polygraph examinations while being questioned about Julia's case, and he passed both times. The DNA found on Julia's murder scene was compared to Turnquist's DNA, but the results were inconclusive. One DNA sample was too weak to make a match, and the other sample was not matched to Turnquist. While many still suspect Turnquist is responsible for Julia's death, he has never been labeled as a suspect by authorities. As of today, Julia's case remains unsolved. No suspects have ever been publicly named. Julia's loved ones are still dedicated to finding justice, and they hope to see her killer(s) get convicted. If you have any information that could lead to the arrest in Julia's case, please contact the Ypsilanti Police Department at (734) 483-9510.

#julia niswender #unsolved #unsolved mystery #murder case #unsolved murder #true crime #true crime research #tcoriginal #2012 #michigan #ypsilanti #tw violence

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ruki--mukami · 2 years

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Ruki could we get some book recommendations? A girl needs new stuff to read👉👈

"Certainly. It's always a delight to share coveted literature with avid readers much like myself. My first recommendation for you would be Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment if you haven't read that already. His esoteric psychological commentary is unique; take it from someone who has read many texts. Though, I must warn you, the scenes are quite graphic. Still though, it doesn’t hold a candle to the brutal way I suck your blood."

"Another suggestion would be The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Some consider this book a story of vengeance, justice, and mercy, however I also appreciate its exploration of the theme of identity change. After all, the main character was framed for an offense punishable by death and lost both his career and the love of his life. Tragic, isn’t it?"

"Lastly, I’d recommend The Plague by Albert Camus. Ironically enough, I’d say it’s relevant to the recent happenings that torment you humans, so much so that even the inexperienced reader can draw parallels between the literature and real life. It may challenge your perspective. Do tell me what your final verdict of these recommendations are once you finish reading all three. I look forward to discussing the literature with you, Livestock.”

#diabolik lovers #ruki mukami #mukami ruki #ask #react #diabolik lovers rp #ruki's book recommendations

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abla-soso · 2 years

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Oh, it's interesting that you're liking Sansa! I haven't been long in the fandom, but it seems like Sansa fans and Daenerys fans really don't get along, so that's actually interesting on your part xD Also! About your Ned comment - I love Ned myself and I've always seen that opening scene as a criticism toward upholding duty that's connected to rigid rules. Like, it seemed obvious that the execution wasn't supposed to be anything positive and yeah, the fandom does tend to ignore it. (This is a re-read on your part, right??? If not, pls ignore the rest of my ask!!!)

- It's part of the reason I get annoyed by the takes on Jon in the latest book when he decides to get involved in the "politics" (fights) of the North for his sister; e.g. fans saying that he had his death coming because he broke his "vows" and that's oh-so-awful of him. Vows, rules, the system - we're supposed to *question* those things because they were man-made and aren't actually (always) morally right. It's a point in the story. The Kingsguard are a prime example of that. So, I really am not sure why the fandom at large doesn't seem to get that. Or maybe I am just missing smth, lol.

Maybe I shouldn't have said I'm "re-reading" the novels, lol. Cuz I only read them years ago - while quickly scanning the text and skipping many paragraphs - and I forgot almost all of it. So really; it's more accurate to say that I'm kinda reading these novels for the first time. At least that's how it feels to me.

I've always liked Sansa but I only really started to appreciate her character in recent years. Western writing has an obsession with active characters, so it's really great to see a mostly passive character like Sansa lovingly flushed out and focused on this much. I never understood why modern readers have such a disdain for passive characters (to the point of considering passivity a character flaw and a sign of poor writing). Not every character needs to directly impact the plot for them to be interesting and likable. The inner world of a passive character can be just as interesting as any active character, especially if the "passivity" was a survival mechanism rather than an inherent personality trait. Most abuse victims are forced into positions of passive powerlessness anyway, with little to no agency to act upon their agency, so it's very distasteful for me to see people shitting on Sansa's passivity. As if passivity can't be an active choice for self-protection. Enduring the abuse that Sansa suffered takes a lot of mental strength, and this strength is a choice.

I never got why people would take "sides" while reading a story like ASOIAF. It's one thing to have favorites and biases, but it's strange to put one character or one house on a pedestal while shitting on the rest. I like the Starks and I like Theon and the Lannisters (as characters, not as people). I like Sansa and I like Daenerys (as a character, not as a person). They are all interesting characters and houses to explore, and if you dismiss one of them because they hurt your favs then you're missing out on huge chunks of the story itself. It's even more strange to root for someone or some house to "win" the Iron Throne when it's pretty damn obvious that the war for the Iron Throne is presented in the text as needlessly brutal and pointless (I blame the show for this).

Ned is a good, kind, honorable man who kinda enslaved himself to his morals. Some readers make the mistake of attributing Ned's tragic fall to the fact that he had altruistic ideals and stuck by them to the end (implying that he should have been more coldly pragmatic and gotten rid of some of his moral goodness) but that's not it. Ned's problem is him blindly equating "honorable" lawfulness with universal moral goodness. He never seriously questions the morality of his times' laws and customs (beheading a mentally ill man who did nothing morally wrong, taking a young boy as a hostage to kill when his father misbehaves). GRRM is not trying to say that honor is false and having moral ideals and vows is dumb and everyone should be cold pragmatics to survive, far from it. GRRM is a realist who adores the romanticism of fantasy, not a nihilist who mocks morality and meaning and values survival above all. The people who read ASOIAF as a nihilist narrative (simply for realistically examining the romanticism of Medieval ideals) are just as mistaken as the people who take uncritically accept Medieval ideals and judge the characters for not following them.

#a song of ice and fire

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spine-buster · 2 years

Text

the hurt/comfort, pt. 2; continued.

A/N: ...and now, the resolution. And I promise it gets better from here :)

Side note: I cannot take credit for the words in the note -- they were beautifully written by the Quebecois director Xavier Dolan after the tragic passing of French actor Gaspard Ulliel, and was in his tribute to Ulliel on Instagram.

“What the fuck do you mean she’s missing?!” Rasmus shrieked frantically.

“—Listen, Aleida went out to find her—” Aberdeen tried to explain, but to no avail.

“Find her? What the fu—Aberdeen, what the fuck happened?!”

“Ras, calm down—” William tried to intervene, but again to no avail.

“Hur kan någon förvänta sig att jag ska vara lugn när min flickvän är försvunnen?!” Rasmus shouted in Swedish, the only language he could even think to express himself in right now towards his best friend. [[ How can anyone expect me to be calm when my girlfriend is missing?! ]]

“Saylor was at the game tonight and caught her in the family lounge. She made a comment about needing Bio Oil for her scars on her face and how brutal they are. Aleida caught her crying in the washroom but when she went to check on her again, she was gone,” Aberdeen tried to explain as calmly and quickly as she could.

Rasmus felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. It was almost as if he shifted back to being a young kid unable to speak or understand English when the words left Aberdeen’s mouth. It was only when the weight of the words finally hit him that he felt himself become red with anger. “She’s fucking dead,” he seethed.

“You don’t have to worry about her,” Bee piped in, still holding Helena who was sound asleep. “Aleida called Chris and had her and Gina arrested for cocaine possession in the stands. It was an entire scene. They were caught on security cameras.”

Morgan, John, William, Fred – all their jaws dropped. Fred always knew his wife still had it in her. But that didn’t matter right now – what did matter was that Lusine was somewhere in downtown Toronto and Aleida was trying to find her. What also mattered was that Helena needed to be put to bed, regardless of how comfortable Bee’s arms were. “Bee, give her to me. If I get home I can see if Aleida brought Lusine over,” Fred said, outstretching his arms.

“I gotta go find her,” Rasmus mumbled, bolting for the stairs – not even having the patience to wait for the elevator.

“Hey!” William yelled after him. “You don’t even know where she is!”

“Better to look!” Rasmus yelled back, more determined than ever to find her.

***

Lusine was cold, but the heat blasting from the vents in Fred and Aleida’s car were warming her quickly. When a nice car had pulled up to her on the curb, honking, she thought the worst if she was being honest. Like, the worst – that she would be kidnapped or something. That she’d made the stupidest decision of her life running away from Scotiabank Arena and now one of her kidneys would be sold on the black market. But when the window rolled down and she saw Aleida’s face, she wasn’t as nervous – just confused. Aleida screamed at her to get in the car so they could go back to her townhouse. Lusine agreed, because it wasn’t like she was going to start defying Aleida. If it was anyone else, Lusine probably would have ran away down an alley to lose them, steadfast on wanting to walk home alone in the snowstorm while tears were still streaming down her face.

“How’d you know where to find me?” Lusine asked, her voice completely void of emotion as she curled up in the passenger seat. She was so emotionally exhausted, embarrassed of her behaviour, and just wanted to forget about everything.

“I didn’t. I made a lucky guess,” Aleida said. “Bay Street is always the street people choose because it’s quieter and you get to be alone with your tears.”

Lusine almost hated how accurate and on point Aleida was about everything. She decided not to respond, because she didn’t know if she could emotionally take it. In the silence, a text came through on the CarPlay. “Text message from…Fred heart emoji,” the computerized woman’s voice spoke loudly. “Helena is in bed. Did you find Lusine?”

“Respond to Fred,” Aleida spoke out. She waited for the screen to change. “We are on our way home.”

Lusine looked over at Aleida. “If Rasmus—can you please tell him I’m safe but I don’t want to see him or speak to him right now?”

“I can,” Aleida nodded her head, “but you know he’ll be upset and want to see you.”

“I know. But I can’t face him right now. Not after what I did and how I feel.”

The rest of the car ride was silent. Aleida pulled up to a very posh and modern looking townhouse, parking the car in the garage. They both got out of the car – Lusine with very little life in her – and followed Aleida to the garage door that led into the house. The second Aleida took out her key and stuck it in the lock, her phone began to ring. With only a single glance down at her screen, she looked back at Lusine. “Go inside, Lusine. I’ll meet you in there.”

“Is that Rasmus?”

“Go inside.”

Lusine did as she was told. She stepped in, leaving Aleida in the garage, who closed the door behind her. Lusine stood awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do. She didn’t want to step into (what seemed like) this impeccably styled townhouse without permission.

“Is that you, babe?” Lusine suddenly heard Fred’s voice. She stood petrified in her spot as she watched his head pop out of a corner. When he saw it was her and not his beautiful, stunning wife, his face visibly changed – and softened. “Oh, hey Lusine.”

“Hi Frederik.”

“Freddie.”

“Aleida’s just—” she pointed towards the garage door, “—I think she’s on the phone with Rasmus.”

“Come in,” he said, waving her inside the house. “You want tea or something?”

Lusine shook her head. “I’m—no thank you, I’m fine,” she responded. “You have a beautiful home.”

“It’s even more beautiful if you come out of the hallway,” he cracked a smile.

Lusine took off her shoes and walked into the house gingerly, trying not to make a peep. She looked around, impressed with how styled and sophisticated everything looked. It was like a show home, but a lived-in show home. Lusine didn’t know how to explain it. It looked like it could be featured in a magazine spread, but it was also very obvious that a family lived in the space – from the playmat in the family room to the painted hand art hanging on the fridge and more. “You want chamomile? Peppermint tea?” Fred asked again, watching her as she looked around his home.

She was so shy, but Fred was being so warm that – like Aleida – she couldn’t deny him. “Um, chamomile is good. Thank you.”

He smiled before grabbing the kettle on the stove, setting up mugs and teabags. Lusine heard the garage door open and Aleida walk in. “Hey babe,” she called out.

“Hey,” Fred called back. “I’m making chamomile.”

“I’ll have one too,” Lusine could hear her. Eventually, she heard her footsteps down the hallway, and when Lusine looked behind her, Aleida was there in all her glory. Aleida put her hands on Lusine’s shoulders. “I’m going to check Helena. Then we can talk.”

Lusine nodded quietly. She watched as Aleida and Fred greeted each other, kissing and mumbling something to each other over the store before Aleida went upstairs for Helena. Sitting at their kitchen island, completely desolate, Lusine could only watch Fred as he prepared the tea mugs and filled the kettle. It wasn’t until he turned around to face her that he spoke. “Rasmus is crazy about you, you know.”

Lusine felt like crying all over again, but she kept it together. If it was so obvious to his teammates, why were there people hellbent on its destruction? “I know,” she said softly, nodding her head. “I’m crazy about him too.”

“What happened with those girls—whatever it was…” Fred began. “You’re better than that.”

“They made fun of my scars,” Lusine said. “Why—I mean, why would they do that?”

Fred shrugged. “I could tell you something you’ve probably heard a hundred times, but I’ll just tell you the truth,” he prefaced. “They’re fucking horrible people. That’s it. There’s nothing else to understand, Lusine, so stop trying to understand it. They’re horrible people, plain and simple.”

He was right. He was so right in his simplicity that Lusine almost wanted it to be more complicated because then that meant she might be able to wrap her head around it more. Sometimes, it was the simple things that were so hard to understand. “I don’t even—I don’t even care that they tried to get under my skin by telling me Rasmus tried to hook up with Sadie. It’s—”

“Rasmus never tried to hook up with Sadie,” Fred had furrowed his brows. “We all stay the hell away from that group. Plus he lived with William, and something like that wouldn’t have happened under his watch.”

She knew she just said she didn’t care, but there was still the slightest bit of relief in Lusine hearing those words come out of Fred. “Good to know.”

“And he was so angry when he heard what happened,” Fred told her. “Kasperi’s gotten yelled at by Morgan, me – on two separate and unrelated incidents – and Willy for his choice in women, so this was bound to happen. So he’ll be hearing from Rasmus too now. I don’t even think what Aleida did would cheer him up.”

It was Lusine’s turn to furrow her brows. “What did Aleida do?”

Fred smirked – proud of his wife. “She had Saylor and Gina arrested in the stands for cocaine possession.”

Lusine was stunned. Stunned. Arrested. For cocaine possession. The entire situation sounded like insanity, but if anybody was capable of doing such a thing – of getting someone arrested for cocaine possession in the stands of a Leafs game – it was Aleida Casillas-Andersen. Lusine tried to picture it – the security, the cops, the girls. She imagined shrieks. Screams. Bad behaviour.

Lusine actually laughed out loud.

She immediately covered her smile and giggles with her hands, staring at Fred who had an amused look on his face at her reaction. Then, they shared a moment – they both giggled. “Aleida’s a badass,” Lusine said.

“You don’t know the half of it, Lusine,” he said proudly.

“What are you two giggling about?” Aleida had a smile on her face as she descended the stairs, changed out of her stylish outfit and into comfier clothing.

“You,” Fred smiled at her. “How badass you are.”

She was thoroughly amused. It was the first time she saw Lusine smile in an at least an hour. “How about you go upstairs. We won’t be long,” she said, standing on her tip-toes to kiss him.

Fred gave Lusine one last nod before heading upstairs. At this point, the kettle was just starting to whistle, and Aleida took it off the stove and poured the hot water into the mugs. She slid Lusine’s to her across the counter. “You’re going to stay here tonight,” she said definitively, wrapping her hands around the hot mug. “I’ll get you some pyjamas. If you want to take a shower you’re more than welcome.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“When I spoke to Rasmus on the phone, he was a bit frantic and I had to calm him down. I told him to respect your decision, that you were safe with me.”

“Thanks.”

“But know that he’s antsy to see you and talk to you.”

“I would imagine so,” Lusine nodded slightly, taking a sip of her tea. “I’m—I’m sorry for running away from the arena.”

“What made you? If you don’t mind me asking,” Aleida said. “I thought I had talked you down enough that you would have been okay.”

“I just—I…” Lusine stuttered out, shrugging her shoulders. She could tell Aleida a lot, but some things she had to keep for herself. Or keep for Rasmus when they talked. Because she knew there was going to be a loooong talk once they saw each other again. “I just think my mind got the best of me.”

Aleida nodded, knowing in her own way Lusine didn’t want to reveal too much. Neither did she when she was a struggling nineteen year old. But that was why she continued to struggle as opposed to get better all those years ago. “Above all else…aside from anything and everything that happened tonight, and regardless of what was said to you, just know that nobody cares about your scars. I can promise you.”

Lusine nodded, smiling appreciatively. At the end of the day, that was the core of the problem – that was what set everything off. Lusine found some comfort in those words coming from Aleida. “Thank you.”

Aleida stared at her for a few moments before grabbing her mug. “I’ll go get your pyjamas. Just to let you know, Helena wakes up around seven.”

Lusine changed, finished her tea, moved some extra pillows off the couch, laid out the blanket, and settled into ‘bed’. In the darkness of the room, with nothing but the stove light on in the kitchen, she took out her phone for the first time in hours. She had fifteen missed calls from Rasmus, and thirteen texts from him.

She teared up. She’d caused him so much anxiety and stress and she wished she could just take it all back. But she also knew she wasn’t ready to text him back, because, well…she didn’t know what to say to him yet. How could she explain her actions? How could she verbalize her thoughts and what was going through her mind as the words “they’re brutal” still rung like a church bell every other minute? She knew the answers she needed and how to move on were within herself and not to be found in other people, but her mind was so tired from fighting the battle that she couldn’t see it or find it yet. It would come – she knew that – just not as she slept on someone’s couch.

She closed the texts, as much as it pained her to read them and not respond. The next thing she did was open Instagram and change her profile to a private. Too little too late – she knew that – but it was better late than never. She didn’t even bother to scroll through her feed. She typed in the only handles she needed to check.

nhlwags

The most recent post on the feed was a video. Even from the tiny square, Lusine could make out lettering in the back that made her sure it was Scotiabank Arena. She held her breath as she clicked it and watched the scene unfold from a fan’s camera: two big, buff security officials arguing with fans in the stands, the view obstructed because of their large frames. But then the fans stood up angrily, and there they were in all their glory: Saylor and Gina. One of the security guards grabbed Saylor’s wrists, while the other grabbed Gina’s, and both of them took out handcuffs at the same time. The text overlay on the original video read “Ppl getting arrested at the leafs game??? WTF LOL”, but the owner of the page – and people in the comments – had all the information anybody would ever want.

nhlwags: LMAO can’t believe this actually happened!!!!! Saylor Greene and one of her friends apparently got arrested in the stands of the game!!! Public intoxication? Disorderly conduct? Anyone have details? Video sent by anon.

katcargill16: was in the last row in this section. Saw them being escorted out in handcuffs. No word of a lie, I heard the security guy say cocaine. On God.

leafs4ever: LOL WHAT THE HELL

franciejean: kappy sure knows how to pick ‘em

ellaellaella: was also there. def cocaine possession. those girls were high as a fucking kite. does it surprise anyone, knowing what we know of saylor and what she tried to do to aberdeen bloom when she worked for the leafs? girl is a mess.

Though she was shocked at the length Aleida would go to in order to avenge her, despite barely knowing her, Lusine locked her phone and placed it on the coffee table before bringing the blanket up to right underneath her chin. It was time to go to bed. No more thinking. No more watching videos. No more reading gossip. No more reading comments. No more thoughts of “they’re brutal” repeating over and over in her head. The day was over. It was time for sleep.

It was time for the day to end.

***

Rasmus couldn’t sleep. At all. He’d been tossing and turning all night, unable to sleep more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. It was abysmal. All he could keep thinking about was what had happened to Lusine, and how he couldn’t be there for her. He imagined every scenario of how he thought it went down in his head. He thought of thousands of possibilities as to how the words were said by Saylor. He knew how those words had the capacity to cut through Lusine’s soul – and they did.

He finally kicked the covers off his body just before 8am. He looked at his phone to see no replies to his text messages or calls. He let out a shaky breath, hoping and praying that Lusine was still safe with Aleida. Maybe he’d call Aleida to see how Lusine was doing. Maybe he’d just show up to their townhouse and ask to speak with Lusine. Whatever grand idea he came up with next, however farfetched, would be much better than lying in his bed, mind in a daze, thinking about how much Lusine was hurting right now.

So he resolved to do just that. He pulled himself up out of bed and stripped down to take a quick shower – getting all the grime and the memories of being worried sick yesterday off his body. When he was finished, he wrapped a towel around himself and went out into his kitchen for some water.

And that’s when he saw something peculiar at his front door.

Something had – miraculously – been slipped under the door, and lay alone on his floor right beside his mess of shoes. He was generally a pretty clean guy, so he knew it wasn’t something of his. He approached it quickly. The paper was small, crumpled – the type of paper waitresses would write your order on at old greasy spoon diners. He picked it up.

***

Lusine heard a banging on her apartment door and automatically knew that Rasmus had gotten her note. She had surprised herself that entire morning by not crying – not when she got re-dressed in her clothes, not when Aleida came down with a happy Helena, not when Aleida offered to drive her home but she said no because she wanted to walk and clear her head – but she knew she was going to cry now with Rasmus here. It was on that walk that Lusine thought of the sentiment she eventually wrote down on the old piece of paper; it was on that walk that Lusine made a promise to herself to tell Rasmus everything, and not leave anything out; it was on that walk that Lusine resolved to build back what was taken from her by two simple words.

She took a deep breath before she opened the door, but nothing could prepare her for the weight and the power and the haste of Rasmus’s body wrapping itself around hers. It felt like all the air was taken from her lungs, but she quickly regained life in her upon feeling Rasmus’s touch on her body. “Oh min lilla fågel,” he let out, his voice shaky and relieved and tortured and soothed all at once as he buried his face deep into the crook of her neck. “Lilla fågel, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, clinging on to him so tight that when he lifted her up into his arms, her legs wrapped around him automatically. “I’m so sorry I made you worried last night.”

“Shhh…” he cooed, taking his head out from the crook of her neck. “You don’t need to apologize. You just need to tell me what happened. How I can make it better.”

“Not right now,” she shook her head. She valued the feel of his touch too much to spoil it with memories of yesterday. “Right now I just want you to hold me. Will you hold me?”

As if Rasmus would say no. He carried her to her bedroom, closing the door with his foot as he saw Piper laying down in the bed, no doubt having just been cuddled by Lusine before she opened the door for him. Rasmus brought them down on the bed and held Lusine; Piper took her cue to climb on top of them, nestling between them. For a few moments, as they lay in bed together, everything was perfect; it was like they were their own little family and there was mothing in the outside world that could spoil it.

When Lusine finally spoke, she told him everything. Everything. Every last detail of the interaction and how she felt. What Aleida said and how she took it. How she ran out of Scotiabank Arena because she wasn’t thinking straight but also couldn’t bear to be in the same building as girls who made her feel the way they did. Her feelings walking alone sobbing on the streets of Toronto. Rasmus listened to every word. He got angry when she told him about the interaction with Saylor and needed to be calmed down. He got curious when he was told everything that Aleida said. He got angry again when he pictured Lusine walking the streets of Toronto alone. He softened when she told him what Fred said to her. It felt like he went through every emotion he possible could before she finished.

“You don’t think…” she began, almost holding back her words. “Do you think my parents were right?”

“No,” he said definitively, shaking his head. “No way. You proved them wrong. They were never right.”

“You don’t think—” she stopped again, composing herself. “You don’t think it was a mistake moving here, do you?”

“No. God no,” he said, kissing her. “If you came here, I would have never met you. And what kind of life would I be living?”

Lusine began to tear up again. “I don’t want to be a burden to you like I was on my parents.”

“No no no no no no no no,” he cooed, shaking his head before giving her a kiss. “I don’t want you ever thinking that again, okay? How could—how could you even? You are not a burden, never have been to me and never will be.”

“I just love you so much, Ras.”

“I love you too,” he kissed her again, for a long time this time, before finally pulling away. “What can I do to make it better?” he asked again, just like he did earlier when he burst through the door and clung on to her for dear life. He kissed her lips quickly.

“You make everything better by just being here,” she said, bringing her hand up to caress his face. “I mean it, Ras. Being here right now cuddling with Piper is the best thing in the world.”

He cuddled closer into her, burying his face in the crook of her neck before placing soft, sweet kisses on her skin. She began running her fingers through his hair. “What if we go get married, hmm? What if I bring you downtown and we got married.”

That somehow garnered a giggle out of Lusine – an honest to God, music-to-his-ears giggle. “You wanna make me a teen bride?” she quipped back.

“I wanna make you a bride. I’ll marry you right now, lilla fågel.”

Lusine couldn’t help but smile – because she knew Rasmus was being 100% serious. And to be fair, a small part of her wanted to take him up on the offer. “Okay,” she wanted to say. “I’ll put on a dress and we can go to City Hall and get married.” But the rational side of her mind prevailed instead (which was good, because she’d acted irrational by running away last night), and she made him look at her instead of hiding his face in her neck. “Someday,” she kissed the tip of his nose. “Today I just want to lie here with you and Piper and leave everything in the past so I can think about everything that’s ahead of me.”

And they did just that. They cuddled with Piper, and Rasmus even fell asleep with his face tucked into the crook of her neck. They got up to take Piper out for a walk around the neighbourhood in the newly fallen snow and held hands the entire time, even stopping to kiss every so often. When they got back, they cuddled again and Rasmus took another nap with Piper lying with him. Lusine thought the scene before her was perfection.

Because it was.

The little life she’d built with Rasmus and Piper was perfect.

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buttherainbowhadabeard · 3 years

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Promising Young Woman (2021)

*contains spoilers*

Revenge is a dish best served stone-cold sober…

Delightful and dimpled British star Carey Mulligan has had a successful career to date, playing alongside leading men such as Leonardo DiCaprio (‘The Great Gatsby’), Ryan Gosling (‘Drive’) and Michael Fassbender (‘Shame’). Despite not always being centre stage, many of Mulligan’s film choices have been eclectic in terms of genre, and it seems this winning combination of offbeat and orthodox have all led to her explosive lead role in the indie assault on the senses that is ‘Promising Young Woman’.

Carey is Cassandra Thomas, a 30-year-old whose promising career as a doctor went into a tailspin when she dropped out of medical school following the rape of her best friend Nina Fisher at the rough hands of their classmates. It’s implied that Nina – overwhelmed by what happened to her and the lack of support or investigative interference – committed suicide, and in the years since, Cassie has dedicated her life to avenging her friend’s death. Rather than continuing to try to take the claims up with police, Cassie turns unconventional vigilante and offers herself up as hot-mess boy bait, spending her nights fake falling-down drunk in bars and clubs to see and document how many men attempt to take advantage of her. Going so far – arguably stupidly so – as to let them take her home, Cassie abruptly reveals her sobriety to shock them into acknowledging and lamenting their predatory behaviour.

These scenes in particular are deliciously satisfying – that moment the self-proclaimed “nice guy” realises his unwilling date is more than aware of her surroundings and is going to confront him about them. The genius of these moments is in the power of Mulligan’s swift and drastic transformations. She doesn’t need to threaten or produce a weapon to take control, her stark sobriety is enough.

Making her feature filmmaking debut, director Emerald Fennell has had her fair share of femme fatale experience as head writer on Season 2 of TV’s addictive ‘Killing Eve’. Her love of strong, clever but chaotic women are all bundled into one with the creation of Cassie. She’s a Villanelle-esque sexy sociopath with a skewed moral compass, complimented by a noughties heavy soundtrack featuring a screechy orchestral remix of Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’, a rom-com inspired routine to Paris Hilton’s ‘Stars Are Blind’, and DeathbyRomy’s cover of the Weather Girls’ ‘It’s Raining Men’.

‘Promising Young Woman’ could just as easily be called Privileged Young Men. With a narrative that draws on #MeToo, toxic masculinity and on campus rape culture and rituals, this is a film that is unapologetic about its subject matter and in your face about its opinions on it. There are not-so-subtle traces of trends that are played out in real life today, like dismissing women’s allegations to protect men’s reputations. Whilst Nina’s life was destroyed and her credibility doubted, male peers like perpetrator Al Monroe (Chris Lowell) and his sleazy friend Joe (Max Greenfield) were given glowing references, advanced to the top of their fields and became popular pillars of their communities, industries and social circles.

Although predictable for me, the eventual reveal of the one good man from Cassie’s past being complicit in Nina’s rape (her happy-to-take-it-slow boyfriend Ryan played by a charmingly goofy Bo Burnham), is a gasp out loud moment. Her world is once again shattered beyond repair when she realises the relationship that has made her happy for the first time in a long time was built on a lie (or to give him the benefit of the doubt, a very bad mistake). He is the first man she felt she could trust, be herself around, and fall in love with, but she discovers that underneath he was at worst, another one of the guys, and at best, an indefensible bystander.

You’d be forgiven for thinking ‘Promising Young Woman’ is all anti-men. Everything about it - on the surface and in the trailer - screams angry, bra burning feminist. However, it’s more nuanced than that and takes more of an anti-bad men, anti-bad women and anti-bad behaviour stance, as many of the movie’s female characters also have to confront the fact that their refusal or disinterest to speak up and call out abuse has enabled criminal conduct to set in, rot and spread. Cassie - an anti-hero herself - holds a grubby mirror up to the faces of the women from her college days with varying degrees of cunning and callousness, from feigning the abduction and pimping out of the University Dean Elizabeth Walker’s daughter, to tricking an inebriated former classmate (Alison Brie) into thinking she was unfaithful, or worse, sexually assaulted, in a hotel room.

Cassie’s methods are extreme and quite frankly mad, but her motives are steeped in an obsessive desire to do right by her friend and seek justice whatever the cost (the latter playing out in tragic but successful fashion in the finale). She is an intentionally entangled fly, luring spiders of all shapes and sizes to the centre of the web, daring them to do their worst. Most times she is well prepared, and even when it seems like she’s bitten off more than she can chew, another dose of vigorous vengeance is plunged in (even if it has to be done posthumously!)

Physically too, she’s a calculating chameleon. From pigtails, flowery blouses and flats for a girl-next-door look, to blow-job blotted lips, tight dresses and skyscraper stilettos to give off a late-night pick-up vibe, every element of her outfit is deliberate and devious. Dressed up in a wig the colour of a Rainbow Paddle Pop and sexy stripper nurse outfit in the film’s final act, Cassie is the literal sexual objectification of the promising young medical practitioner she could have been. Instead, she’s a practitioner of pain, turning Monroe’s bachelor party into her plastered patients.

Handcuffing Al to the bed upstairs, it looks like she’s reeled in her biggest fish to date. “It's every man's worst nightmare, getting accused of something like that,” Al cries, to which a deadpan Cassie replies “can guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?” But soon the tables turn when he breaks free, overpowers her and smothers her to death with a pillow. It’s a brutal and distressingly drawn-out scene, and it takes a while before it hits you that she really is dead and this is where her sad story ends. Joe and Al burn her body. It’s all over. Or so you think.

We cut to Al’s wedding, and as Juice Newton’s ‘Angel of the Morning’ plays, Ryan begins to receive scheduled texts from Cassie, taunting him from beyond the grave with a juicy contingency plan. Using Al’s ex-attorney Jordan Green (Alfred Molina) and his regret and grief over representing the wrong party to her advantage, Cassie had sent him incriminating evidence about Nina’s assault and her own demise in advance. “You didn't think this was the end, did you? It is now” the first texts read, as police sirens wail and officers emerge from the woods to arrest Al for murder. “Enjoy the wedding! Love, Cassie & Nina” the final messages say, followed by a perfectly placed winky face emoticon as Fletcher’s ‘Last Laugh’ cues the end credits. It’s a gratifying water cooler moment, bona fide badass yet bittersweet, but you’re still left wondering if it was all worth it.

‘Promising Young Woman’ could be cut from the same tortured heroine cloth as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, with Nina and Cassie’s friendship rivalling ‘Thelma & Louise’. It covers a lot of taboo territories and topics, from slut shaming to consent and coercion, and evokes the harrowing Margaret Atwood quote “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them”.

‘Promising Young Woman’ is not for the faint hearted, and anyone who fears the film may be triggering should stay well clear. It’s not always easy viewing and it’s not always fair, however it’s more than just a pitch-black comedy or clear-cut tale of rape-revenge. It’s a brave, bold and original satire with bite and brains.

4/5 stars.

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mego42 · 3 years

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I am surprised by the reaction to last nights episode. I definitely didn't love it but there was a lot of interesting stuff that happened. I think in terms of Beth it was really important because she had to face her feelings for Rio in the aftermath of what she did. He put her in a tough situation and didn't give her a clear way to choose him. Was the choice supposed to be that she goes to prison for him? Is that what he wanted? I hated aspects of it but I can see where it could lead to good.

eh, honestly i’m not. rio’s already a fan fav that elicits a v strong emotional reaction for a vast spectrum of different reasons and beth is... let's say polarizing, so the combo of beth betraying rio (again) + rio making That Face + a full on no holds barred tragedy prince backstory + some highly affecting blocking and direction invoking some v present and real world police brutality imagery? there was literally no way that wasn’t going to land like a fucking shipping container full of live grenades. i think i texted four different people last night that i might delete my tumblr, hahahaha.

but! all of that aside! i agree, i think with the exception of two key fumbles, it was actually a really good ep? like:

i ADORED literally every piece of rio’s backstory including the ones that felt like having my guts scooped out with a melon baller (i keep telling y’all i love pain)

i thought every scene with beth, ruby and annie was at their absolute most peak them dynamic

i hated that they had rio threatening beth’s family (which i took to mean ruby and annie and beth jumped to conclusions that it meant their kids but like why? or maybe i’m wrong and rio meant their kids but again why? he’s never gone there before? so idk that whole bit was messy) BUT i loved that they were actually on the same side for like, 5 glorious seconds? like beth really did pick him last ep even if she went back on it the second ruby and annie were on the line

(which!!! honestly!!!!!!! absolutely plays for me!!!!!!! they’re always always always going to be her side when it really comes down to it!!!!!!! i wouldn’t want rio to be more her side than them!!!!!! esp not at this point in their relationship!!!!!!!! if ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(so why?????? add the rest of it????????? they didn't have to?????? and honestly it would’ve been that much MORE tragic if they hadn’t????????)

(bc omg the poor bby won’t someone choose him)

(am i a rio stan now? is that what’s happening?)

yoU juSt didN’t choOsE mE

i’m sorry i’m so deep in my feelings

AND DIANE!!!! SHE WAS BACK!!!!!

AND STAN SAID STRIPPERS RIGHTS!!!!!!!

am actually lowkey upset we did not see the birth of the sweet p’s strippers union but at the same time that’s probs for the best, the ep was already doing A Lot

also omg the way they cast a baby rio that looks so much like david miranda right down to the gap tooth and the dimples mY heaRt

also like, everything with rio and nick’s relationship is extremely interesting to me in a fucked up terrible way

but yeah, to your other point, i totally track beth flipping. as soon as phoebe said they were rounding up ruby and annie in the morning i was like oh beth’s turning rio in bc there was absolutely no other way that could’ve gone down. my personal issues with the ep entirely fall into the choices made in the arrest scene (i think the show is v v v careful with how they depict violence against women but doesn’t extend that to men which is fine when it’s dean and boomer but extremely less fine when it’s rio/stan/turner) and in the opening scene with beth and rio, i wish they hadn’t fallen back into beth balking and rio threatening, i think that was an unnecessary retread that, as mentioned above, muddied a p straightforward conflict of interest in a way they didn’t need to.

so yeah, mixed bag! but overall i do think i liked the ep bc i like things that hurt me hahahaha and i am v intrigued to see where this goes with beth and rio. again, bc i am working hard to manifest this, prayer circles and ritual sacrifices for some quality hate fuckin’

#as you guys can see im just sitting over here working through my feelings #watch me process in real time!#gg 4x08 #gg spoilers #nbc good girls #beth x rio #anon #shut up meg

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hen-of-letters · 3 years

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Series 15 gives all of the characters you could ever care about their worst possible endings, but presents these endings as somehow good or satisfying or acceptable. Here's a list.

The short version: they're Chuck's endings, and Chuck is a bad writer.

None of the characters can escape the fate set out for them or break the cycle of trauma begun by Chuck. The show itself doesn't even realise how truly awful these endings are - it dresses up a tragedy in pie gags and pretty colours and calls it a happy ending. And in order to inflict these worst possible endings on its characters, the narrative has to be twisted and contorted in the most absurd of ways.

So, onto the list:

Adam: Forgotten and left to languish in the pit, he's finally freed, only to suffer an anticlimactic offscreen death and be forgotten again. Michael, his only companion for so long, is also killed off. In the finale, blood family seems to be all that matters - and yet he isn't mentioned.

Alternate Kaia: She helps rescue Kaia from the Bad Place, but chooses to remain there to face certain destruction rather than return to earth with Kaia, Dean and Sam. This world is so hostile to her that death is preferable. Her horrible, pointless death stands as a powerful statement about the real harm caused by exclusion, but the text doesn't seem to acknowledge the full horror of this. Her death isn't remarked upon; it seems to suggest that both Kaia and her double are returned to their rightful places. It's just one example of the show creating awful endings without seeming to understand how awful they truly are. (I rant a lot more about Alternate Kaia here.)

Amara: After being betrayed and locked away for millennia, we see Amara's initial impulse for revenge and destruction transform into an admiration for creation. She becomes an advocate for humanity and the world. And yet she ends up being betrayed (by both the Winchesters and Chuck) and locked away again. She's absorbed by Chuck in a way that doesn't fit within the logic of the show. Chuck and Amara are equals - it doesn't make any sense that Chuck could overpower her. Wouldn't they become a blend of the two of them? And, since their separation caused the Big Bang, wouldn't their unity end the world? Anyway, having the cosmic feminine be voiceless and invisible is the worst way for Amara's story to end. Having Jack speak for her, saying that they are 'in harmony' tries to make this an acceptable fate for her, but only makes it worse.

Benny: Another offscreen death, and this one feels particularly spiteful. It really seems like he was killed just to be a conversation-starter for Cas and Dean. However, if his fate can be sealed by a line of dialogue, then it only proves that confirmation of the fates of Eileen, AU Charlie and the other hunters could have been given in the same way. Just one line could have done it - "I just spoke to Eileen, everyone's back." Instead, at the end of 15.19 we're in the absurd position of having Sam and Dean toast the people they've lost without them even bothering to check who that may or not be.

Billie: The bizarre thing about Billie being revealed as a villain at the end of Season 15 was that she was supposed to be acting in self-interest - that she wanted to be the new God. It made no sense. What would make sense to me, though, would be if Chuck was controlling her (as Lucifer bound Death in Season 5). Season 15 has strong echoes of Season 4 - and Billie took on both the role of Ruby (feeding Jack hearts rather than demon blood, but nevertheless making him into a weapon, with the price being the loss of his sense of self and ultimately his life) and Heaven (persuading Dean that it had to be this way, and telling him to go along with the plan). We only have the Shadow's word for Billie's motivation, and we know she wasn't responsible for the deaths of the AU hunters, so in the end her status is ambiguous - she really seems to be a victim of Chuck's bad writing. She's erased from the narrative along with Castiel, when really she should have been freed from Chuck's control and fighting on the side of nature and free will alongside the Winchesters. Supernatural also concludes with nobody in the role of Death, which is a crazy loose thread left dangling.

Castiel: His confession was a thing of beauty, perfectly summing up the truth of both his and Dean's characters. Both of them are made of and motivated by love. And yet after speaking his truth, he is silenced. He never gets to hear that he is loved in return (when the previous twelve seasons have made it abundantly clear to the audience that Dean loves Cas just as much as Cas loves Dean). His capacity for love made him the only thing that Chuck could not control; as an agent of free will, he should have had a central role in Chuck's defeat.

In 15x13, when Cas is in the Empty to see Ruby, the Shadow says: "funny thing about [Death's] plan, though... she didn't say anything about needing you. Baby, you can't just traipse in and out of here. It upsets the order of things." To me, this sounded so much like 4x22's "you're not in this story" that I saw it as a pretty clear indication that Cas would play an important part in Chuck's defeat. Because Team Free Will wouldn't follow the plan, would they? They would find another way, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they?

However, after the confession, he's never seen on screen again. He's barely mentioned. Eventually we're told he "helped" Jack, so he ends up where he started: as a servant of heaven. He deserved to complete his fall, to become human, to live as well as speak his truth. Making him a silent, unseen instrument of heaven undoes his entire arc. Erasing him from the narrative requires the extraordinary warping of that narrative: nothing about his death suggests that it should be accepted as a permanent 'sacrifice', when we know that there is a spell that can return angels from the Empty (and, thanks to the handprint, we have his blood for it) and that Lucifer was brought back by Chuck in 15x19. And the idea that Sam, Jack and Dean wouldn't try everything in their power to bring him back is utterly ludicrous.

Cas' confession scene to so closely mirrors 4x01's barn scene that the narrative is crying out for the parallel to be completed by Dean rescuing Cas from the Empty just as Cas rescued Dean from hell. However, we're never given that narrative closure - just like we are never given the reunions demanded by the scenes of Sam losing Eileen and Charlie losing Stevie.

Chuck: Okay, so he might not make your list of characters you could ever care about, but my point about his ending is that while it's fitting, for it to really work we also needed Cas to become human, too. For Chuck, being human is a punishment, but for Cas it would be a reward. We really needed this balance, otherwise all we have is humanity as the worst thing that could happen to you, which is not exactly a great parting message for the show. (Also, how precisely is it possible to make him human?) Not only is being human the worst fate possible, but, specifically, so is growing old and being forgotten. Again, this is a punishment for Chuck, but it would have been a reward for Dean: growing old when the story (and his own self-loathing) constantly told him that he would die young; and being forgotten, not in a negative sense, but in terms of not being a character in a story any more: remembered fondly by his friends but no longer a legend, just a man living an insignificant little life exactly the way he chooses.

Dean: Where do I even start. Let's be clear: ending the story with his death (by any means and in any scenario) was always going to be the absolute worst possible ending for him and for the show.

In 15x19 we have the glorious moment when Chuck calls him the ultimate killer, and Dean (heeding Cas' words from 15x18) says "that's not who I am". Now, I mean no disrespect to Dean here (because he is, canonically, a genius) but I don't think that he was in any way necessary to the Michael double-cross plot that eventually saw the defeat of Chuck. Honestly, if he had died in 15x18, then 15x19 could still have played out in exactly the same way. It's as if he wasn't saved so that he could save the world - he was saved so that he could have this moment of self-realisation. He was saved so that he could stand up to Chuck (God, and the author, and parallelled with John) and tell him that he's not the person that he tried to force him to be.

And yet by the next episode, this revelation is entirely forgotten. He doesn't get to continue his self-actualisation by speaking his truth to Cas. Instead, 15x20 presents Dean as almost a caricature of himself. Dean loves pie. Dean loves his brother. Dean loves his car. All of his complexity (present right from Season 1) is stripped away.

Finally free to write his own story, he ends up giving Chuck the ending he always wanted: one dead Winchester - killed, you could argue, by his brother (Sam fails to call for help and instead tells Dean to "go".) Told by Cas that he's not "Daddy's blunt instrument" and accepting that he's not "the ultimate killer", Dean goes right back to killing (even threatening torture) and following his father's words (in the form of the journal).

For Dean to die exactly as the story has always told him, and as he's always told himself in his worst moments of self loathing, is brutal and tragic. What makes it truly appalling is the way in which both Dean and Sam accept his death and say it's "okay". For Dean to say "always keep fighting" at the very moment when he gives up and when Sam gives up on him is bitterly ironic. (Interestingly, when Cas said "you have to keep fighting" in his 12x12 death speech, exhorting Sam and Dean to save themselves and leave him behind, Sam replied with "we are fighting. We're fighting for you, Cas" and Dean followed with "and like you said, you're family. And we don't leave family behind".)

Dean has always been the symbol of humanity in Supernatural: he stood for earth against the forces of heaven and hell. He'd rather live with pain and guilt than exist as a "Stepford bitch in paradise", and yet that's exactly what he becomes, driving mindlessly through Jack's new heaven where everyone is "happy". Dean previously dismissed heaven's happiness as "Memorex", and after Mary's death he was the only one not consoled by the confirmation that she was in heaven and happy. Having Dean being content in heaven is utterly out of character. He's always fought for free will, and in heaven - where there's no agency, where he's cut off from the world - this is the one thing that he does not have.

Eileen: An interesting, complex, kickass character, Eileen deserved so much better than being erased from the storyline. A Men of Letters legacy, I imagine her working with Sam to share the knowledge contained within the bunker whilst also dismantling the patriarchy, elitism and colonialism of its past. Her disappearance from the narrative makes absolutely no sense - 15x09, 15x17 and 15x18 confirm just how significant she is to Sam, and yet we never see them reunited or see Sam mourning her death. The audience's love for Eileen is totally disregarded, too - she's ripped away from us with no further explanation.

Emma: Okay, so she wasn't actually in season 15, but that's sort of my point. I have a lot to say about Emma, but here I'll just say that her significance has grown massively since Season 7. The narrative has shifted from Team Free Will being sons to being fathers. Even if she wasn't brought back, just a mention of her would have been significant. (I can't stop thinking about the massive potential of a conversation about Emma between Dean and Jack.) She didn't deserve to be forgotten.

Season 15 was Supernatural's last opportunity to bring back characters from the past - such as Meg, original Charlie, Crowley, and Bela Talbot - and give them better endings. Sadly this opportunity was wasted.

Garth: He actually seems to get his happy ending, on several levels. He finds a family; he finds happiness; he's acknowledged as a hero by the Winchesters, who had previously mocked him. Dean's words to him about embracing happiness are powerful. Garth lives as his full, authentic self - monstrosity now included. It's that monstrosity that's the issue here, though - as werewolves, Garth, Bess and little Sam and Castiel are doomed to go to purgatory when they die. Mia Vallens said to Jack that "it doesn't matter what you are - it matters what you do", but in this case the opposite is true. It's hideously unfair, but again the show never acknowledges this. It would have been simple to change in a line or two - just a quick mention about how purgatory has been fixed, so that only truly monstrous beasts like the leviathan are kept trapped there - but the injustice remains.

Jack: From his birth, his destiny was either to be the monstrous destroyer or the divine saviour of the world, which is precisely why he should have side-stepped it and found another way. He deserved to live without the weight of the world on his shoulders. Instead, he was forced to take on the power of God - and since when has someone suddenly taking on a huge amount of power ever ended well for Team Free Will? Then, he repeats the exact same pattern set up by Chuck. First, he abandons his creation by walking away and disappearing off to, in the words of Bobby, "wherever he went". Like Chuck, he ignores earthly suffering: if he's now omniscient and omnipotent, is he in fact complicit in Dean's death? Secondly, he's controlling: he remodels Heaven as he sees fit, making it a place where everyone's together and everyone's happy, with its inhabitants given absolutely no choice in the matter. There's also no reason why Jack had to vanish from the story - Chuck was capable of spending time on Earth.

The mechanics of the bomb plot also irks me no end. We're told by Death that the bomb will kill Jack. However, their plan fails, and Jack survives the blast. In 15x19, Dean tells Chuck that all the work done to turn Jack into a "cosmic bomb" has turned him instead into a "power vacuum." It makes it seem like a side-effect, and also that "sucking up bits of power" has been charging him up to the point where he's "unstoppable". He's able to both absorb and appropriate Chuck's power. However, in 15x17 Adam and Serafina explain that the bomb will create a "metaphysical supernova" that will make Jack into "a living black hole for divine energy" - which suggests that, actually, the bomb worked as intended.

But if the plan worked, why is Jack still alive? Billie made it clear that Jack wouldn't survive. And "nothing can escape" a black hole - so how is Jack able to use Chuck's powers to bring back Earth's population? Besides which, didn't 15x17 reveal that Chuck himself had "orchestrated" the entire thing? Which makes the theory that Chuck possessed Jack really the only outcome that makes sense. (Particularly as Serafina talks about Jack making his "vessel" strong. Jack is a nephil, not an angel - he has a body, not a vessel. Also, the bomb is made by fusing his soul with his grace - so, the two things that make up Jack, his humanity and his divinity, are annihilated.) Deliberately making Chuck win, however (with no tease at the end that this might be the case), makes no sense either. My head hurts.

Kevin: As if he hadn't been treated badly enough by the story already, we find that Kevin hasn't been in Heaven since we last saw him, but rather hell. He ends up as an untethered ghost, presumably just wandering about for all eternity. His fate comes courtesy of a bizarre new rule that souls from hell can't go to heaven - when previously both Bobby and John have done exactly that. Again, just one line telling us that he's now in heaven could have changed his ending.

Michael: Bringing back Adam and Michael was a brilliant move, and this version of Michael was utterly compelling - struggling with his faith in his father after being abandoned, torn between his loyalty to Heaven and his relationship with Adam. I thought that his handing over of the spell was very similar to Cas' "just so you understand … why I can't help" moment, and it seemed the precursor to Michael becoming an advocate for humanity, even a member of Team Free Will. However, instead Michael was doomed to play out his father's narrative: killing his brother and repeating the cycle of sibling conflict and trauma that Chuck began when he betrayed Amara. (And we'll credit Chuck's bad writing with the fact that the battle between Michael and Lucifer that was once predicted to wipe out millions and scorch the globe can now happen in the bunker without so much as a chair being knocked over - and without wires as well.)

Rowena: She seems to be relishing her reign as Queen of Hell, but the way she's so casually condemned is jarring. Surely her previous good deeds and her final act of self sacrifice would be enough to tip the scales in a heavenly direction? (It worked for Lily Sunder - another woman who vowed never to be powerless again.) They could easily have said it was Chuck's fault that she had to remain in hell - but instead it just seems like a foregone conclusion. She deserved better.

Sam: If we're supposed to believe that having a "normal" life is Sam's idea of writing his own story, why doesn't he do it as soon as Chuck is defeated? Instead, his suburban "apple pie" life only happens after Dean dies, which makes it seem more of a grief arc than a happy ending. (Just as he escaped into a self-professed "fantasy" life with Amelia after Dean's death, or when he succumbed to the comfort of a fake married life in Charming Acres after the trauma of losing all the AU hunters).

The idea that he'd keep hunting for Dean doesn't ring true - Dean had been the one openly craving retirement and domesticity for several seasons. After all, the idea of Dean as a hunter and Sam as the brother who wants to be normal is Chuck's story. Dean wasn't the "ultimate killer" that Chuck wanted him to be, and Sam too had been forging his own identity as a leader, a Man of Letters, and a powerful witch. He'd also found love - and with Eileen, he could be his full, authentic self. The idea that he would leave her is absurd, as is the idea that he would abandon his entire extended found family, who seem to have no part in his new life. When Dean returned from purgatory, he was furious that Sam had failed to help Kevin. Would Sam really do the exact same thing again - walk away from Jody and the girls when they are mourning both Cas and Dean and need his support? Would he just abandon Rowena's entire witchy collection and leave the huge store of knowledge in the Bunker locked up in the dark?

The Shadow: again, dubious on a list of characters you care about, but hey - all they ever really wanted was to go back to sleep, and can't we all relate to that? Anyway, they made the list for being one of the most frustrating open endings of the show. What did it mean for the Empty to be "loud"? Who is the Shadow, anyway? Just how did this cosmic entity fit in with the mythology of Chuck and Amara? It's maddening that the Shadow and the Empty were made central to several seasons only to be suddenly dropped.

The Wayward Sisters: my beloveds. Such a brilliant cast of characters and such wasted potential. They're an important part of the Winchesters' family and Team Free Will, but, in the end, they're forgotten. Claire may have gotten her happy ending with the return of Kaia, but this happens off screen. We never see her reaction to the deaths of Castiel or Dean.

The final few episodes seem to be about stripping away all of the characters except Sam and Dean, so they are completely alone by 15x20. Phrases such as "just us" and "just you and me" and "it's always been you and me" seem to suggest that this is a good thing, but previously the idea of them being isolated and alone has seemed like the worst case scenario (for example in Season 8, when Sam and Dean are forced to give up Amelia and Benny, respectively, or in Chuck's vision of a future in which the brothers lose Eileen and Cas along with Jody and the girls, give up hope, and end up as vampires, killed by their remaining friends).

Anyway, the whole idea of just Sam and Dean going wherever the road takes them is Chuck's story. It's on the cover of his books. By making Chuck the villain, Season 15 itself makes it impossible for a return to this idea to be a satisfying conclusion to the story.

In fact, Supernatural was never about just Sam and Dean. It was always about family. Season 1 was about Sam, Dean and John. Bobby introduced the phrase "family don't end with blood" in Season 3 and Dean coined the phrase "Team Free Will" in Season 4. It's an ethos that has spread into the fandom, too. Didn't the SPN Family deserve a finale that celebrated that idea, of banding together, of caring about the whole world, of love being the ultimate expression of free will?

You can't help but pick up on a theme: characters that were forgotten are forgotten again. Characters who were locked away are locked away again. The same narratives and the same traumas play out again and again. No-one escapes their miserable, predestined fate. It's Chuck's ending. And it's Chuck's spiteful ending.

It's the ending that kills off its beloved characters, and also destroys their whole world. The bunker is left in darkness. Time has moved forward by so much in order to accommodate Sam's natural death that we can't even imagine the ongoing stories of other characters like Garth or the Sioux Falls family (ironic, given the episode's title).

It's the kind of ending you get when a show is cancelled and the writer decides to kill off their characters and wreck their world so that there's no possibility of another network or another writer taking over their story. (And yet outside of the show, there's no evidence to suggest this - you would think that the ending had been designed to make a reboot impossible, but it has already been talked about.)

If we were not going to get a sense of the world continuing, then we could have been given a more radical and satisfying ending. We could have had Death collect on their promise to one day reap God. We could have had a world freed from the supernatural entirely: heaven, hell and purgatory obliterated, and Team Free Will finding peace in life on earth.

Because Chuck has been the author and the narrator the entire time, it makes no sense for the story to continue past the point of his defeat. (It makes even less sense for that story to revert back to Chuck's ideal narrative.) So, really we should have been given a more open ending: Team Free Will triumphant over Chuck and their future left open, the author dead and the characters' stories entrusted to the audience.

Instead, in the end, it's a bizarre mix of needlessly closed-down endings (killing off Cas, Sam and Dean, and vanishing Jack) and frustrating open ones (the loud Empty, there being no Death, Kevin wandering, the ambiguous fate of Eileen, Adam, Donna and the AU hunters).

And the final two episodes are also objectively bad. The double-cross plot in 15x19 is lame when the resolution of the Chuck storyline should have been profound. (It invites comparisons with the Season 11 finale, which was excellent.) 15x20 feels weirdly empty and flat. Dean's death is unrealistic; it echoes Sam's death in Season 2 and Dean's in Season 9 (which, if you think about it, would only be possible if Chuck was still writing it), but lacks the emotional punch of either. Dean's "I'm proud of us," in his Season 9 death scene is so much more powerful than his "I'm proud of you" in the finale. And let's not even mention that wig.

In conclusion: every single character deserved better. The actors deserved better. The audience deserved better. Because the ending we were given was not the ending that the season, or the entire series, had been building towards.

The ending tries to destroy every good thing that Supernatural has ever given us - vibrant characters, the fight for free will, the value of found family, the power of love - but it fails. Ultimately the characters and themes are too powerful to be contained by that terrible, flimsy ending. So now I've gotten all of that off my chest, I'm going right back to finale denialism.

#so I've been compiling this list for quite a while and now seems as good a time as any to get it off my chest #it's also the checklist for the fix-it I'm writing so really I should go and work on that #supernatural #spn #spn 15x20 #spn 15.20 #tw dean's death

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gffa · 4 years

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Stories of Light and Dark, coming August 25, promises to be a beautiful tribute to the just-completed animated series. The anthology will collect 11 stories by 11 authors — Lou Anders, Preeti Chhibber, Zoraida Córdova, Jason Fry, Rebecca Roanhorse, Greg Van Eekhout, Tom Angleberger, E. Anne Convery, Sarah Beth Durst, Yoon Ha Lee, and Anne Ursu — including 10 retellings of memorable episodes and arcs and one original Nightsisters-based story. So if you loved the tales of Ahsoka, Maul, and clanker-busting clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Stories of Light and Dark will give you the chance to experience them again in a whole new way. Like Captain Rex on a recon mission, StarWars.com reached out to each author to learn why they love The Clone Wars, and which stories they’re telling. Lou Anders (“Dooku Captured” and “The Gungan General,” based on the episodes of the same name): I love The Clone Wars for expanding the story of Anakin’s fall from grace. Skywalker really shines in the series, and we see what he truly was, and what he could have been, and by giving him so many opportunities to excel in the early season, his ultimate fate is that much more tragic. I also love the series for gifting us my all-time favorite Star Wars character, and one of my favorite characters from any universe — Hondo Ohnaka! My chapter is a retelling of the first season story arc that plays out across the episodes “Dooku Captured” and “The Gungan General.” I wanted to explore this storyline because I find Count Dooku a fascinating character. Sometimes pure, mustache-twirling, mwa-ha-ha evil can actually be boring to write, but a villain who feels they are justified, either because of perceived slights or intellectual superiority or the failure of their rivals or birthright are much more interesting, and Dooku is a bit of all of this. For research, I obviously watched tons of Clone Wars. But I also read up on everything about Dooku I could find, and I listened to Christopher Lee and Corey Burton’s interpretation of the character over and over, trying to internalize their speech patterns. Dooku is so gorgeously supercilious. It was just a blast to get in his head and see the world from his perspective. (And the fact that the storyline gave me another chance to write for my beloved Hondo Ohnaka was an added bonus!) Tom Angleberger (“Bane’s Story,” based on the episodes “Deception,” “Friends and Enemies,” “The Box,” and “Crisis on Naboo”): There’s a lot to love in The Clone Wars, but I think it’s Ahsoka’s arc that really stands out the most. Ventress’s arc does, too, and the way that these arcs cross at the just the right moment is really great Star Wars! My chapter is based on the “Crisis on Naboo” story arc. It’s basically a Space Western. The baddest bounty hunter of them all, Cad Bane, is hired to kidnap the Chancellor. What he doesn’t know is that almost everyone is lying to him, especially a fellow bounty hunter who is really Obi-Wan in disguise. In the TV version, we see it all from Obi-Wan’s point of view, so we know that Bane is getting played. In this retelling, we see it all from Bane’s point of view and, boy, is he going to be mad! To prepare I watched both The Clone Wars AND old spaghetti Westerns starring Bane’s inspiration: Lee Van Cleef. Preeti Chhibber (“Hostage Crisis,” based on the episode of the same name): I love the story that the prequels tell, but because of the nature of what they were trying to do — tell a decade and a half worth of story in three films — we’re missing major moments in what the war really means to the galaxy at large, and in the Skywalker saga itself. The Clone Wars tells us that part of the narrative, it gives us the shape of what entire populations of people had to go through because of this war manufactured by the ultimate evil. And within that scope gives us the hope and love and beautiful tragedy we associate with Star Wars on a larger scale. (Also, Ahsoka Tano — The Clone Wars gave us Ahsoka Tano and for that I will be ever grateful.) I’m writing Anakin’s story during “Hostage Crisis” — an episode in the first season of The Clone Wars. I decided to write the story entirely from Anakin’s perspective, which meant being inside his head before the fall, but where we are starting to see more of the warning signs. And then there’s also the romance of this episode! Anakin’s love for Padmé is real and all-consuming and, as we eventually find out, unhealthy. So, this is a romantic episode, but one that shows us Anakin is ruled by his heart. And that that’s a dangerous thing for a Jedi. In order to best wrap my own head around what was going on, I watched the episode itself several times, and read the script, and then I watched the chronological episodes of Anakin’s run-ins with Cad Bane, so I could get a real feel for where he was with his understanding of Bane’s character. E. Anne Convery (“Bug,” based on the episode “Massacre”): I love it because I think it’s a story that manages, while still being a satisfying adventure, to not glorify war. It does this mainly by following through on the arcs of wonderful, terrifying, funny, fallible, and diverse characters. From the personal to the political, The Clone Warsredefines the ways, big and small, that we can be heroes. My chapter is the “original” tale, though it still touches on The Clone Wars Season Four episode “Massacre,” with brief appearances by Mother Talzin and Old Daka. If I had to boil it down, I’d say that it’s a story about mothers and daughters. Honestly, it felt a little like cheating, because writing new characters meant I got to be creative in the Star Wars universe somewhat unencumbered by what’s come before. I did, however, have several long text chats with Sam Witwer because I was interested in Talzin’s motivations. We talked about stuff like her capacity (or lack thereof) for love. I think I came away thinking she was more a creature driven by issues of power, control, and the desire for revenge, whereas Sam was a little kinder to her. I mean, he is her “son,” so you can’t really blame him for wanting to think better of her! I always love a story within a story, and I was interested in the space where the high mythology of Star Wars and the home-spun mythology of fairy tales could intersect. I drew on my own background in mythology, psychology, and the language of fairy tales, plus I did my Star Wars research. Re-watching the Nightsisters episodes was just plain fun. Zoraida Córdova (“The Lost Nightsister,” based on the episode “Bounty”): The Clone Wars deepens the characters we already love. It gives us the opportunity to explore the galaxy over a longer period of time and see the fight between the light and the dark side. Star Wars is about family, love, and hope. It’s also incredibly funny and that’s something that The Clone Wars does spectacularly. We also get to spend more time with characters we only see for a little bit in the movies like Boba Fett, Bossk, Darth Maul! My chapter follows Ventress after she’s experienced a brutal defeat. Spoiler alert: she’s witnessed the death of her sisters. Now she’s on Tatooine and in a rut. She gets mixed up with a bounty hunter crew led by Boba Fett. Ventress’s story is about how she goes from being lost to remembering how badass she is. I watched several episodes with her in it, but I watched “Bounty” about 50 times. Sarah Beth Durst (“Almost a Jedi,” based on the episode “A Necessary Bond”): I spent a large chunk of my childhood pretending I was training to become a Jedi Knight, even though I’d never seen a girl with a lightsaber before. And then The Clone Wars came along and gave me Ahsoka with not one but TWO lightsabers, as well as a role in the story that broadened and deepened the tale of Anakin’s fall and the fall of the Jedi. So I jumped at the chance to write about her for this anthology. In my story, I wrote about Ahsoka Tano from the point of view of Katooni, one of the Jedi younglings who Ahsoka escorts on a quest to assemble their first lightsabers, and it was one of the most fun writing experiences I’ve ever had! I watched the episode, “A Necessary Bond,” over and over, frame by frame, studying the characters and trying to imagine the world, the events, and Ahsoka herself through Katooni’s eyes. The episode shows you the story; I wanted to show you what it feels like to be inside the story. Greg van Eekhout (“Kenobi’s Shadow,” based on the episode “The Lawless”): What I most love about Clone Wars is how we really get to know the characters deeply and see them grow and change. I enjoyed writing a couple of short scenes between Obi-Wan and Anakin that weren’t in the episode. I wanted to highlight their closeness as friends and show that Anakin’s not the only Jedi who struggles with the dark side. There’s a crucial moment in my story when Obi-Wan is close to giving into his anger and has to make a choice: Strike out in violence or rise above it. It’s always fun to push characters to extremes and see how they react. Jason Fry (“Sharing the Same Face,” based on the episode “Ambush”): I love The Clone Wars because it made already beloved characters even richer and deepened the fascinating lore around the Jedi and the Force. I chose Yoda and the clones because the moment where Yoda rejects the idea that they’re all identical was one of the first moments in the show where I sat upright and said to myself, “Something amazing is happening here.” You get the entire tragedy of the Clone Wars right in that one quick exchange — the unwise bargain the Jedi have struck, Yoda’s compassion for the soldiers and insistence that they have worth, the clones’ gratitude for that, and how that gratitude is undercut by their powerlessness to avoid the fate that’s been literally hard-wired into them. Plus, though I’ve written a lot of Star Wars tales, I’d never had the chance to get inside Yoda’s head. That had been on my bucket list! Yoon Ha Lee (“The Shadow of Umbara,” based on the episodes “Darkness on Umbara,” “The General,” “Plan of Dissent,” and “Carnage of Krell”): I remember the first time I watched the “Umbara arc” — I was shocked that a war story this emotionally devastating was aired on a kids’ show. But then, kids deserve heartfelt, emotionally devastating stories, too. It was a pleasure to revisit the episodes and figure out how to retell them from Rex’s viewpoint in a compact way. I have so much respect for the original episodes’ writer, Matt Michnovetz — I felt like a butcher myself taking apart the work like this! Rebecca Roanhorse (“Dark Vengeance,” based on the episode “Brothers”): I always love a backstory and Clone Wars was the backstory that then became a rich and exciting story all its own. The writing and character development is outstanding and really sucks you into the world. I chose to write the two chapters that reintroduce Darth Maul to the world. We find him broken and mentally unstable, not knowing his own name but obsessed with revenge against Obi-Wan and we get to see him rebuild himself into a cruel, calculating, and brilliant villain. It was so much fun to write and I hope readers enjoy it. Anne Ursu (“Pursuit of Peace,” based on the episode “Heroes on Both Sides”): The Clone Wars creates a space for terrific character development. The attention paid to the relationships between Anakin and Obi-Wan, and Anakin and Ahsoka make for really wonderful and resonant stories, and give so much depth to the whole universe. I was at first a little scared to write Padmé, as her character felt pretty two dimensional to me. But the more I watched her episodes in Clone Wars, the more dimension she took on. She’s such an interesting character — she’s both idealistic and realistic, so when corruption runs rampant in the Senate she doesn’t get disillusioned, she just fights harder. She has an ability to deal with nuance in a way that is rare in the Republic — and it means she’s not afraid to bend a few laws to make things right. In this chapter, the Senate is about to deregulate the banks in order to fund more troops, and Padmé decides to take matters into her own hand and sneak into Separatist territory in order to start peace negotiations. Of course, neither Dooku nor the corrupt clans of the Republic are going to allow for this to happen, so the threats to the peace process, the Republic, and Padmé’s life only grow. This arc is the perfect distillation of Padmé’s character, and it made getting into her head for it fairly simple. But I did watch all the Padmé Clone Wars episodes and read E.K. Johnston’s book about her, as well as Thrawn: Alliances, in which she has a major storyline. I really loved writing her. Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Stories of Light and Dark arrives August 25 and is available for pre-order now.

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #asajj ventress #ahsoka tano #katooni #yoda #captain rex #darth maul #novels #news #long post

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intheshadowofsignificance · 3 years

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The Handmaid’s Tale is stretching my suspension of disbelief to the limit. Spoilers for season 4 below. It’s a wall of text so please be warned.

I can’t insert a cut on mobile so have some space to speed scroll away if you don’t want spoilers.

[[MORE]]

I realize the sheer implausibility of a lot of fiction is what makes it great. I respect the ability of writers to avoid pressure from fans to make everything perfect or explainable. That said, there comes a point where too much plot immunity starts to breakdown the fabric of the story. That’s what’s happening here.

First of all, is it just me or has Gilead gotten immensely soft in season four? I was physically uncomfortable throughout June’s capture scenes because I kept expecting things to get real gory real fast. I’m not complaining about the lack of it, and I understand especially after the recent episode that there are things which impact June much deeper than some of the physical torture ever could, but we are talking about a society who cut out Janine’s eye to make an example of her for talking back. A society that genitally mutilated Emily for being gay. June has lost Gilead several Marthas who will confess everything they know, dozens of their “precious children,” and she gets...waterboarded.

This woman has proven she’ll run away at the first opportunity and inspire a resistance wherever she goes. You’re telling me Gilead really wouldn’t get to a point where they cut off her feet? Burn them until they’re unrecognizable?

Another recurring theme that’s starting to show some wear is the whole “we can’t kill handmaids because they’re a scarce resource” followed almost immediately by killing them. I understand the train couldn’t have been stopped, but for the driver of the bus to start shooting to kill right off? Either handmaids are expendable when they become criminals or they aren’t. Side note: They made it way too easy for the handmaids to run, I’m going to give that somewhat of a pass because maybe Nick had a hand in it. Who can say? But I’m pretty sure I remember Emily being handcuffed at the wrists and ankles on her way to the colonies. They would’ve at the very least done that for fugitives who have run multiple times and resulted in the loss of children, aka leveraging power, and the deaths of countless commanders to this point.

Speaking of Nick, I’m pretty convinced we’re going to find out he’s leading his own secret sect of rebellion among officers headed for “the front.” The guy has, like June, gotten an excessive amount of plot immunity to this point to not have people acting as double agents with him. That kiss in clear view of the bus? You can hide a lot, but being that boldly involved with a traitor in front of witnesses, even if it had just been Lydia? Weird. Now maybe because he’s a man and a trusted one, Lydia’s word wouldn’t stand a chance against his. But there have clearly been rumors that Nick and June are romantically involved. It’s hinted at by other characters all the time and I assume is part of the reason he’s always hanging around when June is dragged back to Gilead. That’s the kind of thing that should, realistically, in a society as strict as this, put him on the wall. At some point Gilead has to be past the point of “making them wish for death is worse than death itself” because someone, somewhere is smart enough to know that, that ideology is going to be what causes them to crumble.

Another thing that’s bothering me: the accommodations of the Waterford’s as war criminals. I can overlook this because their scenes really are interesting and I’m invested in them as characters and in their inevitable comeuppance. However, Serena’s referenced involvement with Nicole or even the idea of her having any hope of it if she can convince a jury she was abused/manipulated/brainwashed is absurd. It has always been absurd that she had access to Nicole in Canada, but now that they have 86 other stolen children, even more so. Obviously they’re not going to send kids back to Gilead even if they’re the product of rape and one biological parent still resides there. They’re shown trying to place those with no relatives in Canada into the foster care system. So WHY are we even entertaining Serena having access to Nicole? This above so much else is implausible to the point of being ridiculous. Fred acknowledges Nicole is no more Serena’s than his. And I can’t help thinking they threw her pregnancy at us to help aid in Serena letting that obsession go. Because seriously there is no way to explain letting that woman be involved with June’s daughter in any way.

Aside from plot immunity, one thing that seriously hurts THT’s credibility is the lack of any sense of time passing. Nick repeatedly references going to the front but it hasn’t happened. If this was really Gilead’s doing would they waste time, and exactly how much has passed since the threat until the actual follow through?

Same way with June’s infected gunshot wound going from oozing pus and not really responding to minimal holistic treatment, to healed enough she can hoist Janine out of a train car.

There’s so much this series does right. The fabric of society is so deeply harrowing and tragic, the characters well rounded and engaging. I love the theme of June’s humanity being rooted so deeply in her maternal love for Hannah and the sense of protection she feels for the teens/kids suffering in Gilead as they are brutalized by grown men. I love that Fred sees through Serena and that they’re both so narcissistic and manipulative and unsettling to the core. I love that the writers know a lot of that existed before Gilead and that they’re both responsible for the way they’ve become as individuals and a couple.

I love that Moira acknowledges her actions are paved in guilt because she’s free and June is suffering. I love that the show doesn’t forget to acknowledge how many people are suffering for June’s choices in such complex ways, and that the alternative to that suffering is compliance or resignation, which is just going to breed more suffering. I love that we see Luke grappling with June’s choices and where they’ve left him too. I love that no one is really made to be a martyr. Deep down, there’s a piece of them all still wondering: what about me? Don’t I matter? Am I going to be okay? And no one really knows.

Having seen THT is renewed not just for the current season, but a fifth, makes me feel like they’re going to push the series to the absolute limit of believability and ruin what had been, despite questionable moments, an amazing run. I really don’t know how much more they’re going to be able to avoid maiming June, killing Nick and Lydia, and a hundred other things. We’ll see.

One of the big spoilers of the trailer was June getting to safety this season, no doubt during the last episode so they can rope us into season 5 where I am praying Hannah hasn’t “reached maturity” yet.

#the handmaid's tale #rant #long post #analysis ish

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