#but she's always the one people treat like a two dimensional villain rather than a product of her environment

[rainedroptalks]

I just remembered why I stayed out of the neverafter discourse the first time I watched it

[fandom-go-round]

Can I request Livewire (DCAU), Star Sapphire (DCSHG 2019), Queen Bee (Young Justice) and Blackfire (Teen Titans) with S/O, who can open portals to personal dimension?

I haven’t seen DCSHG so I’m going to skip Star Sapphire for now. I hope you enjoy the others!

Warnings: General Villain Things, Implied Canon Typical Violence

Livewire:

She thinks that it’s amazing you can open portals to your own personal dimension. She’s going to be encouraging you to use your powers as much as possible and learn how to control them. Livewire is also going to try and convince you to team up with her and take down Superman. Even if it’s not your normal type of villainy, she will use puppy dog eyes. Trap him there a little and she’ll love you forever.

As cool as she thinks your powers are, Leslie isn’t a huge fan of using your portals. It has nothing to do with trust, it just messes with her powers and she’d rather not deal with that. You can bribe her with treats or a date to enter but she’s firm to not cross over. Unless someone is on your tail, she’ll avoid the portals.

Her tune changes the first time you use it for a getaway. Livewire was sure you were going to get caught and loves the adrenaline high of getting away with it. She’s much more excited to use the portals to travel now and will start including you in her escape plans unless you make it clear the portals are emergency only. Leslie with respect your decision either way but she does think that you’re badass.

Queen Bee:

Marcia considers you one of her trump cards, an ace in the hole. You’re expressly forbidden from using your powers in front of the other Light members. She’s reluctant to let you go off on your own on missions but she can’t deny that you get results. Queen Bee makes sure that no one knows that your villain alias and your public persona is the same, for your sake and hers.

Your powers are one of the reasons that the two of you got together. Queen Bee was looking for someone to help with the plans for the meta teens and approached you. It’s hard to say no to a Queen, let alone Queen Bee but (thankfully or not) her powers don’t work on you. The two of you entered into a business partnership that evolved into something more.

She treats you more like arm candy than her partner when the two of you make public appearances and you’re completely ok with that. It makes it easy for you to blend into the background and get objectives done that you have to. Nothing would ever beat the look on shock on Lex’s face when you opened your portal and Marcia laughed; you would do whatever to make her that happy again.

Blackfire:

Blackfire finds your powers impressive, especially for a human. Not many people have the type of abilities that you do even out in space. There is an expectation that you take her where she needs to go, as much as your powers allow. She’s hoping that one day you’ll get strong enough to move through space but right now she’s content with same planet dimensional travel.

She loves it when you show off, opening as many portals as you can. It doubles as training and it helps you learn your limits. Komand’r is always going to push you to get stronger and stronger, no matter what. She has ambitious goals and expects you to be able to keep up. She has no issue if you have your own goals or agenda but she expects you to take hers just as seriously, if not more.

Please never say anything nice about Starfire. This goes without saying but her sister is an off-limits topic unless Blackfire brings it up. Usually, the best thing to do is agree with her and promise to help get rid of her sister. She has mixed feelings about you using your portals to transport her sister away but in general, the less Starfire the better.

[lesbianmarrow]

I hate hate hate the she ra fandom so much for how they treated/reacted to glimmer… like it was truly awful. I saw a lot of similarities between her and the treatment of Finn by fans, honestly

Like adora, like Rey, is white. Catra is kind of nebulous because she is visibly brown, but she’s also an anthropomorphic animal voiced by a white woman with no confirmed or implied racial identity… (like in contrast to a character like clawdeen wolf from monster high… a wolf girl who’s clearly meant to be read as black). Catra was read by many to be a woman of color, but read by as many (if not more) as white or simply “raceless” (by white people who see whiteness as default). Regardless, I don’t think it was women of color who saw themselves in Catra who were the problem. Catra was also a much better character than kylo, particularly as a sympathetic and reformed villain, but still.

Finn/Glimmer we’re both the secondary protagonists of their story, were both poc, were both besties to their main protagonist, who happened to be white, and were both in stories that seemed to have racism problems (the whole… she ra from before adora wasn’t white but pretty much became so as she ra was sooo fucked up). And both of them were so unjustly hated by white fans who would often try to minimize harm done to them by the antagonist(s) if they didn’t go out of their way to try to frame them as the antagonist in what they really saw as meta-analysis of the text. The justification ALWAYS boiled down to how they annoyed said white fans. Glimmer was written as a well rounded character who went through changes and had flaws and nuances which was awful to people watching the show who couldn’t accept that in characters of color. Finn was a black man (and also perhaps the best written character of the sequel trilogy) who had the audacity to be close to a white woman emotionally. Both of these were Crimes white fans felt the need to punish them for (or expand into full blown villainy) it was genuinely sickening to watch. It’s worse too since I feel like the storytellers gave into the pressure to sideline them. Like for Finn he clearly had a diminished role already in tlj so who knows if things could have been different but I kind of feel like glimmers story just. Didn’t get resolution there were plot threads for her that didn’t get tied

Not that the other comparisons you made weren’t valid and this does seem to be a particular issue for Asian girls/women/characters but my two sense bc your post threw me back to a darker time

yeahhhh like i love she-ra but i barely interacted with the fandom at all bc it had a lot of issues with racism especially with how it treated glimmer, like ppl were racist about catra as well but like the general fandom attitude that glimmer was annoying and detracted from the story was just so awful. i thought the show itself did a really great job of making glimmer a 3 dimensional character and giving her an excellent character arc over the course of the show. i don't really remember any unresolved plot threads with her? though maybe there were and i just forgot. but like overall i was very satisfied with her portrayal in the show, but the FANDOM was just.....eugh.

and the racism with finn.....oh it just makes me so boiling mad. tfa was not perfect in its portrayal of him but there was so much POTENTIAL and john boyega really made him such an excellent compelling character, truly the heart of the film, and the racist side of the fandom just could not stand it. like the thing about reylo and its popularity post-tfa is that it really was born out of a refusal to consider finn as a love interest for rey, even though their relationship is one of the most important and positive relationships in the whole film. the fandom would rather bend over backwards to find a way to make the creepy antagonistic tension between kylo and rey romantic than accept that rey and finn could be in love. and the way tlj validated those racist fans by sidelining finn and pushing the rey/kylo relationship was just awful. and that's not even getting into what tlj and fandom did with rose tico.

and then ppl will like minimize these issues by being like "well it's just fandom/shipping drama" which completely erases that it's an issue of RACISM. and aaaaaaaaaaahhh sorry for ranting there it just makes me so MAD.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Darkling Character Analysis

Full disclaimer, I’ve not read the books, though I have ordered the first so I am hoping to have read that soon. But just so you are aware this character analysis is based entirely on the show version of the character. Obviously there will be spoilers for all of season one. Also I just want to say that my aim with this analysis was to sort of get into The character’s head and so alot of this is just what I think the character might have been thinking, feeling and what his motivations may be, it does not mean I agree or disagree with his actions. When I am giving my view on his actions I will try to make it as clear as possible. Also this is just my interpretation of the character and my own opinions on the character, it is ok if you disagree. So obviously this is an analysis of the character The Darkling but I am also going to be talking about his relationship with Alina so I guess its also a sort of analysis of their relationship too just solely from Aleksander’s side of it. I will be using all of the names he has interchangeably because he has so many that I don’t know which one to stick with (seriously haven’t seen a character with this many different names since Jace from Shadowhunters) so sorry if that’s annoying. Fair warning this one is probably the longest analysis I have ever written and they are usually pretty long so I would suggest if you are going to read this maybe get some beverages and snacks first. I mean I think it shows how compelling and interesting a character he is that I was able to waffle on as long as have about him. But yeah its long. Of course you can also always scroll on past. But if you would like to read it then the rest is under the tag. 

Ok so first off I think the show does a really good job of building up the character in the first episode by giving us some information on The Black General before we and Alina officially meet him, they really give the character this air of mystery by giving us only a small amount of information about him but also by not letting us see his face. We get small tantalising glimpses of him, a shot of his boots in the mud, his carriage passing by, the back of him with his cloak billowing in the wind as the skiff enters the fold. It’s just enough to peak the audience’s interest. But most of what we learn in episode one is from what other character’s tell us. The very first mention we get of The General is from Mal and it’s a very small detail but I actually think it can tell you alot about The Darkling’s character. When Mal and Alina come across the Grisha practising Mal says ‘They’re always picking on us when their General’s not around.’ This seems like such a throwaway comment designed to show us how the First Army feel about Grisha and paints this picture of the Grisha thinking they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha. But it actually suggests that if they only do it when The General is not around then he does not tolerate Grisha bullying First Army. That he doesn’t think its ok for them to act like they are higher and mightier than those who are not Grisha and that he believes in humility even. Which I think is really interesting. This tracks with Nadia’s comment later in episode three when she says that General Kirigan insists that the Grisha eat peasant fare to keep them humble. Yet while he encourages humility he also makes sure that the Grisha have everything they need in order to flourish and he obviously cares a great deal about the Grisha, I feel like rising the Grisha up and making them strong has been pretty much his only drive and motivation over the hundreds of years since the fold was created. 

The other thing we learn which is repeated a couple of times by a few of the characters is that The General cannot bring down the Shadow Fold. In fact I think there are two conversations about it. The first between Inej, Jesper and Kaz when Jesper asks why the General hasn’t taken it down to which Inej replies ‘Have you ever put out fire by adding more fire?’ The other conversation is more flippant and is between Dubrov and Mikhael, where Mikhael sarcastically says the General is there to save the day and Dubrov asks if he’s going to tear down the fold. So on two occasions we have characters believing the General is powerful enough to fix the problem of the fold only for them to be corrected and told that he can’t. It seems like the show wants to make it very clear that the General will not be destroying the fold and I could be reaching here but this could be foreshadowing for later when we learn he doesn’t desire to bring down the fold.       

Of course even after the first episode the character of the Darkling still remains a bit of a mystery. He’s the kind of character where the more you learn about him the more questions you have. This tactic of giving us small pieces of information about him, just enough to keep you interested continues throughout the season and of course you have the twist in episode 5 where its revealed that he’s the ‘villain’. And yes I did put villain in quotation marks because I personally feel like its too simplistic a term to use for the character. I do feel like he’s more than just a two dimensional villain and there is alot of complexity to the character and his actions just for him to be considered the ‘bad guy’. 

So lets have a look at some of those actions and think about what might have been his motivations and what he might have been thinking and feeling. I want to start with one of the more controversial of his actions and as a warning this is a sensitive topic. One of the earlier things we find out about is that General Kirigan gifted Genya to the Queen. I’ll be honest when I first watched this scene I was so caught up in the new character and what was going on in the scene that I didn’t think much about Genya’s comment about being a gift to the Queen but when I thought more on it later I realised that it was a rather dark idea, that you could gift a person to another person. It becomes especially darker later when you find out what Genya suffered at the King’s hands. I kept wondering a few things, one being why the General would gift a child to the Queen in the first place, two whether he knew what the King was when he put Genya under the royal family’s care and three if he didn’t why he didn’t remove Genya when he discovered what was happening with the King. I do feel that we didn’t get enough information in the show (I don’t know if there’s more information in the books) to really answer these questions but I’ll give it my best shot. Firstly why would the General gift a child to the Queen? Well I actually think this one is easy to answer, he needed a spy within the Royal Family. We know that Aleksander has suffered and been betrayed by a king in the past. He won the Old King a war and in turn that King turned on not just Aleksander but on his people too. I feel like Aleksander was blindsided when this happened and he just didn’t see it coming and because of that his people were slaughtered. It would make sense then that the General would want to keep an eye on the royals and get a warning if they were planning on turning on Grisha again. I also think this is why they refer to Genya as a ‘gift’. That was just the wording the General used to manipulate the royals. Here’s a gift that I am granting you out of respect and to honour and please you, is going to go over a lot better than hey here’s a spy I want in your household. Genya is essentially the General’s trojan horse. As for it being Genya as oppose to someone else, like a trained adult Grisha, well I think that’s because it would be easier to get the royals to take a child into their household than an adult, even as a gift. They will be alot less suspicious of a child than they would an adult. Also they might bond with a child and therefore treat them as more of a confidante as time goes on. As well as that Genya had a very specific set of Grisha abilities that made her perfect for a vain Queen. I may be wrong on this one but thinking back to my history education I think I remember being taught it was fairly common during the time period if a young lady was discovered to have a particularly special talent, like say singing for example, they may be given as a gift to the Queen as this may gain favour for the maiden’s family if she is made a lady in waiting. So if I am right about that then whilst it might seem strange to us it may have been a fairly normal practise to the characters. I mean Alina didn’t seem shocked when Genya said she was a gift to the queen it was learning about the King that upset her. 

Also I do wonder if some of the reason why he placed her with the royal family was because he believed she wouldn’t fit in with the other Grisha, she does say that she is almost as rare as Alina. I don’t know for sure but maybe the General suspected she would struggle with being different from the other Grisha and so decided the best way to help her grow and flourish was by giving a special mission of her own. 

Ok so what about question 2? Did he know what kind of person the King was when he placed Genya under his care. In my opinion I don’t think he did. I am basing this on how he always seems to want to make Grisha safe and wants them to flourish and also due to his actions with Alina when things between them became more intimate, we know that consent is something Aleksander cares about. So to me it would be out of character for him considering how much he cares about the Grisha and consent for him to knowingly put Genya under the King’s care whilst having the knowledge of what would happen to her. I feel like he would also consider it as a disrespect towards Grisha from the King for him to harm a Grisha woman like that especially as she was ‘gifted’ to them. Also when Alina herself asks a similar question in episode 7 when she says ‘did you think Genya was safe when you placed her under the King’s watch?’ To me I think the Darkling looked somewhat upset that she would think that he would knowingly put Genya in that situation. However I do think that by the time Alina was discovered and brought to the Little Palace he was aware of what was going on with Genya and the King as he makes that comment about Alina remaining at the Little Palace with him to train undisturbed. The way he said undisturbed made me think he thought the King might decide he wanted Alina and the General was warning the King away, making it clear that if he wanted the fold destroyed he would have to leave Alina alone. His actions here in protecting Alina also make me think that he didn’t know at the time of placing Genya with the Royal family what would happen to her. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake with Alina that he made with Genya. 

As for number 3, why didn’t he remove Genya from the King’s care once he did find out about what the King was doing? I saw a few comments about this. All of them saying the same that because he didn’t get Genya out he was as bad as the King and was complicit in what happened to Genya. But I actually think it’s more complicated than that. For one thing technically he did remove Genya from the King’s care when he had her poison the king and then made her Corporalnik. Though obviously he didn’t do it immediately. We’ve got no timescale as to when he find out so who knows how long they were planning this. But also there was one line in episode 3 that I think answers this question best, when the General says ‘I may lead the Second Army, but the King is still the King.’ Whilst the General is powerful he still only has so much power over the King. He needed the King’s permission just  to have Alina at the Little Palace and for her to train, which is what the demonstration Alina had to go through in episode 3 was all about. I don’t think the General had the power to just walk into the Grande Palace and take back Genya. The only way he was getting Genya out of there was by killing the King. Also correct me if I am wrong but I feel like what the King was doing to Genya was a large part of the General’s motivation for poisoning the King. I mean we weren’t given much information about the King other than what he was doing to Genya, which made me think that’s why he was poisoned as we weren’t told about any other bad things the King had done that might lead to the General deciding to poison him. I think once he found out what the King was doing to Genya he allowed her to be the one to carry out the poisoning knowing that she would want revenge rather than trying to remove her right away and potentially causing tension with the royal family and also making it harder if not impossible for Genya to be the one to exact her revenge on the King. I guess what I am saying is its possible that Genya was the one who wanted to stay because she wanted to be the one to kill the King. I mean that’s the impression I got from her conversation with Alina where she says ‘I waited for years for my chance at revenge.’ For all we know General Kirigan might have offered to remove her from the Royal household and she might have told him she wanted to be the one to help him take down the King. Whatever his motivations were and however much he may or may not have known I think we can all agree that him ‘gifting’ Genya to the Queen was a mistake. I personally feel like it was more of a similar mistake to when Alina burned the maps. She had good intentions, she did it to protect someone she cared about, but in the end she caused others harm. With Alina she wanted to protect Mal and her whole unit was killed. With Kirigan I think he hoped a spy in the Royal household would protect the Grisha but in the end Genya was harmed by the King. One question I do have is whether Kirigan feels any guilt over what happened to Genya, whether he regrets his decision. I mean we did see him protect Alina from the King when he insisted she remain at the Little Palace. But was that just because it was Alina, the Sun Summoner? What if it were someone else. For example say the King came to the General and said he had taken a fancy to Marie, or Nadia or Zoya, and asked for them to be sent to the Grande Palace, would the General have agreed or would he have made some excuse as to why they couldn’t go, maybe even sent them on an assignment to protect them? There’s no way we can really know the answers to these questions as we just don’t know enough about the situation. All we know is that the General ultimately decided to get rid of the King but even then we don’t know for certain what his motivations for that were.   

I suppose you could say that him plotting against the king and conspiring with the apparat to usurp the throne was also a ‘bad guy’ move. But to be honest after telling us everything that the King did and just generally presenting the royal family in a negative light, I was surprised that Alina had such a problem with what the General did. To me it didn’t make sense for her to be upset and using that against him. I mean after learning what he did to Genya I was fully on the Darkling’s side when it came to killing the King. If they were trying to present this as a ‘villain’ move on the Darkling’s part then they did a poor job of it because I completely understood where he was coming from with that one. 

I felt a similar way with his other big ‘villain’ move when he expanded The Fold into Novokribirsk. At first I found it hard to have sympathy for them considering literally a couple of minutes before we were being shown that the soldiers were planning on murdering everyone on the skiff as soon as it docked. Couple that with the fact that Zlatan had arranged to assassinate Alina and once again I found myself on the Darkling’s side, I mean screw Zlatan and his soldiers. It was another case of it wasn’t until I rewatched it that I realised the villainous part of what the Darkling did was that there were civilians in the city that were also killed. To be honest I do wish that the show had done a better job of showing those civilians to really get across the horror of what the Darkling did. I mean on a rewatch I could see a few civilians mixed in with the soldiers but they were blended in so were hard to spot. I guess that was the purpose of Zoya having family in the city, to tell the viewer that there were innocents there but I just don’t think it made enough of an impact. I feel like if they had focussed in on actual civilians running and being swallowed by the darkness as well as the West Ravkan soldiers it would have had a bigger and more horrific impact. Instead it just kind of came across as the bad guys who had been built up as being bad throughout the season, who were rebels and who had tried to kill the main character, were finally eliminated. Lets be real if Alina had been the one to take out those soldiers we would all have been cheering. Lets talk about Game of Thrones for a moment as an example (spoiler alert for GOT here) however you felt about the way Dany’s descent into madness was written one thing the writers did right in The Bells episode was focus on the civilians that Dany was killing on the ground. They cut away from Dany completely and stayed on the ground with her victims and so you get that impact of what she has done, you see the horror in what she has done and I think this is something that would have worked well with Shadow and Bone. If they had just cut away from the skiff for a scene showing the civilians, the victims that were being effected by what the Darkling was doing then I think I would have been more shocked and effected by his actions. 

Ok so lets focus back in on the character and talk about what his motivations might have been for Novokribirsk. Why did he expand the Fold and take out the city? Well again I don’t think its hard to answer that question. We have to remember that he is a General that is fighting a war on three fronts. He’s fighting the Fjerdans on one side, the Shu Han on another and then the cherry on top is that the West Ravkans are rising up in rebellion. It’s already hard enough having to fight two enemy countries without also having to split your forces again to deal with a rebellion. The General knows that they are already overstretched without having to split their force again to deal with Zlatan. So if you look at it from his point of view striking down Zlatan now before the rebellion gets too large is a tactical military move. Also the fact that it is such a violent move will act as a deterrent for any remaining rebels who might think of trying to restart Zlatan’s movement. As well as to Fjerda and Shu Han, a this is what we do to our own people when they act against us so think about what we might do to you if you cross us, kind of deal. As for the innocent civilians that were in the city well I think the Darkling would convince himself that it was a numbers game. He might have killed hundreds of civilians but as far as he sees it he has spared thousands of lives that would have been lost if they had gone to war with West Ravka. By now the General knows the cost of war, so to him sacrificing a few hundred civilians is worth the price of saving thousands of his soldiers. Of course there is another motivation for the General, one that is less military strategy and more personal and emotionally driven. As Kaz says he was a man fuelled by vengeance. These soldiers standing on the dock had turned their back on Grisha and even worse than that they had tried to kill Alina. In the scene where The Darkling is talking to the Conductor and the Conductor admits to agreeing to assassinate Alina for a million kruge you can see how angry this makes The Darkling. This idea that someone would harm Alina for something as material as money is unforgivable to him. I said in a previous post that I wondered if the General always planned to expand the fold into Novokribirsk and I actually think the answer to that is no he didn’t. I actually think he was trying to make up his mind about what to do about Zlatan and his rebels, its possible he had a number of strategies to go with and was trying to decide which to choose, with expanding the fold being the most extreme of them. I actually think this here is the moment he decides to go with that plan. As he walks away from the Conductor and the Conductor asks ‘tell me how I can help’ The Darkling replies ‘you already have.’ I actually think what he meant here was you’ve helped me make up my mind. Them daring to harm Alina was the linchpin.         

Which brings me to the next part of this analysis, The Darkling’s manipulation and relationship with Alina. One of the great things the show did with the Darkling’s character was making him so complex and nuanced that the audience is in very much the same position as Alina when that reveal is made about Aleksander being the Black Heretic. Just like Alina (if you haven’t read the books) you are left sort of blindsided. Also just like Alina the audience is left wondering how much of it was a manipulation. Was all of it part of his manipulation? Or were there some moments that were real? Did he care at all about Alina or was he just interested in her power? 

Well I will say this, while I do think he always planned to manipulate her, I don’t think he ever planned or tried to use seduction as part of that manipulation. I think we have to remember that he was waiting for the Sun Summoner for hundreds of years and I think he spent that time creating his plan for her and her power. We also have to remember that when he was creating this plan he was expecting to find a child. I think his plan was to earn her trust as a mentor and build a confidence between them. I think he planned to bring her up with his ideals, to bring her up believing the best thing was to use the fold as a weapon, to bring her up to always want to protect the Grisha and to bring her up to embrace her power. However this whole plan had a wrench thrown in it when he does finally find Alina and she’s not a child, she’s a grown woman and one that has been taught her whole life that the Sun Summoner’s purpose is to tear down the fold. Changing the ideals and beliefs of an adult is alot harder to do than a child. On top of that I think he does develop real feelings for her. But these feelings get in the way of his plans, which makes everything all the more complicated for him.        

Lets go to the moment they first meet. I do think right from the get go he is intrigued by her and mean I think when you watch the scene you are so focused on Alina and what she must be going through and feeling, how scared she must be being dragged in front of this powerful General that she’s only ever heard stories about, that we don’t think about what this moment meant to the General. I mean he has been waiting for this woman for so long. She could be the solution to all of his problems, a fix for all of his mistakes. She has been his one glimmer of hope in the vast darkness of eternity. And now she’s here in front of him. Jessie said in an interview that Alina felt a connection to Aleksander right from the beginning, but I think he felt a connection to her too. I think you can even see the moment they make that connection and it’s when he takes her wrist in the tent.

Once he takes her wrist they never break eye contact even as he draws her sleeve up higher, their eyes are glued to each other. Then they both pause for a few beats and again just stare at each other.

The tension between them is so thick it almost makes you want to yell get a room at the screen. It’s like they both suddenly felt something click between them, a oh I know you, kind of moment. But I also feel like Aleksander is a bit surprised by this feeling, he wasn’t expecting it. They don’t break eye contact until The General cuts her arm releasing her power and causing her to look down in surprise. But almost immediately Alina brings her eyes back to his. One kind of cool little detail I did notice is that you can see the reflection of the beam of light in both their eyes.

It’s like a thread connecting them both, I don’t know why but it sort of reminds me of that red thread of fate legend. But also with them both having dark eyes the beam of light reflected in them sort of reminds me of yin and yang. The other thing of note is the General’s facial expression when he sees her power. Whilst everyone else is looking on is awe and surprise, he looks almost content, definitely happy and maybe even a bit hopeful. To me he kind of looks like he’s just had all his prayers answered. 

I think Kirigan is further intrigued by Alina in episode two when she talks back to him with that rant about maybe he hasn’t found anyone with her power because they didn’t want to be found. I think its the first time in a long while that anyone has stood up to him and not just said yes sir. I actually found it really comical how surprised he was when she said no to him. You just know he hasn’t heard that word much in recent lifetimes. But I do think this plants those first seeds of him seeing her as an equal to him. I think this is where he starts to see her as not someone to bow at his feet but someone who belongs at his side. Then when she confesses that she hid from the testers because she didn’t want to feel even more alone I think he really saw something of himself in her. I mean you can see his facial expression shift. I think this furthers his idea that she is meant to be at his side, that she is the same as him and I think even at this early stage he begins to hope that maybe she is someone who will understand him as no one else ever has. In that moment he is determined to make sure she doesn’t ever feel alone again and that is why he tells her ‘you are Grisha, you are not alone.’ You can see from the passion in his voice when he says it that this is something very personal to him. 

However despite this connection he feels to her and the care I think he has for her too, he does manipulate her. I think one of the more obvious manipulations happens in episode 4 when he takes her to the fountain. Something that is worth noting is that before setting out on their ride Aleksander takes off his Kefta. Their Keftas in the show are presented as their armour, so I think it was a very deliberate move on his part to sort of send the message to her, look I’m taking my armour off for you and I am being vulnerable and open to you. He furthers this by giving her his name to create this familiarity between them. Then he takes her to a place that is personal to him and then he really gets into his manipulation game. Here’s the thing though, I feel like most of the time when we think of manipulation we think of lies. But sometimes the best way to manipulate a person is through twisting the truth and I think this is what he does here. From their conversations so far I think he has figured out that Alina feels like an outsider and that she fears being alone and not fitting in. I definitely think he uses this information to manipulate her by telling her the story about how he used to go to the fountain as a boy after he discovered he was descended from the most hated Grisha in Ravka and wished to be anybody else. He knows that Alina will respond to this story, that it will make her feel sympathy for him and also make her feel like he is someone who understands her and therefore someone she can trust and rely on. He is also most definitely being deceitful in that he knows she thinks he is talking about being related to the Black Heretic when in fact he is the Black Heretic. However that doesn’t mean that what he said was untrue. I really do think he used to go there as a boy and wish to be someone else. As for being the descendant of the most hated Grisha in Ravka well my theory there is that he could actually be talking about Morozova. In the flashback in episode 7 Aleksander says that he and Baghra are his descendants and that means that if he created the amplifiers than Aleksander could create an army. Baghra gives the warning that Aleksander will die like Morozova. This makes me think that Morozova died in quite an unpleasant way, maybe even killed because he was feared and hated. I mean sure the Black Heretic is the most hated Grisha in all of Ravka now, but whose to say there wasn’t someone who came before him? Another Grisha who was hated like the Black Heretic is now. And maybe when Aleksander was a boy he discovered he was the descendant of Morozova and that was a burden on him, so much so that he wished he was someone else. 

I also think he was being genuine when he talked about how he is never seen as the solution only a reminder of the problem. I mean we’ve seen this ourselves in episode one its one of the first things we learn about him, that he can’t bring down the fold. I also think he’s being truthful when he says they always need someone to blame but again he’s twisting this truth. Alina thinks he means he is being unjustly blamed for not being able to fix the Fold but I think he actually is talking about how the Old King turned on him. I’m also sure over the years many people have blamed him and the Grisha for all the ills the world has suffered. But I do think he really meant it when he told her that he wouldn’t let the world make her the new Heretic. I think making sure that doesn’t happen is something he cares deeply about and I think it shows that he does have some care for her that he is so determined that she doesn’t go through what he did with the world turning on him. 

Slight diversion here but I do want to talk about whether or not this hatred the world has for him is justified, I mean he did create the fold and that fold has killed alot of people since its creation. So surely just the fact that he created the fold is enough to solidify him as the villain. Well I think that depends on why he created the fold. I mean we get three different versions of how and why the Fold was created. The first one we hear is in episode 4 when Alina tells us the story that is taught to children in school. They say that history is written by the victors, and whilst I personally don’t think there were any victors in the creation of the fold, The Black Heretic disappeared with its creation, presumed to be dead, so the Old King probably considered himself the victor and was left to decide the history. Therefore this story was most likely the Old King’s version of events. In this version of the story it talks about how the Darkling hungered for more power after being made the Kings military advisor and this made the king fear that the Darkling would try to overthrow him. So he put a bounty on his head and that of anyone who stood by him. Eventually the Heretic realised he was outnumbered and decided to create an army using forbidden science. But he failed, creating the fold and killing himself and countless others. The second version we get is from Baghra and it is similar to this one. She says that he created the Fold to use as a weapon, that he tried making an army with merzost and that he didn’t think about what that would do to the people who lived there, that it turned the men, women and children into the Volcra. That she had warned him there would be a price and that he didn’t listen. She also says that he took a noble’s name to hide after. Baghra’s version paints Aleksander as power hungry and as someone who will stop at nothing to get what he wants no matter the cost. But there are somethings I think its worth noting about her version. The first is that it is very brief, sort of like the cliff notes version, as they are in a hurry and she needs to get Alina out of there pronto. She doesn’t have time to go into all the details so she tells her enough to convince her to leave. Which brings me to my second point, Baghra’s motivation here is to get Alina to flee, so logically the best way to do that is to tell her the worst parts of the story and leave out anything that might make Alina feel sympathetic towards Aleksander and therefore hesitate about leaving. Another thing to remember is that Baghra whilst she might know somethings wasn’t there for a lot of it, she didn’t see Luda killed by the soldiers just knows that she was killed and she didn’t witness the confrontation between Aleksander and the soldiers. However what she did see likely had an effect on her. There is one moment in particular during Baghra’s story where she becomes emotional and choked up, there are tears in her eyes and you just know she is reliving a bad memory and that is when she talks about the women and children who were turned into the Volcra alongside the soldiers. Think for a moment about where Baghra was when the fold was created. She was inside the sanctuary with the women and children who were hiding from the soldiers. Which means that she would have witnessed them turning into the Volcra which must have been a horrifying scene. 

Eventually we get to episode 7 and we learn what really happened when the fold was created and the story is more tragic that first told. I mean first you have the whole situation with Luda. He obviously loved her deeply and I can only imagine how painful it must have been to see her murdered right in front of him and to feel that guilt of her dying because she was protecting him. I mean the words ‘just mortal’ now make me want to burst out crying anytime I hear them. Then he gets to the sanctuary and there’s all these Grisha there that need protecting. I think he feels a responsibility for them. Then his mother reminds him that they are not fighters, they make things. Which gives him the idea of creating an army using merzost. It is worth pointing out here that when telling the tale to Alina Baghra says that she warned Aleksander that there would be a price for using merzost, but when you actually see the conversation what she says is that whilst the small science feeds them merzost feeds on them. This suggests that the price to be paid is by him. So yes he was aware there would be a price but he assumed he would be the one paying it. I think if he knew that the people inside the sanctuary would be turned into Volcra he might not have gone through with it. This is another thing that makes the story even more tragic. Aleksander was driven to create his own army by his wish to protect his people, but he lost control and ended up destroying the very people he was trying so hard to protect. Another thing I noticed when Alina is telling the story of the heretic in episode four when she gets to the part about the Heretic being killed along with countless other you can hear what sound like screams in the background, also Aleksander looks really sad and guilty. It is also right after that he says he had devoted his life to undoing the great sin aka the creation of the fold. We see this look of guilt again when Alina confronts him in episode 7 about being the one to create the fold and therefore responsible for the deaths of her friends and parents. You see him look to the floor.

 I really do think that he has alot of guilt about the fold, he sees it as a mistake.  We see both Baghra and Alina make the claim, the fold was no mistake. But in episode 7 we learn that it was, Aleksander did not deliberately set out to create the fold. It wasn't his intention. It seems to me that he wanted to bend the will of the soldiers to his, to make them his own army, but I think he lost control due to the emotional state he was in at the time. I mean right before the soldiers were threatening to murder all the people inside, including his mother, and were mocking him about Luda’s death. He was grieving, he was angry and he was fearful for his people. We were told the fold was born out of greed but lets be real it was born out of grief and out of pain and anger and fear. 

So if he considers it such a big mistake why doesn’t he want to tear it down? Well I think its two fold. On one hand he might be afraid of what he’ll see. It’s like Kaz says to Zoya ‘it’s dangerous to go looking for the dead. What you see may haunt you for the rest of your days.’ Tearing down the fold will reveal all the destruction he caused to the land and to the people who lived there, he’d have to really confront what he did to his own people. But I think another motivator is what he said about undoing the great sin. I think he thinks if he makes the fold useful then at least it would have made the ‘deaths’ of his people mean something somehow. If creating the fold cost them their lives then maybe by making it a weapon that can be used to protect Grisha will make their ‘deaths’ a worthwhile sacrifice.

Ok so diversion over, lets go back to the Darklina relationship and how much of his actions were a manipulation. We’ve already established that he was being manipulative when taking her to the fountain and was telling her twisted truths. But if we stick with episode 4 there’s the scene where she comes to visit him at night in the war room. This whole scene I actually think he was being completely genuine. I don’t think any of it was part of his manipulation of her. First off is the way they are both dressed. They are both in their nightclothes which gives this idea of them being more intimate and more exposed to each other. I said above that the Kefta is seen as the Grisha’s armour, well here neither one of them are wearing their Kefta. They have both taken off their armour and are letting each other in. When Alina first finds him he is looking over the war map and you can see that he looks troubled, which you know fair enough considering he’s fighting a war on two fronts, having to deal with getting supplies through the fold and how to deal with the rebels. I love the way he looks at Alina when she comes in though, its just so soft and I feel like he feels instantly calmer when he sees her. But then he starts talking about how he’s been fighting the war alone and lost friends, about how their own people are turning on Grisha just as their kin once did and he is clearly thinking back to when the Old King was hunting him and his people. When the shadows start creeping in I think his pain is very real, I don’t think this was an act at all and once again if you listen closely you can hear those faint screams in the background. Then Alina dispels the shadows with her light and repeats his words back to him, ‘you are not alone.’ I think in this moment he truly does feel like he’s not alone. That he has found someone who understands him and who is his equal, who is like him. So he reaches out and cups her face and tells her he’s been waiting for her a long time. But then she pulls away and says she should go. I think Aleksander is afraid at this moment that he has frightened her away or that he misinterpreted the situation and he becomes very confused. So when she lingers at the door he goes to it and contemplates calling her back, just as she struggles with whether she should go back. But then she walks away and I think he thinks that maybe he was wrong and she doesn’t feel the same as him and he is a little angry with himself for losing focus and for feeling something for her and so he locks the door between them.  

Another question I asked myself was whether he always intended to put the stag collar on her and to control her powers. In my opinion this one has a bit of a yes and a no answer. I think he kept changing his mind. He clearly knew that by killing the Stag and putting the amplifier on her he would gain control of her powers. As I said early I think his first draft of the plan, shall we say, was to find the Sun Summoner as a child, to gain her trust as her mentor and teach her that the Fold is a weapon to be used as opposed to something that needs to be torn down. If he had found her as a child he would have had a lot more control over her and could shape her into what he wanted. However when they find the Sun Summoner she’s an adult and believes that its her fate to tear down the fold so he has to do a rework of his plan. On top of that he’s got this problem that she clearly doesn’t want to be the Sun Summoner she has no interest in saving anyone and she just wants to go back to being a mapmaker in the First Army. I think it is during that speech where she talks about him transferring her power to someone else that he starts to look into whether that is possible. But as he gets to know her more I think this changes again and he starts to feel things for her and I think he starts to believe that they want the same things and that maybe taking control of her powers won’t be necessary. I think the turning point for him is in episode 5. In the breakdown video of their first kiss Jessie says Alina goes to the General’s rooms because of what happened the night before in the war room where they had a moment in episode 4. Alina wasn’t sure what that moment meant and so she was seeking out Aleksander because she was intrigued and wanted to know if there was something there. Aleksander is once again clearly happy to see her but I do feel like there is some awkwardness there because of what happened in episode 4 and because he feels like he had misinterpreted things and maybe was too intense with her. It’s an interesting dynamic because as Jessie says in that video in this moment he is the vulnerable one. One moment in particular that I think shows this vulnerability is right after she helps him into his Kefta. Again going back to the whole the Kefta is armour thing. When Alina first enters the room like in episode 4 she is wearing her dressing gown she has come to him with her armour off so to speak. He is also out of his Kefta and this early conversation is playful where they are joking about Ivan and the Volcra. But after she puts the Kefta on him is when his mood shifts a little and you see him kind of tug the Kefta tighter around himself. I feel like he was trying to protect himself because the more time he spends with her the more vulnerable and confused he feels, he’s feeling alot of feelings he hasn’t felt in a long time and I think he knows by now that he is well on his way to falling in love with her and this scares him a bit because he has lost loves in the past. Him putting the Kefta back on is like him attempting to put that armour back on. There is another way of looking at it too though. It’s worth noting that on this occasion Alina is the one helping him put the armour/Kefta on, like she is the one giving him protection. Then he turns around Alina is alot closer then he anticipated and you can actually see him struggling to even form words. Then she leans in close to him like she's about to kiss him but changes her mind and walks into the other room leaving our poor guy more confused than ever. Then Alina makes the speech about how she finally feels like she is part of something bigger and that they can offer hope to the Grisha and to Ravkans. In this moment our girl was talking straight to our boy’s heart. I think this is all he has ever wanted to hear her say, especially the ‘we can offer hope.’ I think he really means it when he says it means a lot to him and you can hear the passion in his voice when he says ‘you mean a lot.’ Of course when she looks down he once again becomes afraid he’s overstepped, gone too far and so he tries to backtrack with ‘to everyone’. And well we all know what happens next. Alina kisses him and as he says after he is surprised and not many people do surprise him. I think there is something about this woman that just makes him lose all his senses until his whole world becomes about her. I feel like throughout episode 5 Aleksander feels like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Because maybe she does feel the same way he does, maybe she wants the same things he does, maybe he has found his life partner, another immortal who will always be by his side, finally he’ll never have to feel alone again. I think the moment I decided this fool was definitely in love with Alina was the look on his face when she enters the room and he sees her in his colours for the first time. After watching her demonstration I think he does see her as his equal. He’s in complete awe of her and the only time he looks away is to look at the Monarchs to see their reaction. Basically from the moment Alina kisses him to this moment where he is seeing her take command of the room and truly showing her power, having people bow to her, Aleksander is living his best life, he’s on cloud nine. 

Then he gets word that someone has located the stag. We don’t see the scene where he gets informed of this but you can imagine he probably can’t believe his luck. Not only are things perfect between him and Alina but now someone has found the amplifier. But I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check when he discovers that Mal is the one who found the stag and he’s now here in the Little Palace. I feel like Aleksander sort of came crashing down to earth here and realised he might have a bit of a problem. Once again he’s having to do a quick, rapid, rework of his plan. Which brings us to another moment where the Darkling is being manipulative. He uses Mal to find out what Alina’s favourite flower is. I mean I suppose you could argue that he’s only doing what every other person does when they want to get a gift for their crush and don’t know what would be best, ask the best friend. But all jokes aside this move was clearly calculative on The Darkling’s part. But I couldn’t help but wonder why he decided to use the Irises. What was his motivation here. It’s clear that he has already won Alina over seeing as she was kissing him not to long ago. Well I said earlier that I think he changed his mind about using the collar on her. I do think after their conversation in episode 2 where she talks about how she didn’t want any of it and could he transfer it he thought she was going to be a problem and difficult so maybe he should look into finding a way of controlling her power. In the beginning she was focussed on her old life and I feel like she didn’t have much loyalty or care for the Grisha, it took her awhile to accept who she was and she was also struggling to use her powers. All she wanted was to go back to Mal and I think this may be why, or at least part of the reason why The General takes their letters. For one he didn’t want her to go back to him and so making her think that Mal didn’t care would encourage her stay put and discourage any ideas of leaving. I mean given her comment in episode 3 where Alina asks Genya if anyone had ever escaped the Little Palace, which the General overheard, its not that surprising that he would decide to confiscate any of her correspondence out of the Palace in case she was organising a breakout with Mal. Secondly as I said she was having trouble using her powers and I think after reading the letters maybe he figures out that its because of Mal that she is struggling, so he either stopped the letters because he wanted her to continue feeling abandoned by Mal and therefore he was hoping she would shift her dependence onto him or because he knew if she let go of Mal then she would be able to control her power more and more power for Alina means more power for him to control. This was all very manipulative on his part and obviously not the actions of someone who cares about Alina’s feelings but at this point she wasn’t Alina to him she was the Sun Summoner, a tool to be used and he was thinking as a General who had people and a whole country to protect and if that meant putting the collar on this stranger then so be it. I think he set out to win her trust to make it easier for him to put that collar on her when the time came. But then as he got to know her more, started catching feelings for her and after their conversation in episode 5, I think he decided that maybe he wouldn’t need to use the collar after all. My theory is that he got her the flowers and he took her to the war room instead of the dinner because he was planning to tell her some of the truth. I don’t think he was going to tell her about who he really was and about him being the Fold’s creator but I do think its possible that he intended to tell her about the Stag and maybe even try to convince her about using the Fold as a weapon. So I think he just wanted to put her in as good a mood as he could if that makes sense, sweeten her up before he brought it up. Also telling her about the Stag means telling her about Mal. I think he actually felt a little threatened by Mal because having read their letters he knows how she feels about Mal. So he wants her attention as much on him as possible. I think he very much felt like his dream was slipping away. As for the make out on the war table moment, that could have also been an attempt to keep her sweet on him like the irises. But as I’ve said before Aleksander seems to lose all his senses when he’s with Alina. When he’s with her the only thing he’s focused on is her, and I personally think it was just a case of he really wanted to kiss her. Some of it might also have been to reassure himself that those feelings between them were real, especially now that Mal has shown up. I mean they are both so giddy and happy when they break apart for him to answer the door that I find it difficult to believe that the whole kiss was a cold manipulation, he was grinning like a school boy. My favourite kiss between them (as steamy as their make out session was) was actually the one where he comes back to kiss her one last time. This is right after he has learnt that she was the target of an attack that happened inside of his Palace, which is the one place where his people are supposed to be safe. I think in that moment he just needed to reassure himself that she is safe, you can see his desperation in the kiss. There was just something so soft and pure about it. If I am sure about anything is that one was definitely real, I may have small doubts about the other kisses but that one kiss was 100% true.   

Things only get worse for Aleksander in episode 6 when he realises that Alina is missing. I think how he behaves in this episode tells us alot about how he really feels about Alina. He becomes somewhat unhinged when she goes missing and only becomes more so the longer she is gone from him. His sole focus is on her and finding her, to the point where he kind of forgets about anything else as we see when Fedyor comes to report about Nina, The General has completely forgotten there were other missions and things he was dealing with. Later when he calls Zoya to tell her to prepare a team to track down ‘Alina’s abductors’ and she puts forward the suggestion that Alina ran by herself, he doesn’t even consider it a possibility. The idea that she would willingly leave him is just too hard for him to wrap his head around because as he says to Zoya he is sure he knows exactly how she feels. He is usually the composed, unfazed General but he very much snaps at this moment and I think reveals more than he intended to Zoya, who clearly looks surprised by his outburst. He even says himself with Alina gone he’s not himself, he’s feeling unbalanced and tense without her. So when Zoya offers to help him relax he tells her that he’ll relax when he has Alina. I think its important as well that he says Alina and not the Sun Summoner. It’s not the Sun Summoner he’s lost without its Alina. When he finally catches up with Kaz and is told that Alina fled on her own you can see how shocked he is at this.

 And even then he has trouble believing it because he once again asks where she is and its not until the line ‘It was pretty clear she wasn’t interested in being a captive any more’ that it begins to set in for him and you see his shadows creep in. After you can see the heartbreak set in and then the anger.

 This anger only grows when he learns that she is with Mal and that she is going after the Stag. I think he very much feels like everything has been snatched away from him in a blink of an eye. I think he is angry that he was blindsided by it and he’s angry that he let his feelings for her cloud his judgement and distract him from his plans. Because of his feelings for her he might now have ruined all his plans and, as he would see it, risked the safety of the Grisha in doing so. Naturally its back to plan A of forcing the collar on her, because no matter how he feels about her he can’t let that distract him from his mission to protect the Grisha again. 

However no matter how angry he is at her and how hurt is is that she ran from him, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her. I see alot of arguments that he can’t have loved Alina because you can’t hurt someone you love like he did when he put the collar on her. But I’m calling BS on that one now because the people you love are the people who can hurt you the most, especially when they are hurt or angry. It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you it just means they are human and make mistakes. However that doesn’t mean you should tolerate those mistakes or brush them under the rug, absolutely they should be called out for them and held accountable for them and I am really glad that Alina does do this. The Darkling's anger at her is what drives him to find her and to kill the stag himself so he can collar her and I think this anger builds up whilst he is away from her, again showing how unhinged he has become without her. But I feel like some of that anger ebbs away a bit when he does find her and once she is in front of him again. That moment when he finds her and the stag and Mal is hurt and he calls out to her that she can’t save them, that as powerful as she is she does not have the power to heal. He is obviously thinking back to Luda here. Because as powerful as he was he was not powerful enough to save her, in that moment he was utterly powerless to keep her from dying. I think despite how hurt he is he cares about her too much to watch her go through the same pain and grief he did which is why he offers to heal Mal if she gives him the Stag. The similarities between the two scenes (the one with Alina, mal and the Stag and the one with Aleksander, Luda and the king’s men) are clear and I think really have an effect on Aleksander. I think when he says that Mal was only protecting Miss Starkov there are two interesting points. One is the use of the term Miss Starkov. This is a name he mostly called her when they barely knew each other and I think he is trying to distance himself from her again by making things more formal between them. The other thing is that it draws a parallel between both Mal and Luda. Both Mal and Luda were just trying to protect the people they love and Aleksander clearly doesn’t think either one of them deserved to die for it so he lets Mal live. 

Another scene I want to talk about real quick is the one right before he puts the collar on her. This scene is eerily similar to when they first meet. Once again they are back in a tent. Once again the scene starts with the Darkling’s back to her and with Alina in the hands of a guard/s. I said before that I think alot of the reason why he decides to collar her is because she doesn’t share his views and he feels like he needs to control her so he can weaponize the fold and save his people. That he was angry at himself for believing she might be his equal and share his goals. I think this scene where he talks to her shows that. The fact that he lowers himself to her level I think shows that he does see her as an equal. Then he talks about how together they could end all wars and protect their own and asks isn’t that what she wants. I think he is still clinging to that belief that he wasn’t wrong and that they did want the same things and maybe some part of him was still hoping he might not need to use the collar. But then she asks if they are going to tear down the fold and you can see the disappointment on his face because he understands now that she won’t see it his way. So instead he deflects the question and I think this is the moment that cements his choice to collar her.  

Further evidence that he does still care about Alina comes when he puts the collar on her. This is obviously a very distressing and gruesome scene. What he is doing is obviously wrong and I think deep down he knows it too. He can’t bear to look at her as it happens and so her turns away and its the second time he does as he also looks away in guilt when he threatens Mal. I don’t think he can handle her looking at him like he’s a monster and he can’t cope with seeing the betrayal and hurt in her eyes. It is also worth noting that I think part of the reason why he goes through with putting the amplifier on her is like he said to Mal, he thinks that over the years she will come to forgive him. Now this conversation where he talks about how she might take years to forgive him but he had patience also tells us that the fact that he is hoping for forgiveness shows that he knows what he is doing to her is wrong, that it is something that will require forgiveness. When he comes to see her later in her tent, can we just talk for a moment how nice that tent was, I mean he really went all out for her with lace and flowers like he somehow thought that would make up for him fusing a antler into her collar bone, but again even the fact that he gives her all these nice things shows that he wants that forgiveness and the way he approaches her as well is cautiously, like you would a wounded animal. He knows he’s hurt her and made her angry so he comes in with sweet words of compliments, telling her how special she is, and very quickly comes to know that she’s not having any of it. I mean that look she gives him when he first comes in, if looks could kill he’d be six feet under now. But I really do think he did go to her just because he wanted to talk to her, despite his words to Mal about having the patience to wait however many years it will take for her to forgive him, he wants to fix things between them now. He doesn’t want her to be angry with him and he doesn’t want her to be in pain. He’s desperate to get back what they had in episode 5. Also I think its important that we remember that until that conversation with her in the tent he didn’t know that she had discovered who he really was, so when she ran he believed that she had ran because she wanted to be with Mal which I think contributed to his anger at her and his feeling of betrayal. He couldn’t understand why she would want to be with someone who he believes never appreciated who she really was and who is mortal and will eventually just be a blip in her very long lifetime, instead of being with him who is her equal and immortal like her. This is another occasion where I feel like he gets a bit of a reality check and realises that she didn’t run because of Mal, she ran because of his own lies. So all that anger he felt at her ‘betrayal’ was unjust. But then I think he feels a different sense of betrayal in how easily she believed Baghra. I mean looking at it from his point of view she didn’t come to him and ask for his side of the story or demand an explanation she just trusted Baghra and ran. He is clearly desperate to make her understand and you can see his composure begin to fail as he stands and tells her that everything he is ever done has been to make Grisha and Ravka safer. I really do think that line was true, he really does believe that what he’s doing is the right thing for his people and his country. You can feel his frustration and desperation continuing to build throughout the scene as he pretty much pleads with her to understand and can see that she doesn’t. I think the part that really hurts him though is when she says ‘we could have had this, all of it. You could have made me your equal, instead you made me this.’ This line is so powerful and I think its at this moment that he realises just how badly he has messed up. To be told that his actions are the reason why he hasn’t got her, the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world right now. Also the line of making her his equal I think would have hit him hard because he did see her as his equal and so I think he’s surprised that she believes that he didn’t make her his equal and then when she says ‘instead you made me this’ he realises that whilst he might have seen her as his equal he wasn’t treating her as one. His need for control made her a slave to him and I really think that in this moment he is realising that, I genuinely think this dumbass got so caught up in his own dream of what the two of them together could be that he didn’t realise that whilst he thought he was protecting her and helping her grow into this saviour for their people he was taking away her choices and he was making her feel like a captive, the dummy didn’t think to ask how she felt about any of it because he assumed he already knew, it was the same as what he wanted, to protect their country and people. So his anger when he says the line ‘fine make me your villain’ isn’t just directed at her but himself too. It’s not just his hurt and anger that she doesn’t understand his reasons and that she isn’t seeing it his way, it’s also because he knows it was his own actions that lead him to that moment when the woman he loves is standing in front of him and looking at him like he is a monster. He can’t go back and he can’t undo it and worse than that he can’t seem to get her to understand why he did it. I think he feels trapped and so the only thing he can be to her now is her villain. 

It’s after this conversation that his demeanour towards her changes and you can see that he sort of stops trying to win her over. He’s not as gentle with her, I mean he ties her to the deck of the skiff and answers mockingly when she points out it’s not a good look for him with the ambassadors. I did notice though that after that conversation he seems to have trouble looking at her. When they are walking to the skiff and he tells her that Mal is being held captive and will be released if she does her part, he isn’t looking at her but straight ahead and this is something he does alot when he is threatening Mal. The moment when he takes off her cloak he does glance down at her. I seen alot of debate about that scene, as it does come across as having a bit of sexual tension in it and some people thought it was a rather sexy scene whereas others pointed out that he was holding her captive and mocking her. Me personally I actually think its both. People talk about how it has to be one or the other. But yes in that scene he is holding her captive and that part’s not sexy but there is a moment where I feel like he still feels that draw to her. Before reaching up to undo her cloak it seems to me like a hesitates for a moment. When he goes to whisper in her ear that he doubts they’ll notice her feet and I think he feels that pull and that attraction to her and he is really close to her, I don’t think he’s been that close to her since the war room in episode 5. You can see him lean slightly towards her and I think he really is struggling with the desire he feels for her which is why he steps back with the cloak rather forcefully, like he's having to force himself away from her again. It kind of reminded me of the scene where she helped him into his Kefta. So no the situation itself is not sexy but I do still think there is tension in the scene because the attraction they feel for each other didn’t just disappear despite how hurt and angry they are at each other. It’s like their words are saying one thing but their body language is saying another. 

When they are in the Fold again at first The Darkling avoids looking at her particularly when he is forcing her to use her power to create the tunnel of light. His focus is on The Fold. Again I think this shows that he is determined to not let his feelings for her get in the way for his goals, yet he knows he is taking away her free will and her choice and that’s hurting her so he can’t really stand to look at her. Its the same when she asks to tear down the fold and he answers why would they destroy the best weapon they have. Again he doesn’t look at her when he says it because he knows that he deceived her by letting her believe that was what they were going to do and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes. Again this is something he does alot and look, I love The Darkling’s character, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognise his flaws and for me I kind of saw him as a coward for this. I mean if you are going to deceive and manipulate a person and force them to do something you know they don’t want to do, then at least have the decency to look at them. He does however look at her when she tries to save Novokribirsk after he lets the fold consume it. He stops her and you can see the anger when he says they are traitors who tried to kill her and that this action was retribution. I think he hates the fact that she is trying to save the very people who tried to hurt her. But again he looks away from her when he sees the way she is looking at him and how horrified she is by what he has done. 

Their very last interaction is when she uses the dagger to cut the amplifier from his hand and shows him what she is and that she’s the one the stag chose. He sees this as her betraying their people which is interesting because at the end of the episode Alina says that Kirigan turned on his own people. So they both believe the other turned on their own people, the problem here is that I feel like Alina feels more loyalty towards the non Grisha Ravkans, she still sees them as more her people due to spending more time as just a ordinary mapmaker then as Grisha but the Darkling has more loyalty towards the Grisha. Its like how you know parents aren’t suppose to have a favourite child but we all know they do. Well I feel like the Ravkans are Alina’s favourite child and the Grisha are the Darkling’s. Of course they still care about the other but their ‘favourite’ is their priority if that makes sense. By the end of the season when we see the Darkling emerge from the fold I think he is feeling very angry and very betrayed by Alina, however I actually think the fact that she bested him has only made him look at her as even more of an equal than before. Not only is she someone who will stand up to him but now she has become someone who can match him. I do think he’s in this very complicated situation where he is on an opposite to the person he believes is essentially his soulmate. However as much as I think he does love her I still think he will put his people above her and so will continue to act in what he considers to be the best interests of his people. It also seems like he’s got some new powers and was able to create shadow soldiers which again is interesting because he basically just accomplished what he meant to do in the first place when he created the fold, he’s created his own army. 

Ok so that’s all for now to be honest I could talk about the Darkling forever but I think this is already long enough so if you have read all the way to the end thank you for your time. I am thinking of doing other character analysis posts so keep an eye for that if its something that interests you, I think I might do Alina next. I’ll also post my thoughts on the book once I’ve read it.        

[letterboxd]

Best of SXSW 2021.

From properly good Covid comedies to an epic folk-horror doc and an Indigenous feminist Western, the Letterboxd Festiville team reveals their ten best of SXSW Online.

We dug out old lanyards to wear around the house, and imagined ourselves queuing up the block from The Ritz (RIP). We dialled into screenings and panels, and did our level best to channel that manic “South By” energy from our living rooms.

The SXSW festival atmosphere was muted, and that’s to be expected. But the films themselves? Gems, so many gems, whether shot in a fortnight on the smell of an oily stimulus check, or painstakingly rotoscoped over seven years.

When we asked SXSW Film director Janet Pierson what she and her team were looking for this year, she told us: “We’re always looking for films that do a lot with little, that are ingenious, and pure talent, and discovery, and being surprised. We’re just looking for really good stories with good emotional resonance.” If there was one common denominator we noticed across this year’s SXSW picks, it was a smart, tender injection of comedy into stories about trauma, grief, unwanted pregnancy, chronic health conditions, homelessness, homophobia and, yes, Covid.

It’s hard to pick favorites, but here are the ten SXSW features and two short films we haven’t stopped thinking about, in no particular order.

Recovery Directed by Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek, written by Everton and Whitney Call

“Covid 19 is in charge now” might be the most hauntingly funny line in a SXSW film. In Recovery, two sisters set out on a haywire road trip to rescue their grandmother from her nursing home in the wake of a severe Covid 19 outbreak. There’s no random villain or threat, because isn’t being forced to exist during a pandemic enough of a threat in itself? If ever we were worried about “Covid comedies”, SXSW managed to flush out the good ones. (Read about the Festiville team’s other favorite Covid-inflected comedies, including an interview with the directors of I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking).)

Alex Marzona praises the “off-the-charts chemistry” between leads Mallory Everton and Whitney Call. Best friends since they were nine, the pair also wrote the film, with Everton co-directing with Stephen Meek. Every laugh comes from your gut and feels like something only the cast and crew would usually be privy to. “You can tell a lot of the content is improvised, which just attests to their talent,” writes Emma. Recovery doesn’t make you laugh awkwardly about how awful the last year has been—rather, it reminds you that even in such times there are still laughs to be had, trips to be taken, family worth uprooting everything for. Just make sure you’ve packed enough wet wipes for the road, and think long and hard about who should babysit your mice. —EK

The Spine of Night Written and directed by Morgan Galen King and Philip Gelatt

Don’t get too attached to any characters from its star-studded cast—nobody is safe (or fully-clothed) in The Spine of Night’s raw, ultra-violent and cynical world. Conjured over the last seven years, directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s rotoscoped epic recaptures the dazzling imagination and scope of their influences Ralph Bakshi and Heavy Metal. Approaching an anthology-style structure to explore how ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’—a proverb more potent now than when Gelatt and King began their project—the film packs a franchise’s worth of ideas in its 90-minute runtime. Though the storytelling justifiably proves itself overly dense for some, it will find the audience it’s after, as other Letterboxd members have declared it “a rare treat” and “a breath of fresh air in the feature-length animation scene”. For sure, The Spine of Night can join Sundance premieres Flee and Cryptozoo in what’s already a compelling year for unique two-dimensional animation. —JM

Kambole Campbell caught up with Gelatt and King (who are also Letterboxd members!) during SXSW to talk about animation inspirations and rotoscoping techniques.

The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson Written and directed by Leah Purcell

Snakes, steers and scoundrels beware! Writer-director-star Leah Purcell ably repurposes the Western genre for Aboriginal and female voices in The Drover’s Wife. Molly Johnson is a crack-shot anti-heroine for the ages, in this decolonized reimagining of a classic 1892 short story by Henry Lawson. And by reimagining, we mean a seismic shift in the narrative: Purcell has fleshed out a full story of a mother-of-four, pregnant with her fifth, a missing husband, predatory neighbors, a mysterious runaway and a young English couple on different paths to progress in this remote Southern land. Purcell first adapted this story for the stage, then as published fiction; she rightly takes the leading role in the screen version, too.

As a debut feature director, Purcell (Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri) already has a firm grip on the macabre and the menacing, not shying away from violence, but making very careful decisions about what needs to be depicted, given all that Molly Johnson and her family are subjected to. She also sneaks in mystic touches, and a hint of romance (local heartthrob Rob Collins can take us on a walk to where the Snowy widens to see blooming wildflowers anytime). Judging by early Letterboxd reviews, it’s not for everyone, but this is Australian colonization through an Indigenous feminist’s eyes, with a fierce, intersectional pay-off. “Extremely similar to a vast majority of the issues and themes explored in The Nightingale,” writes Claira. “I’m slowly realizing that my favorite type of Westerns are Australian.” —LK, GG

Swan Song Written and directed by Todd Stephens

Udo Kier is often the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. Now, after a lifetime of supporting roles ranging from vampires and villains to art-house muse, he finally gets to shine center-stage in Swan Song. Kier dazzles as a coiffure soothsayer in this lyrical pageant to the passage of queer times in backwater Sandusky, Ohio. “He is absolutely wonderful here,” writes Adrianna, “digging deep and pulling out a mesmerizing, deeply affecting and emotionally textured performance, proving that he’s an actor with much more range than people give him credit for.”

A strong supporting cast all have melancholy moments to shine, with Linda Evans (Dynasty), Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and Jennifer Coolidge (Legally Blonde) along for the stroll. Surreal camp touches add joy (that chandelier, the needle drop!) but by the end, the tears roll (both of joy and sadness). Writer-director Todd Stephens ties up his Sandusky trilogy in this hometown homage, a career peak for both him and Kier. Robert Daniels puts it well, writing that Swan Song is “campy as hell, but it’s also a heartfelt LGBTQ story about lost lovers and friends, vibrant memories and the final passage of a colorful life.” —LK

Leo Koziol spoke with Todd Stephens and Udo Kier during SXSW about Grace Jones, David Bowie and dancing with yourself.

Islands Written and directed by Martin Edralin

Islands is a Mike Leigh-esque story that presents a Canadian Filipino immigrant family full of quirk and character, centered around Joshua, a reticent 50-year-old homebody son. The story drifts in and out of a deep well of sadness. Moments of lightness and familial love make the journey worthwhile. “A film so Filipino a main plot device is line-dancing,” writes Karl. “Islands is an incredibly empathetic film about what it’s like to feel unmoored from comfort. It’s distinctly Filipino and deals with the psychology of Asian culture in a way that feels both profound and oddly comforting.” In a year in which we’ve all been forced to physically slow down, Islands “shows us how slow life can be,” writes Justin, “and how important it is to be okay with that.” Rogelio Balagtas’s performance as Joshua—a first-time leading role—won him the SXSW Grand Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance. —LK

Ninjababy Directed by Yngvild Sve Flikke, written by Flikke with Johan Fasting and Inga H. Sætre

Ninjababy is as ridiculous as its title. When 23-year-old Rakel finds herself accidentally pregnant, scheduling an abortion is a no-brainer. But she’s way too far along, she’s informed, so she’s going to have to have the baby. The ensuing meltdown might have been heartbreaking if the film wasn’t so damn funny. Ninjababy draws on the comforting and familiar (“Lizzie McGuire if she was a pregnant young adult,” writes Nick), while mixing shock with originality (Erica Richards notices “a few aggressive and vulgar moments [but] somehow none of it seemed misplaced”).

An animated fetus in the style of Rakel’s own drawings appears to beg and shame Rakel into motherhood while she fights to hold onto her confidence that not wanting to be a mother doesn’t make her a bad person. Ninjababy’s greatest feat is its willingness to delve into that complication: yes, it’s righteous and feminist and 21st-century to claim your own body and life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to turn away from something growing inside of you. It’s a comedy about shame, art, finding care in unlikely places—and there’s something in it for the gents, too. The titular ninjababy wouldn’t leave Rakel alone, and it’s unlikely to leave you either. Winner of the SXSW Global Audience Award. —SH

The Fallout Written and directed by Megan Park

Canadian actress Megan Park brought the youthful wisdom of her days on the teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager to her first project behind the camera, and it paid off. Following the scattered after-effects of a school shooting, The Fallout may be the most acute, empathetic depiction of childhood trauma on screen in recent memory. “It sneaks up on you with its honesty and how it spends time with its lead, carried so beautifully by Jenna Ortega. Even the more conventional moments are poignant because of context,” writes Kevin L. Lee. Much of that “sneaky” honesty emerges as humor—despite the heavy premise, moments of hilarity hang on the edges of almost every scene. And Ortega’s portrayal of sweet-but-angsty Vada brings self-awareness to that humor, like when Vada’s avoidant, inappropriate jokes with her therapist reveal her desperation, but they garner genuine laughs nonetheless.

In this debut, Park shows an unmatched understanding of non-linear ways that young people process their pain. Sometimes kids try drugs! Sometimes they scream at their parents! But more often than not, they really do know what they want, who loves them, and how much time they need to grieve (see also: Jessie Barr’s Sophie Jones, starring her cousin Jessica Barr, out now on VOD and in theaters). The Fallout forsakes melodrama to embrace confusion, ambiguity and joy. Winner of both the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience Narrative Feature Awards, and the Brightcove Illumination Award. —SH

Ludi Directed by Edson Jean, written by Jean and Joshua Jean-Baptiste

When Ludi begins, it’s quiet and dreamy. The film’s opening moments conjure the simple pleasures of the titular character’s Haitian heritage: the music, the colors, the people. Ludi (Shein Monpremier) smiles to herself as she starts her morning with a tape recording her cousin mailed from Haiti to Miami, and listens as her family members laugh through their troubles before recording an upbeat tape of her own. But that’s where the dreaminess ends—Ludi is an overworked, underpaid nurse picking up every shift she possibly can in order to send money home. Writer-director Edson Jean fixates on the pains and consequences of Ludi’s relentless determination, which comes to a head when she moonlights as a private nurse for an old man who doesn’t want her there.

Ashton Kinley notes how the film “doesn’t overly dramatize or pull at false emotional strings to make its weight felt. The second half of the feature really allows all of that to shine, as the film becomes a tender and empathetic two-hander.” George’s (Alan Myles Heyman) resentment of his own aging body steps in as Ludi’s antagonist. Jean throws together jarring contrasts: George throwing Ludi out of the bathroom, followed by Ludi’s memories of home, followed by another lashing out, followed by a shared prayer. The tension is unsustainable. By interspersing the back-breaking predicament of a working-class immigrant with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean, Ludi elegantly, painfully reveals what the cost of a dream can be. —SH

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror Written and directed by Kier-La Janisse

Building on the folk horror resurgence of films like The Witch and Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse’s 193-minute documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a colossal, staggering undertaking that should school even the most seasoned of horror buffs. “Thorough is an understatement,” says Claira.

Combining a historian’s studied, holistic patience with a cinephile’s rabid, insatiable thirst, the film, through the course of six chapters, broadens textbook British definitions, draws trenchant socio-political and thematic connections, debunks myths and transports viewers to far-flung parts of the globe in a way that almost feels anthropological. As Jordan writes, “Three hours later and my mind is racing between philosophical questions about the state of hauntology we generationally entrap ourselves in, wanting to buy every single one of the 100+ films referenced here, and being just a bit in awe of Janisse’s truly breathless work.” An encyclopedic forest worth losing yourself in—get ready for those watchlists to balloon. Winner of the SXSW Midnighters Audience Award. —AY

Introducing, Selma Blair Directed by Rachel Fleit

There’ll likely be some level of hype when this intimate collaboration between actress Selma Blair and filmmaker Rachel Fleit comes out later in the year on Discovery+, and that’s okay, because that is Blair’s intention in sharing the details of her stem-cell transplant for multiple sclerosis. There’d be little point in going there if you are not prepared to really go there, and Introducing, Selma Blair is a tics-and-all journey not just into what life is like with a chronic condition, a young son, and a career that relies on one’s ability to keep a straight face. It’s also an examination of the scar tissue of childhood, the things we are told by our parents, the ideas we come to believe about ourselves. “I almost felt like I shouldn’t have such intimate access to some of the footage in this documentary,” writes Andy Yen. “Bravo to Selma for allowing the filmmakers to show some truly raw and soul-bearing videos about her battle with multiple sclerosis that make us feel as if we are as close to her as family.” —GG

Femme Directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping

I May Destroy You fans, rejoice: Paapa Essiedu, who played Arabella’s fascinating best friend Kwame, takes center stage in Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s intoxicating short film Femme. It’s a simple premise—Jordan, a femme gay man, follows his drug dealer (Harris Dickinson, mastering the sexually repressed brusque young man like no one else) home to pick up some goods on a night out. Except, of course, it’s not that simple. The co-directors build a world of danger, tension and electricity, with lusciously lensed scenes that lose focus as the threat rises. Frankie calls it “hypnotizing and brutal and gorgeous” and we couldn’t agree more. A crime thriller wrestling with hyper-masculinity seen through the eyes of an LGBTQ+ character, with a sucker-punch ending to boot, the world needs more than twenty minutes of this story. —EK

Play It Safe Directed by Mitch Kalisa

If you (unwisely) thought that the vulnerable, progressive environment of drama school would be a safe space for Black students, Play It Safe confirms that even a liberal bunch of actors (and their teacher) are capable of being blind to their own egregiously racist microagressions. Mitch Kalisa’s excellent short film explores structural prejudice head-on, in an electric acting exercise that rests on where the kinetic, gritty 16mm camera is pointing at every pivotal turn. At first, we’re with Black drama student Jonathan Ajayi as he receives the assignment; then we are with the rest of the class, exactly where we need to be. “Literally in your face and absolutely breathtaking,” writes Nia. A deserving winner of the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience narrative shorts prizes. —GG

Follow the Festiville team on Letterboxd

[muthaz-rapapa]

HealPre Ep 2: Partners, Faith & Ability

Hwoo, boy. This is another long one.

Ok, I know mascots are not the most exciting things to talk about when it comes to Precure because while a handful of them are not quite two-dimensional (depending on the context), they rarely fully reach the three-dimensional field either since they are majorly there to support the main charas and...well, to look and be cute for the merchandising. Hence, why they’re soon shoved to the backseat in favor of the story focusing more on our heroines.

But as we are still in the early period of establishing relationships here, I think it’s noteworthy to discuss the return of fairy partnerships (which hasn’t happened since DokiDoki, can you believe that?) and why it’s significant to the story of HealPre.

Starting with the first one-sided “fight” (if you can really call it that) between Rabirin and Nodoka.

Prior to learning that Nodoka’s actually not athletic, Rabirin was immensely ecstatic to have found a human who shared their sentiments on wanting to protect the Earth. But because she was too thrilled about it, she ended up blinding herself with thoughts that Nodoka is the ideal partner she always wanted. A person who’s agile, graceful and possesses a robust physique.

So when the after school activities proved otherwise, Rabirin gets upset and disbands the partnership right then and there.

Which makes Rabirin look incredibly shallow and selfish but in reality...

It’s because she likes Nodoka so much that she can’t bear to put such a kind girl like her in danger.

True, Rabirin is still basing everything off a mindset that says “I can only accept a partner who’s physically capable” so for one part, she is still thinking too superficially.

But for another, Rabirin also acknowledges that she is just a trainee, not a full-fledged doctor. She knows for a fact that she herself is not completely competent as she wants to be (yet) so if something bad happens, she might not be enough to protect Nodoka from the fall.

Nodoka has a handicap and Rabirin is inexperienced. These are not the best circumstances to go into battle with so to minimize the damage that can affect them (and the Earth), Rabirin decides to leave Nodoka.

It’s not that protecting the Earth takes priority over everything else.

It’s because protecting the Earth should not come at the expense of letting Nodoka get hurt in any way.

That’s the true reasoning behind Rabirin’s rejection.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to Nodoka.

Her noticeably calm reaction to Rabirin’s emotional outburst is also worth examining. Rather than becoming sad or disheartened at being dumped because she’s not “up to snuff”, she takes the time to reflect on what she’s able to do at the moment.

Nodoka’s not going to deny that she has trouble keeping up with those who are more athletically fit than she is. She knows that’s due to her having a weak constitution from illness but she’s not ashamed of it. It’s just a fact that she was sick, nothing more. 

It doesn’t mean she can’t do the same things healthy people are capable of doing. It just means she has to find ways to do them without straining herself. And if given the time, she’ll eventually be able to catch up with them that way.

Nodoka already has the motivation (hell yea she does, that’s mah gurl!) so all she needs to do is to find the best point for her to start from.

What’s more, Nodoka is not afraid of getting hurt to do what she feels she needs to do.

When Rabirin was not there to help her transform, Nodoka tried all sorts of things she can think off to fend off the Megapathogerm. Teaming up with Nyatora, donning armor before confronting the monster and tricking it into a trap.

Honestly, it’s remarkable how she faced the situation without letting the panic get the better of her.

She’s very stable as person, a trait I believe is something we’d like to see in anyone, especially a partner.

And “failure” doesn’t discourage her either.

When she proves no match for the Megapathogerm in her civilian form, the first thing she does after getting knocked off her feet was to try and chase after it.

The thought of people getting hurt by the villains is what drives her to act. Even when she’s in no condition to continue fighting, she musters whatever strength she has left to help others anyway.

Nodoka is brave, resilient and extremely compassionate.

But it’s also important to know she isn’t fearless.

And what she is most afraid of is not being able to do anything at all.

She’s not just afraid for other people. She’s also terrified that if she doesn’t act now, she’s going to have to relive those lonely, difficult days she spent bedridden in the hospital.

A life where she couldn’t move as she wanted, couldn’t live as she wanted to. And perhaps those feelings of helplessness made her despair.

She doesn’t want anyone else to feel that way. She doesn’t want herself to feel that way again because of not being able to do anything as she is now. Now when she can finally walk on her own two feet and start doing so many things she couldn’t do before.

Nodoka had received so much hope to get here.

From her parents, her doctors, her nurses.

It was thanks to them for being by her side through the hardships that Nodoka was able to make it here today.

They taught her to have faith in herself, to believe that she does have it in her to beat her illness.

And she did.

Nodoka values the hope given to her so strongly that if she were to step back and give up now, it would be an insult to all the support she received from her loved ones.

When she was in pain, no one abandoned her. So how can she possibly stand by when she sees someone else in trouble?

Therefore, whether she can still be Rabirin’s partner or not, whether Rabirin will allow her to be Precure or not is not the main concern here.

Nodoka just wants to do something.

She doesn’t want to sit on the sidelines like she used to. She wants to join clubs, do activities and run to her heart’s content.

And if someone’s hurting, she wants to help them. That’s all.

Doing nothing is more painful for Nodoka than failing.

That’s why when Rabirin gave her the powers to transform into Cure Grace, Nodoka was so grateful to her.

Becoming Precure helped Nodoka from drowning in despair again. She was able to do something, she was able to help the Earth beat the maladies the villains inflicted on it.

Similar to Nodoka’s parents and doctors giving her hope to overcome her own illness.

And in earnest, she sincerely swears to Rabirin that she’ll do her best to protect Earth with these powers she’s given.

Nodoka cannot promise she’ll become the strongest Cure ever. She knows how dangerous fighting these monsters can be and she’s fully aware of the limits of her own body.

But she still wants to at least try.

Not for herself. Becoming Precure is not for herself, but for the sake of others.

So she asks Rabirin to believe in her. Like with her illness, Nodoka is not that naive to think she can go at it alone. She beat her illness because she had her people by her side, supporting her every step of the way. 

And if Rabirin gives her another chance, then Nodoka knows from experience that they can overcome whatever comes their way. Not just Nodoka. Nodoka and Rabirin.

They can save the Earth if they fight together.

After a declaration like that, how can Rabirin even think of not wanting Nodoka as her partner?

More than finding a person who’s in tip-top shape, being able to find Nodoka, whose heart is just as strong if not even stronger than the average healthy person’s, is nothing short of a miracle.

What Rabirin was looking for was not the “perfect” partner but someone who resonated with her. That someone is Nodoka.

With that, she apologizes profusely for treating Nodoka so harshly before, judging her without knowing her story and not respecting Nodoka’s feelings like a doctor should.

Rabirin was right when she said it wasn’t she who helped Nodoka but the other way around. Meeting Nodoka helped Rabirin break free of the limits of her own thinking...

Which finally brings me to the topic of partnerships.

Y’know, it’s so easy to take the fairies for granted because though they play a pivotal role, they’re not the most important part of the story.

But the way the necessity of a partnership is portrayed here, as a very serious matter rather than the teasing banter comedy we usually see, tells something very profound that HealPre might be trying to convey.

It’s that no man is an island. No one can shoulder the world alone.

Just like how we can’t expect one individual to solve the climate crisis, you can’t assume that you’ll be okay bearing all the burdens on your own while fighting against your personal ailments, whatever they may be.

Everyone needs someone else to truly live healthily.

And not just any “someone” but a person you know you can truly trust to understand you and repay in kind as well.

That’s what makes a partnership.

Protecting the Earth is the biggest importance to Rabirin and Nodoka practically had to bare her entire soul to the rabbit to prove she’s up to the task. In turn, it wouldn’t be right to not answer those feelings which is why Rabirin tossed away what set her back to accept Nodoka as the one and only partner for her.

Rather than worrying about what someone’s not capable of, you should actually take a real look at what they are capable of doing. And in order to do that, you have to get to know each other, see what’s beyond the surface, reach the point where it’s become secure enough for you to be confident enough to say the faith you invested in each other is worth it.

Only then can something be born out of two people combining their efforts together.

Two.

二つ (“futatsu”)

Why does the post-transformation Cure phrase have this word in it? Because it’s not just Nodoka becoming Cure Grace to save the world. It’s Nodoka and Rabirin.

Rabirin who gives Nodoka the power to transform into Precure. Nodoka receiving that power to protect Earth alongside Rabirin.

Cure Grace is made up of the power of two, not one. Cure Grace is both Nodoka and Rabirin.

The power of two.

I’m not sure if this is how I wanted the post to turn out (I had to rewrite and re-edit it so many times because thinking on it drove my mind in circles @.@;;) or if I said everything I wanted to...

But if there’s one thing I’m certain of is that Rabirin will never doubt Nodoka again from this point on.

Even when Chiyu and Hinata, who have better stamina than Nodoka does, join the team, I’m certain Rabirin won’t compare her partner to them and instead say something along the lines of “Nodoka has the biggest heart out of anyone here! My partner’s the strongest of them all!” with immeasurable pride.

In short, Rabirin liked Nodoka before but she definitely loves Nodoka now.

(*＾v＾*)

[pedanticat]

Star vs the Forces of Evil AU: Starry Spider

So I’ve tweaked this AU a lot since I’ve first made it but I can proudly say that I have a majority of the details for this AU all figured out. Specials thanks to @thisbelongsto-nohbodys @mrevaunit42 and @chameleongiant for helping me sort out and figure out the details for this AU. The drawing in which Star is swinging in the air with Marco is done by the-novice-artist. 

This AU doesn’t take place in Echo Creek since it doesn’t seem to have a lot of things that Star can swing around on. Instead, the AU will take place in a more city-like version of Echo Creek that will be called Echo City.  

Magic isn’t a big factor in this AU though things like magical artifacts and items such as magic mirrors do exist. Items such as the Butterfly wand and dimensional scissors, however, don’t exist. The reason for this is that I want the AU to be more grounded like how the Spectacular Spiderman series was. With that said, monsters exist, but they live among humans and are treated like normal people. Though characters such as Tom, Tad and Pony Head (whose name is Lilly in the AU) are humans in this AU. So demons and floating pony heads don’t exist in this AU. 

Instead of just giving Star the simple title of Spider-Woman/Girl and giving her Peter Parker normal Spiderman Suit, I decided to go with something different. First, I decided to give her the name Starry Spider. Then for the design, I decided it would be cool if I had it in which her costume was like Spider Gwen costume. Also, she possesses all the same powers as normal Spider-Man, so no powers like camouflage or venom blast.

Moon Butterfly is the CEO of Mewni Labs, a prestigious science and technology company that creates inventions for all fields of technology that can be used in everyday life along with making breakthrough’s in the field of science. This is based on the Marvel Comics company Horizon Labs. Before becoming one of the richest women in the world though, she was raised by her mother in the Butterfly pastry shop in Europe. From a young age, Moon had always been interested in technology and science with her looking up anything she could about the subjects along with creating inventions to help her mom out in the shop. When Moon returned home from the library one day when she was 14, she was welcomed to nothing but the burnt remains of the shop with her learning that the shop got caught on fire with her mother trapped inside and dying as a result. While Moon inherited a large amount of money from her mother her that supported her along with being raised by her grandmother (who isn’t Estella), she still worked rigorously on her inventions and planned on getting into a good school. After graduating from High School, Moon study went to America and enrolled in St. Olga's University for Prestigious Ladies in Echo City. While taking a stroll through the park one day, she met River Johansen, an energetic Earth Science student who was attending Echo College in order to become a Park Ranger. As they spent more and more time together, the two slowly fell in love. 

 After graduating at the top of her class and marrying River, Moon made a name for herself with the invention of the Arc Reactor, an efficient and an eco-friendly device that would provide clean energy to all of Echo City. With her invention being donated to the city and proving to be a success, various states and companies ordered for their own arc reactor which soon resulted in Moon becoming incredibly rich and building Mewni Lab. Despite her newly acquired  wealth, however, Moon never forgot where she came from with her and River deciding to move in the suburban area of Echo City for a more peaceful environment, albeit in a moderately large and fancy made house with high tech home security built in the suburbs. The Butterflies became next-door neighbors to none other than the Diaz’s.

Star has a genius intellect when in the AU due to Moon teaching her various things about the subjects along with her being tutored in other things such as ballet, acrobatics, and self-defense. However, Star could care less about her studies or the company and would rather do her own thing like being a regular teenager. Even though she’s able to construct the tools she uses as Starry Spider such as web fluid and web-shooters by herself, Marco does help her make them since he’s almost as smart as her. The two basically have Gwen and Peter dynamic from Amazing Spiderman in which like Gwen, Star will playfully be smug about how she’s the smartest kid at Echo Creek Academy and Marco is the second smartest kid at the school. But over the course of her time as Starry Spider in which she creates devices to help her fight crime and save people, she begins to realize that she could also use her brain to help people not only as Starry Spider but also as Star Butterfly.  Like Harry and Norman, Star and Moon relationship is strained in the AU, though their relationship isn’t as bad as Harry and Norman relationship. Moon constantly gets on Star about how she needs to be more responsible and mature in order to uphold the Butterfly name when she will eventually run Mewni Labs. This is because in the event of something ever happening to her and River, Moon wants to make sure that Star can take care of herself while also being responsible for the thousands of people who work for the company. Star however just want to be a normal kid who has fun and don’t want the burden of having to run the business. River used to serve as a nice buffer between the two, but things have gotten rough between the two after his murder. 

Most characters who are from royalty in the show are rich in some way in the AU. For example, Penelope Spiderbite family are the leading brand in various multipurpose creams, Pony Head family make horse merchandise like plushies, figurines, and product for horses, Tom family manufactures high tech weapons, etc.  

Marco is basically the same as his show counterpart with one difference being that he’s a total science and technology geek like Peter Parker. He was the one who helped make Star costume since he has a real knack for sewing and will even serve as Star guy in the chair.

Tom is a lot more composed and calmer in this as compared to his show counterpart, though he did have some anger issues back in elementary school. He becomes a huge fan of Starry Spider and even forms a Starry Spider fan club at school.

I’m going for a Peter, MJ, and Harry Dynamic in which Tom, Marco, and Star have been best friends since they were little. Of course, both Tom and Marco had crushes on Star, with Marco being the one who ends up with Star when she asked him to the seventh-grade middle school dance. While Tom harbors no ill-mentioned feelings against Marco and is still his best guy friend, he still has feelings for Star deep down. The trio are friends with other characters such as Alfonso, Ferguson, Tom, Lilly, Jackie, Janna, and Kelly. 

Most of the Teen characters are 15 with all of them being sophomores.  

Now there isn’t a character to fill in the role of every Spider-Man villain so characters like the Rhino and the Shocker will be their normal selves. However, there are some STVTFOE characters I plan on having taken the role of Spiderman villains or be their own original villain.  

[gdelgiproducer]

What’s been your favorite staged version of JCS? (Non-concert)

First, a list of the staged (non-concert) versions of JCS I’ve seen: two high school productions (about which you’ll hear nothing in this post; it’s unfair to judge them in competition with pros), the closing performance of the 2000 Broadway revival, two performances of the national tour that followed said revival (one of which featured Carl Anderson as Judas and Barry Dennen – Pilate on the original album, Broadway, and in the 1973 film – as Herod), and four performances of a national tour initially billed as Ted Neeley’s “farewell” engagement in the role of Jesus. In total, discounting the number of performances of each, five productions, only three of which we will consider here.

The 2000 Broadway revival had basically all the problems of the video of the same production: I’m sure Gale Edwards is a fine director of other shows, but she missed the boat with this particular iteration of JCS. (Not having seen her original production at the Lyceum Theatre in 1996, which unfortunately never left that venue and was reportedly far better than the one that went wide, I can only comment on this version.) Her direction and the production design that accompanied it were full of the kinds of blatant, offensively obvious attempts at symbolism and subtlety that appeal only to pseudo-intellectual theater kids. In real life, there’s no such thing as obvious good vs. obvious evil (things just ain’t black and white, people), and any attempt to portray this concept on stage or in a film usually results in a hokey “comic book” product, which is kind of what the 2000 production was. 

The first thing Edwards did was draw her line in the sand. “These are the good guys, and these are the bad guys.” The overall production design played into this ‘line in the sand’ feel as well, being so plain in its intentions as to almost beat you over the head with them. There may have been some good concepts mixed in, but for a show that runs on moral ambiguity, they were very poorly executed and did damage to the piece. Some examples:

Annas and Caiaphas were devoutly “evil,” seemingly designed to inspire fear.  It’s easy to see good as so very good, and bad as so very bad; to want to have the evil in a nice little box. But it’s not that simple. As Captain Jean-Luc Picard (and now you know where my Star Trek loyalties lie, curse you!) once said, “…villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those that clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.”  Evil isn’t always a clear and recognizable stereotype. Evil could be lurking inside anyone, maybe even in you, and you would never know. People aren’t inherently evil. Like good, it’s a role they grow and live into. And since history is basically a story of the developments and actions of humans over the ages, maybe it’s a mistake to view the characters who’ve played their parts in it so one-dimensionally. It doesn’t dismiss the evil they did, but it does allow one to understand that this potential to be good or to be evil is in everyone, and that it’s not always as simple as just doing the right thing.

Judas was an almost thoroughly unlikable prick (though Tony Vincent played him a tiny bit more sympathetically than Jerome Pradon in the video); in beating Jesus over the head with his cynicism and curt remarks, any sense of a fully three dimensional person was lost, leaving us with a total, utter dickhead. If the audience is to truly feel for Judas, and appreciate his fall, it’s imperative for them to see his positive relationship with Jesus. More importantly, it has to be readily apparent. It shouldn’t be the audience’s responsibility to assume as much. I never once saw any love, or even a hint of friendship, between Jesus and Judas in the 2000 production. Judas’ interactions with Jesus were a constant barrage of either completely in-your-face aggression, or more restrained (but still fully palpable) aggression. No hint of a conflict in him, or at least none the audience could see, and what use is a conflict or emotion if the audience isn’t privy to it?

And when not telegraphing an ultra-specific view of the story’s events, everything else about the design would’ve left a first-time viewer befogged. Young me liked the industrial, post-apocalyptic, pseudo-Gotham City atmosphere of the set. Older me still likes it (though I am firm in my opinion it works best on stage), but realizes what a mess the rest of it was. We’ve got Jesus and the apostles straight out of Rent, Roman guards that looked (with the choice of riot gear) like an army of Darth Vader clones with nightsticks substituting for light sabers, priests that practically stepped off the screen from The Matrix, a Pilate in generic neo-Nazi regalia, a Herod with showgirls and chorus boys that seemed to have visited from a flash-and-trash third-rate Vegas spectacular, a Temple full of ethnic stereotypes and a mish-mosh of dime-store criminals, and a creepy mob with a striking resemblance to The Addams Family that only popped up in the show’s darker moments. Lots of interesting ideas which might work (operative word being “might”) decently in productions of their own, all tossed in to spice up a rather bland soup. The solution to having a bunch of conflicting ideas is not to throw all of them at the wall at once; you look for a pattern to present itself, and follow it. If no pattern emerges from the ideas you have, it’s a sign you should start over.

You can see what my basic issue was: where other productions at least explored motivation, examining possibilities and presenting conflicting viewpoints for consideration, the 2000 production (when not utterly confused in its storytelling thanks to conflicting design) blatantly stated what it thought the motivation was without any room for interpretation – this is who they are, what they did, why they did it, so switch off your brain and accept what we put in front of you. Which, to me, is the total opposite of what JCS is about; it didn’t get famous for espousing that view, but for going totally against the grain of that.

The national tour at least had Carl and Barry to recommend for it the first time around, but for all the mistakes it corrected about the 2000 revival (swapping out the shady market in the Temple for a scene where stockbrokers worshiped the almighty dollar, with an electronic ticker broadcasting then-topical references to Enron, ImClone, and Viagra, among others, was a fun twist, and, for me, Barry Dennen gave the definitive performance of Herod), it introduced some confusing new ones as well:

For one, Carl – and, later, his replacement, Lawrence Clayton – looked twice the age of the other actors onstage. Granted, Christ was only 33 when this happened, but next to both Carl and Clayton, Eric Kunze (I thankfully never caught his predecessor) looked almost like a teenager. When Ted and Carl did the show in the Nineties and both were in their fifties, they were past the correct ages for their characters, but it worked – in addition to their being terrific performers and friends in real life whose chemistry was reflected onstage – because they were around the same age, so it wasn’t so glaring. Without that dynamic, the way Jesus and Judas looked together just seemed weird, and it didn’t help anyone accept their relationship.

Speaking of looking weird together, the performer playing Caiaphas – who was bald, and so unfortunately resembled a member of the Blue Man Group thanks to the color of lighting frequently focused on the priests – was enormously big and tall, while the actor in the role of Annas was extremely short. Basically, Big Guy, Little Guy in action. Every time I saw them onstage, I had to stifle the urge to laugh out loud. I’ve written a great deal about how Caiaphas and Annas are not (supposed to be) the show’s villains, but that’s still not the reaction I should have to them.

The relentlessness of pace was ridiculous. It was so fast that the show, which started at 1:40 PM, was down by 3:30 PM – and that included a 20-minute intermission. What time does that leave for any moments to be taken at all? A scene barely even ended before the next began. At the end of the Temple scene, Jesus threw all the lepers out, rolled over, and there was Mary singing the “Everything’s Alright” reprise already. How about a second to breathe for Mary to get there? Nope. How about giving Judas and Jesus two seconds’ break in the betrayal scene at Gethsemane? The guards were already grabbing Christ the minute he was kissed. I was so absolutely exhausted towards the end of the show that I was tempted to holler at the stage to please slow down for a minute. The pace didn’t allow for any moment in the show to be completed, if it was ever begun; it was just too fast to really take advantage of subtle touches and moments the actors could’ve had, and as a result, I think they were unable to build even a general emotional connection, because one certainly didn’t come across.

The cast was uniformly talented singing-wise, with excellent ranges and very accomplished voices. (In fact, the second time around, the woman understudying Mary, Darlesia Cearcy, walked away with the whole show in my opinion, and I am incredibly glad to have seen her career take off since then.) But, in addition to some being more concerned with singing the notes on the page just because they were there than imbuing them with emotion and motivation, the cast was undercut by the choices that production made with the music. For one, there’s a huge difference between singing “words and notes” and singing “lyrics and phrases.” When you have a phrase like “Ah, gentlemen, you know why we are here / We’ve not much time, and quite a problem here…” you sing the sentence, and if sometimes a word needs to be spoken, you do that. You don’t make sure you hit every single note by treating each like a “money note” (which you hit and hold as long as you can to make sure everyone hears it), dragging out the tempo to hang on to each note as long as you can. Generally, the actors were so busy making sure every note was sung – and worse, sung like a money note – that they missed the point of singing a phrase, and how to use one to their advantage. Caiaphas and Pilate were particularly egregious offenders. (I’ve never understood some of these conductors who are so concerned that every note written has to be sung. The result suffers from it.) 

And then there’s Ted’s production. Of the three, it’s the one I liked the most, but that’s not saying much when it was better by default. 

The production design was stripped-down, the set basically limited to a bridge, some steps, a stage deck with some levels, and a couple of drops (and a noose) that were “flown in.” The costumes were simple, the sound was very well-balanced, and the lighting was the icing on the cake. Combined, the story they told was clear.

The music sounded very full, considering the pit consisted of a five-piece band relying in part on orchestral samples.

Ted, for being of advanced age, was in terrific form vocally, if his acting fell back a little much on huge, obvious, emotive gestures and choices. (I love him and all, but his attempts at acting were kind of like a “Mr. Jesus” pageant, striking all the appropriate Renaissance poses. The film, through editing and close-ups, allows him a subtlety he just ain’t got onstage.)

And there were some beautiful stage pictures; for example, there was a drop with an image of a coin with Caesar’s head on it in the Temple scene, and it fell on the crowd when Jesus cleared out the riff-raff. In the leper sequence that followed, the chorus’ heads popped out of holes in the cloth, under which they undulated, pulsing to the beat, and rather than being treated as a literal mob scene, the sequence had a very dream-like effect, a mass of lost souls reaching out to Christ. It was rather like a Blake painting, with a creepy vibe in a different manner from the typical “physically overwhelm him” approach. He didn’t interact with them, didn’t even turn to look at them, until finally he whipped around with a banishing thrust of his arm, hollering “Heal yourselves!” Sometimes it was over-acted with annoying character voices (remember, I saw this four times), but when it wasn’t, the effect was chilling.

My main beef with the show was, oddly enough, on a similar line to my beef with Gale Edwards’ production: it drew lines in the sand. But in this case, it drew them with respect to Jesus’ divinity. 

As written, JCS deals with Jesus as if he were only a man, and not the Son of God. The show never suggests that Jesus isn’t divine, but neither does it reinforce the view that he is. Portrayed in detail in JCS is the mostly-unexplored human side: ecstasy and depression, trial and error, success and regret. He agonizes over his fate, is often unsure of his divinity, and rails at God. Not so in this production. Aside from “The Temple” and “Gethsemane,” there was never any room for doubt that Jesus was the mystical, magic man portrayed in the Gospels.

At the top of the show, after a fight between his followers and the Romans during the overture (a popular staging choice I’m not a real fan of, but you’ve got to do something during that moment in a fully staged version, and I understand why it’s an easy choice to make for exposition purposes), Jesus made his majestic entrance, spotlit in robes that looked whiter than Clorox bleach could produce, and raised a man from the dead. Well, where’s the room for Judas to doubt? Clearly “this talk of God is true,” we just saw it! If this guy is actually capable of performing miracles, and more than that specializes in necromancy, good luck telling him that fame has gone to his head at the expense of the message and he’s losing sight of the consequences! Try explaining to anyone that that person is “just a man”!

If that weren’t enough, Jesus went on to have a constant connection with God throughout the show, speaking to a spotlight that focused only on him and often served to distract him from anything else happening onstage, and at the end, during “John 19:41,” his body separated from the cross, which fell back into the stage, and he ascended to heaven. 

Now, though the former was admittedly played to excess (some reviewers unkindly compared Neeley to a homeless man with Bluetooth), there are arguments to be made in favor of both of these choices: a Jesus who constantly seeks a connection with God that isn’t reciprocated, searching for guidance or at least a friggin’ clue, is great foreshadowing for his eruption – and acceptance – in “Gethsemane.” As for the ascension, depending on how it’s staged, there’s room for argument that it could be interpreted more metaphorically than literally, as the moment when Jesus’ spirit is born, as Carl Anderson once put it (meaning, to me, that his message is given life and strength when his body fails him). But this production didn’t have that level of shading and layers to it, and coupled with the resurrection at the start, it defeated the rest of the story.

None of ‘em’s perfect, and I don’t think I could create the perfect one. Thus, concert.

[douxreviews]

Cloak & Dagger - ‘Level Up’ Review

"My whole life has been about harnessing this special energy. Maybe I should have been less driven."

Cloak & Dagger ends its second season with...

Oh God, I don't even have the energy for a clever pre-credits bit. Let's just jump past the break and talk a little.

I hate feeling like this.

Look, I get that this is a television show, and 'the season finale of a TV show I like was disappointing to me' is as close to the definition of a first world problem as you're likely to get. But, dammit, I love these characters and I love this show. And they are capable of so much better than what we got in this one.

It might be more accurate to say that they're capable of doing 'more' than this, as opposed to 'better', because what they actually did here is almost entirely good, with one significant exception. The failings of this episode almost entirely involve what it didn't do, rather than what it does.

And no, I'm not talking about plot points I personally wanted them to develop, or character developments that I wish had been different. I'm talking about something more fundamental to storytelling. Specifically, they didn't take the time to set up most of the plot mechanics that their story was relying on this week.

It's frustrating, because they simultaneously prove here that they're both capable of seeding both themes and plot mechanics into earlier episodes and paying them off later. The payoffs of the dark dimension pennies that they established half a season ago was entirely satisfying. Ditto the mirrors in the evil mall. They were established clearly as a choice between alternate self images ages ago when Tandy first saw them, and here they're the final visual key to Tandy and Ty accepting their identity as the heroes named Cloak and Dagger. That's great stuff. That's beautiful storytelling handled entirely through visual symbols. And the setup and payoff in each case were handled beautifully over the season.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that they didn't bother establishing so many of the plot devices that this episode was entirely riding on. What, exactly were the black clad, vaguely SWAT-team figures that Mayhem was fighting? We have no idea. They're apparently solid, since Mayhem can kick them, and for some reason they have actual functioning grenades, despite the many questions that raises as to how 'real' they are exactly as individuals. Evita gives them a handwave explanation as 'the things that a god would send to stop us', but that's no explanation at all. Particularly when they're mixing visual cues as to 'manifestations of the guilt felt by the person fighting them' (Hello, Fuchs), and 'numberless and faceless swarm brought forth from the dark gods.' No, in the end, what they are is 'something menacing for Evita and Mayhem to fight' while they intercut to Ty and Tandy furthering the actual emotional plot-core that the writers are interested in. That rings hollow as you watch it, because it fundamentally is hollow.

Similarly, we absolutely needed a clear answer about Andre/D'Spayre's domain. Is it an actual, physical place, or is it an abstract place of consciousness? Because they're playing it both ways and it's hurting the story they want to tell. The people that Andre is capturing through his trumpet of despair, and while I say that in a joking way it's a fantastic decision as a storytelling device, all physically disappear. We get that absolutely confirmed in the opening bank robbery montage, which again was exquisitely done. Bank robber and pursuing officer both vanish and appear in Andre's jazz club domain. So, that would indicate that it's a physical space that their bodies have moved to inter-dimensionally. But Andre's body is still laying on the stage in our dimension in an amazingly framed shot with his body over draped crimson fabric which made a thousand DPs feel tingly inside as they watched it. Ty and Tandy seem to have physically entered the nightclub after - ahem - entering Ty. But then they add a layer on top of that in which the people who are, apparently, physically inside Andre (again, ahem...) are also in a despair induced dreamstate inside that setting. Ty and Tandy bounce around through various despair hallucinations - at least they visually coded as hallucinations, but are occasionally treated as physical reality.

You see where I'm going with this. It's all incredibly muddy and could have been cleared up so much by simply establishing the rules right at the outset. 'This is physical space', they could have established, 'this is dream'. That would have solved about half of the problems this episode had. They could even have done it earlier in the season so that we didn't have to waste time with it here. But they didn't, and that created a problem in this one.

There is, of course, always the chance that they thought that they'd established this clearly enough by implications here and there, and it can't be disputed that there are clues scattered here and there throughout the season. But I feel like I'm a reasonably savvy viewer, and I watched every episode of the season multiple times. Sober, even. And I was still unclear about what the rules were at any given time.

Lastly, and I promise I have some positives coming up, this episode suffered from repeatedly kicking the legs out from under its own structure. Act one was the setup of Ty and Tandy getting into the Dark Dimension, whatever its rules are. Act two was them first fighting their own demons; Ty his driving need to live 'perfectly' and Tandy her inability to get past the knowledge of her father's abuse, and then them defending one another from the things that drive them to despair. Act three was them coming out of that and finally defeating Andre.

That's a solid structure to build on, and the message that the key to fighting despair is to have friends that will go on at great length about how awesome you are isn't the worst message for kids to hear. Particularly as the ancillary message is, 'absolutely stand up for your friends and tell them how awesome they are when they're giving in to despair.' The problem is that every time the basic setup changes the show goes out of its way to tell us that the previous segment was a waste of our time.

Ty and Tandy switch fight so that they can stand up for one another, and that's great. Then D'Spayre shows up and basically says, 'that's over, back to fighting your own demons.' and so they do. The status quo of ten minutes earlier is just re-established, sorry for wasting your time. Then, after they stand up to their own demons, D'Spayre says, 'OK, it's time for the real fight', which is essentially telling the audience, 'everything for the last twenty minutes didn't matter and was again a total waste of your time.'

That's a bad thing to tell your audience.

Like the earlier points, it's so entirely fixable. The only change needed to fix the first point would have been for Ty and Tandy to have independently chose of their own accord to go back to fighting their own demons because they were stronger for having heard the support they'd gotten from one another. Then it would have been character growth instead of just a dismissal of the previous five minutes of screen time. Similarly, if D'Spayre had acknowledged their escape from the despair illusion as a victory for them, or even been surprised by it, it would have read as part of their journey instead of just a way to negate the previous twenty minutes.

So. All that established, let's talk about the good stuff from both this and season two as a whole, because there was a lot of good in both.

- The way they used the metaphor of music throughout the season was inspired, and consistently paid off over and over again.

- The bait and switch when they made us think Mayhem would be the villain of the season and then substituted D'Spayre was ingenious and very well handled.

- Ending the season with Ty and Tandy as 'runaways' on a bus felt profoundly right on every level.

- Brooklyn McLinn gave a wonderful performance as both Andre and D'Spayre. I never saw him coming as a villain even after Lia was revealed to be a baddie, and any man who an make playing the trumpet seem viscerally aggressive is a force to be reckoned with.

- The image of Tandy jumping out of Cloak's darkness while hurling light is something I've waited my whole life to see and I was not disappointed. I rewound that scene at least five times.

(Additional) Bits and Pieces:

- Evita got short shrift. They really rushed her breaking things off with Ty in order to facilitate Ty and Tandy heading off to a possibly romantic relationship. We never even got to see the scene where they dealt with the fallout from her marrying a Loa and getting angry with Ty for reasons I'm not entirely clear about.

- That said, Noelle Renee Bercy did a great job here with the one plot point that was just irredeemably stupid. There was absolutely no real justification for her having to keep a candle lit in order to ensure that Ty and Tandy could come back from... the dark dimension which Ty has absolute control over making doorways to and from. She was an egregiously shoehorned ticking clock that was given no reason to be there beyond the script saying 'I have to keep this candle lit so that there's some dramatic tension.'

- That said, she still managed to keep her dignity while performing a role that was essentially 'speak earnest french to a candle for fifteen minutes of so.' That's not nothing.

- Did they just ditch all of the supporting characters? Delgado is apparently living in the church, which has become that apartment over the coffee shop in Smallville as far as its rotating occupancy. Ty may or may not be considered dead by the people of New Orleans, including his own parents - the episode declines to clarify anything on this point. Evita blows out that candle and leaves while carrying a sign that says 'my plot function is done and I'm leaving your story now. Tandy's mom helps her pack to leave, which was a nice detail, but we can only assume that leaves her free to recommit herself to pills and alcohol. Mina continues to specialize in anything the plot requires, including independently owning and operating a catscan machine for the use of friends. And Mayhem is hanging around New Orleans. They didn't say where Ty and Tandy were headed to investigate dead girls on a beach.

- Honestly, I've heard worse ideas than completely losing all the side characters for the next season and coming back to them later. That could be interesting.

- Mayhem apparently found Connors body, wherever Adina had left it, and strung it up in the police firing range, despite those places having constant staff on hand and CC television to capture her doing so.

- Lia has apparently been found guilty of something and been given STS (Sentenced to Serve) which is the official term for the folks picking up garbage by the side of the freeway. That's... not what they usually do in human trafficking cases...

- It's unfortunate how much they had to lean into the same iconography from the Avengers movies regarding people disappearing. I feel like they could have done more to differentiate it through the visuals. The interesting difference is that people didn't all disappear at once in this one.

- I have so many questions about the insect women bank robbers from the cold open.

- Bright light does in fact exacerbate migraines. That was a clever use of Tandy's powers.

- It was nice to confirm that the drug dealers are holding to their agreement with Ty.

- The fade to dark with Tandy alone on the bus is called a 'false out'.

Quotes:

Mayhem: "I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. See, I smooshed my two mouses together and oddly I feel like I know less about who I’m supposed to be if that makes any sense."

Ty: "Last time we talked she made it pretty clear she didn’t want anything to do with me." Tandy: "I think she meant romantically."

Evita: "Today we need an emperor, not the clothes."

Real Ty: "He killed Billy." Evil Ty: "Guess who’s still dead."

D'Spayre: "Technically, I’m everywhere. I thought you went to Catholic school, Mr. Johnson."

Tandy: "Switch Partners?" Ty: "If anyone can kick my ass it’s you."

No official word yet as to whether or not we're getting a Cloak & Dagger season Three. That said, what we got here works equally well as the end of this particular iteration of their story or the end of part one of the same. I sure am hoping it's the latter.

Two out of four threatening trumpet solos for the episode. Three for the season as a whole.

See you back for season three, good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, as my mother says.

--

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[awkward-snake-girl]

Vindication

A short fic based on a conversation I had with @littlemeangreen and a small dose of inter-dimensional shenanigans.

Mattie lived in a world where a lot of weird stuff happened. She’d accepted it a long, long time ago. Time travel, aliens, mutants, a whole mess of paranormal stuff, and most recently a younger version of herself from another universe. So...yeah...pretty weird week so far...definitely a new one for her anyway. But it wasn’t she couldn’t help her, she remembered what she was like at her age. Sweet, innocent, naive...a little stupid. It would be like throwing a baby deer to a pack of wolves, especially how much safer her universe was compared to her own...

So, she’d arranged to have her stay at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, and while she’s had her own personal issues with some of the X-Men, there were still a lot of people there who were competent enough to help the kid out. However while talking to them, she’d learned about a rather messy incident involving Husk, Toad, and the Hellfire Club which was going to royally screw over Mortimer even though he’d helped save the students and snapped Paige back to reality.

Mattie had always felt for the guy, especially after learning about how Magneto treated him and after he’d started to try and get his life together, she’d started chatting with him from time to time, eventually considering him as a friend. He was a sweet guy if not a little clingy, and was trying hard to get over his issues and past with the Brotherhood. Honestly she didn’t expect the X-Men to accept him with open arms at first, but she thought they would at least make an attempt to treat him properly, to trust him, you know...help him? Like their whole philosophy was about helping out mutants, and they treated him like shit... Oh yeah, because no one at that school had a less than perfect past. Please.

As she drove...well...herself...to the school, listening to the other her talk about her school, how she was friends with that universe’s version of the Brotherhood, and was even dating someone in that group named Todd...or was it Lance? She honestly kind of zoned out when she started gushing about her beau, but she was glad she seemed happy with whoever they were. God knows her own dating experience in high school was hell... Just when she was pulling up to the school, hearing Mattie two talk about her sewing projects, (Huh...she hasn’t picked up sewing needle in years...) She saw the staff in the courtyard with Toad, no doubt telling the poor man off, when she had an idea. Turning to face the other her, she gave a playful grin as a plan started to form in her head. “Hey kid, wanna help me stop the X-Men from screwing another mutant over?”

Mortimer had seen this coming, he knew the risks following Paige to that school, but she’d been so kind to him, and he loved her so, so, much. Although now, he was pretty sure that relationship was going to be ending since she was much more sane now... Just as they finished speaking he heard a different voice speak up. “Hey! You can’t just fire him! He saved those students, and stopped his girlfriend from attacking everyone! And wasn’t she the one who brought him to that other evil-villain-school-thing in the first place? How come she isn’t getting in trouble!” The staff looked surprised to say the least, Toad looked down right shocked as Logan looked at the kid strangely.

“Do you even go here?”

“No I do not!”

“She makes some good points though.” Mattie said, stepping out of the car and earning an annoyed look from Logan and a few of the other staff members. “Explain, Granger.”

Mattie chuckled. “She’s the one I was telling you about.” She said, looking at the younger her as she looked around the grounds excitedly. It was so much bigger than the Xavier school in her world! And that place was already pretty big.

“Ah. And I’m guessing that little outburst was your idea?” Asked Logan. Mattie shrugged. “Yeah, she cleaned up the language though. But seriously, after all the shit he’s gone through here you’re not firing him. Honestly he probably has grounds to sue this place and I can get Jen or Matt on the phone like that.” She said snapping her fingers and lowering her voice slightly to not alarm the other Mattie. “You can’t go on and say you gave him a chance when you never really did in the first place.” Mattie said darkly. “Give him a better job, or at least some help for him. I’m honestly impressed that he was able to keep this place looking nice considering he was the only janitor.”

“Well...when you put it like that...fine. Frogger can stay. But he’s on thin fuckin’ ice.” He grumbled. “Good. Now that’s taken care of, why don’t you have someone show other me around.” And with that, Mattie said good bye to her other self as she was whisked away to see the school, leaving her and Mort alone.

“Um...thanks...that was...that was very kind of you.” Mortimer said quietly. “Hey, what are friends for, right?” She said, pulling the shorter man into a hug, much to his embarrassment, letting go with a small smirk when she saw how red in the face he was. “Now, you should go see if you can work things out with Paige. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear you’re staying. She’s a lucky girl to have someone like you watching out for her.” She says, actually smiling sincerely. “See you around, Toad.”

She said turning to leave. Maybe when she got home she’d get out her old sewing stuff. Maybe, just maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to embrace her softer side once in a while.

[calliecat93]

Red vs Blue Season 17 Review, Part Two

(Part One)

This got long (it’s around 11-12 pages) so I decided to half it. Continuing on from where Part One ended, we continue the Character discussion with Grif.

So..., I’m sorry. I really am, but this season suuucked regarding Grif. He got it better than Simmons and Sarge, but not by much. It wouldn't be so bad if S15 and S16, two seasons that took MAJOR steps in developing his character, didn’t exist. Last season, Grif was the closest thing to the main protagonist that we had. He went through the most character development, began sorting out his issues, quit whining about his problems and instead tried to work through them. Begrudgingly yes, but still he made the effort. And in the finale, he not only showed that he grew by rejecting the pizza to stop Genkins, but then realized Genkins true plan and was too late in stopping it. There was a ton of build-up for Grif’s character, especially since he was the one most tied into the plot at that point, and the finale especially set up plenty of chances with him… and I guess that the season got paradox’d along with him because it forgot all of that.

Okay to be fair, Grif never complained about the mission and did his part willingly, and I did legit love how he got revenge on Tex. There is also this subtle theme of Grif being legit angry and hurt by Donut’s previous betrayal, just compare his calm but noticeable anger to Sarge’s more comical execution suggestions in Episode 7. There was also him assuming that Donut was betraying them again in Episode 10, and I find that interesting especially since he was the same way last season regarding Doc. May have been unintentional, but it’s still noteworthy. But the problem is they don’t really let Grif show his past development. Like in Episode 2, he’s the only one willing to hear Donut out and what he’s describing feels familiar... and it’s promptly dropped and forgotten. Grif finds out that something horrible happened to Huggins and while he does express worry... it once again gets ignored. Then she comes back and Grif’s allowed to be relieved for a minute or two before that too is promptly dropped. Yeah, he apologizes and it’s cute to see him happy to see her… but they never talk about what happened in S16 and never truly reconcile, so it felt wasted.

Grif was the only guy who knew what happened before the paradox aside form Donut… and nothing results from it. When he sees Genkins for the first time after, at a point where everything from the finale should really be hitting him, what’s his reaction?, His mind goes to pizza… even though he had outright rejected it which was supposed to be THE big sign of his character development. Okay, maybe that one’s an overreaction on my part. But the point is while I don’t mind Grif not being the main character since Donut is perfectly fitting and needed the development, it doesn't excuse how badly they dropped the ball with him after these past two seasons. And I’m not asking for anything dark and angsty, what I’m asking for is consistency. Let us see Grif’s growth and development from the past two years. Let us see how the past season really affected him and helped him grow due to it, especially since this is the end of the storyline that allowed said growth. They were able to do it with Tucker, and it took only a minute or two to do so. Sadly, what they gave for Grif wasn’t good enough and I really hope that whoever helms S18 will make an effort to at least try and improve it.

I will give them credit though with both him and Sister. The finale legit teared me up with their scene. It retcons Grif being drafted… but honestly? I prefer this. It makes sense that Grif would want to go out on his own and left for college/enlistment. It makes sense that Sister would be upset with him and have her own guilt about the fire. It kind of explains how even though the two clearly love each other, they’ve been kinda distant and a little awkward since Sister came back into the cast. And learning that she set their childhood home on fire and their mom is now in a trailer park… ti adds a lot to her as well. She’s not just a walking sex joke anymore, she’s a three-dimensional character and I am SO HAPPY to have that. The two didn’t get much, and I ranted about why that’s a problem with Grif, but I did enjoy them getting this moment.

Finally, let's talk Cosmic Powers… oh wait, they didn’t appear at all. Yeah, that was bullshit. I know that people had issues with them, but there was SO MUCH potential with these characters. I guess that they can do stuff in later seasons, but them being completely absent felt… weird. We only got Huggins, and THAT left a shit ton of problems. I was happy to have her back… but her return was so awkward and forced that it really feels shoved in. Nothing between her and Grif gets resolved, and my anger about that I cannot properly convey. She’s there and then after Episode 8, she’s dropped. We don’t even see her reunite with the Cosmic Powers after how pivotal she had been before. Huggins was reverted to a plot device. That is bullshit. Utter bullshit.

So yeah, I think I made it clear how annoyed I am at how the Reds and Blues got treated this season. It’s how I felt in Freelancer when Carolina came out of nowhere and it became about her and Church while the others (aside from Wash, and that’s very arguably) were put aside, and in S9’s case technically not even there. The difference though is that the end of that arc DID give them some solid stuff, like going to save Carolina and Church despite having no obligation to do so, that to me cemented them as a team. It’s something that every season following always had near their ends, but… I never really felt like we got that moment here. And I do understand that some characters were going to have to be shafted due to the number of them. Carolina at least got lucky since her plot tied directly into Wash’s plot, so there’s something to show on her end, the repetitive ‘Carolina is guilty’ theme aside. In other words, the Freelancers again get attention and Donut lucked out, while everyone else just… existed, I guess. I’m sorry, I know I sound harsh and I hate getting that way. It’s just really, really frustrating to me.

At the end of the day though, I cannot sit here and say that I hated it. I know the above… bazillion paragraphs may not show that, but that’s just hindsight hitting in. The Reds and Blues did have some legit funny bits, like Sarge’s speech in Episode 6, and Caboose and Tucker got some small but nice scenes. The Labyrinth really gave some interesting perspectives, Sarge especially I was not expecting. I don’t even mind Grif’s that much since I can at least see how it would fit with his character, even if I do think that a better reflection of his development could have been used but meh. No one felt OOC to me, just underutilized. I really did enjoy Donut and Wash’s arcs and putting my fan opinion aside, I cannot call those arcs bad. I had a fun time seeing those arcs unfold, Wash’s outright made me emotional. So is the execution flawed? Big time. But was it all bad? No. I liked what we got… just, next time I hope they balance it out better.

Story

The story of the season goes like this. Time is broken, and Genkins is breaking it even more to free Chrovos. With the others trapped in the past without knowing it, Donut has to go back and free all of them and then stop Chrovos from being freed. That is the basic plot of the season. For what it’s worth, the first half is really good. The bizarre pacing form last year is gone. The plot went fast but it felt right. There was little filler and the stakes were set up right away, so we got to get right into things without any distractions. They were funny, had character development, and when Wash came back in the interactions with him and Donut were really enjoyable. Episode 5 was a fanservice episode done well, not overstaying its welcome and actually having a point. It and Episode 6 wrapped up the first half very well, bringing the gang back together, letting Wash and Carolina reconcile, and setting up the second half with Huggins’ return and Genkins tossing off the kiddy gloves. It was straightforward, never wasting our time and always kept the story moving, but still had plenty of good jokes and character bits. I really enjoyed those first six episodes, especially due to Wash and Donut’s interactions. Hello new OTP~

Sadly, the second half I felt wasn’t as good. Episodes 7 and 8 were by far the weakest of the season. If only for their awkward exposition dumps. As much as I love Huggins, her re-introduction felt forced and rather rushed. The fact that she was dropped after Episode 8 did no favors. It really says something when I went from being ecstatic that she was back to starting to wonder if her remaining dead would have been for the best. That is NOT something that I should be thinking. The other episodes were better as the straightforward pacing returned and had great emotional scenes with the Freelancers. Genkins tricking Chrovos was also a move that took me by surprise but in a good way. I admit that I wish we saw more of the guys fixing the paradoxes, and I REALLY wish that we got to see some of the alternate timelines because of all the ‘what-if’ potential. But I can understand how that would cause things to drag, so it’ll have to remain as fanfic fuel. On that though, both Genkins and Chrovos were super entertaining villains. Not much else to say there, I just loved them so much~

The Labyrinth is a terrifying concept that I love… and I kinda feel would have been a better as the main plot setting instead of the Everwhen. Just have Chrovos use her limited power to send them in there as punishment for Donut’s betrayal against her and let Donut try to indirectly break them out, having to recruit Wash to help. The same concept, but it allows for more opportunities for character development, both funny and dark. But that’s just me, of course. I do really like the concept though and it was a nice look into the characters psyche. Carolina and Sarge’s were my favorites, the former because I like seeing Carolina against her demons, and the latter because it really lets us have this deeper look at Sarge that we never really get that really adds to his character in a new way. But they didn’t all work like Simmons was utter bullshit and I am NOT happy with how it was a joke, and not even a good one. Still, good concept.

The biggest theme of this season is, of course, the time travel… and that’s all that I can really say because trying to talk about anything good or bad will kill my brain. Yeah, I did not understand any of this. So… the Everwhen is connected to Chrovos’ prison due to it being the backswing for The Hammer. Okay, that makes sense. So… the Everwhen takes you through time? How did it end up existing? How can it exist with Chrovos’ limited power? How are the Reds and Blues memory wiped? Yeah, there’s the paradox, considering that Wash was in the present, shouldn't they have been as well in a similar state? One where they both did and didn't time travel instead of being trapped in their past memories? It would make sense if The Everwhen was more or a simulation or a copy of the past that Chrovos put them in… but it seems to imply that it’s just another form of time travel like the time guns due to Huggins being able to go through it. It’s really, really confusing and the show really doesn’t do a good job at properly explaining it. And that’s not even going into the black hole stuff with Huggins that I’m not even going to bother with. I’m more confused than I was with the time travel stuff in S3, and that nearly made my brain melt. Now I fully admit that this could just be me being an idiot, but… yeah, you do NOT want to think too hard about this particular aspect.

Then, of course, we have the finale. I’ll give them this, they wrapped everything up better than I thought that they would. I have no idea how the fuck Genkins became Chrovos makes sense, but I have given up on understanding time travel at this point. Plus it makes for a good ‘Hoist by His Own Petard’ story and it was a shocking as Hell twist. I’ll give them that one. I kinda do like how Chrovos, while not good, is more benevolent than she had first seemed and hey, she’s imprisoned but still around. The ending was kind of abrupt, but it leaves plenty open for future seasons, lets Donut complete his character development, and hey Lopez lived! Burnie avoided losing his only remaining character! Yay!

The season did very good with pacing and keeping its focus. It had plenty of funny and sincere moments and I was engaged all the way through. I never knew what was going to happen next, which really speaks to how unexpected the season was. For that, it stands above the previous two seasons, which were rushed (S15) or just bizarre (S16). But the season failed in its character writing outside one or two of them, properly explaining exposition dumps that just left me confused more than S3 did, and it’s second half felt much more rushed and awkward as a result. It felt like they tried to cram in two seasons worth of information, kinda like S15, only they tried with just six episodes this time. By the time of the finale… I liked it, but I shouldn’t feel relieved that the season is over. S16 left me wanting more, feeling emotional and anxious for what the next season was going to bring, while this one just made me feel like how I felt after RWBY Volume 5: just utterly done and glad that I have a year until the next season.

So taking in my above critiques, both in this and the Character section, why is that it that I think it ended up that way? This is of course just speculation on my part, but if I really had to guess I would say the 12 episode count. Yeah, I really think that we needed the standard 19, or 15 at least. Not because of episode runtime or anything, shows like Steven Universe has done a lot with only 11 minutes per episode after all. But it’s because it means they had a very limited amount of time to give this season what it needed. You see, 12 episodes is great because you have less filler to add, can keep the plot focused and moving, and you can properly develop the characters closer to the plot such as Donut and Wash. It is not good, however, for long-term character writing for those not as directly involved in the plot, means you have to cram in as much as possible without properly setting it up, and the end result can come off as rather rushed and sloppy. This format works for RWBY since, while every season has its own plotline, it has a long-lasting narrative that each season contributes to that can justify some of the choices, like shafting a character in favor of others. But for a show like RvB, which usually tells a complete story in generally two to three seasons, it doesn’t work nearly as well.

At first, I thought that going with this format was okay. As I said, the first half was paced very well and kept things moving in a satisfying way. But once we hit the second half, it had little to no time to explain things properly (like the time travel) or give characters who had ongoing developments the focus that they needed (like Grif and Huggins for example). They really had no idea what to do with the other characters, which yeah that’s gonna happen with a big ensemble cast like this, but they handled it in the worst way: demoting everyone but a select one or two into essentially background characters. The episode count limited ways in fixing many of these problems, and unfortunately, it showed. Time is always going to be the biggest enemy to shows like this, after all. The format could work if they decide to continue with it, which I’m not opposed to. But I do think that they need to work harder on figuring out how to make RvB work with a more limited episode run. Which if they go into a new storyline with the episode count in mind instead of continuing one, I think is very feasible. We’ll see.

Would I call this a bad season? No. Absolutely not. I had a really fun time watching this season, the first half especially, and I was ultimately glad that I watched it. As I said, the pacing was a lot better. It never dragged or got boring, and I was fully engaged as much as I was annoyed. But the season is still flawed. The second half felt more sloppy, the exposition was not done well, and it suffered very badly in balancing its characters, prioritizing Donut over everyone else. I feel like the season simply wasn't given enough time to do all that it needed to do, and as a result, we got what we got. It’s good and one that I recommend, but like all seasons it has its issues. Ones that maybe annoy me more due to what I’m a fan of than others in all fairness.

So then, what’s my opinion of Jason Weight’s writing? I think… that he did a really good job! Yeah, I’ve critiqued stuff, but I did overall enjoy what Jason brought to the series. There were a LOT of really good jokes, plenty of emotion, and the characters overall felt like the characters,. Given the circumstances of more or less having to finish a story that he himself didn't conceive (he WAS an assistant writer last year, but Joe was still the showrunner and got the final say) I think that he did the best that he could. I would love to see him come back for RvB18 and be able to craft his very own arc because he showed a ton of promise both here and with the last season. If he can’t because of his own show (that I still need to see, haha…) or other reasons, I can certainly understand. But if he can come back, I’d really love to see what he does. I do ultimately wish that Joe got to finish his own story, but I think that Jason did a good job of carrying it out, and I am grateful for both of their contributions to the series. Love you guys~!

Final Thoughts

Well, that was longer than I had intended. Guess I had a lot to vent out. Well, let’s wrap this baby up~

S17 is not a perfect season. I think that I’ve made my issues with it very clear. But I would not at all call it a bad season. I hope that I illustrated that just as much as I did with the criticism. As a fan, it could have been better. As a critic, the season was overall done competently and I can’t fault what we did get. I overall had a great time watching it and looked forward to each new episode. That’s all I ever ask for, to have fun. Hopefully, S18 will improve on these issues, but no matter what, I’ll definitely be there for when it starts.

[the-desolated-quill]

Rosa - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

It comes as a massive relief to say that I really enjoyed this episode. There are a number of ways Rosa could have gone wrong and while Chris Chibnall has managed to crank out two surprisingly good Doctor Who episodes so far, it’s hard to shake off old fears. Oh my God, I thought to myself, a historical episode about Rosa Parks and the Black Civil Rights Movement. Is Chibnall biting off more than he can chew? 

Thankfully Chibnall had the good sense to hire a co-writer that can keep his white privilege in check. Malorie Blackman. Author of the critically acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series of books depicting an alternative reality where Africans developed a technological advantage over Europeans and where white people are segregated under this world’s version of the Jim Crow laws. It’s safe to say that Blackman knows a thing or two about exploring racism and, being a black woman, she’s much more qualified to talk about issues of race and to represent Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole than Chibnall is. The result is, without a shadow of a doubt, some of the best Doctor Who I’ve seen in years.

One thing I’m glad about is the way Rosa Parks is depicted. Historical stories (particularly New Who historical stories) have an unfortunate tendency to go completely over the top with it. It’s just not enough to have a character who played a significant part in human history. Oh no. They’ve also got to be the specialist, most important person in the whole wide universe. The result is that we’re often left with a wafer thin episode that completely romanticises the period of history the story is trying to depict, waters down all the more complicated and unsavoury parts of the historical setting and turns the famous historical figure into a shallow caricature of themselves (see Agatha Christie in Unicorn And The Wasp, Winston Churchill in Victory Of The Daleks and Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent And The Doctor). Rosa, thankfully, doesn’t fall into the same trap. Rosa Parks isn’t treated as a god among mortals. She’s treated like an ordinary person, thus making her actions that much more powerful.

Vinette Robinson (who appeared in a previous Chibnall penned story 42) does an incredible job playing Rosa Parks. Again, more emphasis is placed on how ordinary she is rather than how historically significant. Nowadays we of course view her as the genesis of the Black Civil Rights Movement and she has rightly been praised and immortalised for that, but it’s easy to forget that she was a real person behind the legacy, which is what the episode really delves into. We get to see her fear, sadness and frustration in this oppressive society. And it really brings home how mundane her actions really are. Sure we can see from hindsight how her actions would influence others and change the course of history, but she wasn’t some heroic freedom fighter taking a stand. She was a woman who just wanted to sit down on a bus after a hard day at work. And the fact that she, Martin Luther King and other black people actually had to fight for the right to do something so trivial is utterly ridiculous.

Some have criticised the episode saying that this is too heavy a subject matter to deal with at 7pm on a Sunday evening. I couldn’t disagree more. For one thing, this isn’t the first time Doctor Who has handled difficult subject matters (Nazism and genocide have frequently cropped up in past stories after all). But I think the criticism mostly stems from people (white people) being left feeling uncomfortable by the story and are trying to avoid having a serious conversation about it NRA style, claiming that this isn’t the right time for it. Well... when is it the right time? Nobody wants to have this conversation, sure, but we’ve still got to have it. And as uncomfortable viewing as it is, it’s important that it is not sugar-coated and that we’re reminded of how difficult things were for non-white people so that shit like this never happens again. So no, I didn’t think the use of violence against black people or racially charged language up to and including the n word were inappropriate. It was an accurate depiction of the environment at the time and if you felt uncomfortable by that, then congratulations, that’s precisely what you’re supposed to feel.

In fact I honestly thought the episode’s depiction of violence against black people was quite restrained, making the acts of discrimination that much more despicable in my eyes. Using gratuitous violence would have been a cheap shot and Chibnall and Blackman mercifully avoid that route. What makes the episode so chilling to watch isn’t the things that white people do, but rather the oppressive atmosphere they create. It’s not the arrogant tosspot slapping Ryan across the face for touching his wife’s glove that had me on edge. It was the scene after that where everyone is just silently staring at the TARDIS crew in the cafe that really made me feel queasy. The threat is implied, yet constant, which is infinitely scarier. After the likes of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss boasting about how their episodes were going to be ‘the scariest Doctor Who stories ever’ only for them to amount to a hodge-podge of tired horror cliches and a dumb monster going ‘boo’, it’s a relief to see writers take a more subtle ‘less is more’ approach. I’m sorry, but the bus driver glaring angrily at Rosa is much more terrifying than a Weeping Angel. Period.

Which brings me to Krasko, played with smug charm by Joshua Bowman who succeeds at making you want to reach through the screen and punch his racist face repeatedly. Again, some have criticised the episode for its ‘one dimensional villain’ and, again, it only seems to be white people making this criticism. Not to make sweeping generalisations here, but non-white fans seem to be largely happy with how Krasko was written and depicted, probably because they’ve had to deal with pricks like him at least once in their lives. I’m guessing the source of the criticism comes from him not having a backstory or concrete motivation other than he hates black people. But my response to that is... does he really need one? Would Krasko have really been a more interesting character if it was revealed that he was bullied in school or a black kid had stolen his My Little Pony lunchbox? Does there really need to be a reason for why he hates black people and wants to ‘put them in their place’? I would have thought him being a racist white person would have been enough reason to hate him frankly. Let’s not forget what happened when Star Wars and Marvel respectively gave their villains Kylo Ren and Kilgrave tragic backstories to provide context for their despicable actions, at which point the fans proceeded to romanticise the fuck out of them, calling them misunderstood. Maybe (and this is just my opinion) giving Krasko a backstory wouldn’t have made him more interesting, but instead would have been seen as an attempt to justify and excuse his shitty behaviour, and maybe, just maybe, we’re better off without one. Just a thought.

Besides, it’s not as if we don’t learn anything about Krasko. We’re given enough information to work with. He’s a time traveller from the future. He was put in prison for murdering two thousand people (quick side note, did anyone else laugh when the Doctor said the Stormcage was the most secure prison in the universe? Remind me, how many times did River Song break out again?). He’s clearly intelligent, as demonstrated by him coming up with a non-violent plan to ruin the lives of generations of non-white people in order to circumvent his neural inhibitors. While it’s never overtly mentioned, he’s clearly some future version of the alt-right and is there to act as an extension of the true villain of the story. Because that’s the thing the people criticising his character have overlooked. Krasko isn’t the villain. White people are. The society Rosa Parks lives in is the true villain. Krasko is there not just to get to the plot going, but also to subtly demonstrate that while things do get better for non-white citizens, there will always be that racist element within our society. Hell, Ryan and Yasmin even spell it out for you in their conversation whilst hiding from the police. While people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King made a huge impact and helped change things for the better, racism and prejudice hasn’t just magically gone away. It’s still around. There are still people who cling on to these extremist and bigoted views. Some might argue that racism has become so entrenched in Western society that it will never fully go away. That there will always be some remnant hanging around. That’s what Krasko represents. So if you thought he was a rubbish villain because he had ‘no backstory or motivation’ then I’m afraid you’ve completely missed the point.

I should also applaud Chibnall and Blackman for resisting the urge to shove in some pointless alien like other historicals have. Not only would that have distracted from Rosa’s story, the racist white people are scary enough thank you very much. While there are sci-fi elements in here, the episode quite rightfully focuses on people.

Speaking of people, let’s talk about the TARDIS crew. Yeah! They’re in this episode too! Haven’t really talked about them much, have I? The Doctor largely takes a backseat in this one, which I know some people have a problem with, but I think it was the right thing to do. We don’t want an alien white woman coming in and stealing Rosa Parks’ glory. Jodie Whittaker graciously lets Vinette Robinson take centre stage while she busies herself with other things like confronting and intimidating Krasko and organising fake raffles with Frank Sinatra. I really like the balance they’ve struck between light and dark with this Doctor (something Moffat tried to do with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and failed at miserably). She’s funny, compassionate and caring, but there’s a little bit of Sylvester McCoy’s devious cunning in there too, which really comes to the forefront here. Did anyone else find it really disconcerting seeing the Doctor try to maintain history? Influencing events so that Rosa Parks had no choice, but to give up (or refuse to give up) her seat. While we know she’s doing it for the right reasons, in order to keep black history in check, she’s still nonetheless actively contributing to Rosa’s misery, which is actually a clever way of exploring how white people all contribute to a racist status quo, directly, indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally. And of course it all culminates in the Doctor and co refusing to give up their seats in order to keep history intact. The look on Thirteen’s face as events unfold says it all. The look of sheer sadness and self loathing, knowing she played a part in this, is haunting. Same goes for Graham’s realisation. The widower of a black woman and step-grandfather to a black teenager being forced to contribute to this racist institution is utterly heartbreaking.

But the standout of the main cast has to be Ryan. Tosin Cole truly shines in this episode, giving an incredibly powerful and moving performance. This in many ways is his episode as he comes face to face with the racist prejudices of the time period and Cole rises to the occasion. My favourite scene has to be when Ryan talks with Rosa, thanking her for everything she will do in the future and promising that things will get better. It’s incredibly emotional and I actually started tearing up with him. I’m also so happy that he was the one that got to beat Krasko at the end rather than the Doctor. I stood up and cheered. And his reaction to seeing Martin Luther King has got to be one of the most charming moments of the series so far.

Rosa is unquestionably one of the strongest episodes in all of Doctor Who. It’s incredibly well written and performed and it’s extremely powerful as well as being very subtle and nuanced. What’s more, I’m now completely sold on Chris Chibnall being the showrunner. Any lingering doubts I’ve may have had are now completely evaporated after this episode. Rosa proves that not only does Chibnall respect and value diversity both in front of and behind the camera, but that he’s also committed to creating something truly special with his tenure, using the Doctor Who format to explore hard hitting and difficult subject matters with care and respect. Truly excellent television.

[themattress]

I made this post last month about the main fixes that should be made to the story of Birth by Sleep in order to make it the best it could possibly be. While I don’t believe the flaws in the stories of the original KH, COM, and even KH2 are as damaging as the flaws in BBS, in the interest of fairness I’ve decided to make a post about what fixes should be made to them.

From Kingdom Hearts:

The World Order - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is a stupid rule. Not only is keeping the existence of other worlds a secret while visiting not the kind of the thing you want to hear in a crossover story, but it’s also a rule that keeps getting broken anyway. In just about every world the heroes visit, someone finds out about other worlds thanks to their presence and/or the presence of the Heartless. Certain residents of worlds become summonable allies for Sora and fight alongside him in other worlds. A group of villains, all from different worlds, are the central antagonists of the story. The Princesses of Heart all come from different worlds and end up banding together. The Beast goes to Hollow Bastion. And let’s not forget everyone in Traverse Town! The World Order is broken left and right, so why does it even exist? It shouldn’t. Other worlds’ existence should be common knowledge.

“The Heartless were using Maleficent from the beginning” - This line is just nonsense. The Heartless cannot use anyone, they are beings of instinct who cannot think or plan, they only exist to devour hearts and spread darkness everywhere. Maleficent was using them, period. Ansem, the special Heartless who says this line, was the only one using Maleficent.

The Placement of the “Oathkeeper” Scene - The scene where Sora tells Kairi to stay behind because “it’s way too dangerous”, and she gives him the Oathkeeper keychain, is problematic, and it didn’t need to be.  If it was placed in Hollow Bastion, it would make perfect sense - not only would it link to the start of the scene, where Kairi explicitly references her grandmother’s story that was told to her in Hollow Bastion, but End of the World actually IS “way too dangerous” for Kairi. The notion that Hollow Bastion is too dangerous for her is laughable, since not only do Leon, Yuffie and Aerith proceed to leave her behind at Cid’s house and go to Hollow Bastion without any trouble, but the other six Princesses of Heart are also just fine being there! Because the scene is placed in Traverse Town and Kairi isn’t allowed to do something that she really should be allowed to do, it becomes the Franchise Original Sin of sidelining Kairi as a character. And that’s a damn shame, since it’s a great scene otherwise. The manga of all things actually corrected this and placed it at Hollow Bastion where it belongs (even though it made a joke out of it), so why couldn’t the game?

From Chain of Memories:

The Concept of Memory - The central concept of the story is pretty confusing. This game claims that memory, which everyone knows is an aspect of the mind, is actually an aspect of the heart. Apparently so much so that if someone’s memory was erased, their heart would be destroyed. But this doesn’t line up at all with subsequent games - people are constantly getting total amnesia and yet their hearts are just fine. What’s more, the Organization say they have memories of when they were human, except that as Nobodies, they lack hearts, so this should be impossible if memories come from the heart like this game claims they do! Memory should have just been kept as a mental thing, with how one feels about memories being emphasized, since that’s something related to memories were the heart is involved.

That 2nd Repliku Battle - The story gets dragged down by too many battles with the Riku Replica. One could afford to be cut, and it’s easy to choose which one: the second one. There is no reason for this battle to happen; Sora instigates it instead of Repliku, which makes it feel out of place. Repliku should’ve just said what he needed to say and then left.

Reverse/Rebirth - Riku’s story mode should not have been a story mode at all. There is clearly too little material to actually cover a full playable campaign, and the pre-prepared decks, overpowered Dark Mode (and Duel function in RE:COM) and story-less Disney worlds just add to how ridiculously short it is. The story of R/R should have instead been split between unlockable extra playable episodes, with Riku always at a set level where he has an equal chance of winning and losing the necessary battles. They could be unlocked through a New Game + for Sora, which would increase the length of the game’s playtime considerably. 

DiZ as Ansem, Seeker of Darkness - This was a pointless story element for the sake of a “Gotcha!” twist, and not only does it make things needlessly confusing given that the real Ansem, Seeker of Darkness is already in the story, but it makes things even more confusing in KH2 when Riku ends up taking Ansem’s form and is stuck with it even though DiZ wasn’t, and when DiZ is revealed to actually be Ansem and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness to have always been an imposter! Just let DiZ always be DiZ, the story works a lot better that way.

Riku’s Lesson - The lesson Riku learns in R/R is “accept and use the Darkness, it will help you achieve your goals and reunite you with your friends”...which is exactly what he did in the first game and was rightly portrayed as wrong! And then in KH2, it ends up having disastrous consequences for Riku, so apparently it was still wrong!  The lesson Riku should have learned was that he can’t fight the Darkness within himself because that’s acting out of anger, aggression and self-loathing...in other words, it only creates more Darkness. Only light can cast out Darkness, and so he should focus on reclaiming the Light rather than eliminating the Darkness. He doesn’t have to use it, but he does have to accept and tolerate it until it’s gone. 

From Kingdom Hearts II:

The Prologue’s Length - I honestly think the infamous Prologue wouldn’t be nearly as controversial as it is if only it was shorter. A lot of cutscenes and things to do in it seem to be there just for the sake of padding it out. Cut it down by at least an hour and it’d be better.

No Clear Villainous Threat - A big problem KH2′s story has when compared to the first KH is the lack of a clear villainous threat. In the original game, the Heartless and the Disney Villains who commanded them were established as an imminent, world-destroying threat very early on. But here, the Heartless are just threats to people instead of entire worlds, while Pete is dismissed as a complete joke. It falls upon the Nobodies and Organization XIII to present the new threat...but for the longest time, they don’t. It’s just said that “they’re planning something and it’s probably bad”. They are so caught up in being mysterious that they fail to provide a sense of urgency or motivation as to why they should be stopped, or even what exactly they should be stopped from doing. This only changes midway through the game when they finally reveal their big evil plan to capture millions of hearts which Xemnas will use to ascend to godhood. They don’t have to reveal this early on, but they have to be doing something actively dangerous toward the universe in order to justify why Sora needs to fight them.

Underselling Maleficent - When Maleficent is revealed to have been resurrected, it should be a big deal. Pete shouldn’t be a joke anymore since he’s being backed by the sorceress who was the main villain for most of the first game. But instead, this bombshell just gets brushed aside without much fanfare by Sora and his friends. The first visits to Port Royal, Agrabah, Halloween Town and Pride Land would feel less like filler if Maleficent and Pete were treated with the same gravitas as Organization XIII by the narrative and its characters. 

Cloud’s Side Story - It’s stupid, it’s pointless, don’t include it.

Worlds Revisited - A few of the stories in the Worlds Revisited stage of the game could have afforded to be rewritten, but much more importantly, this stage of the game needed to have proper narrative context. Because as it stands, it doesn’t. Sora, Donald and Goofy get clues that explicitly point to them needing to go to Twilight Town, and yet they don’t go there until after the Worlds Revisited stage is over with, and there is no reason given as to why they are revisiting all the worlds beyond “looking for a way to get into the Organization’s world” (again, why not check out Twilight Town for that way!?) They needed a narrative reason for Twilight Town to be blocked off (like, say, that fucking Dreadnought battle station from the Gummi Ship mission before it), and thus a reason for the Worlds Revisited stage of the game to happen (with Sora, Donald and Goofy looking for a gateway around the Dreadnought). They wouldn't find one, of course (Tron would instead unlock a way right through the Dreadnought at the end of the Space Paranoids revisit), but it’d still give a proper reason behind why they’re revisiting the worlds instead of just going to Twilight Town like they were directed to. 

Kairi and Riku - The majority of Kairi’s screentime in this game is in the World That Never Was, and the entirety of Riku’s screentime as Riku is in the World That Never Was. Neither of them are very developed beyond two or three moments, and their personalities feel sadly two-dimensional compared to the orignal game: they are just The Chick and The Lancer respectively. Their roles and their characterizations should have been more fleshed out.

Organization XIII - @ultraericthered made a post about this. Although the Final Mix version of the game fixed a lot of problems with how Organization XIII was handled, there were still improvements that could have been made to make them an even more consistent presence. 

[rationalisms]

list of reasons why i hated pacific rim: uprising

this is gonna be a long post so i apologize in advance. it will also have spoilers for the plot of pacific rim: uprising so tread carefully.

look sorry to be That Film Graduate but it was just so hideous... i didn't expect them to be able to replicate del toro's excellent visual work but it's still disappointing that they didn't even try to the point where the two films don't even look like they belong in the same franchise. but more than that, it wasn't even visually appealing on its own terms. the CGI was an absolute mess (you know that "shitty grey rubber tubes flaping around in the ocean" post? that's what the kaiju looked like. like, i literally couldn't even enjoy the giant lizards because they looked so dumb and plastic toy like). the colour grading was so muddy and monotone. apart from the constant misapplied slow mo shots there was zero interesting or unique editing work going on. all of it looked factory processed and boring and that's an absolute shame considering the original was so fantastic partly because it was so successful visually.

apart from that... look, i know pacific rim took money from the military too and was in some ways a pro military plot but uprising really takes the cake. when they showed jaegers being used for law enforcement against civilians (!!!) i figured they were going for a corrupt ppdc villain figure but no, instead we're apparently supposed to think that's a good thing and that the ppdc are still heroes??the jaegers are meant to be a symbol of human ingenuity and spirit and most importantly a symbol of defiance against a predicated fate. to make them into weapons of law enforcement shits on the spirit of the original in every way. and unsurprisingly both protagonists start out not wanting to be part of the military but end up loving it and realizing that it's Family and Good and the entire time we're hit over the head with how reasonable and nice the military people are and with how difficult and obstinate the protags are being for not seeing that. it's a propaganda wet dream and it was actually sickening to watch.

perhaps the most insulting thing was the way they turned mako into an extension of that. she was never just a “cog in the machine” character who passively accepted hierarchies and orders and making her a representative figure of that in uprising is a huge misunderstanding of her character. (also, speaking of mistreating old characters, why the hell is hermann a chemist now?? he's a computer scientist, (quantum) physicist and mathematician and honestly that's already enough specializations. plus, he always looked on the "life sciences" somewhat with disdain. it really just feels like they used him as the stand-in for the Weird Science Guy every sci-fi film needs to have rather than treating him as his own character and it really shows in the writing of him as well, which feels flat and littered with clichés.)

that apologism doesn't just extend to the military sector either but extends to the private sector characters too. while we're initially meant to see liwen shao as an antagonist, it's later revealed she was an innocent pawn of newt's/the precursor's machinations and she gets to have her big hero moment where she saves the protagonists and aww, isn't she a nice lovely lady. a nice lovely lady who wants to fill the world with jaeger drones who, again, act as law enforcement against civilians, as if that wasn't a dystopian nightmare, but hey, nobody cares about that! look at her smile! it's just horrifying? i realize that this sort of propaganda is par for the course in hollywood but uprising puts it on so thickly that it makes you feel like you're choking on it. it borders on parody at times and made me intensely uncomfortable watching it.

the film also suffers badly from overpopulation especially as most of the newly introduced characters are incredibly one-dimensional. there wasn't enough time to focus on all of them enough to make them feel like real people and as a result i didn't care about their fates. i literally can't remember their names for the most part. i thought there couldn't be a more bland and boring blond white guy lead in pacific rim than raleigh becket but scott eastwood's character really takes the cake. did he have a personality? who knows! special shout-out to the female character literally only added as a love interest for the protags (yes, both) who genuinely had absolutely no other role to play otherwise. not even one unrelated scene. g-d, i hate this film.

speaking of that, the film suffered from bad tonal issues not only as a result of the above but also because of incredibly baffling pacing. multiple times there's big dramatic moments where we're meant to care about some characters fate, peaking in one of the cadets dying in the final fight, but none of the people i was with couldn't muster up any energy to care because, again, we didn't even know their names or anything about them and their life. but worse than that, the film doesn't seem to care either. it gives you a few seconds with sad violins and then immediately moves on and the tragic event just never comes up again. perhaps most insultingly this happens when mako dies, for which i still cannot find a reason honestly. it certainly wasn't to change anything about jake's disposition because her death isn't even the pivotal character changing moment for him. we get one short scene of him mourning and then she's literally never mentioned again and it's right back to badly written quips and jokes in the next scene. no one ever brings her up again even though there's several characters who knew her and worked with her. it's an insult to her character and the original film and she deserved better than that.

speaking of insults to the original film, the fights really felt that way too. the mindless property destruction and complete lack of care was so antithetical to pacific rim which always valued life above all. one short line by hermann that the civilians were all in underground shelters now so run wild i guess was all the reference to it we got, even though we literally saw many civilians not make it into the shelters in time in the scene before that. but nobody cared. the original film was precise about fights which took place in cities. the number one goal was always the preservation of life, luring them back into the water, getting them away from the coast line. when destruction happened it did so for dramatic effect. in uprising it just felt fetishistic. we were treated to scenes in which the jaegers used their environment as weapons completely carelessly and the amount of smashed buildings and destroyed property bordered on the ludicrous. that really feels like it misunderstands the point and spirit of kaiju films and tbh it's something that americans have never gotten about the genre anyway.

apart from that the plot was ridiculous. the handwavey retcon of the first film that posits the kaiju's goal as "rare earth minerals" (lol) which obviously only exist on mt. fuji is hilariously bad. look, i don't need a complex plot from my monster movies, pacrim wasn't shy about being a pretense for big robots punching big lizards either. but at least when pacrim used science they actually put some effort into at least making it sound believable. the paper thin plot of uprising which is riddled with holes just seems insulting to the viewer. that's the difference between the two films, really. uprising tries to be as carefree about being a dumb sci-fi film as pacrim was, but fails to understand that pacrim still took the genre and its viewers seriously. it didn't try to be anything more than a monster movie, but it didn't treat the trappings of the genre as if they don't matter or can just be background noise. that's fundamentally why uprising fails imo. because it doesn't seem to understand that pacific rim worked, not by not taking itself seriously, but by taking itself seriously enough.

anyway, i could list more but at this point i have honestly written enough. i am happy for the people who enjoyed the film and hope they have fun with it but i am going to pretend the sequel remained cancelled. charlie out.

[timeisacephalopod]

4, 6, 9, 10, 12: Rhodey and Bucky, 15, 16, 21, 23, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 43, 46, 50, 54: Tony

You know that meme where the white woman is looking at the math overlaying the picture in confusion? That was me when I got this ask because instead of reading the fucking questions on the ask meme I put up I decided ‘Rhodey and Bucky’ were some other thing? Long story short I’m a moron lmao.

4- Favorite actress

Tbh I don’t pay much attention to the actresses and thus I almost missed out of saying Tessa Thompson like some kind of savage. I appreciate how hard she worked to try and make Valkyrie bisexual and also her character was basically the only thing I liked about Thor: Ragnarok (controversial opinion, I know).

6- Favorite quote

“Trust my rage” from Thor The Dark World. This line is so visceral and poetic. Like shit son, the rest of the movie was eh, but that line? Fucking amazing, and Hiddleston’s delivery of it is top tier bois.

9- BROTP

Pepper and Tony. I’ve never seen the romance between them, and in my opinion it was there because it seems movies are fucking incapable of not having a romance subplot (no hate to pepperony shippers either, everyone likes what they like and the entire point of fic is to circumvent canon anyways). But as a friendship pairing these two are excellent- they’re a great team, they understand each other on a fundamental level, and their friendship dynamic is interesting. Also, to me, I think their relationship is more compelling without the romance.

10- How did I discovered Marvel?

I’ve mentioned this in other asks but I had a friend make me watch Avengers and I didn’t like it lmao. I only gave it another show two years later and started from the beginning with CA:TFA and then I got into it. I’m not sure what changed or why I took to it later, especially when I found the later half of TFA to be kind of boring (I love Skinny!Steve ok) but it happened and when WS came out I saw it in theaters. From then I was hooked.

12- Make me choose between two characters: Rhodey and Bucky

Damn, I’d rather not have to choose, you suck! But, for the sake of the ask, Rhodey. As a character he’s better constructed, has his own story and motivation outside Tony, he’s funny, and while he has his moments (that I mostly blame on shit writing) he’s a great friend. I honestly wish that we could get a whole movie about him doing things but I did hear some rumors not long ago about Marvel looking into making Iron Man 4 an Ironheart movie and the only thing that would make that better is if Rhodey were her mentor (I literally wrote a story about this once).

Anyways, although I write Bucky a lot more than I do Rhodey I do prefer his character in a more fundamental way simply because he’s more fleshed out. Plus I love male friendships that are actually good and James Rhodey Rhodes is the God Tier of friends. The man spent 3 fucking months combing the desert for his disaster friend and that’s some damn dedication. Especially when you know people must have gotten real damn annoyed with him using resources and shit. But that action alone tells you everything you need to know about him and none of it is bad. I love Rhodey, seriously.

15- Top 5 ships

Tony/T’Challa

Tony/ Bucky

Tony/ Stephen

Tony/Rhodey

And, because I feel compelled to put a ship that doesn’t have Tony in it Steve/Howard

Honorable Mentions: Tony/ Peter Q

16- Top 5 villains

THANOS

Erik Killmonger

Loki

Justin Hammer (he’s just so absurd)

Ghost (from Ant Man and The Wasp)

Seriously, this was hard because Marvel’s villains are shit. They’re all the same one dimensional ‘they’re evil’ type characters.

21- Dream crossover

Basically any urban fantasy world I loved in my teens and the MCU. I’ve written a Vampire Academy/ MCU crossover but I’d love to write a House of Night crossover (I hate the characters in HoN, but love the world ok don’t judge), and a Shadowhunters crossover. I’ve seen some cool stuff with Teen Wolf being crossed over too though.

23- Most layered character

Tony fucking easily. His arcs are always the most compelling (or close to it), he’s had the most character development, and his trauma plays out so beautifully on screen. I’d argue Steve is a close second post WS, but the MCU will never let his character play out the development he’s gotten because they’ll never let Steve be less than perfect, which pisses me off. Otherwise his transition from a solider who wants to do right by his country to a cynical man who doesn’t know how to process the new world he’s been tossed into or how to handle a situation in which the morally correct solution isn’t abundantly obvious would be a compelling watch. But its been consistently proven that Steve will never get a real realization of his new characterization because ~~perfection~~.

27- Favorite moment

Shiiiit. That’s a lot of material and because I have a bad memory I’m going to go with ‘don’t call us plucky, we don’t know what it means’ because that was hilarious lmao.

29- Saddest moment

Shit boi, probs a toss up between Peter P’s death and Bucky’s. Peter’s is obvious but Bucky fucking dusting in front of the dude who spent so long trying to find him again in an effort to feel, even if its just for a moment, like he’s home again? Sad af. I felt awful for Steve there.

30- Most beautiful scene

Pretty much all of Black Panther is a visual treat, but I’m especially fond of T’Challa in the dream world with his father. That scene was so beautiful, and all the colors? Amazing. Only Guardians of the Galaxy even compares visually and even then Wakanda’s beauty has something else to offer that space doesn’t.

32- Actor/Actress I’d like to be cast by Marvel

As mentioned above I pay literally zero attention to actors- its a personal choice not to spend time being a voyeur into other people’s lives and treat them like commodities to consume because I loath celebrity culture (and this isn’t a slam to anyone who enjoys it, its more a slam to people who over engage in it- ie people who care enough to send death threats or paps basically). Anyways that’s an opinion you didn’t ask for, but because of that personal opinion I have no real cast choice lmao.

35- Most boring plotline?

I love Thor but all his movies. The first movie had good personal growth but eh. The second was an ok movie but forgettable (aside from my fav line from Loki in it), and unpopular opinion I hated Thor Ragarok. I mean it was funny. That’s all the good I have to say about it really. Though I have no idea why every comedy writers room is not leaping at a chance to get Taikia on their staff because the man is a comedic genius and that’s honestly being impolite to his comedy skill. Still, as much as I like Thor I didn’t really love any of his movies and all his villains were so fucking boring, even Loki wasn’t that interesting till Avengers. Poor Thor, MCU did him dirty :(

37- Most well done character death

Peter P. I give this to him over Bucky because apparently most of that scene was improv? I cried over my spider son ok. There’s someone who was in that theater with me who heard me sob out ‘my spider son’ and went home to tell people about it. That shit was heartbreaking. Second runner up goes to T’Challa but I didn’t think it was well done, I just thought it was sad as shit for Okoye and I love her so it was upsetting to see her lose her king :(

43- Characters I wish they’ve met

I don’t understand the question :( I think it’s supposed to be ‘characters you wish would met’ but all my wishes were granted in IW. Tony and Stephen met and so did Tony and Quill. I shipped Tony with both characters before they’d interacted on screen so it was nice to see :) Rhodey and Quill would be a fucking hoot together though, throw in Okoye and Valkyrie and you’ve got a bunch of drunk overpowered people telling war stories or, in Quill’s case, stories about that time he stole some shit.

46- What characters outside of the Mcu I’d like to see in a Marvel movie?

Ironheart, but I heard rumors they might do a movie with her. I think it’d be fun to have Riri in screen, especially since Peter is around her age. I’d also love to see a Young Avengers movie or a Kamala Khan/ Ms. Marvel movie though apparently there’s rumors of that too.

50- Characters that deserved better

Tony, Bucky, and Steve but all for different reasons. Steve deserves his fall from grace and not because I think he should suffer, but because keeping him on his pedestal means he’ll never be able to fully process his trauma and move on. Allow him to fall, allow him to know he isn’t perfect, then allow him to know that that’s ok, he doesn’t need to be, he just needs to do the best he can and then allow him a proper chance to move on.

Bucky because he deserves to be a character outside of Steve and, to a much smaller extent, Tony. Let the man have a movie about self actualization after trauma, let him figure out he isn’t Steve Roger’s best friend anymore (and that Steve isn’t really Steve anymore) and that that’s ok, they can both accept themselves as they exist now and still be friends. Let him develop hobbies outside of Steve, have him bond with Rhodey, he needs a good friend. Shit, let him bond with Sam too. Give me a buddy movie where Sam lowkey therapies Bucky into being a fuckin person again and Bucky finds some way to repay him. He can go beat up Scott for that time he kicked Sam’s ass lol.

And Tony because the MCU makes fuckin everything his fault, even stuff that only somewhat involves him. They drive him to an absolute breaking point and then have the characters get pissed that he broke? The only one that I found acceptable was Pepper and that’s mostly because I understand why she’d be freaked out both by Tony’s obsessive behavior and by nearly being eaten by one of his suits. She had her own shit she was dealing with post Mandarin so her I understand. Everyone else though? Mostly makes no sense. Why are you surprised that a person snaps when they’re pushed to the limit? That’s how people work lmao but that’s also because the writers make an active, and completely senseless, choice to have the characters react like Tony’s mental health problems are a choice he made and now he has to suffer because he has PTSD or some shit. Idk, but AoU was the worst for it, and, to a lesser extend IM3 but I refuse to believe Rhodey would really tell Tony to get over himself after a panic attack- the man is emotionally intelligent ok, IM3 did Rhodey dirty.

54- 5 things I love most about: Tony

Tony’s sheer level of wonder at the world around him- the look on his face in IM2 when he rediscovers that element perfectly encapsulates how he feels about learning and moving forward. (Flipside is that sometimes he has trouble staying in the present and that causes problems).

The way he tries no matter how badly he fails. Bih, if my random tests on a rock nearly ended the world I’d out and out throw myself off a cliff. Instead he accepts his part in it (and more) and chooses to try and make the best of it. He’s done that from the moment he got snatched by terrorists in Afghanistan. That in itself is basically a superpower.

His humor. I, too, hide my emotional distress under jokes so I can relate to being a lil bit of an asshole to hide how I feel. (Flipside: people don’t think he takes stuff seriously- hence Steve in the Avengers).

His mental health problems. Ok this one is weird, but I can appreciate that someone drew up a hero that isn’t based in perfection, but who tries to get there anyways. But the dude has problems, a lot of problems, and they aren’t always pretty. But they are complicated and it is compelling to watch.

The way he builds relationships. Its unconventional- Rhodey is probably the only person he’s super close to that he met in a normal way. Happy and Pepper were both people that worked for him and instead of just being their boss he took the time to learn about them and get to know them on a personal level. Obviously he ended up engaged to Pepper, but a guy who knows what his driver’s favorite show is and why he likes it is a good dude. He’d be nice to wait staff in restaurants.

[shinobi98]

I'vee written this from episode 29 through 32-ish and I want to dump a quick review of what I think of the characters at this point. Just for the lols for when I finish the show and I find I was completely wrong on most of them! Im using a compiled list on Google drive for the characters, so following that order they are split into clans.

Here we go.

Wei Wuxian. I really liked him at the beginning (what a funny cinnamon roll) but ever since he went missing into Burial Grounds I'm not sure...I see his points -especially when he criticised the Jins and stood up for the Wens- , but I can't believe he doesn't see he's being corrupted. Like come on. Just let the others help you for once, this is just looking for troubles. On thin ice. Used to be 9/10

Lan Zhan. Didn't like him much - or at all - when he was introduced in Clouds Recessess. I thought he was a stick in the mud and I wasn't too fond of him. He's missing for good chunks of the story. As my opinion of WWX deteriorated, I like him more or more because he's the one making sense out of the two, this gets him a passing score, even if barely. 6/10

Jian Cheng. He was my sweet sweet baby. Unparalleled sibling energy with WWX, cute angsty ship with Wen Qing, likable personality, the drama with the core. He had it all. But at some point...I don't know man. I just don't agree with anything he says anymore, and he's just becoming more and more sulky about his inferiority complex as a Clan Leader. I feel that, not counting the 16 years later part I didn't watch yet, he should get the title of co-protagonist rather than Wangji, since he's much more involved in the plot. Used to be a 8/10, still pending.

Jian Yanli. I like her. I feel like a dumb ass for getting attached and only remembering halfway through the flashback part that she's going to die, as per the first few episodes. I'm hating every second of it, like why killing her when the show is full of unpleasant people? Poor Li. Also the ship is a big plus. This kind of drama is just *chef kiss*- (and edit: after I watched the last episode of the night and she died...it's fine I'm not crying.) 8/10

Jian Fengmian. I don't really care much about him one way or the other. A little whipped by his wife - not that it is bad per se, but she really is bad so - , didn't particularly like that he favored WWX over JC. I think he could have been better, but he was pretty decent. 7/10

Madame Yu. No. 1/10

Lan Zichen. Possibly the last dude I 100% trust in this show not to let me down - as long as he isn't influenced too much by Mang Yao. I like him in a sort of uninvolved way. Don't look forward to see him on screen, don't wonder where he is or what he is doing, pleased when he shows up and does his sensible thing and then disappears again. Kept me on my toes after he escaped from Could Recesses though, but really took him so long to come back I almost forgot I was worrying about him. Way to go Zichen. 7/10

Lan Qiren. He's alright? I don't care much. Pretty dope when he took a stand against the Wans when they attacked, but I find him to be a little too much sometimes. 6/10

The files lists some juniors I haven't seen yet. They seem baby? Cute. I assume they are going to be so-and-so 's children, like in a Boruto way. Looking forward to see all the characters paired up.

Jin Guangshan. I thought he was annoying because he had a bunch of illegitimate children that I lost track of but then he became even more annoying with his very transparent power grab -and the fact that no one seems concerned is baffling to me. Overall I think I would have pretty much liked it more if the son Zixuan was clan leader and we didn't have to deal with this piece of work. 2/10

Jin Zixuan. As I was writing this post this man went through all sort of things. From proposing to having a child to being murdered. Honestly, we didn't start off the right foot when he booked the inn where WWX & co wanted to stay. I kept wishing he would kick the bucket because I hated how he treated Yanli, and I thought he would wind up to be a minor villain...while it seems he was the only normal member of his family. I feel bad for hating him so much. 8/10.

Jin Ling. Biggest reason why I thought his dad would be a bad guy. For the first part, I thought the Jins would be the villains because of him, and not the Wens, though in the end I wasn't that off the mark in a sense. He was just a cartoonish villain. I have yet to see him again after the flashback part, but his first introduction was awful. 3/10

Meng Yao. So the thing is, I was really partial towards him at the beginning. The bit at Cloud Recesses? The part with the Nie family? Perfect. Felt so bad for how everyone treated him. I started to excuse what he was doing like "it's ok, the head of guards is a dick to him" "it's okay he was double crossing the bad guys eheh" "it's ok he is...murdering civilians?" But seriously he let me down so hard. Also his face looks so different I didn't recognise him at first. At the beginning I thought I could maybe have a cute ship with Zichen but to tell the truth I don't want Meng Yao anywhere near him now. I seriously thought he wanted to murder infant Jin Ling at some point there to climb the ladder and become Clan Leader. I'm sure he set WWX up and schemed to murder the last dregs of the Wens and Zixuan. 1/10

Jin Zixun. Pretty inconsequential. Could have done with him imo. I'm only including him because I love when WWX goes "I don't even know who you are" like three times and that's a mood because where the heck did he come from.

Mo Xuanyu. I don't get why he looks like WWX. I sort understand why they used the same actor but story-wise I don't understand. How can random people look at him and recognise WWX? Also, he is kinda stupid for giving up his life to be possessed by a bad guy to get revenge but whatever floats your boat I guess. 4/10

Nie Mingjue. I don't care much for him. He bullies his brother too much and his short temper is annoying even though often justified. I thought I could kinda always rely on him to be the voice of reason despite not liking his character but then he said the stupidest thing in the show "I'm not sitting on that chair" and left it to the Jin Sect Leader...look how that worked out. Love how he basically disappeared after that, I think because he knew he screwed up big time (jk). 6/10

Nie Huaisang. Funny. Definetly underused. I hoped he would be part of the main gang. When he stopped showing up, the show took a terrible turn in its atmosphere. Please come back as sect leader in the 16 years later part (I mean, who else is there? I hope he didn't die in the meantime because he isn't showing up in this final battle). I wish I saw him swing a sword at the least once but alas. 7/10.

Wen Ruohan. I mean. What can you expect. Typical bad guy sitting on top of a lava pond that controls zombies. Wasn't expecting much development from his character and he surely didn't deliver. A good 2-dimensional bad guy to kill without thinking too hard about anything I guess. Awful person tho. 4/10

Wen Xu. I didn't even realize there were two young Wens. I thought he was his brother at first, but without the spice. Literally why was he there. 4/10

Wen Chao. He sucks, don't get me wrong. But watching him coming up with all sorts of awful things is very entertaining. 2/10 as a person, 9/10 as a villain. Cheered when he died.

Wen Lingjiao. Same as her lover, but more annoying because she got on my nerves sometimes. I was so glad when she got it. The (1) good thing coming out of WWX's corruption. 2/10

Wen Zhuliu. I really want to know what drove him to serve Chao with such devotion. His technique was kinda cool. I think he would have been an okay guy but sadly he associated with Chao. 4/10

Wen Ning. I thought "No, poor Ning is dead" ten times already and still counting. Please WWX just let him die. He is/was just a sweetheart and I loved him with all my heart. His death and everything that came after it filled me with rage, when i thought he died I was brokenhearted, and the fact that he gets blamed for killing people when it's arguably WWX's fault is so unfair. We didn't deserve Wen Ning. I don't really like that he became the Ghost General tho. 10/10

Wen Qing. I liked her. Same as her brother, how their story ended up upset me. I hoped they would get to live peacefully in their commune in the woods. That part of the story was *chef kiss*. The romance with JC lacked closure imo but I understand that they both had things going on and they would need to stretch the story too much to get the together or at the least talk about their feelings. I hoped till the end she wouldn't be killed because I knew Ning came bad 16 years later, so they must have avoided being executed, but more realistically I guess he's just a zombie and she's just dead. I lowkey shipped her with WWX though I feel this would be an unpopular opinion in the fandom -when I learned WWX has a different endgame ship I was kinda bummed sorry. I thought we would get a sort of love triangles with JC, I can't say I'm disappointed because it would have been a terrible plot. They really have a good platonic relationship, I loved to see them build that village. 8/10

Song Lan/ Xiao Xingchen / Xue Yang. What's the deal with them? They seemed to be set up to come back but only Song Lan does a passing appearance. Are they coming back? What was their significance? So weird because the untamed usually doesn't introduce characters to just drop them when the episode's over.