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#i have seen a lot of people say that her storyline was irrelevant and unnecessary but i beg i demand to differ
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My unnecessary and irrelevant reviews about the transformers media I have consumed.
Please let me have this. I was doom scrolling and transformers is my comfort fandom.
G1: I have not watched all of it, I do plan on doing so but I did watch it when I was younger and does invoke nostolgia. I watched it on Teletoon Retro (does that even exist anymore?) ((just googled it, rip teletoon retro)). For some reason I really like the episode The Ultimate Weapon. I am a huge fan of First Aid and it was because of this episode and I have no idea why. Rodimus is the main character of that episode with First Aid just having a very prominent role in the side story of that episode. I really liked the Aerialbots and their storyline with the time traveling and the not knowing if they’re on the right side was really cool. Honestly the animation errors and weird inconsistent story are part of the charm I guess.
RID 2001: another show I’ve only seen tidbits of. I watched this one via random episodes illegally uploaded to YouTube in the early to mid 2010s and now all those videos are taken down. As a lover of camp, this is camp. I love it. Transformers as a concept is pretty camp (which is why I adore it) and I definitely will watch all of this one day. Though Sideburn is cool and all, I do wish he didn’t chase a red sports car every episode. Otherwise he’s one of my favourites cause himbo rights I guess.
Transformers IDW 2005: So... I read the entirety of the idw comics purely because I found out Thundercracker was a screenplay writer and I wanted to read the entire story so I got the complete context of his development from scary fighter jet to an Oscar winner. I was not disappointed, I was met with queer and trans representation of all sorts, a diverse storyline with action filled parts, comedy elements, slice of life, political drama, adventure, horror, and the best road trip through space. Honestly I was not expecting transformers of all things to have queerness represented so casually and quite well in my opinion (though technically they are guilty of bury your gays, I don’t count it cause there was a clear reason for that death) Thundercracker was marked as one of my favourites cause of this series. I did experience a wonderful story because I wanted to see how he got his happy ending. My biggest criticism of idw transformers is that I love their interpretations of characters and sadly I know I’ll probably never get to seen them like that again. But if I want to experience those characters like that, I’ll just re read it I guess.
Transformers Animated: I have watched the entirety of this great show twice and it still love it. Funny characters, a human character that has a purpose, and a fun change to the formula, Transformers Animated has one of my favourite Optimus and made a Bumblebee so lovably loud they had to take away his voice so he wouldn’t become too powerful. Loved all of the characters except the human villains, Headmaster did not age well and I wasn’t in love with Ratchet’s design but his personality more than made up for it. If you want more animated, I love Transformers ReAnimated the void is filled by that series and channel. While I wish it got another season, it’s ending was satisfying enough I guess.
Transformers Prime: Smokescreen is great and was underutilizes -100/10. Just kidding, kind of I really enjoyed Prime. I’ve only watched through it completely once cause when I was a child I did not like the designs since apparently as a child I was a G1 loyalist I guess. Though now Prime has one of my favourite styles that still holds up today. Dramatic story with actual character development, I can over look that the plots a tad slow. I wish Breakdown was utilized more and it also could have benefited from an extra season but the movie wrapped it up much better than animated’s ending. Knockout is an amazing character and I was spoiled while I was watching it that he turns Autobot though I didn’t realize that wasn’t until the literal end of the series. Would’ve like a completely fleshed out Breakdown and Knockout or at least Knockout redemption arc but there’s always fanfiction I guess.
Robots in Disguise 2015: I didn’t hate it? It definitely helped that I watched this before Prime for some reason. I liked the designs, Sideswipe... himbo rights. Biggest flaw is the lack of character growth. I just want nice things for Sideswipe, Strongarm and Fixit. Grimlock was fun, I like Bumblebee trying to be a good leader and Optimus should have stayed dead. The crossover and referenced to Rescue Bots was fun and Blurr and Sideswipe was the rivalry I didn’t know I needed. But the one I really needed was Smokescreen in there too. The ending arc was interesting though not executed the best and Steeljaw did a lot of the heavy lifting for the villain side to a point where they over utilized him and his character suffered as a result. Windblade was not as bad as people online said she was, splitting the group up into two was stupid cause I’m bitter and still don’t want Optimus there. Also long list of underutilization: Denny and Russel Clay, Jazz, all the characters from prime except Optimus and Bee, Jetfire and Jetstorm, More Rescue bots, and many more! Like that girl that’s Russel’s friend that I literally don’t remember because I’m pretty sure the writers forgot about her! Anyways, in retrospect the show probably wasn’t great but I liked it I guess.
Rescue Bots: This show is way better than it needed to be. I actually love the no Decelticons and war. I’m a sucker for slice of life and especially slice of life with a twist. Human villains that were actually interesting, actual character development, continuity (somewhat), great human characters all while being target for children. I’m so happy I watched this show while I was kind of the target age and rewatching it for the third time was great cause some of the science jargon actually made sense to me. Satisfying ending too and honestly it can just appeal to everyone. Love all four of the main rescue bots and constantly wish they made evergreen designs and toys for them so they could at least make cameos in other transformers media. Sometimes it’s nice to have transformers being wholesome I guess.
Rescue Bots Academy: ... I was not the age democratic for this show and I somehow still liked it? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been gravitating to more wholesome content due to current events but it was actually good? Love all the students, I do miss the old crew and characters like Doc Green and Frankie are under utilized and the Burns family is almost nowhere to be found :(. Once again there’s some actual character development and Hot Shot’s mentor relationship with Heatwave is super sweet. Also actually having positive post war Decepticon and Autobot relationships in this children’s show? Woah. Biggest issue is like RID 2015; the lack of continuity and characters completely disappearing. Perceptor was fun and I was not expecting him to appear. And I love me some microscope dude. It was a good send off for the aligned continuity I guess.
Cyberverse: ending too soon. I was about to be upset that bumblebee didn’t have his voice but he had his voice in his head which was great. Episodes like the velocitron one was really good and it definitely got better with each season and peaked in the Quintesson arc and then rolled to the cancellation date. Thundercracker shouldn’t have been killed off but I’m very biased. Seeing the rebuilding of Cybertron was cool. Windblade and Bumblebee had a fun relationship. I really liked this iteration of Grimlock. Perceptor was super interesting but then they did nothing with him after the Quintesson arc which was a shame and I would have liked to see better relationships between the Autobots and Decepticons after the team up. Also wholesome Whirl was fun. Honestly this needed one more season so bad. I just think it could have been great if it got one. But it’s still good I guess.
War for Cybertron: ...let’s see how I feel after Kingdom comes out but right now, meh. For me my favourite transformers characters usually end up being side characters due to me wishing they had more screen time so in this case, Red Alert is great please show me more of Red Alert. I get what all the people are saying about the voice acting and whatever but I can look past it (though please give us Peter Cullen or let the current VC make his own Optimus voice). But one thing is that all the YouTube reviewers be saying that I completely agree with is that it’s dark. Like lighting wise. I occasionally had trouble making out what was happening because it was dark. Honestly my biggest issue isn’t a fault of the show. I like development of multiple characters to be shown so I can fall in love with a multitude of characters but due to short seasons, it makes sense to focus in completely on one character at a time. Siege in my opinion at least let me see more of the background characters rather than Earthrise but I’d probably like Earthwise more if I was a bigger fan of Optimus. I’m going to watch Kingdom but I’m not expecting to be wowed I guess.
In conclusion, I should watch Beast Wars, I’m going to re read the ending of Lost Light again and revel in the melancholic ending I adore and I really like Thundercracker and First Aid. One great thing about transformers and other franchises that have been around for awhile, if you don’t like the current thing, there’s plenty of last media and you probably won’t need to wait too long for the next piece of media you’ll hopefully like.
Please be good idw 2019, I’ve read a bit of you and I have a scrap of hope. Oh please please please be good. Give some characters the Thundercracker treatment.
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deliciousscaloppine · 3 years
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Hot Takes Galore: A brief overview of fandom backlashes that influenced fanfiction writing traditions as I have personally experienced them:
In today’s segment I am going to talk about copyright infringement.
First let me preface this by saying I have only ever been in 3 fandoms, starting from 2008 and I have never been terribly active - like this blog has been the most active I’ve ever been in any fandom ever. I am not going to talk about particular fandom dramas because I am pretty clueless about that. What I am going to talk about is that friction between “reality” and online spaces that brought about changes that are still in effect today in the way fanfiction is written and perceived.
In 2008 as I was entering, nearly every piece of fanfiction had a disclaimer about the author not owning the characters, which were the property of Corporate Entity X, or Author Y, and also not profiting from the work in any shape or form. At the time getting money from writing fanfiction was a gigantic taboo, and almost no one did it, or advertised that they did. 
But as I understand through convention culture printed writing did circulate in exchange for money (zines), and at least in Japan one could sell doujinshis (self-published stories and comics, often within the framework of another work) in certain events. Although this was largely considered “illegal” under copyright laws, and artists could be persecuted or blacklisted from entering the industry if discovered. That’s also why fanartists often to this day may screen where and when their work is viewed, and move to take down reposts, or call others to protest if artworks are circulated without permission outside of the artist’s page.
Older fandom people also hated authors that moved against fanfiction, a big case being Anne Rice, the vampire lady everyone - including me - copies when writing about vampires. And now I am going to talk a little about that.
Usually, writers, just sit somewhere cosy and write, and often they have no idea, absolutely no idea, on how to manage their writing properties - usually a lawyer does that, and lawyers want A Lot Of Money (A brief brush with justice and lawyers over a civil dispute I won, cost me 1000 euros out of nowhere, in a single day, and no I couldn’t avoid it because I was the accused one, so I had to appear with some representation). 
So sometimes, quite often, it’s a lawyer that activates a writer or other artist to move against “smaller” copyright infringements, in order to make bank. And if one suffers such a case, they should make it as apparent as possible to the other party that they have no money, and the pressure will go away immediately. But even MORE OFTEN a small copyright infringement, may lead to a sequence of bigger ones, and ultimately the de facto loss of rights from one’s writing properties, and of course revenue. 
And for a lot of published authors, they just don’t know for how long they can publish things - publishing houses that have them signed can close, book sales can drop, tastes change, personal problems, and anything else may mean that they could find themselves without a source of income at any point in the future, while they are aging and becoming more and more irrelevant. 
A very famous case currently, is that of Alan Dean Foster, the writer who has done some novelizations for movies like Star Wars and Alien, and is no longer receiving revenue from that - while his wife is hospitalized and their family needs the income - because Disney absorbed the company that had signed the contract with him, and chose to not honor the previous contract. To make them pay he will have to go into a huge legal battle with a corporate giant, which he cannot afford. But they still absorb income from these novelizations.
But how does fanfiction tie into that, and Anne Rice’s case (which if memory serves right, also went through a series of personal problems, including her husband’s death during that time). 
So for a lot of writers, fanfiction may be that tiny breach that may threaten their rights in the future from tresspases of distribution networks. Meaning, people write vampire fanfiction based on Anne Rice’s work? What if another publishing house used the template of her works (historical settings, bleeding orifices, religious themes, homosexuality and sexual trauma etc) and produced a royalty free series of such works with a team of professional writers that do not own the work - who often have less rights, like not owning the characters, or the storylines, participating in a very small scale, so their payment goes down etc)
And in this way EVERYONE SUFFERS. Big Name Published Author fades into obscurity and goes into poverty and payroll writers are horrifically abused.  
A lot of hobbyists, and hobbyist writers whose sole dream is to be published in some shape or form, do not really care, and do not concern themselves with the legal aspect of creation, or the technical skill that it takes to produce writing on a consistent basis, which can only happen if you’ve got your basic needs covered. So they might see this type of backlash as inherently privileged. 
But it’s not really a privilege, there has been a global recession in basic working rights for everyone, and lovers of fiction don’t have to condone, of course, attacks against them, but they need to put that kind of backlash in perspective. Someone did write the content you enjoy, THEY ARE NOT DEAD YET, and may have opinions on how it should be managed, especially when it pertains to their livelihood. 
It’s a delicate balance that we all must keep in order to keep corporate regulations out of it.
For instance with the recent danmei explosion The Untamed brought forth, Ao3 was banned in China. Now a lot of you might know that this was caused by some real person fic involving the actor Xiao Zhan, which led to a whole other level of drama. But make no mistake this was a political act to protect the interests of the domestic publishing industry as it prepares to do an international opening that will bring in several billions from foreign markets.
Because Ao3 has been expanding as a platform globally it brings about changes, and in many cases steals readers away from traditional publishing, so it becomes unacceptable economically for a bunch of hobbyists to influence tastes, market mores, and create sensationalism around certain properties out of literally the blue. This is not a good thing for a lot of corporate thinking, they set the product and we are supposed to buy it. We are not supposed to go, it would look greater with a bunch of anal, and then put forth a million words altering the character of the intellectual property.
Why you ask? Again, because another publishing industry might choose to imitate the style of danmei fanfics and produce works that hijack readership, or lead to breach of contracts, making an unsafe environment for workers in this industry (Xiao Zhan’s case.)
Nowadays I see more and more fanfic authors coming out of their shell to ask money for writing in the form of donations, patronage and commissions, as fandom involvement is also becoming vastly monetized. The market of conventions coming into social media platforms. A strange more exists still in which while “legally wrong”, as long as money is not asked on the publishing platform (Ao3), it may not count as copyright infringement. But fanfic authors, may still be treated with hostility for this, for not “deserving” to profit from someone else’s properties, or even worse for “stealing” readership. 
For instance a recent argument I have seen from lgbtq authors, is that they remain unsupported by fandom spaces, who often proclaim themselves as lgbtq or lgbtq friendly (something that is not true), but at the same time they are not looking for published lgbtq stories, or authors, or even treat these with open hostility, or a lot of bias.
Fandom is not comprised from “readers” in the traditional sense, definitely not friends of literature, and it’s free, no one really has to pay anything to read a published fanfic.  So it’s a pretty loose demographic with no set characteristics, and no interest in investing time and money in something for long. It’s an online social activity and not a readers’ movement, highly influenced by peer pressure and branding. It’s basically a gigantic group of people who don’t really do anything for no one, and may develop a parasitic connection to intellectual properties (I am sorry peers, it’s the truth). 
And it’s perhaps the biggest counterculture scene at the moment in the developed world. To this day it treats even its own authors with tremendous suspicion, disregard and dismissal, meaning that even if someone can get some money and recognition locally through writing fanfic they are on thin fucking ice at all times for all the reasons but mostly attracting unnecessary attention to themselves and subsequently the scene.  A pattern that we will see is endemic to all forms of fandom backlashes.
So to this day in contrast with fanart, fan writers may not be compensated for their troubles, but may also be ousted from their domestic professional spaces for writing fanfic that may infringe on their intellectual property. 
The thing is, for me, that fandom culture can become incredibly supportive of corporate practices that harm actual people (writers, they are people too) but when they realize that the same corporate practices may be used against them, it’s too late to realize that it’s not a lottery of who wins by crying more, and by the time that happens, a corporation or industry who has used them to do its dark bidding, can stop catering to them  because ultimately they have become again irrelevant once a well defined demographic of  readers and viewers has been secured.
So if you are going to do counterculture, at least do it right. Be respectful of the writers/authors of the content you consume and mindful of their troubles, do not generate public strife that brings in political regulation in favor of corporate interests. Become interested in writing culture, support your fanfic authors with lasting engagement in their work, even if it escapes the narrow confines of a certain fandom. It’s simple. Eat, live, pray, fuck, or something.
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nellygwyn · 5 years
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Harlots Season 3, Episode 1 - Reaction, thoughts etc.
I am just gonna be as candid as possible about all this, and give you my honest thoughts (albeit borne out of a 3am migraine and period pains) about episode 1. I think I might break my thoughts down by storyline. Spoilers ahead:
• Charlotte Wells - So, initially, I was loving Charlotte. She was the Charlotte I know and love. Even when the Pincher storyline began to unfold and Isaac appeared in her life, I initially thought 'Charlotte is dealing with this in the Charlotte way. He's hateful to her so she laughs at him and plays him at his own stupid game.' Unfortunately, it appears that there is going to be some kind of romance between the two, or at least a sexual relationship, which began to unfold in the last part of the episode. This is a violent pimp, a class of people Charlotte has always hated, who lied to her, choked her and wants to bleed her dry. He threatened the girls in her house and then, he set fire to it, with Nancy and Fanny's baby inside. And this is supposed to be sexy? No. Like, I can't predict how this will ultimately end but I'm sorry, if the season finale isn't a shot of Isaac Pincher dead in the Thames, I really....really am disappointed they decided to sell this relationship as anything other than ooc for Charlotte and illogical. Also, can I just say that bawds and pimps worked with each other all the time? This is why Charlotte should never have BEEN a bawd. Bawds are not the pinnacle of feminism, they were often awful (and if not awful then morally grey) and pimps, that they often worked alongside, were worse. I don't think most of the bawds in the show are wholly bad but they were never wholly good either and presenting them as 'the sisterhood'...hello????
• Isabella - Now you guys know I do not like Isabella. I did like her and then at the end of Season 2, she threw Charlotte and other sex workers to the metaphorical wolves. However, S3 opens a year later and everything is...fine again, apparently? Charlotte forgives her, is probably even having sex with her sometimes. Even Nancy was nice to her, despite how much she riled against her at the end of S2. HOW IN THE HELL have we got here? Isabella's character has kind of done a complete 180 too. She's kind and mild. Maybe they want to make Fitzwells work as a ship but idk about my fellow bi girls or even lesbians out there....how do you feel about a bi woman throwing herself at a sexually perverse violent man and leaving a woman who is kind and affectionate to her in the dust? Is that portrayal something you want? Anyway, Isabella was okay in the episode, nothing super exciting. Sophia was BORING AS HELL and I do not DO NOT care about her elopement. Like...okay? This feels irrelevant and unnecessary?? Also, another historical note: Isabella wanted her friends to give money to Charlotte and her house, right? Their refusal obviously wasn't surprising to me, it was a massive risk on Isabella's part (ooc? Ooc) but when one of the women said 'You want us to give charity to harlots?' in a disgusted tone, I was just thinking like....that's exactly what you all already do. With the Magdalen Hospital and the Foundling Hospital. Late 18th century aristocrats were all about charity to sex workers. Not for the right reasons and not always in the most helpful ways but that was de rigueur. It wasn't the charity part that should've raised that lady's eyebrow, it was the fact Isabella was asking them to fund a brothel essentially.
• Emily Lacey - Her relationship with Hal Pincher is okay but like, again, he's a pimp, less violent than his brother but...birds of a feather flock together! I'm not really sure why she suddenly isn't very ambitious anymore but if she wants a lower middle class keeper? I support her. Also, lol, 'I wanna learn about commerce' as if 'commerce' wasn't also Georgian era slang for 'fucking.'
•Charles Quigley - I haven't forgotten how that little shit behaved at the end of Season 2 but I admit, I felt some sympathy with him or rather, pitied the fact that he was wallowing in his own sorrow. I wonder if he's left London for good...it did seem like they are trying to set up a romance between him and Fanny which...first of all, NO. Second of all, if he has to have a romance with someone that isn't Emily, why not Cherry? She adores him. But I feel as if she's used for comic relief a lot of the time, as if we're supposed to giggle at the fact that 1) a disabled sex worker exists, and 2) that she has quite a strong sexuality as well as having a disability. So maybe we won't see that, idk.
• Harriet - Harriet is based on a real person, a black woman who lived in Georgian London and decided to open a brothel populated purely with sex workers of colour. So I am glad they are finally getting into that storyline for her. We only met Rani properly, out of all her girls, and I adore her. Honestly, Harriet's storyline actually seems like it is gonna be great but also very minor, which is disappointing.
• Lydia - I hated the Bedlam storyline when it began and I am still unsure of it now. HOWEVER, since that's how things stand, I have to really praise Lesley Manville's acting power for making me root for Lydia and making me want her to be free again and bring a semblance of (evil) normality back to Covent Garden. What I REALLY hated was Catherine's intersecting storyline. Listen, lots of young girls got sent to Bedlam in the Georgian era but not usually for having sex with a servant. I know we often think of the past as being rife with doctors diagnosing sexually active women with hysteria and the like, but that wasn't really a thing at this point. In fact, attitudes towards the differences between men and women were just teetering on changing. Women were still seen as naturally hot blooded, men their prey at this point, and it wouldn't be until later on in the 18th century and into the 19th century that women were seen as naturally sexually modest and subservient and men, the hot blooded, libertine ones. It just feels...so dumb. I mean, I liked Catherine, I just want to know why that reason was used to chuck her in Bedlam. You know what might have actually been interesting? If she had some kind of depression or mental disability. Or even just for being a little weird, or non-conforming. They threw lower class women in for all those things and more.
• Lucy - One of the highlights of the episode, for me, was Lucy's storyline which intersects with new characters, Elizabeth Harvey and her son, Fredo (who is gorgeous and so foppish and ugh...it is a shame his character seems solely attracted to men because I...am a little bit in love). I was a little annoyed that Lucy wanting to be a bawd was presented as some kind of...regular ambition for a sex worker? As if being a bawd naturally followed being a courtesan. This isn't true. It's not like getting your undergraduate degree and then going to do your master's. Bawds were a very specific thing and most courtesan didn't want to essentially exploit women in that way. Anyway, after that fiasco, she does indeed go to buy a house and throws her lot in with Elizabeth and Fredo who want to open a mollyhouse. So, Lucy is a molly bawd now which to me, is a lot less awful than being a regular bawd. I'm excited to see where this goes, Elizabeth and Fredo were some WELCOME additions for me, along with Rani. Unfortunately, there were a lot of allusions to sodomy being a capital crime and Mrs May has a share in the house too so...I'm as worried about the outcome as I am excited to see mollyhouses explored.
All in all? I did enjoy the episode, perhaps because I was warned prior about some of the unsavoury things that happened and had time to prepare. I'm obviously very upset about the whole Charlotte and Isaac thing which does appear to be the dominant storyline, and that's not good. This season doesn't really understand what continuity is and Isabella walking into a gentleman's club to tell all the men there that she had a child out of wedlock made me laugh out loud because it was so absurd. Violet, Amelia, Florence and Justice Hunt have disappeared without a trace. Will and Jacob will be in the season but weren't in episode 1 (apparently they are in Scarborough, boxing, which....wig). BUT (and it's a very tentative 'but') this episode had enough small saving graces to spur me on to continue, if only to see Fredo say 'It's a hanging offence so it pays a lot, darling' again, and the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) costumes. Am I disappointed overall? Yeah. Do I think it is an irredeemable season? No, not yet. Watch this space.
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zayadriancas · 4 years
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Bughead, Veggie, Kevin/Moose, Clannah, Justin/Jessica, Tony/Caleb, Jaitlin, Janny, Spemma, Jellie, Imogeli, Cake, Frankston, Zasha, Mola, Shiny, Shawngela, Rucas, Charlie/Riley, Drianca & Zaya
Thank you! :)
Bughead: They’re definitely one of my favorite Riverdale Ships. I love how supportive they are of each other and I think they have the strongest connection on the show. I think Season 4 has made me love them even more. The writers I think write this ship the best because they just keep getting better. I just wish Jughead would come back to Riverdale because the Stomewall story is getting kind of boring IMO and it’s done more harm for him than good, but I’m glad him and Betty haven’t been affected by the distance. In fact I think they’ve gotten stronger. Not much else to say lol other than they’re super adorable and I love them :)
Veggie: They had great chemistry and I didn’t mind it as a temporary thing, but it was clear Veronica wasn’t as invested in the relationship. If both of them had been fine with just friends with benefits it would have been fine but it was clear Reggie wanted more than that. It sucks that it seemed to ruin their friendship since the one scene they’ve had this season was Veronica questioning Reggie on doing something (I don’t remember what exactly) in the episode we find out about his abuse. Oh they had a scene with Archie and Munroe too but they don’t really seem to be friends anymore and that’s a shame but maybe that will change.
Kevin/Moose: This was my favorite Kevin pairing and it sucks that it ended as soon as they got closer, like all of Kevin’s relationships. I didn’t like the Kevin kind of making him feel bad about not being out of the closet but i know he just felt like Moose wasn’t serious about him, he wasn’t trying to be pushy or hurtful. Anyway I wish that Moose went back to Riverdale instead of the other school, at least he had friends there that could have supported him and he wouldn’t be made to feel like he had to leave.
Clannah: I really only liked them in season 1. They had a couple cute scenes in season 2 but mostly the writing for them was really bad in s2 and I saw you said the same thing in your answer and I agree about Clay putting her on a pedestal and then acting irrationally when she didn’t live up to his “perfect” image of her. It’s what made me dislike Clay in season 2. Guys like Zach and Justin definitely were flawed but they didn’t hold Hannah to that ridiculous standard or judge her. I do sympathize with Clay having a hard time coping with her death but that still didn’t excuse his behavior.
Justin/Jessica: I feel guilty for shipping them for obvious reasons and they’re definitely problematic but it’s clear that they love each other and Justin never wanted to hurt her. He handled things awfully but it wasn’t because he was evil like Bryce. He did deserve consequences and I wouldn’t have blamed Jessica if she never forgave him but she did and since then he’s made her happy. Honestly it’s mostly season 3 that I ship them, but I didn’t dislike them before that even though I definitely acknowledged that Justin fucked up.
Tony/Caleb: They’re super cute. I don’t have many strong feelings but I’m glad Tony found someone that makes him happy and has been a good support system for him.
Jaitlin: I LOVE THEM. I really need to rewatch DJH and DH. They’re super sweet and I will never forgive the writers for what they did to them. Well actually I blame Kevin Smith more because apparently he got to help write that episode and he had a crush on Stacie, so. Anyway, I definitely believe Joey and Caitlin belonged together. They had so much history and they made each other so happy. I don’t have much else to say but they deserved their happy ending.
Janny: I really like them together. I do think they could have had better build up/development but they worked despite their differences and Jay definitely treated Manny the best out of all her boyfriends. I liked the softer side she brought out in Jay. I’m glad they were endgame :)
Spemma: Lol what’s funny is they actually could have worked if they had build up. Not as a marriage unless they had been a thing since the beginning but as a couple they wouldn’t have been terrible if it wasn’t so random and rushed. At least it’s confirmed that it was a mistake and I believe they were only still married in NC as a joke to piss us off. But yeah it was nice that they made each other happy and like if they had just hooked up in the movie as a rebound for Spinner and maybe had a friends with benefits type thing that would have made sense. Or if they started dating in season 7 or 8 and were endgame but NOT married then fine. But I’ve literally never seen a much more rushed couple on the show and that’s saying something.
Jellie: I’m assuming this is Jimmy/Ellie. They were cute but I wasn’t the biggest fan of Jimmy and I didn’t like that Ellie was rude to Hazel especially since she didn’t even like Jimmy back. I would have much rather had them get together instead of Jesse/Ellie(the inferior Jellie lol), and rather them instead of Jimash getting together again, but I didn’t really care about them either way.
Imogeli: They had great chemistry and I liked their friendship, but Eli treated Imogen awfully in the first half of season 11 and during their short lived relationship in the second half and I’m glad they realized they were better as friends. I still like them better than Eclare though lol.
Cake: They’re really cute, I didn’t ship them but I had no problem with their relationship, especially after rewatches because I didn’t really like the way Clare was written the first time I watched s11. I hate that the writers hard on for Eclare fucked up this relationship. Even though I didn’t ship them at least they were healthy and happy and Jake was actually a good guy. If they had just broken up then fine it happens but their parents clearly only got married so they couldn’t get back together, so they could go back to Eclare and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Frankston: They were really cute in season 13, but Winston became such a asshole in season 14, first with being the blackmailer (sure he said it was doing it to help Frankie but it just made things worse) and then cheating on her, and with her best friend of all people, and had no intention of telling her and made Lola feel like it was her fault. And then basically calling Frankie crazy for not trusting him right away. The Logan thing I can understand being upset but not only did Frankie not actually cheat but she was actually honest about it. But Winston said what she did was “worse”. Fuck him, it’s not like she planned on falling for Logan who just used her, she was genuinely just trying to be a good friend at first. So yeah I’m glad Frankie didn’t take him back in Next Class, he may have been nicer but she still deserves better.
Zasha: I really like them. I’m glad Zoe found someone who loves her for who she is and has her as a first choice. They’re super sweet and adorable and I’m glad they were endgame. I still wish Gracevas could have happened instead, but at least Zoe was able to find someone after that mess of a storyline.
Mola: I really like them. The only thing I don’t like is Miles cheating on Tristan, and Miles telling her to take the bus was really harsh. And not seeing him reach out after he found out she had an abortion was fucked. I don’t think he meant to hurt her though and he did apologize for how everything happened. But other than that I think Miles and Lola were actually a good match. It was just bad timing. I wish they could have at least talked once in season 4.
Shiny: I really love them. They’re super sweet and adorable together and I’m glad they were written much better in season 4 because I was disappointed how they were written in season 3. I didn’t really expect them to have sex but Tiny was super sweet. I’m glad they were endgame, sadly they probably wouldn’t have been if the show had continued, I guess that’s one good thing about it lol :P
Shawngela: They were adorable! I don’t have many thoughts (I need to rewatch BMW too lol) but I definitely think they were a great match and it’s sad they didn’t get a happy ending, I definitely think they deserved it. One thing I didn’t like though is how they repeatedly compared their relationship to Cory and Topanga, like they were their own relationship they didn’t need to be like anyone else. But other than that I did like them a lot together.
Rucas: They were my favorite GMW ship, they were super adorable and I’m mad the writers neglected their relationship when they finally got together. They wasted so much time on the “triangle” with Maya that was stupid and pointless. Like as much as I loved Rucas the show shouldn’t have revolved around all that, like BMW had two major relationships(3 if you count Cory/Eric’s parents) with a few minor ones here and there that never meant anything, and none of them ever had love triangles (except Cory/Lauren/Topanga but that lasted like 3 episodes and wasn’t dragged on for half a season). I get GMW was geared to a younger audience but it still wasn’t necessary. But I still do like Rucas and still think they’re sweet even though I don’t care about the show anymore.
Charlie/Riley: Weird. Pointless. Unnecessary. Like they are so irrelevant I literally do not even have any other way to describe them lmao.
Drianca: 😍😍😍. My 2nd favorite ship of all time! My babies!!!! I love their build up, their chemistry, how much they love and care about each other and the lengths they went to protect each other ❤️❤️❤️ Drew helped Bianca get her life back on track and was there for her when she had no one. They were always super happy together and SCREW THE WRITERS FOR BREAKING THEM UP. I get people move on and that long distance sometimes puts those things in perspective, but they were doing just fine!!!! Like maybe Alicia couldn’t come back to the show but they were doing long distance just fine. Maybe if they didn’t stretch the seniors year out for 80 years they could have graduated in s13 and they could have been endgame. But nooo they just had to give Drew unnecessary relationships that just dragged down his character!!!! Like Clew was fine but they didn’t even happen for real and then Drew got screwed over by her mistaking the baby as his and ugh!!!! Anyway, I love Drianca so much, everything about them is amazing and they were made for each other ❤️❤️❤️ and they’re back together now the writers can’t do shit about that :)
Zaya: MY BABIES😍😍😍 my first favorite ship of all time! Their build up was AMAZING AND WORTH THE WAIT👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 They have amazing chemistry, a beautiful friendship, they clearly love each other to pieces, they never gave up on each other even when they were with other people, and that gross NC storyline only happened because the writers hated Zig for whatever reason. That never would have happened otherwise!! Zaya is just, beautiful. Season 14 was amazing because of them. Season 4/18 did a great job bringing them back together. I’m sad they didn’t kiss but oh well, WE GOT PROM ZAYA AND CUDDLY ZAYA AND THEY SAID THEY ALWAYS PICTURED GOING TO PROM TOGETHER LIKE 😍😍😍. So yeah fuck the haters ZAYA IS BEAUTIFUL ZAYA IS AMAZING AND ZAYA IS ENDGAME!!!!!
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manicbeans · 4 years
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(1) This is going to be a self-indulgent, wordy ask lol. I just heard a cover of Oasis’ Wonderwall in a Renault Clio car commercial featuring a lesbian storyline (the storyline is irrelevant to my question but I’m mentioning it in case you want to watch the commercial, it’s quite good), and I was thinking about the lyrics of the song. It’s funny, because I actually had a dream about the song last night and I went on a half-asleep, lucid dreaming stream of consciousness sort of thing, thinking
(2) about the line, “maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me.” I thought of all of the people that I could personally apply the lyric to and I was wondering if the concept itself is selfish, i.e. the concept of someone “saving” you or I guess maybe even the expectation of someone doing so. like there was this girl that I was in love with last year and I can say without a doubt that she saved me. It was something that I frequently thought about whenever we were together too, “this girl
(3) doesn’t know how completely she’s saving my life.” Honestly the idea (or act or occurrence) of it made me love her more (which is probably unhealthy but that’s another story). Overall my feelings for her were just very very intense, but I tried desperately not to be too overbearing (which I didn’t entirely succeed at, which also again, is another story). I also made a point to not tell her that she was “saving” me because I thought it would put an unnecessary and unfair amount of pressure on
(4) her and I didn’t want her to feel like she was responsible for my happiness. We were just friends during all this by the way, which is maybe important to note. All this to ask: what do you think of the whole “saving” concept? And is it ever fair to tell someone that they’re “saving” you, even if you truly do feel that way?
First off I have seen that lesbian car commercial and it made me cry
And that’s an interesting question, I’ve been on both ends of that (being saved by people and being told that I was “saving” someone) and I don’t think it’s ever healthy, romantic or not. One of my old roommates was a close friend and we were both dealing with a lot of mental health issues but I became responsible for her life for a few solid months (to the point that she was released from the hospital into my care) and it was way too much pressure. I still get anxiety about turning my phone off for long periods of time because for a year there was a real risk that if I missed a call or a text from her she could die. I think if you feel like you’re being saved by someone but don’t tell them that’s better, but that’s dangerous because relationships are unpredictable and you don’t want to be in danger if they move away or otherwise disappear. I think if you’re having those feelings a lot it’s important to think about what kind of support you’re looking for and how you can make it more sustainable. Everyone needs a network of folks to fill different roles in their lives and putting all of that on one person is always going to end badly.
It’s cheesy but in the end I really think you have to save yourself, you have to know that you can always find new friends or new relationships and be confident enough in yourself to handle those transitions. If you’re always looking for something in other people then there will always be too much pressure put on your relationships. I’ve been really sad this fall about drifting apart from people or friends who are moving away and I’m trying to remember that it’s not a coincidence that I found those people, the person that I am and the things I do brought us together and that’ll keep happening. 
I don’t know if I answered your question but that’s what I’ve got!
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dominicvail · 5 years
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thjslove replied to your post
“do you think this could be end in one of them getting killed and...”
omg what CM receipts? ��
@thjslove cm is one of the most convoluted behind the scenes messes i have ever witnessed and i am just Astounded till this day like, i’ll bullet point for you because i Genuinely will be here writing this for 3 hours if i do details;
think of all the female cast members that have ever been on cm?? yeah?? a lot! well, the only ones who left in non suspicious circumstances? Lola Glaudini (elle) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (kate). Literally. The only ones. 
one time (between seasons 8 and 9) they almost cancelled the show because aj cook and kirsten vangsness decided they didn’t like that their male costars were making $70,000 more PER EPISODE than they were (this was back when they did 24 eps a season so like... i’m not gonna do the math but that is A Lot Of Money). (they renewed it last day of renewals, it was the same year cote de pablo walked from ncis because of the same reason, legit the only reason they got anywhere was b/c they said ‘we both get raises or we both walk’. 
btw while this was happening, minus Moore, the rest of the male cast was holding up negotiations so they got perks on top of being paid over 50% more than the women. 
this sequence is the kicker
u know season six, the jj and prentiss absences??? 
it was because they both got fired, listed as ‘creative decisions’ (that’s important later), which basically seemed to amount to ‘we want both less women and for her to be younger than both of you’. 
they fired aj cook flat out as her contract had expired that year, in the middle of a 2 parter, and didn’t even want to let her do an exit???? they legit had to fight for the right to have her to film an exit episode (they negotiatied 3 episodes, one for finishing the 2 parter, one exit, and one for when prentiss exited). 
brewster’s contract had Not expired (also important later), they just only decided she should be in 8 episodes. 
it’s important to the sequence of events that i mention outside influences, b/c the cm fans were PISSED. There was a straight up public outcry, i have Never seen a response like it in my many years of obsessive TV watching. People were Very fond of Prentiss and JJ and were Not impressed they were being booted as unnecessary to the narrative, those pesky creative decisions!!! the petitions and public support towards them were pretty incredible actually. 
by that point there wasn’t much that could be done about Cook, but seeing the response CBS kept making Brewster film Way more than those 8 episodes she got slotted for actively dragging her along, Still fired but p much unable to find other work realistically??? b/c they kept calling her back in???
public support was still Overwhelmingly on the actresses side. 
To the point that CBS started ardently claiming the actresses were fired for Monetary reasons. Yeah, they straight up lied, and still lie about it today. I have seen cbs affiliate websites print said lie bluntly in their articles (i no longer read cbs affiliate anything). 
I listed the pay scandal first for perspective on the money lie. At that point i think the men on the cast were wearing about $110,000 an episode, and it got out Cook was earning about £50,000 an ep, and we never heard about Brewster’s salary But when i say she made a Big Deal over finally getting paid as much as the men in the past couple of years i mean it, so we can assume she was also being paid a lot less. My point being, if they needed to save money, it would have been more profitable for them to fire One man on the show than two women. They pay gap was that much. 
so they lied, still lie, about why they fired them and it wasn’t even a good lie. 
ANYWAY
i know the show’s writing isn’t really applicable but Prentiss and Seaver  were never meant to be main characters on the show together, where they dragged out prentiss’ exit, they overlapped and Rachel Nichols had very little to do. 
Anyway, by the time the late eps of the season were airing (and i assume they looked at how many viewers cut loose when brewster left) cbs straight up rang up aj cook and asked her to sign back on (why she was in the last ep despite only being hired for 3 eps that season). She said she hated them but she had a young kid at the time and regular work that was local was helpful (plus, u know, i bet it was a great ego boost).
the season finishes airing, it goes on hiatus with the cast listed 4 season 7 as the men, garcia, jj and seaver. 
u know how i mentioned paget had a contract for s6 still but they cut her episodes down??? Well, CBS used the fact that they wouldn’t let her work on the show anymore despite being signed on as evidence that she was breaching contract if she didn’t go back as a regular for season 7. They threatened to sue her for breach of contract. The only reason prentiss was in s7 was because they used what they did against her that she had no power over to threaten her. So, u know, super nice. 
meanwhile, they fire rachel nichols, don’t bother to actually tell her they’d done it!!! and she found out on fucking twitter (and rachel is such a nice person, and she was absolutely vilified and abused by every idiot on the internet too thick to realise none of the above was her fault jeez). 
so s7 happens w/ the same cast as before, but brewster will Only work to contract and refuses to sign on again for s8. Understandable, tbh. 
they hire jeanne tripplehorn, fandom is disgusting as usual, like, absolutely vile, not surprised just disappointed. 
at the end of season 9 (they have 2 year contracts so like.. it was the end of her contract), despite everything in the  storyline process indicating otherwise and how much of a farce for her character what went down was... Blake left???? No more Jeanne???
Not one peep from bts over what happened.
if that sounds suspicious to you, it is, one of the crew members let slip they’d all been gagged and were not allowed to talk about it. So cbs learnt it’s lessons in as such that they learnt to hide their shitty actions rather than not do anything shitty.
p sure there was another pay scandal in here somewhere too??? 
in terms of The Gay(tm), Reid was like, conceptualised as bi from the get go but that thing in season one with Lila happened so the execs said he could not possibly be bisexual. Yeah. Yeah u read that right. Most ppl laugh at that one and say uhm do you not know what bi is??? but honestly it was just an excuse they knew full well what they were doing imo
why? they did it again! the writers, producers and Brewster all agreed on a scene where an episode opens w/ prentiss waking up in bed with another woman, guess who nixed it!!!! cbs. They also put a gag order on That little fact too! Kirsten Vangsness, bless her, did a podcast a few years ago on afterellen (before it got fuckawful and was with it’s original owners) and, i’d say ‘let slip’ but she knowingly dropped that truth bomb knowing full well she shouldn’t have. I love her. 
lately they’ve made brewster do “interviews” with some of those cbs affiliates where they try and get points??? for saying prentiss was gonna be gay??? like they’re not the ones removing the rep from the show??? and expecting a pat on the back for... refusing to have any kind of gay rep in a show that is by this point conspicuously straight (not that LA isn’t, but it’s not nearly as bad as cm). 
the whole mess with Gibson is... Wild b/c as much as i Loathe the dude he supposedly attacked cbs would not just fire their white guy show lead for no reason and i didn’t see any above the level sites claim any funny business there, but he got fired and cbs rang up Brewster and asked her to be the show lead which, honestly, after being fired for being old and irrelevant must have been AMAZING.
she also takes the time to point out to anybody who asks about her and aj being fired for money reasons that no, it was not about money at all. She basically calls her bosses out for being liars in public interviews frequently and it’s Amazing. 
i’m sure there’s more crap but i’m not recalling it rn
honestly cm bts drama is Wild and this doesn’t even get into the Patinkin drama (which while drama, is not actually anything to do with cbs). 
Interestingly enough, it’s super hard to find out all this stuff unless u were in the fandom the whole time because they’ve bloody lied So Much it’s all everyone even believes anymore. It’s disgusting. 
Still can’t believe  ncis:la’s female cast has done this well for so long???? These are just CM’s reciepts, they have a history of doing this stuff over and over on multiple shows, i know of it as far back as when trek tng was airing in the 80′s and can name more in between. 
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kdramaxoxo · 6 years
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Come And Hug Me - A K-Drama Review
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--This Review Contains No Spoilers until under the cut--
About This Show: ‘Come And Hug Me’ Is the tragic love story between a serial killers son and the daughter of two of his victims. Their painful past shapes their lives and haunts them as they try to heal. 
The first part of this review is SPOILER FREE for those who have not seen the show. Under the cut (or because tumblr sometimes doesn’t show a cut - under the “spoiler warning” section) I’ll get into a few specifics that affected my overall thoughts about the drama.
Why You Should Watch:
The lead pair’s tragic and beautiful storyline: One thing I’ve learned after watching ‘Come and Hug’ me is that I love me some angsty romance with a traumatic backstory (though I figured that out after loving ‘Just Between Lovers.’). Na Moo and Nak Won are childhood loves, and continue to be drawn to one another due to their shared pain and unmistakable chemistry. They both have PTSD because of Na Moo’s serial killer father and his activites. There is a LOT of high intensity gazing and tearful reunions. These two make the perfect OTP as children AND adults (the casting is impeccable!), and seeing them together often brought tears to my eyes. They have shared trauma, though from completely different sides of The Event, and that made their relationship even more special. I loved them and wanted to watch them heal: Top 5 OTP!
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Fascinating Back Story and Storytelling Style: Nature Vs. Nurture - The set up of Na Moo’s family and the question of whether or not you are born a monster or become one, is the backdrop of ‘Come and Hug Me.’ When Nak Won’s family is torn apart because her parents are murdered in front of her (this is not a spoiler if you watch the first couple episodes), the show slowly reveals bits and pieces of what’s happened, mixed in with beautiful memories between the two leads. The k-drama feels like a mysterious psychological thriller for half, and an intense romance for the other half.
Fleshed Out Characters: There are so many interesting characters in ‘Come and Hug Me!’ Each person has independent motives and agency, so you can’t  tell who is “bad” and who is “good” for quite a while.  One of the ways to tell if a writer is doing their job, is if you are empathetic to flawed people, and you will be! People make choices, carry regrets and either work through those feelings, or shape their lives destructively because of them. No one is perfect (except of course our lovely Nak Won)
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Additional Thoughts About ‘Come And Hug Me’ 
When I watched the first several episodes of this drama, I was so struck by it’s brilliance that I thought for sure it would receive my very first 10/10 rating score. However, there were a few style choices toward the end that I didn’t necessarily have a problem with per say, but it affected my rating a bit.
Below are the spoiler parts so skip the rest of this post :-)
---Warning: Spoilers ahead---
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Healing Quietly or Through Action - A Style Choice: I really wanted everyone who was affected by Yoon Hee-Jae to heal while he rotten in prison. His worst nightmare was to be irrelevant and it would have been poetic justice. But, the writers obviously felt they needed more action-y bits, so the end of the drama features Yoon Hee-Jae's crazy prison escape where he creates multiple repeats of the same trauma to the families affected. This felt extremely unnecessary (not to mention the way he escapes prison and the lack of police protection nonsense made no sense.) I did not need these precious babies to be thoroughly tortured AGAIN in the exact same way. That seemed a bit heavy-handed to me. Other mutuals loved that the leads got to verbally tell him off in person and WIN which is totally fair. I mean it wasn’t boring or anything...I just wanted it to be a little less obvious and a more intellectual kind of healing (personal preference).
Filler Towards the End: I’m one of those people that LOVED all of the angsty staring and crying and repeated past scenes throughout ‘Come and Hug Me.’ However toward the very end, it actually did get to be too much. I could tell because I stopped crying when I’d see the scenes, meaning they didn’t feel as genuine. 
Amazing Ending and amazing actors - all of them!! I LOVED the ending and the cast was perfect. That’s all I’ll say about that!
In Conclusion: An almost perfect K-Drama. If you’re not into angst or melodrama, you might not like this one, but it was a perfect fit for MY heart parts :-) If they hadn’t allowed the killer to escape prison in the last part of the show, 'Come and Hug Me’ would have gotten a perfect 10/10 from me.
Rating: 9/10
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purplepingupenguins · 6 years
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Let’s take a minute to discuss the homophobia and double standards in the Star Wars Fandom...
Okay, so, recently I made this post:
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Which unsurprisingly got quite a few notes quite quickly. But also, was met with comments like these:
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And as an lgbt+ person with chronic fatigue I'm pretty good at picking my battles and knowing when to not start drama, actually, that's a complete lie I will call you out on your shit no matter how shit I feel.
So, this is me calling out the homophobia in the star wars fandom. That's right kids, I'm calling you homophobic.
A special shout out to the folks who made this even possible @freddie-and-i-got-stayingpower @zeminon @natenko @brandong50
Firstly, I've seen a lot of things about how his sexuality isn't even hinted at so it's wrong to call him queer and I'm like.... huh??? So just because a character hasn't explicitly kissed or fucked another character of the same gender on screen then they can't be queer. And I know, you only care about lgbt characters when they do make out on screen so you can fetish them but that is a whole other issue.
90% if not more, of characters in media don't explicitly state their sexuality and because of that it's automatically assumed that they're straight and saying otherwise is forcing labels and a sexuality on them. News flash folks: if your adamant on making him het then you're forcing a sexuality on him too.
Yes, other than a lot of looks and subtext (flirting) nothing has actually been outright said that Poe has an interest in men. But also nothing has been said about him liking women either but you're all perfectly happy for Poe and rey to happen.
As the delightful first comment asked: why does it matter? Because Disney has never had a main lgbt+ relationship or character in movies before. 
Star wars, where people can wave around laser swords and fly spaceships but can't kiss a person of the same gender. 
Star wars claims to be progressive and at times, it has. Carrie Fisher was the first female character I ever saw pick up a gun and save herself. She was the first female character I saw that didn't need a relationship with a man to be complete but she just wanted one. Star wars new trio is a Latino man, A black man and a woman and that in itself is very important. But still isn't able to treat them with the basic respect they deserve.
Lgbt+ kids deserve to watch their favourite movies and feel just as powerful as everyone else. It’s as important as Wonder Woman is for women. It’s as important as Black Panther is for black people. But LGBTQ+ people don't get that, especially in movies because society doesn't want our sexualities to rub off on kids. Because they don't want their kids to be gay. Because they think being gay is bad.
"Stop trying to shoehorn lgbt into everything"
Hahahahahahahaha I’m sorry, what the fuck did you say?? I can’t hear you over how ridiculous that sentence actually is. It’s straight people who time and time again shoehorn new characters into plots in the hope that fandoms will love the new het couple over the baited queer one so producers don’t have to go through with having decent representation. For example, those that have seen the Last Jedi, Rose, I love her to pieces don’t get me wrong, but I do not love her relationship with Finn, not as a romance. They were such good friends throughout the entire movie and then bamn! Forced het romance!! 
That kiss was so unnecessary that even the straightest of straights agree that it was forced. Not only did it ruin a perfectly good on-screen friendship between a man and a woman but it also showed just how shitty the writers and producers really are. That they’re so desperate to take attention away from a healthy, interracial, mlm couple, a couple that their entire cast and the majority of their fandom supports that they’re putting entire plots and storylines on the line.
“Jesus Christ everything has to be about lgbt these days. sick of it.” 
Firstly, you're on tumblr. What the fuck do you expect? Secondly, you have a completely empty blog just to spread your homophobia, that’s childish af. Thirdly, LITERALLY, NOTHING IS ABOUT LGBT THAT’S THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT! Every single straight person who whines about “everything’s so gay now” “I can’t watch anything without it being all about lgbt” TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE WATCHING AND WHERE YOU’RE FINDING IT. BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST. 
Nobody is trying to make everything lgbt+, especially star wars, because if it was then we wouldn’t have han and leia and they’re iconic af, even if han is totally bi... okay, i’ll stop. But the point is, we’re not trying to make everything lgbt but most things are naturally lgbt+. One in four people are gay. Just gay. Think about how many characters are in Star Wars? It’s not unrealistic for some of them to be gay. In fact, it’s completely more than likely. Whether it’s Luke, Poe, Finn, Rey, Han, Leia or old Ben Kenobi, someone in that galaxy far far away is gay whether you like it or not.
I’ve seen a lot of people also saying that Star Wars isn’t even about romance, it’s about friendship and while, yes, you’re not wrong. Romance has never been a small part of it either. Han and Leia are still one of the most iconic straight white couples ever. Padme and Anakin’s romance was what started this whole mess in the first place and literally not a single person ever complained about either of those relationships.. So when you say that you don’t want it focussing on romance over friendship. What you’re really saying is that you’d rather it focussed on friendship than a gay romance.
“Stop with that lgbt crap”
That lgbt crap as you so eleoquently put it is literally mine and billions of other people’s lives. How about you stop with your homophobic crap? That’ll work out a lot better for us all?
Lastly, exactly who is it hurting?
Who is watching a healthy interracial queer relationship, or even just a non-white queer man on their screen and is hurt by it? Nobody. 
Giving LGBTQ+ people a voice hurts nobody. Seeing a gay character is not going to turn your child gay, just like seeing millions of straight characters on screen hasn’t magically turned me straight, because that’s not how it fucking works.
What hurts people is silencing that voice. Calling it s*upid and childish and irrelevant, that’s hurting people. And I know, that if you’re silencing these voices that you probably don’t care but a lot of people do. It matters to more people than you could possibly understand. This sort of content has the power to change someone’s life for the better and if that makes you and your homophobic lifestyle uncomfortable for a couple of hours. Then I really don’t give a flying fuck. 
If you don’t like it. Don’t watch the movies.
Stormpilot isn’t hurting anyone. If you wanna hate on a ship that is the symbolism of abuse then go shit on the r*ylo shippers, because that’s the real issue in the star wars fandom at the minute. 
TL;DR: Stop invalidating lgbt+ voices by mocking them and calling them childish. Stop spreading your homophobia. If you don’t ship finnpoe, okay, move on. LGBTQ+ people deserve representation like women deserve wonder woman and black people deserve black panther.
Why are you all so adamant that it’s wrong for us to force queerness on poe or finn or luke but you’re all happy to force heterosexuality on rey who has shown no real interest in a relationship besides hugging finn.
Did I miss anything?
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seyaryminamoto · 7 years
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What do you think about the plot of Smoke and Shadow? And what do you about Azula's role in it?
I don’t like the plot of Smoke and Shadow, and I like Azula’s role in it even less than the plot :’D do you want me to go fully in depth? Because… that’s gonna be very, very long.
The plot of Smoke and Shadow may be one of the worst in the comics so far. While I hear people complain about The Promise and how it handled many serious topics, it literally picked up after the show to answer a question everyone kept asking: what happens now that the Fire Lord was defeated? How does this world start to be peaceful after 100 years at war?
There are key problems to the whole execution, yes, there’s the whole conflict everyone has had with how colonization was handled, the whole subplot with Aang and the Air Acolytes was very annoying, especially with the first group of girls who were appropriating his culture just the same, but even more disrespectfully than the ones who did it later, and yet Aang somehow lashed out at the second ones but not the first… and there’s even more problems, but yes. The Promise has issues. But it was a story that at least felt worth telling.
The Search has SO MANY EXECUTION PROBLEMS… but it was the story everyone wanted to hear. It was worth telling, even if what they told was… really disappointing. I take issue with most everything in the Search, I’m not going to lie, but the idea of explaining Ursa’s mystery is still good and worth exploring.
But then we get to the Rift. And the Rift has a problem the first two stories didn’t have: it feels irrelevant. It didn’t really achieve something important for characters, you could have simply had a short comic with Toph coming home, her parents are still reluctant to accept her, something bad happens, she saves them again, they see her with her students, they realize she’s really that strong and that they should be proud of her. There. Takes less than 10 pages. But instead we took an entire trilogy to have Toph doing basically what I just summarized, only with a spiritual crisis in the middle, and a bunch of subplots that weren’t all that interesting. The subplots are especially useless because their ties to the future of the Avatar world seem to be comic exclusive: if you said Satoru is the father of one of Toph’s kids, he’d be relevant. But he hasn’t been confirmed as such. Is he that important in her life? Her refinery partnership with her dad sure shows she fixed her relationship with him: such refinery or partnership have no effect in her character or legacy in LOK as we know it. Why did it matter?
This is the same thing that happens to Smoke and Shadow. It introduced and then resolved a lot of problems, but the trilogy opened and closed while leaving the very same ends untied at the end: we don’t know if Mai and Zuko are officially together again after she broke up with Kei Lo. Kei Lo also wasn’t a serious obstacle until this comic begins (in her comic book day story, she only dates him once and ends everything with him because he’s with the New Ozai Society, so it wasn’t like she was with him all along after ending with Zuko). So, the whole problem of this love triangle really is only relevant in this trilogy because it was introduced and resolved within the comic’s allotted page count, just the same in the Free Comic Book story.
Azula? She came and went, was last seen in the Search running into a forest and wasn’t found again, Smoke and Shadow we have Azula causing a problem, then running away at the end just the same. Her situation remains the same, generally speaking. Ozai’s conspiracy? Got nowhere and in the end barely seemed a threat for Zuko’s rule because the entire focus changed to fighting Azula.
The situation of the Fire Nation did not change at all. You are not shown a crowd of people who trust and believe in Zuko at the end of it, everyone is solemn and it simply looks like everyone will just keep waiting and hoping he won’t mess up in the future. He sorted out this problem, but did it by acting in a way they didn’t like. He did not come off as a stronger leader for what he did, nor for his apology. In conclusion: the Fire Nation is the same as it was, if not worse because people might distrust Zuko more.
So, what was the point of S&S? On the large scale of things, what was the idea, the purpose of this trilogy? Were we supposed to see how Zuko lost himself because he doesn’t know how to act as the kind Fire Lord he wants to be when the stakes are high? Oh, wait, that was the Promise’s subject too. How about that. Were we supposed to see that there’s Fire Nation people who doubt Zuko? Ah, yes, remember Kori Morishita? Remember Zuko’s decision to side with her, which showed he cared for his people in its own weird way? Well, there’s no such a development in this story, as he starts locking up people, forbidding them from leaving the mainland, and in general only earning everyone’s anger for what he’s doing. 
How was that resolved? Allegedly by an apology that doesn’t really make me think anyone’s happy about Zuko. No cheering, no smiles. Just eyes watching him, wary of his next mistake. So… what really ends up being the purpose of this comic in the end? Why is it relevant? Why was this story oh so important? Because it introduced Azula’s new group? Yeah, considering they actually did not bother introducing them for real, we could have actually used a whole comic trilogy of exploring this team (even if just as villains) rather than a single panel of the group where only one of their names was mentioned. They all look like interesting people, so why not have a storyline that made them more important as characters instead of using them as mere plot devices to bring Mai and Zuko together to save their siblings, while fighting these mysterious, apparently unknown masked enemies?
Maybe S&S was only a tunnel, maybe it will lead us to something that is actually worthwhile. Maybe it is indeed the first step towards Azula’s redemption, but was everything that happened in this comic essential for that purpose? Azula behaves as a terrorist, who sure, helped take down the New Ozai Society but then assured Zuko she was going to be Fire Lord through him (which is quite a direct confession of still wanting the throne and wanting to use him as her puppet). What was the takeaway for Azula in this comic? She has a brand new group of allies and… we only know the name of ONE of them. We barely know anything about them. They work together. Why? They all came from an institution. How did they ally with each other and what are their motivations? What is the purpose of this team?
As I said earlier, in my personal opinion, I didn’t need S&S to introduce this group of people to me, I would rather have had a comic about a completely different subject where that could happen. You could have every introduction of the characters along with their skills, along with one or two pages to explain their partnership with Azula, and then you move on to plot. This could have been done as they helped to take down the NOS, which should have been a better threat against Zuko’s rule. Or maybe they could have been disconnected from Fire Nation politics, and instead had something to do with a search for dragons, who as we know, were somehow around again in LOK. If Azula and her gang found dragon eggs, maybe? It’d be plot relevant. It’d be important. It introduces a factor that will have actually play a part in the future of the Avatarverse. 
The Kemurikage, as we saw them? What did they do for the Avatar World? They were part of Yang’s unnecessary rewriting and contradiction of already existing Fire Nation mythology, that merely ended up enhancing and furthering the image of the Fire Nation as a warring nation (which it presumably wasn’t until Sozin went bonkers, going by the spiritual lore that was established for the Fire Nation before). Why do I like the idea of the Fire Nation being spiritually guided, same as how the Air Nomads were? Because this way, when the Fire Nation sets aside all spirituality and becomes a warmongering country, balance breaks in the world. It’s part of the symbolism and logic of the original show. 
If their history was all that filled with wars and conflict, why would Sozin want to hide it away as he apparently did? If the Fire Nation was mainly peaceful and spiritual until he arrived, it would make a lot more sense for him to hide history, so people would be led to think they were always out for war because of his rewriting of history. That’s what a dictator would do. If a nation’s history is full of blood and violence and heroes and war, the dictator gladly clings onto that history to say he’s the new hero, following on the footsteps of the warmongers before him. So even for Yang’s purpose of saying Sozin was hiding Fire Nation history, it makes more sense for them to have been spiritually inclined all along as the original Fire Nation lore established.
So, this entire thing was really just another of Yang’s trademark spirit nonsense, that comes out of nowhere, and that has nothing to do with genuine spirituality. And of course, it annoys me because this did nothing to enrich the Fire Nation as we know it. Absolutely nothing. Even LOK’s comic’s tidbit of information about same-sex relationships did more for the Fire Nation because a least it didn’t contradict anything that already existed.
Long story short, Smoke and Shadow, to me, felt just as irrelevant as the Rift. The New Ozai Society deserved to be a genuine threat, rather than a smokescreen for Azula to become a terrorist behind a mask. The New Ozai Society COULD HAVE BEEN exploited and turned into a serious problem for Zuko, because as we’ve seen, there’s a fair amount of people in both Fire Nation-centric trilogies who are displeased with his rule. This Society could have grown wider and served as a foil for him, as proof that changing the Fire Nation’s ways is not that easy, but it also could have allowed for other complex groups to be born, such as groups of people who don’t like Zuko’s current MO, but disapprove of Ozai and of New Ozai Society’s methods all the same. People who want peace, but not at the cost of feeling their Fire Lord is more connected with outsiders than to his own nation.
Zuko’s disconnection with the Fire Nation as it is, his role as their leader, needs to be explored. He needs to be shown as more than just a military figurehead. A Fire Lord who’s advocating for peace should be shown working on furthering the Fire Nation’s other regards, rescuing their former cultural values, fixing their flawed education, for instance, rather than always being at the center of a military problem. Is it not that epic? Oh, why, I beg to differ. If Zuko reforms the Fire Nation’s education, it would bring about a ton of enemies who want Ozai’s rule to come back. It would be a way to introduce people who refuse to let change come. But it would also introduce a ton of allies who believe in Zuko and the future he’s trying to bring. A story like this would allow him to find his own connection with his people, so that it no longer feels like he’s being the Avatar’s proxy in the Fire Nation.
Basically, if Zuko gets another comic trilogy it should be about showing us how the Fire Nation is genuinely changing for the better under his rule, and how much his nation means to him. Not about how many people want to kill him because he’s not Ozai, just so the topic of why Zuko is being rejected by some people ends up buried and forgotten because “these people who don’t like him are all so baaaad!”.
Uff. Okay, so, my opinion on Azula’s role in S&S is something I already stated but I’ll state again that I dislike it because it turned her into a terrorist. Nothing she had done in the show or even in the Search was ever quite as fucked up as what she did in this trilogy. Why? Because she never attacked her nation. Because her nation was not means to an end for her. Because she wanted to be a great leader for the Fire Nation, that was the last goal we ever heard her stating outright in the show.
When she’s out to kill her mother in the Search, it feels forced and wrong to me (as she’s suddenly paranoid and unreasonable, holding her mother responsible for everything that went wrong in her life despite the fact that this is not something she ever did in the show). But it’s a personal thing. It’s Azula fighting her inner demons in a very bad way that is only making her sink deeper into their web. She’s not doing this for some crazy scheme: she’s doing it because she has no idea what else to do to stop the madness that has taken over her. She knows she’s out of control, knows she’s not fine, and wants to resolve her problem by her own hand. All that’s good, the fact that she was led to think her mother was the source of everything was what was fucked up and unreasonable to me, but anyways, it’s not entirely wrong for her to act the way she did in the Search if you’re also based on the premise that she’s mentally ill and misunderstanding her entire reality.
But in S&S? She doesn’t limit herself to attacking her family, which fine, we accept as a possibility from as early as her first appearance in the show, because her relationship with her family is absurdly complicated. But no, now she attacks her nation. She kidnaps children. She says she wants nothing more to do with her father but acts with the same lack of reasoning and contempt/disrespect for her people and everyone else as Ozai did. She is shown still pursuing the throne, even if no longer in a direct manner.
So honestly, I dislike her appearance in S&S entirely because it’s yet another disservice to her character. It’s plain wrong in my opinion that a girl who had priorities is now setting the throne as her only goal, and she doesn’t seem to care about who she runs over on the quest for absolute power. And it’s BEYOND fucked up for Yang to code this sort of Azula as “healed” Azula, as an Azula who is no longer attached to her father: he’s basically saying that the terrorist, that the kidnapper, that the manipulative criminal, is what Azula would become even without her father’s influence. 
What everyone thought would turn her into a better person apparently had the entire opposite effect: she wasn’t a terrorist, EVER, while working for Ozai. Her problems with Ty Lee, with Chan, with Zuko, with anyone she hurt in the show, wasn’t damaging her nation as a whole. She had personal issues with them, and she didn’t resolve them by targeting the whole nation just to get back at them for what they’d done. She was harsh, but never what she was in this comic.
So I do hope Yang can excuse me for feeling that his idea of a healed Azula is utterly disturbing and repelling. I’d choose show!Azula any day: as flawed, immoral and manipulative as she was, she made a complex, interesting character whose goals and motivations made sense, as opposed to his version of Azula who is no longer as complex, yet more immoral, and more manipulative (yet less efficient about it) than her original counterpart, while being a terrorist on top of it all.
Whatever she achieved in this comic, however she helped Zuko, the two things I took away from this trilogy are those I’ve stated over and over: 1. She’s become a terrorist and a public menace. 2. She still, STILL, has not given up the throne and I don’t understand why so many people refuse to see it. Saying Zuko belongs in the throne and then saying “Ah, but I’ll shape you into being a leader I approve of because THAT WAY I’LL BE FIRE LORD ANYWAYS” means she’s not done with the throne: it means she wants to be his puppet master. I know it’s beyond unpleasant to admit it, but it’s true. I see no reason to excuse what she’s done in this comic, absolutely none. Her motivations and actions have reasonable explanations in the show, heavily related to her past, to her growth, to her priorities, to her flaws: here, everything regarding her motivations has been reduced to the goddamn throne. And that pisses me off a lot.
So… is that endless rant enough to explain my feelings about S&S? In conclusion, I don’t like where Yang is taking Azula’s character, and I don’t like how utterly irrelevant this trilogy felt in the long run. There’s a ton of stories still worth telling about Zuko’s tenure as Fire Lord, and yet Yang has managed to waste an entire trilogy in one that yielded nothing for his character or for the Fire Nation.
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its2019lol · 7 years
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Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Review)
I felt the need to write this because I have a lot to say about it.
Needless to say........SPOILERS AHEAD AND DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM AND DON’T WANNA BE SPOILED!
Okay so this isn't gonna be in any proper format, so there's that.
I had been waiting for this movie for a while and I'm truly indifferent of whether of not it lived up to my expectations.
The first sequence with Eggsy and Charlie fighting was so rushed and really random to me. I think it was just used as a sequence to possibly wake the audience up lol
Merlin’s character development and extra screen time was so rewarding.
Tilde is a cute and good gf protect her tbh. Her smoking the joint while refusing to text Eggsy back was the most relatable content in this movie.
Although this movie had its flaws, I will give it this. THE COMEDY WAS GOLD. So many endless clever sequences such as the bit where Eggsy has dinner with Tilde's parents and the bits with Elton John. I laughed so hard at some points that my sides were hurting.
This film confirmed all my headcannons about dating Eggsy and I'm gonna be forever in my feelings about it.
I like that even though Eggsy's status has changed and even though now he is a bonafide spy, he never lost sight of what's truly important and stayed close to his original friends. The scene where he's having a drink and hanging out with Tilde and his friends was so cute :(
BUT THE FUCKERY THAT FOLLOWED HOLY SHIT
They brought the new friend in for like 0.005 seconds just to kill him AND JB. The first of many heartbreaks this film gave me.
ROXY'S DEATH WAS THE MOST UNNECESSARY THING ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH
At least the last thing Eggsy said to her was call her his best friend </3
Eggsy and Merlin getting drunk off the whiskey in the safe and it took them until they reached the end of the bottle to realize what it said: big mood.
And they went to America LOL
I’m sorry but Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges’ characters were......irrelevant. However, I still enjoyed them and Tequila’s first meeting with Eggsy and Merlin was HILARIOUS. 
Now.......Poppy..... See.....
I liked how ruthlessly insane they made her, but I disliked how easily they were able to kill her. Valentine was such a braw to the death and then with this.......Eggsy just stabbed her in the neck and she died......if anything, Charlie was more of a strong villain in the movie than Poppy was. I guess they used the trope of a villain who has all their henchmen do shit for them, but I just thought the way she was killed off was way too easy. 
BUT OMG I love the aesthetics of all of Poppy Land tbh
Speaking of Poppy and Poppy Land, gotta love them unnecessary cannibalism like......??? Thanks we get it shock value 
The gadgets of the statesman were bomb af I was proud of that
GINGER ALE AND WHISKEY OK 
I love them both
Ginger Ale was so intelligent and an amazing character over all 
IM SO HAPPY SHE’S A FIELD AGENT NOW
I hope they add more amazing statesman like her in the future, especially woc
#JUSTICEFORWHISKEY because the whole part about him being a double agent and turning against them was bullshit
You’re gonna kill off the only brown man in the movie and demonize him in the process?? Sorry that just doesn’t sit well with me.  
It’s not like he didn’t have a reason to do what he did?????
His high school sweetheart got caught in the cross fire between meth heads at a ....I think he said ...convenience store?? But regardless, experiencing that would definitely scar him and make him have a different attitudes about drug users so....? wtf
I did truly enjoy Harry’s storyline in this, it surprised me. I like the whole element that the statesmen can bring people back to life from a head shot, like FUCK IT UP
Harry’s butterfly spacing out moments was hilarious 
EGGSY HELPING HIM REGAIN HIS MEMORY WITH MR. PICKLES WAS SO SMART ILY EGG
The blue vein thing freaked me out and every i see a vein pop up on my skin I’m gonna be paranoid now thanks 
Action sequences/car chases bore me in general so tbh I didn’t pay attention to those.......sorry.......
and last..........but CERTAINLY not least....
MERLIN.
WHAT THE FUCK. 
HOW DID THEY FUCKING KILL OF MERLIN 
I legit sobbed for 15-20 minutes in the theater after it happened
I’m not joking
My friend can testify to this
And the way he died was so emotional, how he sacrificed himself for eggsy and harry :(
I’m rly pissed about this bc the three ppl that were killed in this movie were a woman, a brown man and the only canonically gay character in this franchise. 
UMMMMM?? NO.
But on a lighter note, Eggsy’s wedding with Tilde was sweet and I’m glad her and his other friend were able to be saved. 
He’s legit a prince now and he’s also a spy. Goddamn. 
In conclusion, I did enjoy the film overall, I just feel like too many things were done for shock value and it made the plot lack. But again, this is just my opinion so!
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https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5j5RhPGVZlWqwItiEljJBM?si=qgfufgB0S5idIJeg4MG1QQ
You so badly want to listen to my Yomie playlist, you have never wanted anything more
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kinetic-elaboration · 6 years
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April 19: Thoughts on 1x11 We Are Grounders Pt 1
It’s late, I’m all upside down, and I just reread some of my old meta so I’m thinking about how Smart I am and also how bitter I am about this show. So here’s more of my rewatch!
Today’s episode, We Are Grounders Part One
I wonder if Jaha was so quick to throw up his hands and walk away from the DNR group in S4 because, especially prior to what was basically a religious conversion, he has a similarly strong death instinct himself. I’m not saying he didn’t do everything he could in favor of survival many times, but honestly how many other times has he been like ‘well, okay, tried everything, time to die’? Like compared to other characters? I’m not saying he actively wants to die so much as that he is more comforted than the average bear by the possibility of a ‘good death.’ (Also I think this has a lot to do with having lost his son tbqh.)
Note to self: someone I’m assuming is a station rep referred to her constituents.
An incredibly bleak but fitting ending for this show would have been to kill the Ark in S1 and then to have the delinquents and grounders kill each other in an escalating S2 war. It would have fulfilled certain foreshadowings/themes of the first season (all the war escalation stuff, the nuclear-age throwbacks) and it also would have been an appropriate ending for all these truly terrible, morally rotten people.
Literally Jaha v. Kane is Jasper v. everyone else (or at least, like, Clarke and Monty) in S4. Truly this show ran out of original ideas after 2 seasons, see again my previous point lol.
Speaking of Jasper there is my angular boy.
There is nothing about the delinquent camp I don’t like. Raven in like a council-level position, ish, Bellamy’s speeches and blatant emotion, everyone’s outfits.
I completely forgot Tristan existed.
I also forgot how many fake out main character deaths this show used to do. Abby, Finn. Can’t get away with that 4 seasons in. The audience knows anyone important is getting a real death scene.
Omg Bellamy has a whole like war plan with little figures and stuff.
Bellamy has this reputation for being all emotion and I think that’s him at heart but ignoring Clarke, Monty, and Finn’s disappearance is a logic-based decision. A sort of...overcompensatory logic-based decision. Also not in line with the show’s morality, like, at all. Hence why he drops it later.
Yet again impressed by how Jasper managed to change more than any other character over 4 seasons while still remaining IC. Even young and comparatively innocent he could be snarky and sarcastic and he also was honest and straightforward in his confrontation with Bellamy, and he kept on being all of those things later, but with bitterness and bite.
Murphy (having just obviously suffocated a boy): He stopped breathing. I was trying to help him. Jasper (nodding slowly): Yep, sounds about right, totally legit, lots of evidence that that is what went down. Yep.
Also I’m like 99% this ep is basically their last canon interaction so btw this was the end of what is absolutely, canonically (see the pilot and the Pike-class flashback) a same-station-forged friendship. And probably also explains why Murphy’s reaction to Jasper’s death was like ‘Jasper who???’ though that doesn’t make it any less an unforgivable sin.
There’s nothing not perfect about this scene overall, but the most perfect thing is “Tell Bellamy what?” coming from Jasper’s pocket. I love both that he tried to be sneaky and the comedic value of it.
TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE.
Lincoln was criminally underused. He not only saved Finn and Clarke, he “killed one of his own people to do it.” This isn’t about Octavia. He’s just been looking for an excuse to rebel his whole life.
Jackson’s being so lovely and supportive and Abby’s still calling him by his last name. Knowing this show they probably forgot it was his last name.
Today’s reminder that Octavia likes literally 4 people in the universe lol. And one of them was Jasper. Until the show forgot about that too but whatever not bitter.
RE: Raven getting in under the floor. I’m thinking about my fic and my work around for opening the dropship from the outside and okay on the one hand if such a device existed, Raven would probably know about it as much as Monty but on the other hand, there has to be a way to close the dropship from the outside, because it’s closed in S3 and there’s no one in it. So logically it should open from the outside too, without recourse to loose panels and stuff. So maybe I was a little, like, short-cut-y in my solution but the show is not consistent so we’re even. (We’re not even but I’m self-conscious now.)
Bellamy talking on the walkie with Murphy might honestly be the most beautiful he’s ever been.
Legit question: who do the Grounders battle? They have this coalition, with like Ambassadors and shit. Which doesn’t mean they can’t battle each other but there’s also some diplomacy going on, like, clearly. Which should make battling less necessary, one would think. And even if they do battle each other, over fucking what??? Land? Literally never seen solid evidence that land boundaries matter to them. Shits and giggles? Bragging rights? They have an enemy in Mount Weather but Lincoln sure as shit wasn’t fighting battles against them.
T100 drinking game: take a shot any time says ‘cauterize the wound. Take two if they actually cauterize a wound.
“We lost Clarke, we can’t lose Bellamy too” is probably the first indication literally anywhere in the show that anyone acknowledges Clarke as an delinquent leader.
I miss the Raven + Jasper dream team. Tbh Raven has so few people who can appreciate her professionally. It’s literally Monty, Wick for a hot second, and Jasper (even though his skills aren’t the same as hers, they fit with hers nicely).
I miss my alternate universe where Jasper lives but becomes pacifistic in nature, where he abandons this ‘give me something to shoot through’ attitude and eschews the use of weaponry entirely.
I don’t think this show is 40% as badass or sick as it makes itself out to be but every now and then it lives up to that ideal. I mean this extended psychological torture sequence in which Murphy makes Bellamy hang himself is super fucked up.
The young Jaha and Griffin families were adorable.
“If you were never [in the tunnels] how did you map [them]?” / “Spoils of war.” I realize this is probably just quick plot-hole filling but nevertheless I sense a story here.
The Reapers were also a sick and twisted invention of this show. I feel like in S2 it was pretty clear that the Reapers were given dead bodies to feed on, so either I’m wrong/the Mount Weatherians were more efficient in their use of their limited resource of Sky People bodies versus Grounder bodies/the show has bad continuity/that living dude in the cart is an outlier/some combo of the above.
“The Eastern Sea” lol. The Chesapeake probably.
I never cared for Luna but she could have been cool and also she and Lincoln are ex’s pry this headcanon from my cold, dead hands.
I’m pretty sure Finn pounding in the Reaper’s head was his first kill. Would his S2 story be possible without that moment?
“They look up to you. Almost as much as they look up to Clarke.” Okay I’m sorry, this is just textually, canonically wrong. This is the show retconning Clarke’s position as a leader. And it’s so unnecessary! Her story line works better if she isn’t positioned as the main delinquent leader, imo. Like, lines like that are outliers that don’t make sense within the universe; they’re obviously outwardly pointed: here audience, Clarke is protag 1 and Bellamy is protag 2 and she’s the REAL leader, don’t forget that order! If you do, you might occasionally question her leadership credentials later, when we lazily write everyone just following her regardless of their actual interactions with her or the most recent developments of her storyline! (Not that I think they were already setting up the laziness of S4 this early, but I do think they were tipping the hand of their own biases and their inability to tell the difference between what’s going on in-universe and what the audience sees and understands.)
On the other hand “Well I think the princess is dead, but I know the king’s about to die, so who’s really going to lead these people, huh?” is a good line and I do like positioning Bellamy as king (of these people specifically) versus Clarke as a princess (of the Ark--an old position based on a class background that is irrelevant to their current society).
Lol @ Murphy’s plans being delinquent-domination though. Like that was going to happen.
Actually I think Finn’s S2 story line is created in the moment when he washes the blood off his hands: he’s killed, which changed him, and Clarke comforts him in that critical moment, and he comes to associate her with that event and its aftermath. He also says “I should have fought for you,” which I see as this...hard to describe but like...the creation of a devotion beyond what he’s so far felt. Not that he loves her more but that he’s convinced himself he loves her more, that she can save him in some way, that she is necessary to him. He has a lot of idealistic notions and I think this narrative gets created within him with Clarke at its center and everything else gets blurred out. Or something.
This Jasper and Bellamy scene is the best because it combines two things I love: Jasper’s hero-worship crush on Bellamy, and Jasper’s intense devotion to Monty. I’m a little sorry that Clarke and Finn’s return/these loser Grounders robbed us of a Bellamy and Jasper rescue mission though.
I guess it’s possible Bellamy said “Whatever the hell we want” all the time but really I think it was just the one time and the writers have already forgotten that Jasper never heard him say it omg sometimes I just want to knock their heads together their memories are such shit. (Yes I’m also bitter about Jasper’s pilot outfit returning out of nowhere in S4 and Clarke wearing his intact goggles in S5 even though he already smashed the plastic out of the lenses sometime in S3.)
Poor Jasper. He thinks Monty’s come back with them. He barely even has time to process that disappointment before they start debating whether or not they should leave.
Basically I have a lot of Jasper feelings.
Bellamy’s speech is better than Clarke’s. Come on Griffin, never start with ‘my opponent is right’ that’s a bad rhetorical move. I also find it intensely unrealistic that they’re all like ‘yes, Clarke, we will do what you say!’ when, I cannot emphasize this enough, she has literally never led them before. All of her leader decisions have been strictly BTS. Her only real advantage here is that they know they have no gunpowder and few other resources, so it’s probably just a straight up fear-flight.
“Crowds make bad decisions. Leaders do what they think is right.” I mean basically the theme of the show there lol.
I’m going to rant about this next time I watch but just gonna say here that Clarke is definitely, unequivocally, ultimately wrong in this and Bellamy was right. They should have stayed. People literally died because Clarke tried to take them out when she shouldn’t have.
The camp doesn’t look like I expect or picture in my head...where are their tents? How much land did they claim?
I remember watching this the first time and thinking Jaha’s plan to get them to the ground on the Ark itself was the outright coolest thing I’d ever see and you know what? It holds up. I stand by it.
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holbyconfessional · 7 years
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Holby City S19 E13 - I Do, I Do, I Do.
What follows may be a disjointed review. And long. Sorry!  I really ought to have a rewatch before I post, but I’m not ready.  So, there may be future reblogs if I miss anything important.
Firstly, Mr T’s wedding.  I was ridiculously pleased to see Hanssen back, I always miss him when he’s gone.  And it’s remarkable how well he managed to pull the Swedish trad attire look - never more noticeable than when he and Hanssen were making their way back to find Mo after Hanssen applied his uncanny ability to see right through everyone’s personal feelings - let’s call him the Feelings Fairy, or the Fairy Feeling-Father of Holby...  But I digress.
Hanssen was great in this episode.  As just mentioned, his counselling of Mr T that it’s Mo that he loves - coupled nicely with his wedding speech with the nod to Mo about everything that is meant to be happens eventually.  Hiding in the tower, looking for woodpeckers to avoid being chased by Mama T, and just generally his reaction to the totally inappropriate sexual harrassment from the aforementioned Mama T.
Mo was great in this ep too.  She looked amazing and had some great one liners, something about Swedish feet and lack of nerve endings, or some such!  She knew what she was doing, telling Mama T about the lack of baby.  She knew Mama T would blow the whistle.  And hell, fair play, why not?  If she couldn’t do it herself, best to hand the reins over!  Also loved the birthing scene, with Mr T, Mo and baby Charleston.  (Wonder how long they get to be happy before Charlie’s life is threatened?)
Without a doubt, the undeniable star of the wedding show was the inimitable Jac Naylor, Queen of sarcasm.  She was just an absolute delight, from her first appearance in her suit, to her reluctant wedding dance and appeal to Mo to rescue her, down to her complaints about being Mo’s unplanned birthing partner for a second time.  But then just getting into the water with all her damned clothes on to help Mo out regardless.  And then, missing the drama and getting drunk...  I can say without question that Jac was the saving grace for me tonight.
HOWEVER.  I barely concentrated on a moment of the damned wedding.  Even the Jac bits just flitted before my eyes.  Because the whole episode was waiting for the next Elinor/Jason bit.  There had been no secret in the spoilers that there would be a) an accident involving Elinor and Jason, and b) Serena and Mo would be having life changing experiences.  Now, I may not be a rocket scientist, but...
So, on to the only bit I managed to really take in.
Wow, the accident happened early in the episode.  When Elinor came in wired, talking about her report that she’d written, it appeared early on that her drug use was going to play a bit part in the episode.  Actually, that theme was continued on later, when she was asking Jasmine where she could put her bag so that it was ‘out of the way’, ie hiding the evidence.  However, from that point, the drugs were not really mentioned.  I am surprised, however I suspect the issue may resurface (theories later).
The basis of the argument, or Serena supposedly keeping things from Elinor, turned out to be something as minor as Serena having stepped down as CEO and not discussed it with Elinor.  It seems silly, but I guess if Elinor is feeling a little at sea having to adjust to a new relationship in her mothers life (gender irrelevant), then I guess she’s more likely to be a bit sensitive about everything, even the littlest things.  And the drugs don’t help, kids!
Cue the racing to follow her out, and the accident - which Serena puts down to Elinor being so tired from being up all night.
Bernie was absolutely awesome, taking control.  I guess her army training coming to the fore, as she has undoubtedly got feelings for Jason herself.  She was amazing in theatre, although I felt the ‘it can’t be done’ from Morven, followed by the highly risky, almost impossible liver lac repair being successfully achieved by one Bernie Wolfe, Trauma Surgeon extraordinare was a mite heavy handed.  Especially considering later events.
Bernie’s moment after the surgery, when all her emotions came out, was just beautiful.  At the time, I was disappointed that we didnt get to see her break the good news to Serena, but again, later events explained why that wasn’t done.
Serena’s chat with (most probably shiftily playing around with drug paraphenalia) Elinor in the locker room was lovely.  I loved the attempts at openness on both sides, of course designed to make Elinor a more sympathetic character before sending her to her fate, and Serena’s game was really sweet.   Also Serena’s later reveal to Jason that she was thinking about inviting Ellie back to live with them again, ramping up the angst.
I will mention Liberty briefly, but I don’t think she deserves it.  I can’t really see the point of her character anyway, so she showed up whilst Serena had to perform life saving surgery - she served no purpose to me at all, she didn’t make Serena look bad, she just showed up then buggered off, leaving nary a ripple on my screen.
Now to Elinor’s collapse.  Naughty, naughty Jasmine.  She is a doctor, yes?  Since when is it OK for doctors to let themselves be talked out of giving a patient neuro obs?  I know people can refuse treatment, but Ellie technically didn’t do that, and hells, woman, she’s Serena’s daughter.  Mindless stupid girl.  Not endeared her to me at all.
Bernie and Serena whilst watching Ellie’s surgery were lovely.  The hand clutching for support, perfect.  And finally, Serena at Elinor’s bedside running through the neuro tests that Ellie had failed - all the basic tests to determine brain stem function.  Which seemingly is not present in Ellie.  An absolutely heartbreaking scene.  Bernie has clearly demonstrated her commitment to be there for Serena, which is great.   BUT, I do feel that this disaster has been of rather epic proportions, quite unnecessarily so.  I believe exactly the same committment could have been shown without tearing Serena’s life apart quite so dramatically.
I rather discordant note from that scene - for me - was Bernie asking Serena if Elinor was a donor.  I don’t think  Bernie should have done that at all.  She was there as Serena’s support, not a transplant co-ordinator.  And to have brought that up as a ‘spouse’, well, I think perhaps it’s a little soon in their relationship to be claiming joint parental responsibility for Elinor, especially with Elinor’s reaction to them.
This a pretty long post, seems a bit pointless to put a cut in now, but since I’m about to chuck in some speculation, here goes.
Elinor’s drug use.  As I mentioned, with the repeated nods to it within the story, it seems that Serena is still unaware..  I feel it’s likely that the discovery has something to do with the chewing out she gives Jasmine in the Autumn trailer - so that’s one way they’re going to use it.  But how will it come up now?  My main bet is that Serena will decide to donate Ellie’s organs, so something good can come out of her death.  But then some test or other will somehow highlight her drug use and render her organs unusable.  Yet another blow for Serena.  But with this theory, why do it?  Does it really add to the drama?  They’ve already established that the car accident could just have been a combination of tiredness and upset from the argument.  They didn’t need to have Elinor as a drug user - the pain tht the knowledge would have brought Serena would have been far greater in life than after Ellie’s death, surely?  It just seems extremely unnecessary - unless it really IS just a tool to allow Serena to yell at Jasmine, and surely, she’s got more than enough reason without that one.
My other theory, and I am aware that this is not going to happen (apparently some writer on Twitter categorically confirmed that Elinor was dead?) was that the drug use could have a far more interesting part to play.  In an (quite possibly outdated and superceded) medical paper from the 1980s detailing the criteria for determining brain death, as seen here, in the case of head injury combined with a history of drug use, accurate measures of brain stem activity can’t be determined until several days have passed, as drug use could cause a temporary lack of activity.  Therefore, I feel the most effective use of the storyline would be to have this happen - in other words, the drama without the death.  It would still have been unlikely in this scenario that Elinor would have recovered unscathed, so still plenty of scope for long term angst.  That, folks, is how I would’ve written it anyway :-)
Anyway, I rarely speculate quite so wildly in these reviews, so apologies.  There are a lot of feelings out there at the moment, some folks are hopeful, others disheartened, and others still are painfully affected by the story.  Regardless of which each viewer  is, it’s undeniable that it’s going to be hard to watch, because if you’re reading this, there’s a fair bet you care about the characters.  Bernie wasn’t wrong when she said that no parent should outlive their child.  As an avenue to explore Bernie’s commitment to Serena, it all seems a bit crass to me.  But we will no doubt get some amazing acting out of it.
Grief sometimes brings couples together.  But sometimes it drives them apart.  And since I’m all aboard the speculation train, I am just going to throw one last thought out there. I don’t know when JR’s contract is up, but Serena’s grief and pushing Bernie away, hell, it’s not inconceivable that a few months down the road it could be a departure storyline. Grief doesn’t pass overnight, the ramifications can be seen months down the line.  And there’s only so long Bernie can try to be there for Serena if Serena chooses to repeatedly push her away.  (Not specifically saying this is what I think will happen.  Just generally sayin’!)
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