#Anti doppelgänger Kim

[canonicallyobserving911]

Unpopular opinion: I don't want Eddie sitting at home moping about his life in season 8.

Why? Because he deserves to have fun and live a little. He has a whole life the SHOW NEVER FOCUSES ON. Who knew he was playing poker at an underground LAFD poker game with a chief, a captain and others? NO ONE! (Until 6x13.) Who knew Eddie had a muscle car? I DIDN'T! (Until 7x4.) Of course, everyone who watched season 3 knows he participates in Muay Thai fighting because he was involved in that illegal fight club Lena introduced him to but that's not the point. It appears, Eddie has interests that the show NEVER focuses on until it's convenient... so, it would be nice if he has the chance to do them ON-SCREEN.

There are some who want Eddie to just sit home and mope about his life while his friend dates a trashy dude who knows Buck wasn’t trying to get his attention 🙄 but I digress.

Anyway, I don't want him to do that because he's already done it. He carried his entire family on his back starting at the age of 10 after his dad told him "To be the man of the house" and he has been ever since. He became a husband and a father right out of high school and he’s been working to provide for his own family. Since he blew up his life and the showrunner let his parents take Chris away from him, he should be able to go out and have fun with some of his friends like Linda, Chimney, Captain Mehta, Lena, Karen and maybe some of the people he served with in the Army. Or here's a thought... HOW ABOUT LET EDDIE TALK TO HIS SISTERS! HE HAS TWO BUT NOT ONCE HAVE WE AS THE AUDIENCE SEEN HIM TALK TO OR SPEND TIME WITH THEM. It's been 6 going on 7 years and Eddie has the largest family of every main on the show so could he please spend time with his abuela, his sisters and his cousins ON-SCREEN?

Listen... some want to see Eddie pine and be jealous of whack ass T*mmy but he’s been petty for years regarding the people Buck's ended up with which means it has been done several times before. (Hello season 5 with the first T.K. when Buck took her to Eddie’s for dinner in 5x11 and when she was in his house for his welcome home party in 4x14 🙄.) Therefore, IMO, it's time for Eddie to finally live for Eddie!

Please understand, I only ship Buddie but I think it will be good for him to find a hobby he enjoys and spend time with friends because it seems like he never had the chance to do any of that. Also, him getting spiritual guidance regarding his past from the priest is one thing but the majority of people don’t live at church so he should spend time figuring out what he likes and doesn't like. He said he's a nester so he can do that while staying busy. Maybe he can take a class or do something extreme that's legal. (No fight clubbing or anything that's going to put his life or his job in danger because some parts of the fandom already villainize him but they don't hold other mains to the same standard. He's been called angry once and that was a character assassination all on its own and it's NOT TRUE!) There are lots of things he can do other than sit home.

Just thoughts.

#FreeEddieAndLetHimLiveHisLife!

#EddieDeservesToBeHappy!

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Supernatural 13x10

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

I didn’t like “Wayward Sisters”. No. I LOVED IT! *shakingandcrying* IT IS THE SPIN OFF WE DESERVE!!!

Ahem. Where was I? The episode, yes. Which I overall loved and I’ve been thinking about it all day and there was so much in it, so many layers and stories worth telling, and guys, I really really need this show. There was one part however that I wasn’t a big fan of, and I have seen a lot of discussion and speculation about it already, and it is likely not even going to be a permanent thing, but they still went there in the first place so. More detailed and vague discussion below.

So, let’s do this.

The damsels in distress

Aka Sam and Dean. Like that was their role. Eating lizards and getting captured. And honestly? I didn’t mind at all their absence. I do enjoy episodes that are told from a different perspective than theirs, and unlike the last time we got a backdoor pilot (9x20) this time we saw characters that we actually know and care about. And instead of being some random dudes Sam and Dean are the catalyst of the story. It is them going missing that starts the story, and even though all of the women we saw know them, I would argue they are not the motivation for everyone. Sure enough Claire and Jody try to save them because they saved their lives, and arguably Donna as well. But I think both Alex and Patience are in it for Jody. And Kaia… well, it is possible she feels a certain kind of responsibility for Sam and Dean, but I don’t think she owes them anything, especially after Dean threated her with a gun. So what is Kaia’s motivation here? Claire, I would say.

Anyway, Sam and Dean going missing might be where this story starts, but these women and their stories don’t revolve around them. Their relationships with each other is the essence of this episode, not their relationship with the Winchesters, which gives us a solid ground to build their stories on.

Dreamhunter

Listen, some of us (myself included) already shipped Kaia and Claire based on the promo photos for this episode, so to say this episode has been giving is quite an understatement. If they wanted to set up a new ship they did a perfect job. And really, the best explanation why Kaia would willingly go back to the Bad Place? Because she developed a giant crush on the beautiful girl, who saved her from a monster out of her nightmares and swore she would protect her. The meeting and bonding between these two was just beautiful written, and even if you don’t ship it, they managed to put a real emotional weight behind their bond and Claire’s broken heart at the end.

Claire’s approach to Kaia was a different one than Dean’s. She talked to her and could easily see how scared Kaia was. Kaia’s scars have probably been a topic of many conversations in her life, and as she hardly can tell anyone about their true origin people might have come to their own conclusions. Claire though in return shows off her own scars, maybe because she knows how insecure Kaia is about her own. Unlike Kaia though Claire has a certain sense of pride about her scars, because she collected them during her hunts, and much like Dean Claire has found her purpose in hunting and making the world a better place through it. It is then that we see Kaia for the first time neither scared or angry, but relaxed and smiling. And it is through her understanding of what hunting means to Claire and the role Sam and Dean played in her life, that Kaia decides to help Claire.

(Also, the last time we saw two people comparing their scars? That was in 11x15 with Dean and Gunner. I love that by now Supernatural writers use the show’s very own queer subtext as a reference to make their own show even more queer <3 )

And we saw them holding hands not once, but twice. My heart. However. And this is my big “no, you didn’t” with this episode. Kaia’s death. Now, a brief glimpse at my dash told me that there are already different theories why Kaia isn’t dead. Saying that the Kaia at the end was our Kaia. Or that the two Kaias were two halves of the same person, like Charlie in 10x11. And both Kim and Bobo teased her return. However. Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure she comes back (the real Kaia, not AU!Kaia), the fact that they killed her in the first place bothers me a lot. Why? Because it seemed like the only motivation the writers could come up with to make Claire stay at home for a while. And we have been there so many times. Jess died so Sam would go hunting again. Kevin died so Dean would take the MoC. Charlie died so Dean would fully give in to the MoC. Eileen died so the Winchesters would turn against the BMoL. And so on. Like killing of a character is the only way to get a character in a certain direction. And I don’t think it is. There are other ways. So even if Kaia comes back, I’m still angry they had to kill her in the first place (leaving her alone in the place she feared the most).

I wonder though about her doppelgänger? It seems that she is more powerful than Kaia, because she was able to open a rift on her own (unlike that universe has a Nephilim as well). And I wonder if she directed our Kaia to this place in her dreams, hoping she would eventually go there, so they could swap places? Did she wanted to kill Claire or Kaia all along? Is she going to pretend to be our Kaia in order to gain Claire’s trust? (Did anyone say Casmodeus?)

And interesting enough even though we thought Kaia’s death prevented Patience’s vision to come true, it still did, because Patience interpreted what she saw wrong.

Going back to Claire for a bit, because she and Jody were the centre of this episode. Her opening scene gave me some Asa Fox feelings, both kids (Asa and the girl here) being rescued by kickass lady hunters. I think it was no coincidence that the girl looked a lot like a young Claire and that Claire watched her reunited with her mother, as Jody and Claire’s relationship would be a central theme of the episode.  The core family unit is Jody, Alex and Claire (though Donna shares a history with the girls as well and I want to know everything about it). They parallel John, Sam and Dean here, but not in the clear way we would expect it. Claire wants to be a hunter, it is where she finds her purpose, same like Dean. Alex wants a normal life and tries to help people as a civilian, the same way Sam tried. But then it is Claire who left her family, just like Sam, and Alex who stayed behind and tries to be a good daughter, the way Dean did. Jody of course is the anti-John, but her concern for Claire is paralleled with John’s concern for Sam. Both believe that by leaving their children risk their lives. In the end both Claire and Sam return, both after losing someone close to them.

The meek (shall inherit the earth)

I admit that both Patience and Donna were a bit underwritten, but then again Patience already had an episode focused on her (13x03) and Donna will have one (13x11), so that is okay. We are so used to hunters that it is easy to forget that it is not normal to bury monsters in your graveyard or to own an armory. But Patience is our reminder how surreal this world must look like to outsiders. She is also not a fighter, same as Alex, and I loved Alex’s comment that they don’t have to be in order to help. All these women bring different skills to this fight, and they are all important.

There is a brief moment where she decides to go back and wonders if her father takes her back. We all have discussed the ambiguity of Patience’s father saying “You go now, you choose that life, you don't come back” in 13x09. Apparently Patience is concerned that her father throw her out for good. I still wonder how Patience will fit into this show, when it hopefully gets picked up. We saw the reason why she was there and why she stayed, but now that both Jody and Claire are save, why should she stay? Or are more visions coming? We will see.

Some other things:

- Loved the opening song (“I am the Fire” by Halestorm) and I would love if they could use this song for an intro when the show gets picked up. Like one of those longer intros with all the characters we used to have in the old days. Miss those.

- Still not over Mr. Werewolf. Why did he open the door anyway? Did he expect a delivery?

- Claire keeps a journal, the same way John did.

- Dean saying “My hero”. In a total not even remotely sardonic way. Because these men can admit and accept help when they need it.

So yeah, please make this show a thing. Please give us these wonderful women, let us hear their stories, let them become a family. Give us these all female ensemble show, with all these different kind of relationships to explore, with daughters and moms and sisters and friends and lovers. It is time.

[man-creates-dinosaurs]

ESSAY: JURASSIC CITY* Recently the hosts of the @kaijusaurus podcast covered the film GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II (Dir. Takao Okawara). Unfortunately Stephen and Ross didn’t think much of it. I, however, have always been a fan of this film (really there isn’t a Godzilla film I’m not a fan of, so maybe that’s not a fair metric by which to judge) so I wanted to offer a different perspective on the movie. GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released in 1993, the same year as JURASSIC PARK (Dir. Stephen Spielberg). As a result of their close production schedules it seems unlikely that either film was directly influenced by the other in any real way. Nevertheless one of the things which I find fascinating is how thematically similar the two films are. As noted by David Kalat, in the revised edition of his book A CRITICAL HISTORY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF TOHO’S GODZILLA SERIES (2010), the theme of GvsMG2 is “life verses artificial life” as articulated by MechaGodzilla pilot Lt. Berger (Sherry Sweeney). In the film we are introduced, for the first time, to G-Force; a United Nations scientific-military organization dedicated to the eradication of Godzilla and other monsters like him. To this end, G-Force has constructed two weapons: MechaGodzilla and Garuda - the second being a souped up fighter jet that can attach itself to MechaGodzilla’s back to provide the robotic doppelgänger with extra fire power. As a unit MechaGodzilla and Garuda stand in opposition to the dinosaurian-kaiju Godzilla and Rodan. The reason for their tussle? G-Force has recently come into the possession of (i.e. kidnapped) a baby Godzillasaurus which they want to study in order to build more effective anti-Godzilla weapons. As any viewer well versed in the genre of dinosaur and kaiju movies can tell you, taking a baby away from a parent is never a good idea. Didn’t work out in GORGO (1961, Dir. Eugène Lourié). Or in GAPPA (1967, Dir. Haruyasu Noguchi). Or in BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (1985, Dir. Bill L. Norton). And it isn’t going to work out here. As Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) would later say in THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997, Dir. Stephen Spielberg) the only thing you succeed in doing in such an instance is making “mommy very angry.” As is to be expected, despite a tough battle, in the end Godzilla and Rodan triumph over man’s machines. As Kalat writes, the moral of the story is clear, “Humans cannot hope to build anything superior to what nature can create.” Thus organic life triumphs over artificial life. This sentiment has always struck me as being, in spirit, similar to Ian Malcolm’s pronouncement in JURASSIC PARK that “life finds a way.” If you don’t see it perhaps it’s necessary to back up and consider the bit of dialogue right before this, spoken by Malcolm to Jurassic Park’s creator John Hammond, after being told that the resident scientists are fully capable of completely controlling the park’s dinosaurs… “John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.” Just like the scientists in Jurassic Park, the scientists and soldiers working for G-Force are attempting to control nature; symbolized here by dinosaurs. Both in their capture and exploitation of the baby Godzillasaurus but also in their attempt to create better (i.e. artificial) versions of living creatures in the form of MechaGodzilla/Godzilla and Garuda/Rodan - this is an idea that the Jurassic Park franchise would not fully explore until the recent film JURASSIC WORLD (2015, Dir. Colin Trevorrow) which, as film critic and horror author Kim Newman observed, breaks the mold of previous JP films by bringing a certain “kaiju feel to the game.”** Of course in both cases mankind fails. The dinosaurs - whether they be Godzilla and Rodan or T. Rex and Velociraptors - break free, expand into new territories and crash through buildings, often violently. Despite our most advance technology - be it robotics or genetic engineering - mankind has yet to triumph over nature.                    *This is actually the title which GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released under in Hindi speaking markets. Clearly someone saw the connection between these two movies before me. **I both agree and disagree with Newman here. I agree that JURASSIC WORLD is far more like a kaiju movie then any previous JP film. I disagree however that it was the first film in the series to do this. In fact I would argue that the entire JP series owes a certain debt to the kaiju genre. The whole idea of Jurassic Park was anticipated 25-years prior by the Godzilla film DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968, Dir. Ishiro Honda) and Spielberg himself cited the original GODZILLA (1954, Dir. ishiro Honda) as a key influence on the first Jurassic Park. He also said that the climax of the second JP was added - it wasn’t a part of the original screenplay - because it fulfilled his lifelong desire to make a Godzilla-type film.         

[canonicallyobserving911]

S8: Eddie Diaz

It's Eddie Diaz!

Eddie Diaz is BAE!

It's Eddie Diaz my beloved.

God he's so gorgeous!

(TM is late night cryptic posting again.)

Eddie's my favorite character but I'm not including any speculation just like I didn't for season 7 because only TM knows where he's taking Eddie’s storyline and he can change it on a whim, even if it doesn't make any narrative sense.

My only hope is that Eddie FINALLY gets a good one that is solely about him without any doppelgängers, hallucinations or memories of his dead wife so he can finally let her R.I.P. and move on. Also, I don't want Eddie being written OOC.