#I support womens wrongs except when it’s making Clark look like a character from the ABC show Once Upon a Time

[twistpixel]

Byline writers if they couldn’t put “heroes in a way you’ve never seen them before” or “greatest challenge yet” in their promos

[qqueenofhades]

I know you dont watch GoT anymore. And that Braime and Sansa are your favorites. But I know you've read the books and are obviously really interested in the story. And I was just wondering what your thoughts are on the whole Jon killing Dany thing? Is that something you can see happening in the books? And if it is do you think it'd be in the same context as the show did it?

Ahaha, welp. Just jumping right in there.

(Also, you never have to apologise for asking GOT/ASOIAF questions. I obviously have been a fan for 16 years and wrote fuckin’ TNR with its half-million-plus words, so I clearly do have Thoughts on the story/characters, especially with the bag of lukewarm cat vomit that was s8 of the show.)

I already answered this ask discussing how much I hated the Mad Queen Dany thing, both because a) it was horrifically badly handled and b) these mediocre misogynist douchegobblers have managed to outdo themselves in terms of the gross messages they’ve sent about women, after 8 seasons of that. (These are the same people who made Sansa say that she was grateful for her rapes and who claimed that Dany’s turn into madness was foreshadowed by her having a “chilly” reaction to the death of her abuser, Viserys, in s1, so…. make of that what you will.) I’m not saying that it was narratively impossible, especially since GRRM has been toying with the same thing in the books and has more than his own share of Male Author Syndrome. But at the start of 8x04, Dany is in Winterfell, perfectly sane, toasting Arya as hero of the battle. By the end of 8x06, she’s crazy, a war criminal, and dead, murdered by her boyfriend, because… well, something something plot reasons. Even if you didn’t like Dany or were rooting for her to go mad or whatever, that was wildly badly handled.

I personally think it would be pretty gross for GRRM to also go down the Mad Queen route, though at least if he does, we will have had Dany’s POV chapters beforehand and presumably something resembling a justification and a building narrative momentum toward it. But she also got stuck in Meereen for so long because by his own admission he didn’t know what to do with her there or how to get her out of the situation and moved onto Westeros, which remains, theoretically, her outstanding goal in the books. It would obviously not be outside the realm of possibility for this to happen, given GRRM’s focus on “grittiness” that the show took to max factor 5000. I would still find it reductive and trying to make a Clever Postmodern Point and etc if it happened in the books, because literally why invest us in a character this long, especially one who has tried so hard to overcome the circumstances of her past/to not be her father, and then just do exactly that? Obviously there would be elements of Shakespearean tragedy to it, and if done well it could be compelling, but I personally just have a different approach to fiction and what people want out of a story (especially one now as famous as GOT/ASOIAF and how universally betrayed everyone seems to feel by the ending). I’m not saying Dany’s ultimate ending needs to be sunshine and roses and getting what she wants, because often character arcs and resolutions become all the more powerful for being subverted and thwarted (think the “I said I wanted [x] but [y] was there instead” sort of endings). But whatever it is, it needs to be…. not that.

Also, Jon in both books and especially show has been the epitome of Mediocre White Man. I stopped watching in s4, but Kit Harington’s acting was so wooden and the writing for him was very much Standard Misunderstood Brooding Fantasy Hero that I could barely pay attention to his scenes. I find him somewhat more interesting in the books, though ADWD dragged for everyone and it was obvious GRRM was writing in circles. But everyone has noticed that especially in the show, Jon does absolutely bupkis. His ass is constantly saved by the women in his life, he makes an absolute hash of any power that he is given and doesn’t want it anyway, and his ultimate ending was…. going back to the Night’s Watch (as their idea of satisfying narrative storytelling is to literally put everyone back where they were in the very first episode, apparently). Never mind the fact that there’s no need for the Night’s Watch, but the point is, even the fact that Jon is Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son ended up being relevant for like half an episode. That has been one of the major plot points/secrets of the books (although not so much anymore) and it just…. fizzled out like a damp squib. Dany actually TRIED for multiple seasons to be a good ruler and to learn how to handle power and become a queen, so for her to have to be the one to die for Jon to once again do diddlysquat is… well, as I have said before, the misogyny leaps out. They ended up wasting so much potential and so many other things that were also foreshadowed (and far more convincingly than “wah wah she was gonna go evil!”). For this? So Jon can just go brood in the snow again? Cool.

Not to mention, I find it gross on principle that Dany’s boyfriend had to be the one to kill her, especially after rape/sexual violence/loss of agency was such a big part of her early-season storylines (and how horrifyingly and grossly that has been handled on the show overall). We’re obviously supposed to sympathize with Jon in this scenario and to feel that it is justified to “stop a tyrant” or whatever. Also, if the episode was going to be called “Queenslayer,” why the fuck wasn’t it Jaime fulfilling the valonqar prophecy, another thing they forgot about, and killing Cersei, at great personal grief/cost, to once more stop an insane monarch from burning down King’s Landing? But that, of course, would be actual character development/overall arc, and they preferred to also trash that by having Jaime “killed Aerys Targaryen literally to save half a million innocent people and lived with his reputation being destroyed ever after” Lannister unironically claim that he never cared about the lives of the innocent and only wanted Cersei. After she again tried to kill him and Tyrion like three days ago, not even to mention what they did to Brienne and with that whole arc, but I will have a ragestroke if I think about it too much. 

Basically, the ending wasn’t “bittersweet.” It was tragic, reductionist, ham-handed, hugely disappointing for everyone who put years of investment into these characters, and ended up in the amusing position of making Bran Stark the younger and more beautiful queen who comes to cast Cersei down. He became king because… reasons? Whatever? And he knows literally everything about everyone thanks to being the Three-Eyed Raven, so there’s no way that can go horribly wrong. He has basically done nothing except sit in a wheelchair and look creepy for several years now, his arc has never been remotely about being king, and Isaac Hempstead-Wright himself is apparently on record as saying he genuinely thought it was a joke script when he read it. This after both Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington broke down over learning what happened to their characters/Kit apparently realized it for the first time at the read-through and was horrified. Emilia already talked about wandering for five hours and having a crisis and calling her mom and asking to be talked off the ledge like….. fictional choices/characters completely aside, that’s a gross thing to do to your actors. I know they’re all proud of their work and they have apparently and understandably been defensive about the existence of the petition to rewrite s8, but they’ve all been pretty clear, while still being professional and supportive, that there is stuff that they’re just as much WTF about as we are.

Basically, as everyone keeps saying, the acting, cinematography, visual effects, music, etc was clearly up to as high a standard as ever, but was betrayed fundamentally and comprehensively by this god-awfully shit writing by a couple of hacks who clearly rushed the final season to get on to ruining working on Star Wars. They have also been on record about saying “you can’t do what the audience expects or it’ll get boring blah blah blah,” which is a profoundly flawed storytelling strategy if you’re paranoid and trying to outsmart your audience and do something that nobody has ever thought of because you’re an Intellectual Postmodern Commentator On Our Violent Society. If your audience can guess where a story is going, but are still surprised by major twists along the way that then make sense in hindsight, you’ve done your job. If you’re relying on grimdark and cramming in gimmicky plot twists and deus ex machinas and Shocking Moments rather than authentically developing your story, it’s going to bite you in the ass in a big way, as was just proven. 

Nobody expected a completely happy ending from GoT. But the fact that they went to such lengths, especially in s8, to build up characters/ships (Jonerys, Braime, Gendrya were all torched after major canon moments completely unexpected by fans, especially the latter two – why even include it unless to just be more Tragique, and Gendrya is the only one that has even a chance in the future since half of it didn’t end up idiotically dead) and then just wrecked all of it…. as I’ve said, good endings don’t need to be rainbows and unicorns and kittens. But if you’ve asked eight years of audience investment, there has to be something that makes it worth it and that doesn’t make everyone feel like they were duped and stupid to get involved in the first place. They have been beating the “it’s a hard world and bad things happen to the characters” drum for all they’re worth, but… it’s just bad. You can analyse and ask why the hell they did things and so forth, but it’s bad. At this rate, the show should have either ended after 8x03, or they should have taken the money HBO offered and done the proper 10 episodes and let Bryan Cogman write all of them. He was the only one who appeared to remotely give a shit about the characters, and since D&D wrote the last four episodes themselves, yeah, this disaster is on them.

Fortunately, I left the show years ago and have TNR and am used to ignoring their version of things. And I knew all along that they never really got the characters or the story. But I feel really bad for everyone who has had this thrown back in their face, and it seems like a communal disenchantment with this ending is going to enter the pop-culture consciousness on a possibly unprecedented level. So if GRRM does do the Mad Queen Dany killed by Jon in the books (though he has apparently called the show’s ending “traumatic”), I’ll probably still not like it. He has a chance to sell me it on/justify it to me narratively, which the show categorically failed to do. I don’t think I will, just because as I said, I don’t like anything about it, but yes.

Anyway. This is a long post already, and I probably have more to say still, but it’s pretty obvious I think it’s just really, really bad, and that’s about the essence of it.

[fyeahbatcat]

Where do you think the inconsistency of how the BatCat relationship was sometimes portrayed on Gotham, and how it still is in the comics, comes from? Do you think there's a sexist component to it? Going forward, how important is it for Selina Kyle to break free from those traditional romance tropes, that are designed to keep characters in never-ending angst, and deprived of happiness/pleasure?

With Gotham I think the inconsistency just came down to bad writing. Ithink that they felt like they had to do the angsty they-do-they-will-they-won’tthing, and that that is what is expected of Bruce and Selina’s relationship. Mycomplaint isn’t even really that it was done; it was the way it was done. They wereso gung-ho to meet their end goal that they didn’t care to make sure it wasdone in a way that made sense.

As far as the comic books go,they seem pretty damn consistent to me. When DC needs a sale boost or somewriter needs clout then their relationship is *Lady Gaga voice* talented, brilliant,incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular. Then once they’ve capitalizedon it as much as they can at one time then they throw it away until the next saleslag. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s been this way for 40 years.

I mean, they’ve said it a hundredtimes: superheroes that are “happy” aren’t interesting. Batman needs to bemotivated by misery because blah blah blah blah blah. The interesting thingabout this is that 1) it’s nonsense 2) the Batman books didn’t used to be likethis 3) we’re always being told this but never shown and 4) of course this standard only applies to romanticrelationships and not any other life events. Because romance has been writtenas generally monotonous across almost all forms of media, writers genuinelycannot image writing it any other way. They can’t write romance outside of atrope. A lot people think that what’s interesting about a relationship iswatching that relationship build up and the tension that goes along with it, butonce the characters get together once and for all then it’s all sunshine andbutterflies and there’s no more conflict to make it interesting. That’s why it’sso common for tv couples to only get together in the series finale or towards the end of the series.

This is not only uncreativeand badly written; it’s just not true. No one’s story ends just because theyget married or commit themselves to a relationship. That’s not how it works. Noone’s relationship is without conflict and romance means something different for every character. They’d be better off embracing thatand making that part of the story than committing themselves to the boring nothing-wrong-ever-happens-Happily-Ever-Afterthat they’re devoted to. It’s okay to let couples to have conflict. Conflictcan be good for the plot.

Iris West and Barry Allengot married on The Flash and I think thisis one of the best and most encouraging departures from this trope that I’ve seen onrecent tv. They got married in the middle the season (as did Lois and Clark on New Adventures) because marriage didn’t definetheir relationship; it was just the next step. Iris and Barry don’t have aperfect marriage where they get a long all the time. Just last week they had apretty big row about something involving Nora where they both did/said thingsthat upset the other, and both had valid points. Life is not black and white,and we’d be treated to much better storytelling if it were told that way. Theydon’t always have the best communication, but the relationship is alwayssupportive and loving, and they’re able to reconcile their personal andprofessional issues together.

But Iris and Barry representthe exception; not the rule.

Yeah, there’s a sexist component to it because toxic masculinity tells us that men who do things based on emotionsthat are not anger are weak. Men who find value in romance and want to pursuethat are weak. Or that love changes who you are as a person and makes you abandon your fundamental values. Basically, women make men weak. A Batman who does just one thingin his life that doesn’t involve stoic and altruistic sacrifice but because itmakes him happy is an ineffective Batman. But a Batman who is miserable, clinicallydepressed, and borderline suicidal is a hopeful and inspiring Batman, if you believewhat we’re constantly being told.

I don’t really care what they do going forward, but I think that that DCand to a marginally lesser extent Marvel underestimate the intelligence oftheir audience. The only thing fans really want is to see these characters andstories live up to their full potential. They can’t do that if they arebeholden to antiquated ideals; especially female characters. They’ll never grow. They’ll never change. They’ll never be fully afforded the opportunity to be complex and multidimensional. The result is theyend up rehashing things that have already happened (many times) before, andthinking that their audience is too stupid to tell. Culture changes and thewriters/publishers have to change with it or risk getting left behind. Or maybe just hire more women/diverse writers and editors instead of hacks. IDK. 

I’ll leave you with this quote from Marjorie Liu:

I will say, however, that as a writer, I’m not afraid of playing with intimacy. There are many different ways to express intimacy – a look, a touch – and I think it enriches the characters and stories when you create those moments, and then build on them…Seriously, romance novels are all about the relationship between the hero and heroine (or hero and hero, or heroine and heroine, depending on the kind of the romance novel you’re interested in).  It’s about watching these two people interact and conflict, and, ultimately, fall in love. It’s about an emotional fantasy, rather than a sexual fantasy. Romance novels are not about sex. They are about expressing love and friendship, and respect.

— Majorie Liu

[seluandthecrow-blog]

The entertainment industry in America is imbued with racist ideology, and gaps in representation and wages between actors of color and white actors are reigning free. Black actors are sometimes more successful than their white counterparts, but even then they’re not being recognized or compensated in the same way. I observe this from a privileged lens as a white person, and though I have struggled economically and still do, I have the privilege that comes with whiteness. Here I will attempt to communicate some of what I see as disparities and racist ideologies in the American entertainment industry today.

  I saw the most recent Star Wars movie “Solo” when it came out on Netflix. Alden Ehrenreich plays Han Solo, our lovable, orphaned, thief-but-for-the-right-reasons protagonist. He’s moving up through the ranks, stealing for the noble cause of one day being reunited with his adolescent crush Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke).  Donald Glover plays Lando Calrissian, the owner of the Millennium Falcon. His methods for acquisition of the Falcon are under constant scrutiny, and he is portrayed as the crook, with little back story. When white writers Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan created this story, did they intend to cast Lando as a black man, or was it perhaps the casting agency who thought Glover would be good for this supporting role?

When Donald Glover was offered the job, he faced a choice. Did he want to be in the new Star Wars movie if he played a thief? There is a sacrifice made when an activist musician and comedian takes a high caliber role that potentially stereotypes him based on race. Certainly the circumstances are unique for each actor, but when a black entertainer is given an opportunity to succeed, but there is a wage gap between black and white entertainers, as well as male and female actors, and intersections of these different categories work like a confusing math problem that becomes easy to distill: there is disparity.

Sure, films like Black Panther are working against subjugation by taking black characters into the forefront of the picture, but what goes on behind the scenes is still inequity. It is generally stated that Chad Boseman who plays Black Panther earned $500,000 for his appearance in the film, and around 2-3 Million for Avengers, Infinity War. Robert Downey Jr. however, earned $500,000 for the first Iron Man, and earned a sickening $40-$50 Million for Infinity War. (QUORA.COM, 2019) (MENXP.COM, 2019) 

Entertainers with more weight in the industry based on previous successes gain more creative independence and move up in the income ranks based on that success. But roles and incomes are limited for black actors in the mainstream, and when you see a black actor or hear a black musician, what parts of their blackness are being commodified and to what end can they be undervalued as artists when their bodies and voices are being harnessed to entertain?

According to Forbes, Black Panther grossed over 1.3 Billion Dollars, more than Titanic, one of the highest grossing films to date (Forbes, 2018), Whereas the first Iron Man grossed less than half that, close to 318 Million. (Box Office Mojo, 2019). There are some lurking variables affecting the difference in Boseman and Downy Jr.’s salaries in Infinity War, like that fact that Downey Jr. has appeared in more films than Boseman (IMBD, 2019), but the key factor in the wage gap here is clearly white privilege. This phenomenon is hard to name because acknowledging it opens up hundreds of years of dialogue on oppression and dispossession which is painful to talk about, but it is impossible to ignore if you want it to change.  

Coincidentally, Donald Glover’s hit song This is America was co-written by Swedish computer Ludwig Göransson , who also wrote the score for Black Panther. Göransson  speaks to that experience in an interview with Complex.com last year:

“What I’ve been working with, and really trying to be aware of, is how you take traditional music from these different countries and put electronics and big orchestra on top of that while keeping the same sounds,” he said. “It’s been really challenging. I went to west Africa and South Africa for a month to do research and record a bunch of different musicians for the score. I brought that back to my studio and, for the past year, I’ve been figuring out ways to preserve the essence of that music and try to make it cinematic to fit this superhero universe.” (COMPLEX.COM, 2018)

So where are these nameless musicians from Africa credited in information on this blockbuster’s soundtrack? Nowhere that I could find. Were they paid anywhere close to what Göransson received as the Composer for the film?Do they receive royalties from their performances?

Michelle Alexander speaks to new manifestations of racism in her book The New Jim Crow, a book which according to a 2018 article in The New York Times is banned in prisons in North Carolina and Florida. (Bromwich, 2018)

“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So, we don’t. Rather than reply on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today is it perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans…we have not ended the racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.“ (Alexander, 2012)

  And that’s exactly what is going on in the entertainment industry today. We are redesigning racism with wage gaps, divisions of screen time and biased survival in apocalyptic pictures (Infinity Wars,) and portraying black actors as thieves and sidekicks (Solo,) while black rappers in the mainstream sing about prison time, womanizing, gold chains, and street drugs, perpetuating these images to the public. In Lil Baby’s song Pure Cocaine, which is #24 on the Billboard rap charts as of April 5th, 2019, he says:

“When your wrist like this, you don't check the forecast/Every day it's gon' rain (every day it's gon' rain), yeah/Made a brick through a brick, I ain't whip up shit/This pure cocaine (this pure cocaine), yeah/From the streets, but I got a little sense/But I had to go coupe, no brain, coupe no brain/I ain't worried 'bout you, I'ma do what I do/And I do my thing, do my thing”

  Chris Holmlund makes observations of the entertainment industry’s racist ideology flattening the Whoopi Goldberg into a tool for the white protagonists to connect in the movie Ghost in his book Impossible Bodies:

“Garishly dressed and made up, Oda Mae [the crook turned accessory to the white protagonist’s happiness, played by Goldberg] looks ridiculous when she visits Molly at Sam’s urging. “I don’t see what’s wrong with what I’m wearing,” she complains, voice off over a bird’s eye shot of Manhattan. 

The next shot shows her striding along, resplendent in a badly fitting rose-colored jacket, black flounced skirt, black stockings, white net gloves, bouffant black wig, and rakish hat. Her legs splay apart awkwardly above spike heels. In African leggings she later seems more at ease, but she never looks as deliciously fragile as Molly [Demi Moore] does in her pixie haircut, baggy sweaters, and spaghetti strap T-shirts.

            No wonder, then, that Oda Mae lends her body to the dead Sam when he wants to hold and kiss his wife one last time. “O.K., O.K., you can use me,” she says, “You can use my body. Just do it quick before I change my mind.” Orlando at least submersed himself in her, before reemerging in ghostly superimposition to hear his wife’s response. Sam simply replaces her, obviating the lesbianism implicit in a first, teaser, closeup of Molly’s white hands held by Oda Mae’s black ones, by suddenly appearing in medium shot to wrap his strong arms protectively around his tremblingly eager widow’s torso.” (Holmlund, 2002)

This example from the 1990 film may show that movies have come some way in representation of black characters, but Lando’s role in connecting Han Solo with his love Qi’ra seems to follow a similar trajectory. Epigenesis is painful, and there are many steps back accompanying each step forward in how ideologies can be reshaped. In 2010 there was one such instance of painful steps backward which instigate change in the 15th annual broadcast of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which aired on CBS. A summation of the event from The Color Complex by Kathy Russell-Cole, and Drs. Midge Wilson and Ronald Hall follows:

“Over 9 million viewers, the largest audience yet, tuned in to watch thirty-four female models, six of whom were women of color, parade around in lingerie and little else. The display of wares was organized around six differently themes sets, and in each, even the country-themes one featuring a barn and blond wigs, the subset of “girls” participating was racially integrated-with one notable exception. The single themed presentation in which the producers saw fit to showcase only the six models of color was the segment entitled “Wild Thing.” The setting was a jungle and the models entered wearing nothing more than African wraps on bodies covered in tribal body paint. From the African-American community could be heard a collective moan: “Seriously? Again, you put us back in the jungle?”

Since before the Civil War, the dominant White culture has abused and manipulated images of African Americans, usually for the purposes of fear, humor (i.e. what Whites thought was amusing,) and marketing.” (Russel-Cole/Wilson/Hall, 2013)

Awareness of these disparities is the key to unwinding what large entertainment corporations are continuously feeding to the public. I encourage you to question the lyrics on the radio, and ask yourself who is writing them, who is singing them, and for what reason. Watch the behaviors of actors. What are they promoting? Mainstream media is engineered by corporations to succeed with awareness of what consumers will buy into. It’s your responsibility as the consumer to shape the reality of the entertainment industry, and equality on and off-screen. 

[permian-tropos]

comparing someone who doesn't like a movie to the alt-right is kinda...mean. considering those very same people might be the victims of the alt-right.

I appreciate your concern, but I’m not talking about people who don’t like a movie. Every single “here’s why TLJ was garbage” post and youtube video and twitter rant is valid (except when it’s bigotry). You watched the movie, you had an opinion, your opinion is real.

Here’s the connection to the alt-right. 1) The alt-right formed a campaign to pull people in and tell them “the things you hate about this movie are because the cultural Marxists want to kill the things you love and promote minorities and women”. People who could be swayed by this are not the bulk of the TLJ antis on tumblr! But their reasons for hating the movie diffuse into the main hate mob and that mob amplifies the alt-right agenda BECAUSE… 2) the alt-right’s tactics have been used, excused, enabled by the specific “people who didn’t like the movie” I’m criticizing. 

Ad hominem attacks on creators, standing by while these attacks happen because they give vicarious pleasure or because one can’t bring oneself to care, victim-blaming (saying Jason Fry and Pablo Hidalgo, who did not write TLJ, “brought it on themselves” for simply being there when the evil Rian Johnson made reylo ambiguous), and not trying to find any good things in the film like

*clears throat* 

the casting of a Vietnamese-American actress to play a character whose backstory reflects the Vietnam War, identifying the capitalist war machine as the real enemy, giving an arc for every POC that wasn’t about them supporting a white character (white characters were supporting their arcs), criticizing elitism and the idea your bloodline makes you special, never sexually objectifying Rey or any other female character don’t argue this okay being in a sexually charged situation is not the same as objectification there are subjects as well as objects and if you forgot what eyecandy for men looks like please refer to Emilia Clarke’s character in Solo, having a female character who isn’t white and also isn’t thin…

You see, none of these individual things deserve to be swept under the hate rug because no movie will replicate everything TLJ did good and everything TLJ did bad. No one has to express any overall love for the movie to make it known that these elements are good and should be repeated elsewhere! 

People think that if they hate the movie loud enough, Lucasfilm will listen to them re: POC, queer rep, depicting healthy romantic relationships, etc. But they are not the loudest detractors, and if LF takes criticism into account, they’ll start with the reactionaries, not with the progressives. They’ll remove the women and POC and push right-wing messages. 

This idea of “you can’t compare them to the alt-right” comes from false equivalency about the morality of people’s causes. It comes from people using allegations of hypocrisy to discredit the oppressed standing up to oppressors. I’m not thinking of this as hypocrisy, and I’m not trying to discredit the cause of social justice. And I will defend victims of the alt-right against the alt-right! Good thing Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi isn’t alt-right. When the alt-right tried to co-opt Marvel’s Black Panther, claiming it was pro-ethnostate, they were obviously full of shit, but it tells me that they see Marvel’s politics as a better entry point. They don’t want to disown Marvel, they want to co-opt it. But they want to disown Star Wars. Disney owns both Marvel and SW so I wouldn’t be surprised if they let one be more overall conservative and one be more overall liberal to rake in both audiences. It’s all a machine, partner. But at the very least we don’t have to get confused about which is left and which is right. 

I spent a lot of time listening to TLJ critical opinions because I thought there must be something I’m missing. But something I could not deny was happening as I revisited the film over and over:

- The movie was making me sympathize with Kylo less, and take less interest in the villains overall. 

- The movie made me more actively appreciative of the Resistance side. 

- I was more intrigued by every character who was “sidelined” or “not treated right”. 

- I was becoming fascinated over and over by ideas the movie seemed to be conveying, and the more I looked for meaning, the more I found it.

- Literally every agenda that the detractors claimed the movie was pushing was the opposite of what the movie was doing to me. Either the movie was having this effect on me accidentally, or it was a good movie that richly conveyed its point. 

No, I don’t intend to be mean to anyone. I intend to critique actions I think are self-defeating. 

None of us should ever assume that all our actions are rational self interest. And besides the fact that the comparisons to the alt-right seem apt here, how else am I suppose to communicate “I think you’re unintentionally doing something wrong here” if I don’t say “people who mean you harm do this thing on purpose”?

You’re basically telling me, and I understand this point, “don’t assume you know better than them, maybe they’re right and you’re wrong”. And you know what, I would hate to act against my own interests here! My interests and most of the liberal TLJ detractors’ interests are aligned. I’m going to assume, though, that I’m not presenting manipulative or well-poisoning or truth-obscuring ideas. Since you’ve come with concerns that my statements have been harmful (ie. that they disparage victims of bigotry as “the same” as their oppressors), I hope this longer post addresses that.

I also think the mentality on tumblr that “victims can’t be victimizers” or “victims can’t make mistakes” is deeply flawed. I think we should all respect and pay attention to what marginalized groups say about their own experiences. But when it comes to solutions, I look to people of marginalized groups who have expertise. I will consider the opinions of random tumblr users but I won’t adhere to them as superior insight. I can’t assume they’re experts because I’m not an expert in things that victimize me!

And I don’t look to Star Wars fan discourse for the most complete picture on systemic oppression.

Call this a wild conclusion but if victimizing groups of people didn’t disrupt their ability to advocate for themselves and have solidarity with each other, and instead made them extremely good at those things, would systemic oppression ever work? 

[vadhnatta]

Justice League Rant

Have you ever been to a movie where you hoped it would be decent, despite assorted warning signs, but then you end up having a CinemaSins track running through your head the entire time as you slowly crush the empty box of concession stand candy and wonder if it actually is possible to murder a man with the force of sheer hatred, disgust, and a growing tension headache? Because that was this movie. I could have been sleeping. I could have been working on my projects due next week. I haven’t really seen many DC movies, or been invested in their world at all, but I saw Wonder Woman and loved it and Diana was featured prominently in the trailer, which looked pretty good, so I figured, hey, maybe they actually figured out how to make a good character and can keep this momentum going for a bit. It won’t be as good as Wonder Woman, but I could at least probably see Diana be a badass for a bit, and Aquaman looks like a decently amusing character. I saw a few episodes of the Flash TV series and that wasn’t awful. Maybe this will be okay.

No.

No it’s not.

I’m mostly waiting for the Excedrin to kick in so I can take a nap before diving back into a project with a program that has most of its documentation in Polish (which I do not speak), so this isn’t going to be a detailed or coherent meta analysis of all the points wrong with this film, or how I’m not sure there wasn’t a woman under the age of 60/over the age of 10 that wasn’t immediately sexualized, or how Joss Whedon should never be allowed within 30 feet of a woman apparently. But here’s a list of thoughts that went through my head while I watched this, for amusement and catharsis, because Wonder Woman was a fluke, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot both deserved better, and DC Comics is incapable of having nice things.

((Spoilers, obviously))

--I heard beforehand that there were four ass-shots of Diana, all added in by Joss Whedon, and I was hoping that was an exaggeration or not horribly noticeable, but yeah. I actually think there were more than four, but I didn’t count. 

--On the ass-shot note, at first I didn’t think Diana was wearing underwear under her skirt because we saw her ass cheek. Yeah. But she was. It’s dark blue. I know that because we saw up her skirt again, multiple times. 

--People tried to say the bikini armor was only in a flashback. No it wasn’t. They lied to us. We get to see Amazon warriors crushed to death under large stone gate things, straining to hold it up for their queen to run underneath it like that one bit from Prince Caspian, except with women in metal bikinis. 

--You know how the Amazons all had really cool armor that wasn’t super sexualizing based on actual ancient armor forms and construction techniques? Nope. Now they have similar highly-stylized banded chestplates like Diana’s, form-fitted around their boobs, and about half of those come in bikini form! Because variety!

--The Amazons can’t leave their island??? Um. But the entire reason they didn’t leave in Wonder Woman was because Hippolyta didn’t want to sacrifice her warriors for a war that wasn’t theirs, not because they physically couldn’t leave the island? So there’s an attack on their home, many warriors slain, and the only thing they can do at all is light a fucking signal fire??? They are way better than this.

--Did they actually kill Hippolyta’s wife/partner? Because that’s how that scene read to me. Fuck you movie.

--At least they didn’t actually destroy all of Themyscira. I’ll take my small victories there because I was convinced they were going to take my favorite part of Wonder Woman and burn it the first chance they got.

--How did they light this fire? Where was this temple? It’s obviously visible to the rest of the world, so it’s not on Themyscira. Was that a magic bow that could fire across dimensions? How could you aim it? I’m so confused by this scene. It’s one temple on fire, how did you know it would make the news and Diana would also happen to be watching the news when they ran that story, that’s hardly the biggest news story out there.

--So Diana had lightning powers. Or did the final battle of Wonder Woman not actually happen now. You know, the bit where she shot a giant lightning bolt thing out of her bracers. Vaporized a god. That. So, why the fuck is the only thing her bracer boosh move is good for now is creating a small shockwave to knock people back. It does nothing.

--Also, “we need an electric charge to shock the cube so we can activate the resurrection bullshit.” “Okay, so we need the Flash to run really fast down a hallway to build up electricity and poke the cube at exactly the right moment. That’s the best and simplest way to do this. I mean, it’s not like we have a literal daughter of the god of lightning bolts that has enough lightning powers to vaporize a god standing right next to us, where she could make lightning.”

--I thought the whole point of this movie was an Avengers-style team up where they actually worked together to take down the evil guy. But they just teamed up to bring back Superman, distract the bad guy long enough for Superman to show up, then Superman handles it. So. You just proved the point that you’re all worthless without Superman. 

--Rich isn’t a superpower, how are you not dead yet Batman.

--Batman is bitter/jealous/??? because Clark is more human than him for... getting a job and living a middle-class lifestyle when he didn’t have to? Bruce. You could do that. You too can put on glasses and go get a day job. You could give away all your money and go live on a farm and be a reporter or whatever. Like. That’s an option for you. Being rich isn’t a handicap.

--Aquaman I don’t care what you are or that you’re Legolas-surfing on a bug-orc, if you fall from hundreds of feet in the air, you die. At the very least your legs should be shattered. 

--Also, I have to agree with Batman on that one, you literally just brought a trident. You. You’re powers are water-related. Yeah, you have combat abilities apparently on par with Amazons, but. You couldn’t have steered this fight towards a lake? Brought some water with you? I feel like you could have been more effective in this fight somehow.

--I actually liked Aquaman for a good bit during this film. He came across kind of like Thor did to me early on, but with more whiskey and less ties to his home. I can totally get behind the vigilante merman defender of this town that rescues fishermen and hangs out at bars and randomly wanders into the ocean. He felt nicely reminiscent of old mythology stories for a bit there.

--But then the plane scene. Yeah, good points about how Batman doesn’t have a superpower, Flash is just tripping over his feet and slamming into walls all the time, and Cyborg may or may not be controlled by the cube things, or at least not have full control of his powers, agreed. But your point on Diana was “you’re gorgeous”, then increased rambling, leading into more rambling motivated by the lasso. You were actually doing okay, you didn’t need the sexist bullshit. It seemed like Atlanteans and Amazons fought, but still respected each other as powerful warrior cultures (at the very least, they seemed really similar), and she’s the one that’s actually shown the most effectiveness and power in fighting so far. So what the fuck.

--Did we really need the disparity between the male and female Atlantean armor. Did we really need the boobplate.

--Can Atlanteans not talk underwater? They live underwater. Do they need to create air bubbles every time they want to say anything? 

--What are Cyborg’s powers exactly? Anything electronic/machine related? Regenerating machine(??) body parts? Can he change his limbs into anything? Does he need fuel? What is his deal, idk. 

--”The plane won’t fly that fast (to get across the world in under a few hours).” Cyborg: “It will for me.” ...I don’t. That’s. That’s not how planes work. Or can you expand your entire body/infinitely-shapeshifting limbs to cover the entire plane so it won’t fall apart from higher speeds than it was meant to fly at. Can you just restructure the engines, or reshape the plane to make it more aerodynamic. Are you just going to merge with the plane and turn it into an SR-71 Blackbird. Is that the plan here. BECAUSE THAT’S NOT HOW PLANES WORK. YOU CAN’T JUST TELL IT TO GO FASTER BECAUSE YOU HACKED IT WITH MAGIC SHIT.

--Why is there an egg thing around the town for a few minutes. I don’t. Is that a bug thing? That’s not what the cube did in the flashback. 

--What’s with the purple tendril rock things? It looks sort of like the Crystal Dragon landscaping stuff from GW2. Idk. How that fits.

--So. I’m sure Superman can pick up a building and he’s strong enough for that. But. I don’t think that’s how buildings work? Like if you put the entire weight of the building supported by two hands in the middle, especially an apartment structure that large/wide, it’s probably going to collapse at the ends. Unless Superman also has magic forcefield building-holding powers, idk, maybe he does, what do I know.

--I’m really not sure what was going on with this bad guy, but he looked like a frost giant from Thor, mixed with the plot-line of Pitch Black from Rise of the Guardians. Literally both movies ended the same way. Also not sure how nothing seemed to hurt him, how does something get more powerful than all the armies, when did this become Lord of the Rings? Was he supposed to be Sauron? 

--How did they all just. Forget the cube. When Superman woke up. You just. Left the apocalypse-causing mcguffin in the empty plane. Unguarded. What. Did the DM just rush the party out of the room without letting any of the players say anything about taking the thing with them because he wanted to progress the story in a certain way? Because I’ve had that happen, that’s plausible, but. 

--Why was calling Lois to handle newly-resurrected Superman not the first plan? I mean, protect her, obviously, in case he has no memories at all, but. That seems like the obvious first plan. Wake him up, have Flash waiting to get her out of there quickly if something goes wrong and Diana standing with her (not with armor and sword and everything out looking ready for battle), and talk to him? Don’t immediately trigger a threat response because he’s disoriented and confused and why are battle-ready people staring at him?

--Why did Diana always need her sword to fight? She even jumped down the reactor thing to get her sword back. What’s so special about this sword? It’s not the Godkiller sword, that was destroyed in the last movie by Ares. So. It’s a regular sword, presumably. She has lots of them. Bring an extra.

--Also Diana can use other weapons. She trained with Amazons, she can wield all the weapons.

--I almost left to go to the bathroom during the final climactic fight. Because I had no investment in this film, and the only thing that kept me there was the last shred of a chance that Diana could at least do something cool during this fight. She didn’t. She swung her sword at the bad guy, which didn’t do anything, made a shockwave a couple times. She broke his axe after Superman froze it. Wow. 

--Is that really it? Was his power all in his axe? This really is Sauron.

--So did the cubes just vaporize when they separated? Didn’t happen last time. But we don’t see them anymore. So. Are they not a threat? Also “big power surge” on separation really seemed like it should be more than that. It knocked Superman and Cyborg back by a foot or so and onto their backs (also how did they both handle that the same way, I don’t care if you have magically regenerating metal, I’m pretty sure you’re not as explosion-resistant as Superman). And the rest of the team didn’t seem to feel it at all, and they were in the same complex. I thought power surge on separating this planet-destroying nuclear bomb of a power core would at least take out that town.

--Why. Did it make flowers? I’m. Really confused by the terraforming at the end. I think they tried to frame it earlier as a life-regenerating thing that just worked so fast it destroyed everything, but. That’s not really an explanation. Also don’t stick your face in that small child, the bright colors probably mean it will kill you. Also alien plants. Probably going to completely fuck up the ecosystem for a good while. But sure, it’s pretty so it’s fine.

--Oh, and the boob-faceplant did happen. She was facing away from the camera, so I easily believe the body-double story because they were so fucking desperate to have this happen.

--Was the Flash always an idiot? I feel like his entire character was just played for laughs as the dumb one because he was younger/less experienced, which is disappointing. Seriously, who meets Batman and the first thing you talk about is that you don’t understand people because they’re on a different frequency/slow, and what is brunch?? 

I’m sure there’s a lot more, but those are the things that immediately came to mind, so. Save yourself the headache. Don’t see this movie. Just go watch Wonder Woman again. Or Thor: Ragnarok, that one was good.

EDIT: WAIT I HAVE MORE.

--Fuck you Bruce you little shit, you have no right to call out Diana for not superheroing all the time. First of all, we’ve already seen her on multiple occasions out helping people, like the opening of the film where she saves a bunch of people from that terrorist group, and whatever happened in BvS. Second, she didn’t leave her home and everyone she loved to help clean up your shit or put up with you, she specifically left to stop WW1 and kill Ares. Guess what. She did it. She did her explicit mission, and then stayed to help when she wanted to because she’s a good person. Yeah, I think she gets to “shut down” for however long she fucking wants to after the person she cared most about outside of Themiscyra died and she had to deal with the entire “no, men actually suck and will go to war and commit atrocities because it’s their nature” thing she had to come to terms with, WHILE STILL STAYING AND FIGHTING FOR THEM ANYWAY. She has no obligations to you, you do not own her attention or her help, yes Barry, we would all cover for her if she murdered your ass for antagonizing her and insinuating that she has done anything wrong in her life.

--Also, what have you done huh? You dress up like a bat in your costume and run around the city because you like an adrenaline rush and want to feel cool taking down criminals. Sure, you donate to charity, whoopdee-fucking-do. You could probably buy a country. You have so much money. What were the stats on how much money it would take to end world hunger? 5% of what the US spends on their military budget or something? Less? You probably have more money than that. You want to do something more than cosplay with it??

[norxhwrites]

I’ M  L O O K I N G for long term partners! People who are interested in: multiple threads, ooc/IM chats, memes, multiple characters/pairings, tagging each other in ship inspo, playing a variety of characters/plots/relationships! I want angst, and drama and love, I want to be able to say “hey, this isn’t working, you wanna try something new?” without fearing that the other person will take it personally. I want to enjoy roleplaying and writing and interacting with others. If any (or all) of this interests you in any way, please like this/send me an IM/or tag me in a random starter! Roleplaying is supposed to be fun and I seriously want that to be the case! I’m not looking for commitment, I’m looking for someone to have fun with, someone who loves writing as much as I do! I’m a very laid back, accepting person and I’m always looking for friend and roleplay partners!

In conclusion, below the cut you will find my roleplay masterlist. It contains three lists of: Wanted Opposites, Wanted Fcs, and Wanted Plots. If any of these fcs or plots interest you either: Message me, heart this, or write a starter and I’ll reply to it!  Also, please  take a look at these links for inspiration, information and more!: | plots | open starters | rules | | Fandoms |

So, I know that face claims aren’t everything, and that looks don’t make a character, but these are some faces I’d like to play opposite of. These are some of my favorite faces, and I’d just really like to play against them. (bold are those I really want to play against!)

*are ones who I’d like to play against within a fandom (message me for the fandom!)

Jon Bernthal

Jason Momoa

Charlie Weber

Ben Barnes

DJ Cotrona

Charlie Hunnam*

Jessica Sula

Skeet Ulrich*

Troian Bellisario

Shay Mitchell

Monica Raymund

Jon Seda

Chloe Bennet

Shemar Moore

Jesse Lee Soffer

Alicia Vikander

Priyanka Chopra

Crystal Reed

Jeffrey Dean Morgan*

Willa Holland

Arden Cho

Ricky Whittle

Dacre Montgomery*

Margot Robbie

Theo James

Katheryn Winnick

Faces I’d like to play/test out! I love creating new characters, and these faces are some of the ones I’d like to try when creating a new character. (They will become test characters, and if I like them, I’ll add them to my muse page!)

Ana De Armas

Shelley Hennig

Caity Lotz

Monica Raymund

Gabriella Wilde

Shailene Woodley

Naomi Scott

Lindsey Morgan

Leah Pipes

Chyler Leigh

Rachelle Lefevre

Tina Desai

Emily Browning

Alicia Vikander

Diane Guerrero

Hayley Kiyoko

Maisie Richardson Sellers

Sophia Bush

Meaghan Rath

Gina Rodriguez

Vanessa Morgan

Ginny Gardner

Emilia Clarke

Jessica Chastain

Brianna Hildebrand

Danielle Campbell

Taylor Kinney

Jai Courtney

Hayden Christensen

Aaron Taylor Johnson

Tom Hiddleston

amadeus serafini

Mike Vogel

Taron Egerton

Shiloh Fernandez

Charles Melton

Ewan Mcgregor

Ben Barnes

Richard Madden

Tom Maden

Max Riemelt

Jesse Williams

Charlie Weber

Boyd Holbrook

Nick Gehlfuss

William Moseley

Aaron Tveit

Manish Dayal

Now, these are some storylines I’ve written and would love to try out! (though some of them I’ve lost muse for!) Some of these are based off of tv shows, movies, books, etc.

Behaving Badly -

[ Muse A ] never stood a chance. Even though they grew up in a decent household, they were always drawn to things they shouldn’t have been, and people who they should have stayed away from. Bad choice after bad choice led [ Muse A ] into a spiral of uncontrollable destruction. They seemed to destroy everything they touched, including their relationship with their family, their ability to have a career, or find love. Until [ Muse B ] came into the picture. Attracted to danger as much as [ Muse A ], [ Muse B ] was equally as screwed up, and just as good at being bad. After months, or even years on the road, stealing and cheating their way through the country, [ Muse A ] realizes that perhaps [ Muse B ] was better at being bad then they were, so much in that they they’ve begin to wonder exactly what they’ve gotten themselves into. [ Muse A ] misses their family, and wonders if they’re able to go back and start over. [ Muse B ]’s only family is their partner in crime, and they’ll do anything to make sure they stay together. Can this modern day Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde and Clyde/Bonnie and Bonnie) give up their wicked ways? or will they continue their bad behavior?

Come Back Home -

[ Muse A ] is married to a member of the Military. They’re a loyal spouse who’s done everything they can to support [ Muse B ], though things have changed. They aren’t the love struck teenagers they were when they got married right out of high school. They’re different, [ Muse A ] is lonely, and [ Muse B ] finds it difficult to talk about the things they’ve seen and done. They’ve done everything they can to make things work and things don’t look like they’re every going to change. But when [ Muse B ] is medically discharged from the their Unit, [ Muse A ] looks at it like a second chance for them to get things right. [ Muse B ] is still haunted by their past, and [ Muse A ] is still unsure of how to help, but maybe their lives can get better?

Wrong Side of the Tracks -

In a town were deep prejudice divides their residents, [ Muse A ] is the perfect child of the towns Sheriff/Mayor etc. They’ve always been the type to make their parents proud and do exactly what they’re told. [ Muse B ] is bad news, or at least everyone says so. Accused of a horrific crimes and basically driven out of town, [ Muse B ] has returned after a few years, and the rumor mill begins again. When [ Muse B ] meets [ Muse A ], they click instantly. [ Muse A ] is curious, and wants to know if the rumors are true, and [ Muse B ] sees [ Muse A ] as a pure light among all of the terrible people that live in their town. But when a student from the nearby college goes missing, all fingers point to [ Muse B ]. [ Muse A ] knows that [ Muse B ] couldn’t have done anything wrong, and wants to prove their innocence. [ Muse B ] refuses to allow [ Muse A ] to get involved, and begins to push them away. [ Muse A ] begins to do their best to find out what really happened, but instead finds a web of lies that tie into the towns Authorities, and a cover up of the crime [ Muse B ] was accused of years ago.

The End -

[ Muse A ] has given them a chance. Over and over again they’ve tried to see past all of the lying and cheating, but [ Muse B ] just doesn’t seem to want to change. They don’t seem to see the wrong in their actions, and no matter how hard [ Muse A ] tries to work things out, there’s only so much a single person can do. So this is it, the end. [ Muse A ] is ready to walk out the door and never look back. Unfortunately, [ Muse B ] finally believes it, and can’t bare the thought. So, [ Muse A ] has given one more chance. One. [ Muse B ] must prove to them that they’ve changed and that everything is going to be better, or [ Muse A ] is gone.

California Dreaming -

[ Muse A ] is living the California Dream. Surfing all afternoon, partying all night, sleeping all morning and repeat, nothing can make this dream any better. Until they meet [ Muse B ]. [ Muse B ] fits perfectly into [ Muse A ]’s laid back, carefree lifestyle and the two fall for each other very quickly. As the two get to know each other, [ Muse A ] realizes they don’t know  [ Muse B ] as much as they thought. [ Muse B ] is involved in some very shady, very illegal things, that don’t exactly fit into [ Muse A ]’s lifestyle. Dragged into a world of drugs, violence, and sex, [ Muse A ]’s life is turned upside down when they get caught up in an investigation into [ Muse B ] and the people they work with. They California Dream turns into a nightmare, and the only way out is to leave that world behind, but can they without getting dragged back in by their feelings for [ Muse B ]?

Defiance | 1940s Setting |-

[Muse A] is a Jewish person living in early 1940s Belarus. German Nazis have ordered the execution of all Jewish people living in the ghettos. [Muse A] witnesses the murder of their family before they flee to the Naliboki Forest, a large rural landscape covering a large portion of Belarus. That is where [Muse A] meets [Muse B], another Jewish escapee fleeing from the Nazi soldiers. The two set up camp along with multiple other Jewish men, women and children fleeing Nazi controlled areas. They begin stealing from local farms, hunting, and moving their camp in order to stay alive. As winter approaches, the group must learn to survive sickness, starvation, and perhaps even betrayal as the Nazi soldiers begin to close in on the camp’s location. Getting caught is not an option, it means death for the entire group.

A Summer Affair  -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] are from two different worlds, yet they found themselves vacationing at the same place for a couple of weeks during the summer. After weeks of hot, passionate romance the two say goodbye in order to get back to their normal, boring lives and normal, boring jobs. [ Muse A ] is a recent college graduate who’s in need of a job. [ Muse B ] is the CEO of a huge company and is in need of an assistant. Not knowing [ Muse B ] runs the company, [ Muse A ] applies for the job. [ Muse B ] is now [ Muse A ]’s boss, not to mention they have a life that [ Muse A ] wasn’t told about during their summer fling. Now, [ Muse A ] must do all they can to keep the job they desperately need, while juggling feelings for their boss, keeping the secret of their summer affair from their coworkers, and deciding if they want to rekindle the spark between them and [Muse B].

You Mind as Well Go to Hell -

If you don’t go to church, then you mind as well go to hell. That is the policy in the [ Muse A’s ] House. Of course, you tell a teenager one thing and they do the opposite. [ Muse A ] is the Pastor’s pride and joy, of course they wouldn’t be if they knew the kind of stuff their child did in their free time. Finally [ Muse A ] decide to get out. They climb into a van and head west to California. Except it isn’t at all what they expected. Getting to Cali was hard enough, but making it in Cali could break this sweet kid from the south. Did they just enter the world of their dreams, or did they go from singing in the church choir, to the Hell they were taught to be terrified of? Then comes [ Muse B ]. Street smart, headstrong, wise beyond their years, [ Muse B ] knows their way around California’s underground. With [ Muse B ] as their guide, [ Muse A ] begins to navigate through the streets of California, hoping to find the life they dreamed of back home in Alabama.

Something’s gotta Give -

Growing up, they only had themselves. Living in a world fueled by violence, family doesn’t always mean safety. For the [ Muse A ], family wasn’t something they believed in, being foster children half their lives, and the child of terrible parents the other half. They believed in evil people, hard times, and the fact that someone’s always got an angle when it comes to lending a helping hand. No one is inherently good. Finally, [ Muse A] has turned 18, making them free from the foster care system. Criminal record half a mile long, [ Muse A ] must find a way to make it in the big world. Enters [ Muse B ]. Successful, hardworking, seemingly perfect. [ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] meet by chance, this chance encounter turns into more as the two begin to see each other. What happens when [ muse B ] finds out about [ Muse A’s ] past? Will it ruin the best thing that has happened to [ Muse A ] in a long time? Or will they finally be able to move past the dark things that have followed them their entire life?

Wicked Attraction | 1920-1940s Setting | -

[Muse A] was always considered to be perfect. They graduated at the top of their class, have a great job, but they’ve always felt like something was missing. [Muse B] was always the same way, though beneath the prefect was a secret. A wicked secret. [Muse B] is part of an underground world of drugs and violence. What happens when [Muse A] and [Muse B] meet and [Muse B]introduces [Muse A] to an underground world of sex, drugs, and violence? Is this what [Muse A]’s always been missing? Can they escape this Wicked Attraction?

Welcome Home -

[Muse A] seemed like the perfect child, good grades, good family, good friends. Everything about except when it came to their feelings for [Muse B]. [Muse B] was too old and too damaged to be involved with someone like [Muse A], but it didn’t stop them from falling for each other. [Muse A] left their infectious little town, leaving all of the bad (including Muse B), behind them. Years later, they return, only to find that [Muse B] never got out. Will their old flame rekindle? Or will [Muse A] realize that[Muse B] is all wrong for them?

On The Road Again -

[ Muse A ] has always been a drifter, never staying in one place, feeling as though the only place they belonged was on the road. [ Muse B ] has always been the conservative type, the type to go to school, get a boring job. One day, [ Muse A ] was passing through the town that [ Muse B ] lived in. They meet, and [ Muse A ] begins to think they may have found a place where they might actually be able to call home. The two begin a relationship based on all the lies [ Muse A ] had to tell in order to keep their past a secret. But [ Muse A ]’s past begins to catch up with them, will they be able to face it, or will they have to run away again?

How You Remind Me -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] had been dating off and on for years. Breakups, make ups, harsh words, drug/alcohol fueled nights, and flying fists. Unhealthy is the only way to describe their relationship. Loving each other was the easiest and hardest thing they had ever done. Finally unable to take it anymore, [ Muse A ] left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. With their lover gone, [ Muse B ] fell into an even deeper hole of drugs and violence. Years later, [ Muse A ] has cleaned up their life, gotten a good job, and made a difference in the lives of others. [ Muse B ] is still stuck in a life of one night stands, but they’ve gotten themselves clean from drugs and alcohol. The two meet unexpectedly, and see how different each other have become. This chance encounter turns into another, than another, but [ Muse A ] is unsure of whether or not they want to get themselves caught back up in that world. For [ Muse B ], seeing [ Muse A ] reminds them of all the terrible things they had done in their past. Being reminded of all they had done, [ Muse B ] decides to they need to show [ Muse A ] they’ve changed for good.  

Teacher, Teacher. -

[Muse A] is a college Professor. All of their students love them, both because they’re physically attractive and a very good professor , who has little trouble with connecting with students. [Muse B] is a student college that [Muse A] a teaches at. They’ve always been an average/above average student, but for some personal reason, they’ve been having a lot of trouble in the class that [Muse A] teaches. So, in a last effort to get their grade up before the end of the term, [Muse B] has been staying after class to get extra help. The only problem is, they’ve slowly found themselves having feelings for each other beyond the normal professor/student relationship.

Almost Stepparent -

For as long as [Muse A] could remember, it had been only them and their single parent. Their parent had dated and brought home every type of person imaginable, but this one was different. This one was [Muse B]. [Muse B] is everything [Muse A] is looking for in a partner, not to mention at least a decade younger than their parent. What happens when [Muse A] finally realizes they have feelings for [Muse B], their parent’s partner. [Muse B] has feelings for [Muse A], feelings well beyond what is appropriate to feel towards the child of your partner. What happens when the two are left alone for a week while [Muse A’s] parent is out taking care of a sick family member?

Now these are plots that I DIDN’T write but would still like to try! (All gender roles are changeable!) Italics are preferred!

i want a plot where a guy goes on a roadtrip just wandering around the state trying to find meaning of life with his big ass doggo and one day he comes to diner where this shy young woman works and like her boss is always yelling at her and she has an asshole boyfriend and her father’s an alcoholic,  and this guy he is the first man who ever treated her nicely and he just asks her completely out of the blue if she doesn’t want to leave with him and she’s like “why not?” so she takes all of her things and leaves with him. Pleaseee!

i really, really want a plot where muse a is a naive, sweet, romantic, whimsical little thing with a whole lot of optimism and sunshine in their veins and muse b is the complete opposite; a total player who has someone new in their bed every weekend and hates responsibilities and just spends a lot of their time fucking around. somehow these two have been friends for a while, despite their differing personalities, and one day muse a ends up having to move out of their apartment due to a fire or an infestation or something and muse b is the one who offers to put them up for the time being. it’s all well and good except muse a has terrible nightmares constantly and one night muse b is sick and tired of it (and deep down a little concerned) so gets into bed with muse a until they stop crying and shaking and fall asleep in muse b’s arms instead. cue awkward muses sleeping in the same bed every night and it actually helping muse a a lot with the nightmares, and lots of cuddling and feelings ensue. muse b, being the player they are, are terrified of the idea of liking someone but muse a is pretty much already head over heels and ANGST !!

ok but someone give me that cute bartender storyline though? like this guy tends bar at a restaurant or a pub or something and always sees this cute girl hanging out there, but she’s always either with friends or with some guy so he never really gets the time to talk to her BUT ONE DAY she walks into the place alone and orders so many drinks until she’s so bloody drunk, screaming about how her boyfriend cheated on her, that the bartender had to bring her home himself. she wakes up with a horrible hangover, stumbles out the room to find the bartender cooking breakfast and rolling his eyes, laughing. “first of all, you’re an idiot. second, we didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re wondering. third, breakfast will be ready soon. sit.” and fluff commences HELP PLZ

muse a is a new single father, a teenager at that living in an apartment complex with his newborn. it’s one of those apartment complexes in new york city, where everyone kind of keeps to themselves. muse b lives on his floor and has heard this newborn baby crying at ungodly hours, distracting her from her cramming for midterms. she had complained to the landlord about it and one night, she hears the baby crying again. stepping outside in a fit of rage, muse b is about to yell at whoever is the parent to this bastard child until she spots muse a, pacing the hallway with the child in his arms, his hair disheveled and his eyes giving away the sleep he’s been lacking. she feels sympathy instantly; she had no idea muse a lived on her floor, much less was he the father of this child. so, at 3 in the morning, muse b offers to help muse a get the baby back to sleep. and muse b becomes some sort of baby whisperer to muse a, and he continues to go to her for help and they start to dig each other and this is just so cute please

someone give me a plot where muse a was arrested in high school due to drug dealing and was sentenced to ten years — except he’s let out a couple of years early due to good behavior. with no car, his feet take him to the one place he never thought he’d set foot again in a lifetime. his ex-high school sweetheart, muse b. except, when the door opens, it’s not her. it’s a seven year old little girl with her mom’s hair and her dad’s eyes.

a plot where muse a just needs to get away from everything so she packs up everything into her small shitty car that barley runs and just drives. she loses count of the boarders she crossed until she lands right into the middle of a small town where the population is like 2 thousand and her car breaks down. so she goes into a diner that she sees is open and she asks about a mechanic so the lady in the diner calls up her friend who happens to be muse b, the local mechanic. so muse bcomes over and tells her that he wont be able to check her car out until morning bc its like 10 pm now so muse a is going to check into a motel or smth but muse b offers to put her up for the night and bc shes broke she says yeah and basically they end up banging with the intention that after tomorrow they are never gonna see each other again - wrong. muse b goes down to his shop and looks at the engine and a really important parts gone in it and its going to take a couple weeks for it to come in and basically muse a has to stay in this shitty small town for the next couple of weeks AND THEY FALL FOR EACH OTHER AND WE CAN FIGURE THE REST OUT!

ok but a plot based on (not) the one by bebe rexha though. like muse a is a serial lover and has a different lover each week but then muse b happens. andthey end up in the same bed more often than usual. but muse a knows it’s not a good idea because they fear they’ll end up moving on and breaking muse b’s heart, which is when they realize they care for them. so even if they want to stop it there, they can’t because they are themself, unconsciously, falling for muse b.

Note: If I don’t continue to reply to you after the first couple of replies it normally means: 1) I’ve lost muse. which I tend to do quickly if I’m not interested. 2) I don’t think we’re compatible writers and I don’t ant to hurt your feelings by telling you so. 3) My notifications are acting up and I haven’t seen that you replied (which I normally catch on to pretty quickly.). Don’t take any of this personally, I just tend to be super picky sometimes. Feel free to message me if you’d like to know why I’ve stopped reply/would like to remind me that we have a thread!

[sometimesrosy]

I think you completely misinterpreted my ask lol. I had said that I don’t blame Eliza that I’m sure the fans have been assholes and I never said they se owed us anything. But Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship is always a huge part of the show and they NEVER talk about it. I don’t care if they don’t talk about it in a romantic way, I just want them to acknowledge us in some way. I want to be able to hear what the actors actually have to think. I don’t want her to “give me my romantic fantasies”

I don’t care about any of that. I care about the actors and the characters and how and why they played certain scenes the way they did. Idk if I phrased it weird or something but you completely missed the point of my ask. I also did[n’t] know about the whole airport and booing situation, so thanks for letting me know. But I also said it probably was fear from the other side of the fandom.

No, nonny. That is not what you said. 

you said

but I can’t imagine being a fan and seeing yourself represented in a ship only for the actor playing a part of that ship to say “Bellarke shit.” I mean?? How disrespectful is that? I don’t care how you sway it that’s just plain rude.

And

then in season 3 they acted horrible towards BC shippers. Dismissing a large part of the fandom was honestly such a low blow and I remember feeling terrible about it. 

and

I still can’t believe an actress would say that. It’s not a racist/homophobic or ridiculously problematic ship and I just, I don’t know. I think it was a pretty careless thing to say

Maybe you didn’t mean to say those things. You didn’t talk about wanting to ask Eliza questions about the show and characters at all, or even be acknowledged. That wasn’t the subject of your ask. It was about  Bellarke fans being treated nicely. Bob was nice so he was good. Eliza was not so she was bad, but you were feeling better because she was nicer now, but you still don’t forgive her for what she said in the middle of the shipwars, because it was disrespect. You called her disrespectful and rude and horrible. You did not say, “i just want to talk about bellarke’s place in the show, not even romantically.”

Maybe you didn’t realize that the way you talk about Eliza is actually all about your feelings about not being validated by her, without ever considering that she’s not a fictional character, but a real person who is experiencing REAL pressure to give ALL the fans what they want even though what they want is COMPLETELY opposing. Whatever she said would be attacked. Any positive comment about her character’s story would be seen as negative by thousands of people. Who don’t hesitate to boo her or call her fat or send her hate. 

She has a tactic to only talk about ships that have already happened on screen at the time that she is speaking. That means she was going to talk about a relationship with Lxa when that was still the primary romantic relationship on the board. Particularly with the harm that the dead lesbian trope inflicted upon the CL fandom. Which, far from being indefensible, is actually reasonable. They were told that BC was not happening yet and to not talk about. The fandom never stopped asking about it. Sometimes she loses her composure. I can personally say, that after 3 years of fandom harassment on tumblr, this is also reasonable and understandable. She’s a real person and she’s not perfect. Sometimes she’s going to be rude because fans are AWFUL to her. And you need to recognize that and even own up to where you are contributing.

 I understand if you didn’t know about Australia or Brazil, but it wouldn’t take much awareness to recognize how awful the shipwars were, and how she was stuck in the middle and how both fandoms are ALWAYS ready to turn on her for saying the wrong thing.

I mean. Look how you feel right now when I “misunderstood” what you meant. It is upsetting. I didn’t misunderstand you. You weren’t considering the situation from her point of view because you consider your own point of view to be the most valid.

 It’s perfectly understandable that you WOULD consider your POV about Eliza’s unfairness to your ship, because the Bellarke FANDOM reinforces that Bellarke is the most important thing. We tell each other how important Bellarke is to the story, how right we are, how unjust the CLs are, how biased Eliza is. Again and again, we tell this story to ourselves in the echo chamber of the fandom. Please understand. I do this, too. I love Bellarke, but at the same time, I am aware that it is NOT the only way to interpret the show and other interpretations are just as valid. You have to keep checking your POV up against the canon and reality in order to get a full picture and not be overly biased and self centered. Fandom is, almost by definition, overly biased. 

We are no better than the MRAs who created a fanvid of TLJ with all the women removed. Fandom in Star Wars is no different than fandom in The 100. We do that, to emphasize our ship or our POV. How many pure Bellarke fanvids have there been? How many CLs have erased Bellamy’s presence or turned him into a pure villain and made the grounders the heroes? This is what we do as fans. We claim ownership over the show, the story, the ships and even the actors. And then we refuse to share canon with any other fans who have different ideas. And I just don’t agree with it.

Let people have their ships, or not ship at all. Let the writers tell the story they are telling even if it doesn’t match the one in your head. Let the actors experience their lives and career in ways that make sense to them.They all have reasons for the choices they make and the actions they take and they may not be what we would choose. But that’s because they are outside of us. They are telling THEIR story and living their lives. And the actors have to make choices based on THEIR lives, too. Protecting themselves and their career… a thing that none of you have to worry about– although there are people out there who would dearly love to ruin me personally, and there are people in our fandom who were actually professionally ruined over shipwars. So when people get on Eliza for her behavior with these exact kind of people who have exactly been targeting me personally. Nope. I’m not siding with you over Eliza on this. 

Fandom is out of control. And I don’t see that stopping until we start recognizing that we don’t own the stories, shows, characters, ships OR actors. Fandom doesn’t come first. It’s not okay to spread nasty comments about a woman just because she doesn’t support your ship, for whatever reasons. Sorry. 

I can’t make it okay. And you DID do that. You were NOT understanding of her position. Fandom does not consider Eliza at all, sometimes, except for how she can feed their ship and that is entirely problematic. If you didn’t consider the meaning of what you did and didn’t intend to say all that, it means you weren’t being thoughtful, not that you didn’t say it. huh. Just like Eliza.

No more of this calling people racist or lesbophobic or rude or fat or sending out anons to hate people, to them or about them– all over a fictional ship. We decide when something is problematic and isn’t, and for some reason we never decide that our OWN opinions are problematic even when we are being hypocritical and doing to others what we say is bad when done to us. You’ve GOT to check yourself, and stop pointing at how problematic everyone else is. Consider your OWN actions as more important than someone else’s, because that’s who you have control over. Yourself. 

I just can’t anymore. I’m really angry at fandom in general. We don’t have to be like this. We don’t have to hate everyone for not agreeing with us. We don’t have to selfishly hoard the canon and refuse to allow anyone else their own interpretations. If someone EVER says that you have no right to your interpretation, they are ABSOLUTELY wrong. If they don’t like it or disagree or your OTP is their NOTP,  that’s not wrong, but disparaging someone or hating them or silencing them, that IS wrong. 

Respect people. Even when they are different or have different opinions than you. Eliza had/has her own opinion. And that it doesn’t support yours is NOT problematic. She doesn’t owe you Bellarke support. It’s unfortunate that she can’t speak openly, but that is NOT her fault. She was rude. Yes. But the fandom has been so rude to her, and she’s supposed to accept it because they are her fans. And she has, for the most part. 

But I’m not going to say she was wrong for being rude, because I understand her position, even though it hurt me personally. She didn’t consider our feelings. She considered hers. Do you ever consider her feelings when you judge her?

[tuckinpodcast-blog]

EPISODE 5: EVERYONE WANTS TO BE CARY GRANT

LISTEN: SOUNDCLOUD / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY

NOTES: None of any real consequence, except that this week, I’m going to try and start some new features on the blog this week, including a movie and book recommendation and some extra information pertaining to episodes.

SOURCES: listed at end of transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, I'm Jack, and this is Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This week, we're going to be talking about Cary Grant and his husband. I think I've mentioned before that I've been in love with Cary Grant for most of my life – the funny thing is that after I had to watch To Kill A Mockingbird in high school I thought he was Gregory Peck, but then I realized my mistake. I don't remember what I saw him in first or why I even ended up so fixated on him, but I very vividly remember watching Arsenic and Old Lace and just being completely captivated. Maybe I'm just sort of into tall, dark, and handsome, but for whatever reason, I collected information and little tidbits about him for forever. Like the bit about how he and Clark Gable would swap monogrammed presents if they didn't like what they had gotten, or that he had once been married to the girl from City Lights.

I really started this podcast for two reasons. The first one is that I'm totally and unbelievably in love with Montgomery Clift and when David Thomson talked garbage about him in The Whole Equation, I wanted to set the record straight, and I'll get to that in a future episode. The second reason is that, as I've talked about before, when I decided to get angry at David Thomson and write a massive rant on my personal tumblr, I mentioned that I had only recently learned that Cary Grant was gay. Someone replied to my post correcting me that he was actually bisexual, and kind of a shitty person. I'm not the type to accept things at face value, and I also like to look at famous people as real, complex people who might be twenty stories tall in our memory, but were really just actual human beings, out in the world making terrible decisions and drinking too much wine when they were supposed to do something important.

So, I went digging. I went digging and I didn't really stop. I read everything I could find about Cary Grant – I read the things that denied that he had same-sex relationships, I read the things that said he was exclusively gay, I read the things that said he was bisexual. I watched his movies – mostly for entertainment, but also as an excuse to try and peel back the persona. My favorite thing about Cary Grant has always been his face and the way he could contort it. He actually got his start as a tumbler and acrobat, and he's this very tall, gangly thing – but somehow, even with all the physical acting he did, it's still the way he expresses his emotions on his face that I like the best. It's pretty well-known that he put on the Cary Grant persona deliberately. He almost considered “Cary Grant” to be someone entirely different and apart from his real self.

At the end of all this digging, what did I come up with? As I'm sure you're not surprised to hear: the content of this podcast.

Cary Grant was born Archie Leach in Bristol on January 18, 1904. His parents, Elsie and Elias, were working-class, and dysfunctional as hell. When he was nine, Elias told Archie that his mother had gone away on holiday, then changed the story to say that she had died. He didn't find out until he was 31 that he had been lied to, and his father had in fact put Elsie away in a sanitarium. Eventually, Elias abandoned Archie and moved away to marry someone else and start a new family. Archie ran away from home at one point to join the Pender Troupe of acrobats, but when they found out that he was seriously underage, he was dragged back to school. At that point, he did a pretty good job of being a very poor student, until he was thrown out of school. He toured with the troupe full-time starting in 1918 at the age of fourteen.

I think here I'd like to pause and reflect on Grant's childhood. It's very clearly a messed up situation, with his father running off and the whole thing with his mother. It's been said that the way his mother was very standoffish and selective with her affection directly contributed to the way Grant handled his relationships with women in his adult life, and I think that's true. I also think that the kind of pain of a childhood like this really directly impacted his acting. I'm not terribly familiar with the things he did with Hitchcock in the 50's and 60's, but I am familiar with his screwball comedies of the late 30's and early 40's. That old line about depressed people being the funniest really rings true in this case.

So, in 1920, Archie gets on the RMS Olympic to come to America to tour with the Pender Troupe. There's been some biographers who claim that Dougie Fairbanks Sr and Mary Pickford were on the boat and took a shine to Archie, but accounts vary. He wouldn't star in any movies until 1930, and he wouldn't become really famous until about 1937. That's a lot of years touring – whether he was tumbling or acting in plays – between his arrival and his big break. So you know, what was he doing in that interrim?

Cary Grant met Orry Kelly – who went on to become a very famous costume designer – in 1925. Still Archie at the time, he was twenty-one, broke, and had nowhere to go. Orry-Kelly took Archie in, and so the rumor goes, they became romantically involved. In Cary Grant: A Biography, Marc Elliot talks about this relationship quite a bit, mentioning the drama and the arguing that went on. Elliot says that the two had a row at a party and the host sniffed and asked if everyone was just going to sit there and let this blatant homosexuality continue in front of them. In Kelly's lost autobiography, he mentions that he was annoyed with Archie's penchant for blonde women, but proudly said that Archie “always came home to me.” While I was researching this podcast, I also came across some information that pointed to Grant as being abusive towards Orry-Kelly. And the things that I came across were pretty shocking – Grant supposedly knocked Kelly out several times and threw Kelly out of a moving vehicle once. This isn't entirely out of character for Grant, I'll admit – it was well-known that he was abusive towards his wives, going so far as to fly into a blind rage and crash his car into Virginia Cherrill's parked one while she visited an ex of hers. But the things he did to his wives was well-documented. I had never heard of him acting this way towards Kelly, and even though I shouldn't be surprised and it didn't take all that much digging to find out about it, I wanted to take this moment to sort of talk about how domestic violence in queer relationships really is a problem that people don't like to talk about or look into. At least at the time, two men being in a relationship with one another – it's been said that physical violence was almost expected, just due to the nature of the times and the nature of the toxic masculinity of the time. There's a part of me that kind of just thinks that's a bullshit excuse for queer abusers, but if we go back to our Valentino episode and remember the way that the general public reacted to a man just being pretty, and even if we look at the pressures of traditional masculinity and how violence is a supposedly “masculine” trait – maybe, at least, back then, it's half bullshit excuse and half explanation. It might be an explanation, but it doesn't have to be forgiven. You can be expected to do something and still know that it's wrong. I don't want to come off as apologizing for Grant's behavior, because it was unacceptable then and it's unacceptable now, but at least we can look at the times and the environment and get a better picture of the entire situation.

Cary Grant was a very famous man, a very neurotic man, and I think also, a very lonely and scared man, but the fact remains that he was abusive towards his partners, and I'll admit that this has changed my overall picture of him and dimmed my crush on him – and there's a whole other discussion to be had about supporting people who were known to be abusers or even just not very nice people after they've been dead for a long time, you know, things that maybe weren't known or at least well-known while they were alive, or supporting someone's art versus condemning their personal behavior, but I think it's a thought for another time.

So, Archie and Kelly, despite their tumultuous relationship, are more or less together through 1932. When Archie goes to Hollywood in 1930, he stays with Kelly until he gets his feet under him. In 1931, he changes his name at the urging of Paramount studios. Archie Leach becomes Cary Grant – or I think maybe I should say, Cary Grant becomes the persona that Archie Leach could slip into comfortably, allowing him to kind of become someone else and minimize the anxiety that existing in the world gave him. In 1932, Cary Grant meets Randolph Scott, and the two move into a beautiful house by the beach together, known in the press and to their friends as “Bachelor Hall”.

As with Garbo and Dietrich, Randolph Scott was the polar opposite of Cary Grant. He was born into a well-off Virginian family and wanted for nothing when he was growing up. He went to private schools, had a large family, and went off to serve in the Army during World War 1. He returned home in 1919 after attending an officer's school in France, and went to Georgia Tech with dreams of becoming a football star. He transferred to the University of North Carolina after a back injury put his football dreams on hold, but he eventually dropped out of school altogether to go and work as an accountant at a textile firm where his father also worked.

It was around 1927 that he went to Hollywood. His father was friends with Howard Hughes, and sent Scott along with a letter to meet the millionaire. Hughes plays into our early Hollywood stories quite a bit, as I'm sure you've realized by now, and he eventually gave Scott a part in a romantic comedy. Scott did a lot of stage work as bit characters, and eventually got a deal at Paramount – where he met Cary Grant on the set of Hot Saturday. At this point, a lot of biographers start to differ. The two certainly did meet on the set of Hot Saturday, but Orry Kelly's autobiography itself points to Kelly being the one who introduced the two. They moved in together almost immediately, by some accounts to “save costs” and by others because they legitimately cared for one another.

The two would live together on and off for twelve years. Scott became a point of contention in Grant's first marriage – the one to Virginia Cherrill, of City Lights fame. Grant refused to move out of the house on the beach at first, and Cherrill was furious over it. The marriage itself was rushed and was basically the studios putting the squeeze on Grant to marry someone, anyone, lest the gossip columnist Heda Hopper call him “not normal” in another one of her rags. The marriage would last less than a year, when Cherrill would claim that Grant had no sexual interest in her whatsoever, and he was drunk and sullen throughout most of their time together. She also claimed that he hit her – and we've already talked about that a little bit in this episode, but I want to share with you a thought I had while I reading the Elliot biography of Grant.

So, let's pan back and look at Grant's life for a second. He was abandoned by his father, had a troubled relationship with his mother, and basically made his own way in the world without any real influences to base his life and actions on. The way he acted with Cherrill, flying into jealous rages and acting possessive, was, in my opinion, Grant's caricature of a straight man and how a husband was supposed to act. I'm going to talk a lot about the way that queer men internalize misogyny and homophobia in the Monty Clift episode, but I think this is a good jumping point. Again, this isn't an excuse for the way that Grant acted towards his wives and partners, but I think that it's interesting to look at the way that society shapes a person's perceptions. Grant acted like a jealous lunatic because he thought that's how a man should act. He should have known that it was wrong and he should have been better than that, but he didn't and he wasn't.

Getting back to the story, it's very interesting to me that a lot of the articles on Randolph Scott that I find cast doubts on a romantic relationship between him and Grant. Scott's son flat-out denied the rumors, and Bud Boetticher, who directed Scott in seven films over the course of his career, called them “bullshit”. Even Scott's biographer says that there's no evidence that Scott and Grant were ever romantically involved. But, when you go on over to source material on Grant, they're very much on the other side. And, now, I'm going to try and get a link up to a series of photographs that were shot of Grant and Scott at the Bachelor Hall – they document a sort of “day in the life” of the two men, swimming in their pool and running lines while Scott reclines in a chair and Grant lays with his head at Scott's feet. There's one of them in the kitchen together cooking, both of them wearing aprons. There's one of them just looking at each other lovingly.

So, maybe the rumors are true, and maybe they aren't. The pair lived together through at least one marriage each, until the studios finally pressured them into moving out in 1940. They made a movie together the same year – the only movie they would make together – called My Favorite Wife, and instead of choosing separate hotel suites for the location shots, they roomed together, raising more than just a few eyebrows. Most of the first-hand material I've found says that they weren't intimate partners, which – okay. Fine. Even Grant's daughter claims they weren't true, but adds that Grant liked to let the gay rumors fly, so that when he bagged a woman, they felt “special” – gross. Gross, and a little creepy. And honestly, not out of character for Grant, knowing what we know about him now. There are people who claim to have caught Scott and Grant holding hands in a semi-private moment late in their lives, and there are people who claim to have been involved with both of them in the menage-trois sense of the word.

So, where does this leave us? As with most early Hollywood queer stories: we're in gay limbo. Were they, weren't they. There's evidence that goes both ways. Is this just a story about two men who were very close, very good friends, but in American society, we can't view that as anything but gay? Marc Elliot posits that Grant's same-sex attraction goes back to his school days in England, when boys just messed around like that. Maybe it's that. I think I've done an okay job of explaining what a complicated man Cary Grant was – abandoned, neurotic, hypochondriac. He had an addict's personality – first with smoking and drinking, and then later in life, he micro-dosed with acid to keep his anxiety and depression in check. I personally think that Grant is one of the best examples of stars being, ultimately, human. He was deeply flawed and seriously insecure – famously, he sued Chevy Chase for calling him a “homo” in the 80's. Me, personally? I think Grant was a confused, lonely person who took solace from the people that gave it to him, no matter their gender. Regardless of the stories, the rumors and even the truth, what we're left with is: the story of Cary Grant. A man with a charming smile, a devastating personal life, and the acting chops to be named the number two actor of the twentieth century, sliding in right after Humphrey Bogart.

A quick aside before I leave you: I'm going to try and do something a little new starting this week, and that's posting up little blog entries on our tumblr called “Things We Missed This Week”. Basically, it's the parts of a story that ended up cut out of the episode for time or clarity's sake in blog post form so you can have a little extra information. There's a lot I didn't talk about on our last episode, and there's enough information about Cary Grant to fill several books, so I thought that maybe it would be a nice way to give you guys a better picture of what I'm talking about here. This week, I'm also going to start leaving book and movie recommendations on the blog so you guys can maybe get a chance to watch some of my favorites and we can open up some discourse there.

Thank you so much for listening to Tuck In, We're Rolling: Queer Hollywood Stories. This episode was written, researched, edited and recorded by me, Jack Segreto.  I wanna take a minute to pause here and give a special shout out to tumblr users amiddleearththemedbarinhogsmeade and detectivejoan for saying nice things about the podcast and blowing up my head a little bit. Thanks, folks. It really means a lot to me. You can find a transcript of this episode and all of our episodes, along with facts, photos, and recommendations, on our tumblr, tuckinpodcast.tumblr.com. You can also give us a like on Facebook at facebook.com/tuckinpodcast. We accept messages on both of those platforms, so feel free to shoot us any suggestions for show topics or comments you might have. We put out new episodes every Wednesday, and you can listen to us on SoundCloud, iTunes and Google Play, so don't forget to rate and subscribe to us! We'll be back next Wednesday to discuss Marlon Brando, gay rumors, and his impact on Hollywood masculinity. See you next time!

SOURCES:

Cary Grant: A Biography, Elliot, Marc ()

Cary Grant & Randolph Scott: A Gay Hollywood Romance

Inside Cary Grant’s Secret Life With Men

Was Cary Grant Secretly Gay?

Cary Grant & Randolph Scott: A Love Story

Wikipedia. You guys know I only use it for biographical facts and pertinent details, right?

[the-semantics-at-best-blog]

The first time I saw Supergirl it reminded me of Lois and Clark The New Adventure of Superman. Growing up I know that girls are equally capable and strong as boys. But Lois and Clark made me realized that women are in equal footing with men. It made me see that was not only capable because we have to but we are capable because it is in our genes. I have seen a lot of television shows since then, I have met and fell in love with strong female characters and have tried to emulate them. But non made me believe that it is possible to be strong, confident, successful and hot as Cat Grant once said. Season 1 may have been about Kara leaning to be Supergirl, but it is also about Cat Grant learning to open up and show who she is back when life was simple. She is a soft-hearted, hard-working journalists who feels too much. It gave me a lot of ahas and what the f, moments. But all in all it was wonderful to see these two women who both wanted to do good in the world. I Stopped watching season 2 after the second episode, I kinda have a feeling it would not be what it was once. And I was not wrong. I didn’t get the idea of Lena Luthor being a substitute CEO and as some people would say confidant and adviser. I am wondering what a 30+ woman who has no real job, no real experience, no real anchor to the world could offer a 24-year-old cub reporter, former assistant, Alien and super hero? Cat Grant once said that ” you don’t sudden own the building, there is a learning curve”, I believe that but I guess cat forgot to mention, you can step off the elevator and suddenly own the building if your father own the whole damn company!.Lena Luthor is the epitome of privilege, with no stress and work needed to be the CEO. It’s funny when she claims, certain invention as hers or her vision, when she hasn’t work a day in her life for any of the product her company is selling. At least Maxwell Lord knows what the hell his talking about, he knows the ins and out of what his toys and his trains are doing and how to fix it if something happens. They were parading Lena as a strong female character, when all she ever was is a cry baby and someone who needs savings and assurance that she’s doing the right thing. Lena is trying to distance her self to the Luthor name because she thinks her family is bad. She's’s doing because she has an agenda of her own. Now let’s talk about Mon-El, see I’m not a big fan of bad boys that turns out to be good boys. I have no such notion that I can change a guy and make his better. First of all, it’s hard to make my self better, let alone teach some guy how to be a better version of himself. Mon-El is a villain character that should have a villain in the first place. But as fans of the first season know that James and Kara DOESN’T have any chemistry except friendship. So when season 2 happened they needed a stand in love interest that will be the safe corner and warm place of Kara, away from all the fighting and all the drama that CATCO has become. So they needed Mon-El, since Cat Grant is no longer there to be the semi, quasi love/mentor questionable boss/assistant/friend/hero whatever relationship they needed a MAN. But as any character written as villain, it becomes annoying and down right frustrating when they try to make him into a good guy. It’s like buying one thing and using it for some other things. It doesn’t work! It only creates mess and just more unnecessary work. But let’s be honest, this is a show that caters to young and adult viewers so they need a hot guy for the hot girl. I’ve never been one to be interested in what the actors or the actress are doing in real life when they’re not working, so I don’t care about Melissa or Chyler or Calista outside of Supergirl, but it does make me wonder if Melissa and Chris Wood’s dating is the same as Lea Michelle and Cory Monteith dating during Glee? Meaning, staged. This could be the case of actors helping their characters to be likable. We all know a lot of Supergirl fans from season 1 who saw the entire show when it was the show it promised to be hate Mon-El because he is the opposite of what Kara wanted. James is a nice, caring, handsome, passionate, who works not to mention also good-looking and I know he did some stupid thing with the Red K but to his defense his seeing his own superhero fall from her own standard so let’s cut him some slacks. And now they gave her Mon-El? Really? So I guess they did found a solution, coz I may not care about actors and their private lives but there are fans who do. So that’s what their doing, a few pictures of Melissa and Chris in the beach and him carrying her bags are sure ways to sway the fan and leave him alone and next thing you know Mon-El will slowly be a hero. Coz people will be like, oh his such a gentle man with how he do this and that for her, or oh they look good together and the best comment will be, his not bad she loves him and Chris is not Mon-El. Chris is a loving, nice, sensitive guy. Yup, that’s how it would be. People will forget that it’s not the actors lives were watching but the television show about Supergirl who is supposed to be the ultimate girl power who fights crime side by side with her bad ass sister and their space dad, who celebrates Thanks Giving with her family and is hassle by her foster mom because it’s her job, who eats take out with her two sidekicks who for all her power and Alien constitution she still thinks Cat Grant is great even though she’s prickly. So what happened to Supergirl? I think she was left in CBS along with Cat Grant, Maxwell Lord and Lucy Lane. No wonder they have to make so many new non sense characters. And those people who are watching season 2 and thinks it’s the best of the season, I think these are also the kind of viewers who just like destruction and mayhem. These are the viewers who thinks that superheroes are dark, unhappy individual with savior complex. They all believe that every hero is just like Batman with his twisted past and darker nights ahead. They will never appreciate season 1 for what I stand for, for what James and Winn did to Kara when she’s first starting out, or Alex’ support or Cat Grant’s push and pull mentoring to Kara. They do however appreciate Mon-El’s way of being a hero, or Lena Luthor’s brand of girl power. Also, I would like to point out that when season 1 is airing and people are saying that there is something between Cat and Kara, the writers are so defensive in saying there’s nothing there. I know Melissa and Calista are good at what their doing but anybody who’s not trying not to see, can see that it is more than a boss and employee. But sadly they don’t want that, but come season 2 they are making it seems that Kara and Lena are a thing. And it makes me wonder if these “supposed” moments are meant for Cat and Kara but given Calista’s MIA status they have to give it to Lena. It’s funny but fans of Kara and Lena are so sure of them being a canon. Come top think of it, back in season 1 people are calling SuperCat fans delusional and awful things, but now it’s the SuperCorp that’s delusional. I think the Supercorp fans should know that they are the Fanfic to SuperCat’s Canon. SuperCat started it. The writers and producers should know that they did make a mess of season 2, I think the writers lost something when they lost Cat Grant.

[singereden]

Attention Clexa Fandom!

Dear all of Clexa fandom,

I nearby have a needs to implore you for your help.

As you know, our two fandoms will soon be coming head to head on the Zimbio poll, which is great because both Clexa and Supercorp deserve to be there and to win (as do all the other ships too).

However, as the stupid fates would have it, there can, unfortunately, be only one winner… And I’m kinda trying to gather enough guts to ask you guys to help us win.

I know this will sound silly to you, because I know how much you love Clexa (heck, *I* myself love Clexa too! For being as iconic and game-changing as it has been for *all* of the fandoms and queer people wanting to see themselves positively represented on tv… Plus I do genuinely ship the Clexa babies… though I chose to stop watching the 100 after Lexa’s death), but just before you dismiss this entirely, just hear me out. 



It is important for you too.

Some of you might know about what’s been going on on Supergirl and some of you may not. Basically, to sum up, the Supergirl staff were very wonderful in that they wanted to explore the journey of a beautiful character, Alex Danvers, Supergirl’s sister, as a gay person, to give her a girlfriend and let us watch their journey unfold. Their story started off very strong, even if recently they have been getting less screen-time. More than that, Supergirl as a show in general has been a very positive game-changer too, especially in season 1, where the message of being strong, independent, self-reliant and ambitious, especially as a woman, was proven to be central to the drive of the main character and the narrative. Since the beginning of the second half of season 2, however, this message was slowly but surely beginning to turn more and more warped. I actually don’t know what the writers are thinking right now but basically, our heroic, exemplary Supergirl, Kara Danvers, has become reduced to someone who not only tolerates someone (her boyfriend) that insults her, puts her down, ignores her boundaries and requests, and defies her repeatedly, but to someone who would actually date a person like that. I think we can all agree that this is a wrong and very damaging message to send to the viewers, many who are teenagers, and many who are little girls and boys, and impressionable to such a message. And now, on top of all that, after Kara got fired from her job, which she explicitly said she loved and which we have seen her work SO damn hard for, she concedes that maybe being a superhero and having her (emotionally abusive?) boyfriend will be enough. It’s come to a point where I no longer recognise my favourite character and my favourite tv show.

The thing is, I can easily stop watching (ok, maybe not easily, it’ll be a fricken addiction to break!) but I know that other viewers, especially all the younger, more vulnerable ones, will probably just keep going. And the reason I know that is because at their age, without question, I would be one of them. As a teen and a young adult, I would literally swallow the sickly-sweet trope of a flawed, broken person needing love from a forgiving girl in order to change and become a better person. I subconsciously soaked this message in and then applied it to my own life as I got older, with, unfortunately but not surprisingly, dire repercussions, from which, I have to admit, I’m still recovering. I’m sure that many of you will be able to relate to this. And I’m sure that many of you will know just how wrong and harmful this message is. Especially coming from a show that has built its entire fan-base by portraying a strong, positive role-model for girls and women.

The one good thing that has come out of all of this is another character on Supergirl: Lena Luthor. From the beginning, because of her last name and its connotations, Lena has been portrayed as a possible suspect and villain. The thing is though, she has proven herself time and time again to be better than that, to be a force for good, to be a firm ally to both Kara and Supergirl, and has even taken it upon herself to rebrand her brother’s company and turn it into something positive to make up for all the damage that Lex Luthor had done in the past. She had even gone directly against her own mother when the woman had turned out to be deranged and aligned with Lex’s ideals. Therefore, on the show, Lena Luthor has been portrayed as a prime example of what an independent, ambitious, strong woman is. But what was even more wonderful (and surprising) to watch was the incredible positive dynamic that has developed between Lena and our very own Kara Danvers/Supergirl.

I can honestly say that this dynamic was the greatest surprise to come out of Supergirl season 2, because while some expected Alex to come out as gay, nobody foresaw a Luthor and a Super working together like this. And WOW do they work well together! I mean… Just on every level! On a professional level, the two women are so respectful and supportive of one another. On a personal level, they are so sweet and wonderful to each other. The respect between the two of them is every bit as worthy of Clarke and Lexa’s, because they too, are women powerful in their own right, working together for the benefit of all. And I think if you guys had seen them (and I’m sure most of you have anyway :p), you’d be proud of them and you’d want to see more of them just being awesome together. The only difference between Clexa and Supercorp is that one is a canonical ship and the other is not. Yet. If ever. And the thing is, they so easily could be because their chemistry is off . the . charts . I mean… I could go on for ages here but to spare you the reading time, just look them up on youtube.

If they got together, the internet would explode. They would literally be Korrasami 2.0, except 3D. And they would rule so hard, and it would be the most beautiful thing ever! (Besides Clexa, ofc.)

Unfortunately, because the writers have already presented Supergirl’s sister as gay, the chances of Supercorp actually turning canon dropped significantly. I mean, how many mainstream shows do you know of where there is more than one gay couple included?

Exactly.

But the sad thing is, it actually could work so well. Not only would it be the most organic thing for the characters, where they’d get an outlet for all of that chemistry, but it would take Supergirl to an ICONIC level. More so, it would rescue it from that hole it seems to be heading for with the current storyline, specifically that of the questionable relationship with the questionable boyfriend. (I just want to clarify, I have no problem whatsoever with Supergirl being in a heterosexual relationship. However I *do* have a problem with her being in any kind of relationship with any person who is, frankly, bad for her.)

To sum up and bring all this to the final point: the chances of Supercorp becoming canon are small. The producers and writers so far have not been very acknowledging, let alone supportive, of our fandom or our ship. There’s even been mention of an actor/actress having rolled their eyes when asked whether they ship Supercorp, as if the thought of two women with an amazing dynamic being more than friends is a ridiculous concept. (I do have to say, this in particular really broke my heart, because with all the Sanvers-ness they’ve included in the show, and all the overwhelming feedback they’ve received from the fans and how much it has meant to people, how much it has positively affected everyone, it’s like they’ve actually missed the entire point.)

Other than that (the rolling of the eyes), no one on the production team has made any comment on Supercorp whatsoever, even though this ship is literally one of the best drives they have going for their show right now.

If Supercorp were to win the Zimbio polls, the actresses would be approached for an interview. If Supercorp were to win the Zimbio polls and the actresses approached for an interview, the writers and producers would most likely hear about it. If this positive, beautiful dynamic between these two strong, powerful women were to win, the production team might begin to take Supercorp a little more seriously, where they might acknowledge it in some way or they might just think twice about ruining the story and Lena’s character by turning her evil, while they elevate the questionable boyfriend to the level of hero.

But more than anything, if the production team were to notice just how beloved Supercorp is, they would realise that positive representation doesn’t stop with Sanvers. That representation of  diversity in real life doesn’t end with one, secondary character, gay couple, that we need more, and that when we see palpable chemistry in a positive relationship, who happens to be of the same sex, compared to that of a questionable relationship of a heterosexual couple, we deserve more. Gay or straight. Though to be honest, if Lena Luthor were a man, pretty much all Supergirl fans would have married them off by now because, as I said, their chemistry, and the positivity of their relationship, is unmissable and inspiring.

It’s more than just a ship at stake here, it’s a call for action for positive representation, which I’m sure, you all are for anyway. Clexa won the Zimbio poll last year, and rightfully so. They fully deserve to win this year too, but I don’t think much will change if they did win. Not for you, and not for me. If Supercorp won, we would be one small step towards changing the game once again, in always striving for more… More positive representation, more equality, more fairness. This is exactly what Clexa stood for and still stands for and that is why I think you will understand the importance of this.

So please, I am asking you: Help us get Supercorp to the top. It will be a victory for all of us. And let’s see whether we can begin to change the game for the better once again. If you agree, please vote, share this and help spread the word.

<3

Zimbio poll is here:

http://www.zimbio.com/brackets/TV+Couples+March+Madness+2017

[woodface]

Supergirl S2: United we stand, divided we fall (aka Strong Together)

The past few days I've heard several people tell me that they have or are considering to stop watching Supergirl and just enjoying the gifsets that tumblr throws at them. I can't say I'm surprised, but it does sadden me at how much the show has changed. It's a shame because I know people still enjoy the characters and (most of) their relationships. I think we all know why, but it's Sunday and if you know me, I tend to ramble on Sunday. I've been meaning to give a review of the first half of the second season and now seems as good a time as any.

Now, Supergirl has been all but a perfect show. Season 1 had its flaws: the writing was wonky in places, throwing characterisation overboard to fit the plot and the pacing of the season was terrible. There was something there, however, that had many of us turning in. (More than an amazing cast.) Supergirl was a story of hope. It was a story centred around the women in the show and their journey of becoming heroes. It was a story about found family and how after losing everything, it is still possible to heal when you open your heart for the people around you. At the heart of the show were Kara, Alex and J'onn. The three people who formed the core of the show and who despite the conflict thrown at them, were always there for each other. Stronger together.

When the show changed channels, we all saw the writings on the walls. We all held our breaths as marketing didn't seem to realise what it was that made people tune in. While the second season started a little shakily, by the third episode I was appeased. The show was still there, the Danvers sisters were fighting side by side, still being each other's back up and then… 

I miss the old days where ships were a thing that happened in the background. When subtext was what had us rooted to our screens, or what we could easily ignore when we aren't interested. Romance has been the bane of this season. But Jara, I hear you say, romance was present even in season one. You're right, and it was a tad embarrassing how many men the show threw at Kara, but it also always went back to the heart of the show. Take the finale. James and Kara get their screen time, but when the action is going, when the chips were down, it was the found family that ran through everything. The show told us how much Kara cared about everyone in her own unique way. It was J'onn who walked out with Kara to defend this earth that had become his new home. It was Kara who struggled to say goodbye to Alex, and Alex who refused to give her up. Where movies and other shows would have focussed on the romance, this show put family at its heart. Romance was secondary. Kara was learning to become Kara Zor-El before anything else. Being a girlfriend was second or third. 

Much has changed since then, and nothing was more painful to me than seeing the last episode and having Kara say she always has to fight alone. She's almost desperate to have Mon-El become a superhero was so she would have someone with powers fighting at her side, conveniently forgetting that J'onn had always been there, that Alex will fly into space or jump to an alien planet to get her back. In that one sentence, the show summarised exactly what has been wrong with its second season: romance is no longer second place. It has become first place and found family is taking a backseat to everything else. 

It took them ten episodes to give us a decent moment between Kara, Alex and J'onn. You could argue that this is natural, that conflict keeps things interesting and we'll get there in the end. I have no doubt that we'll see glimpses of our found alien family, but this used to be the glue that held everything together. Stronger together has been hollowed out as Kara, Alex and J'onn are isolated in their own stories and their lines seldom cross. 

The Danvers sisters rarely get moments together, and when they do, it's generally to talk about the romance. Alex is no longer Kara's mentor. They don't hit the training mats anymore, and while they're still supportive and the actors make certain that we see their bond, the show is no longer putting it central to its story telling. 

Kara has become isolated, her actions more and more fuelled by protecting Mon-El and getting him to become the hero she thinks he should be. While this could be an interesting take, after all, it might be evidence of Kara struggling to go back to not having Clark there, this is not what it's about. It's not Kara's struggle, but it is Mon-El's. That in itself wouldn't be so bad if only Kara did have her own storyline, but she doesn't. We don't see Kara growing as a superhero, she's trampling in place and getting isolated as the show puts her in function of Mon-El. Meanwhile James is learning to be a superhero as well, which in a way removes how Winn and James would be what reminded Kara what it was like to be human. 

Now, CatCo has always grated on me so I admit that I was glad to hear Cat Grant was gone. I was hoping her removal would mean that the show would have an easier time to balance out Kara's plot. The division between the DEO and CatCo was always superficial to me and diluted storylines where it shouldn't have. Episode 3 to me is the best example at how well the lesser attention to CatCo works. Sadly, TPTB seem to enjoy juggling too many storylines at once and we're still getting too much plot crammed into one. I keep being reminded of @racethewind10's mantra: this show needs to pick character over plot. My hope was that less CatCo would help with this, but so many new characters have been added, each with their own separate storyline that it hasn't happened. Character moments are so rushed and hamfisted in its delivery, it's almost painful to watch. 

While the plot was suffering in season 1 as well, we got some amazing character moments. I'm thinking of Kara facing the robber without her powers, Alex screaming and begging at Kara to come back to her, Alex and Kara supporting J'onn as his past comes back to haunt him. There were so many strong moments that were truly moving, but season two has had very little… The few we did have were tied to Alex and her journey of self-discovery. They were delivered between Kara and Alex. 

The difference between how Kara and James were treated versus how Kara and Mon-El is treated is huge, where James was always a player in Kara's story, this isn't the case now. Never mind how the change in romance was handled. I actually could completely understand when Kara broke up with James. Her realisation that she needed to find herself first fitted well. I bought it and could actually applaud it. However, that character moment (one of the last Kara was allowed) was completely retconned when TPTB decided to throw Kara at the next available guy that crossed her path. 

How can we believe that after barely any time between her breakup, Kara who had no other character development whatsoever, can suddenly come back and be interested in Mon-El. Such is life? Perhaps, sometimes loves hits us at the most awkward moments, but the way Kara has been treating him like a little brother (or a replacement for Kal-El) to suddenly this arc where Kara is only fighting for him and can only think of Mon-El as her backup when the going gets tough… It comes out of nowhere and is completely out of character for the girl who would always turn to her found family and would live by the creed of Stronger Together. 

It's true that Kara has been isolated, however. J'onn is a bit in a world of his own and Alex has her own romance story that has been monopolising her time, and here lies the rub. I don't want to make light of the importance of Alex's character development (at least she has some). Representation matters and the message the show is sending with Alex is powerful and so much needed. I want to look beyond this for a moment, however, because this has been another key part of how the show has changed. 

Alex's romance is not a natural development within the show. We all knew Alex was gay without needing to be told, but the show runners decided to treat this as a completely new discovery. That in itself should not be a problem, but they brought in a completely new character who has no other purpose to fill than to be Alex's love interest. As a series regular, this is problematic because Maggie had no natural place within the storyline. She's a cop and has no ties to anyone else. To make this work, TPTB changed the universe of our show (I'm sure there's more it than that, but it does seem to be a part of it). Maggie knows about aliens, has been friendly towards them all her life and has a job at the NCPD handling said aliens. That's the common ground the worked into the show to have Maggie and Alex meet. 

However, in order for them to continue meeting, they had to come up with ways to have Maggie show up. So what happened is that Alex and Maggie got their own plot, separate from everyone else's. Kara would get drawn in occasionally (because you really can't separate those two completely), but for the most part, Maggie's only point of contact with anyone else is Alex. Furthermore, to have an excuse to have Maggie around, the role of the DEO has been lessened and with it, J'onn's role as well. Now imagine if the show had used Lucy or Vasquez and given a more natural progression for Alex's self-discovery, where the romance would fit right into the main plot and not water down the importance of the DEO. 

Instead Alex gets her own storylines while Kara and the others have their own. While I love seeing a different side to Alex, it means that she was effectively replaced in the main Kara storyline by either Winn (when it involves science) or James and Mon-El when it comes to fighting scenes. Alex's relationship with J'onn got watered down as she no longer was there for much of the big plots, and Alex no longer is Kara's main backup. Yes, there's been exceptions, but this is a trend where the men replace Alex as our kicking ass human hero. 

After all, James is now the human who gets to beat up bad guys and wants to make the world a better place. M'gann and Kara have had a stronger bond with J'onn than Alex does. Danvers sister moments are replaced by Alex hanging out with Maggie. While this might balance out as Alex's sexuality becomes a simple fact rather than a huge revelation, I'm not confident that we're going to return there. After all, Mon-El has been slowly taking over Alex's role when it comes to Kara. Alex was always the one with one foot in reality, evening Kara's goodness and innocence out. (Remember her threatening Lord.) Slowly the show has been pushing Mon-El to take that position because Alex is too tied up in being in love. 

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing Alex happy. I love that we got such a positive storyline on television. I love the moments when Kara gets to be supportive of Alex. I want Alex to actually think of herself for once, but that does not negate the fact that it's another part that has the glue of our show crumbling down. 

Alex's romance story has effectively removed her from the main plot where she used to be at the centre with Kara. Do you remember how many times they'd end up fighting and checking in at the middle of the fight to make sure the other is okay? We've had so little of these moments because Alex basically rarely gets to be there anymore as the side characters take up her space. 

The show has screwed itself over by bringing in too many new characters and wanting to tell too many stories at once (the latter is an old issue that's gotten worse). They've separated the main three characters from each other and have removed what was the heart of the show. It's still there, but less so and the moments that we should see are rushed or simply don't happen because a romance scene gets precedence over them now. 

Supergirl is simply not the same show anymore. Kara was a different superhero. Not only because she's a woman, but because she knew she shouldn't do this alone. Because she had her friends around her, her found family, which kept her going and saw her through. She was working through so much pain and suffering, but she managed to hold on to her kindness. 

Supergirl was a show about Kara, but they're trying to turn it into an ensemble show where the female heroes are defined by their romance stories and the men learn how to be heroes. That's not the show I signed up for. That's not the show I fell in love with. I am disappointed and saddened any time I see those pictures of all those little girls excited to meet Melissa Benoist, to meet Supergirl. I am saddened because they deserve better and so do we.

[uptightcitizensbrigade]

St. Vincent recently made her directing debut with ‘The Birthday Party’, part of a new horror film anthology titled XX. Ahead of its February 17 release on demand and in select theaters, Laura Snapes speaks to the songwriter – real name Annie Clark – about the catharsis of horror, making the leap to movie-making and being “ready to get back in the ring” with a new album that has “something very worthwhile to say.”

Annie Clark’s contribution to XX, a horror film anthology helmed by women directors, isn’t strictly speaking a horror film. In ‘The Birthday Party’, a harried mother (Melanie Lynskey) wakes up on the day of her kid’s birthday party to find her husband (who’s probably been cheating with the creepy nanny) slumped in his office chair. Even his dead body isn’t gruesome. With his sculptured hair and waxen face, he looks more like a bad Gary Numan waxwork than a fresh corpse. The terror comes from figuring out what to do with him on the day of the party, especially when the vast windows of the couple’s swanky LA home offer their neighbours a voyeuristic glimpse into their lives. You could call it an allegory for the outsized emotional labour that mothers take on every day, but mostly it’s just mordantly funny, and as stylish as Clark’s stage presentation as St. Vincent. Who else would foreshadow a death with black stripy party hats, and dress the revelling children in giant foam costumes shaped like shrimp and toilets?

There’s a good reason that “The Birthday Party” (named in honour of Nick Cave) isn’t that scary. Clark hates horror films. “It sounds so obvious,” she sighs. “It’s too scary for me. I don’t like gore at all. I don’t like sexual violence. I don’t like blood and bone and sinew. I don’t like to see it.” XX recently premiered at Sundance. Although Clark had already seen the film, she found herself screaming and covering her eyes during its public debut. In Jovanka Vuckovic’s psychological thriller, a family stops eating, but a corporeal feast ensues. Roxanne Benjamin sends a group of trespassing campers into the midst of a Native American burial ground, with monstrous consequences, and Karyn Kusama reckons with Rosemary’s Baby all grown up. “They were all great, and all very different in tone,” says Clark. “I think putting mine in between two things that were scary made it feel more in the horror world than it would have been if you’d just seen it on its own.”

XX represents a swift broadening of Clark’s horizons. Over the past few years, bouncing between New York, Texas and Los Angeles, she’s designed her own guitar for Ernie Ball and built a studio in LA. She’s also currently finishing her first art installation, as well as her fifth album as St. Vincent. Despite initial reports that it was coming this spring, the record won’t actually arrive until later in the year. The installation and record were tantalisingly off-limits in this interview, though Clark conceded that album five, “especially with where we are in the world, [had] to be the best thing that I’ve ever done by leaps and bounds.” FACT found Clark in New York to talk about the high stakes of dead bodies, Bowie’s hair, and her personal “gnarly” essay-writing habit.

“In times of extreme turmoil, horror films thrive because it’s a safe space to take our social, psychological fears and exorcise them.”

Given how much you hate horror films, what made you say yes in the first place?

I just say yes to challenges in life, and I think it’s really rewarding. Do you know if you can do a thing? No? Well, why don’t you find out! And it’s so rare — first of all, I felt really lucky to be given the opportunity to have time and resources to just make something and I thought it was a very gracious leap of faith that the Magnolia/XYZ Films people took on me. I had so much fun. I just had the best time doing it, and I think everything is about collaboration at a certain point, and film-making is sort of the ultimate collaborative sport.

Control is a big part of your work as a musician, but when you’re making a film, you may have to let things go on the fly a little bit more. How did you deal with transitioning between mediums?

There’s a little kind of lexicon of film terminology that was completely new to me, so there was a language barrier at first. But then I really got the hang of it, and we shot it in three days. I mean, it’s really not that different in terms of juggling a lot of different urgent tasks and delegating and saying, “That. This. No. Yes. This one. The toilet.” You don’t have a chance to mull things over when you get on set. You’re just going completely on instinct, and actually that part of it felt very natural to me. It wasn’t that different from putting together a live show where there’s a million moving parts and you’re going, “Yes. This. That. Go. Okay. Let’s do it.” And also, the other thing about it is that the adrenaline of being on the set is similar to a live show or being in the studio. There are through-lines, for sure. And also I think one of things you just get better at with time and doing various creative projects is just knowing who to bring in. And that’s a fun skill.

Whoever was doing the styling really knows how to make people look evil via their hair. I admired all those sculptural cuts.

Oh, that’s Pamela Neal. She does my hair and she is a genius and I love her so much, and she has the best style of anyone I know. She used to cut Bowie’s hair, and she cuts Tilda Swinton’s. She’s just incredible. We definitely were channelling Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for Melanie and we were channelling Paris, Texas for Madeline the nosy neighbour, and the kind-of evil nanny. Except for Melanie, they were all wigs that Pamela made. She’s just brilliant.

When you were approached about the project, did you immediately know what story you wanted to tell? You’ve mentioned it was semi-based on a real life story.

Yeah, it’s sort of based on a true story that a friend told me. It’s very, very, very, very abstracted, but it’s the idea of waking up with a death in the house and making a split-second decision to try and protect your children for as long as you possibly can. And I thought, the thing that makes any creative endeavour good is making sure there are high stakes. So I thought, finding a dead body in the house and trying to figure out what to do with it, you can’t really get any higher-stakes than that. But then it went totally in an absurdist, blackly comic direction.

Between making the film and it coming out, the world has kind of turned into what you were describing on Twitter recently as a “daily litany of horrifying things.” Are there any real-life parallels or allegories buried in the film?

I mean, if you wanted to get really broad, you could talk about a widespread pharmaceutical addiction that definitely has swept America and probably is sweeping the rest of the world. One of the subtle things in the movie — or maybe it’s not so subtle — is this unfortunate way that women get conditioned to be very cruel to other women. You see it with the neighbour character and the nanny and Mary, the main character, who’s just this sort of Job-like figure, where everything that can possibly go wrong for this poor woman goes wrong and she gets no sympathy and no support. Obviously she’s keeping a massive secret to try to protect her child, but that is endemic. Misogynistic females — that’s the opposite of where we need to be right now. There’s enough misogyny coming from, in this instance, the powers that be. The capitalist coup d’état that’s happened here in America. There’s enough misogyny coming from there. We need to stand together, women of all genders and gender-identities, creeds, religions, all of that.

“I could have put out three records by now. But I needed this one, especially with where we are in the world, to be the best thing that I’ve ever done.”

As somebody who is not a horror fan, do you think that horror can be cathartic right now?

I think that horror films are very cathartic and I think that history has shown that in times of extreme turmoil, horror films really thrive because it’s a safe space to take all of our social, psychological fears and exorcise them. Even though I am personally turned off by gore and things like that, I think everybody needs that kind of catharsis and art is a way to go to all the dark places, go to the precipice and explore the recesses and cobwebs of your mind and be safe doing it. And so I think people need that in general, and I think people will need that even more in this particular time in history.

How far are you willing to push yourself as a viewer? Is there something that’s right on the cusp of your boundaries that you’ll tolerate because it’s a good film?

I mean, I can’t say enough good things about Elle. Isabelle Huppert hung the moon as far as I’m concerned. It’s so darkly funny. And there is sexual violence in it, but it’s kind of stylised in this way that is, to me, way more palatable or watchable, even though obviously it makes me very nervous, than something like [Gaspar Noé’s] Irréversible that just feels like, hideous, misogynistic gore-porn. I love Michael Haneke, I would consider him one of my favourite quote-unquote “horror directors”, but I can’t watch Funny Games.

You said recently that you’d like to direct more. What kind of film would you like to take on?

I would like to either adapt a short story or just write something myself and direct it. That seems like the most natural way to go about it. That seems like the way to do it that appeals to me the most.

Do you write very much prose outside of music? You did a review for The Talkhouse once but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything else you’ve written.

Yeah, I do. I write a lot of essays.

“I like moving, I like being kinetic… I get twitchy if I’m not doing a lot of things.”

Just for yourself?

Yeah. I may release them in some form someday, but they’re pretty gnarly. They really are kind of just for myself. It’s one thing to position things in music and let there be a lot of interpretation and mist around things, but it’s another thing to write completely factual, autobiographical essays and release those. They’re funny and they’re fucking gnarly. Maybe someday. They’re completely autobiographical. I wrote a recent one about thinking I was going to get and help my friend pick up a car but it ended up that the person we were picking up the keys from was giving a wake for her mother. So I unknowingly walked into what basically amounted to a Bennigan’s, in the Valley, into a bunch of strangers eulogising a woman that I didn’t know. Experiences like that that you just have to remember because they’re just so insane. I definitely wanted to remember every single detail because it was just the most amazing and absurd thing that’s ever happened. So yeah, things like that. And weird sex shit.

After you finished making Strange Mercy, you went straight into making St. Vincent, but over the past few years, although you’ve had loads of projects on, it seems like you’ve let yourself have a bit of space. Has that changed your creative process?

Yeah, I guess I threw myself into some other creative projects like building a studio and making a movie and designing a guitar and working on an art installation that’s yet to come out. Obviously I’m putting out a record this year and I’m so excited about it, but I needed to do some things that were creative but not music and not touring and not performing just to get my bearings. I started really touring in bands in my very early 20s, maybe even before, and then toured really seriously for 10 years straight, pretty much. I like that, there’s nothing pathological about it — I like moving, I like being kinetic — but it takes a different kind of energy to perform and I needed to have something very worthwhile to say on a record. I used to be a little more utilitarian about it, but it takes time to cultivate [something worthwhile]. Based on the amount of material I have, I could have put out three records by now. But I needed this one, especially with where we are in the world, to be the best thing that I’ve ever done by leaps and bounds. And that takes time. That’s something I’ve never really given myself, but it was nice. Now I’m ready to get back in the ring, so to speak, because I get twitchy if I’m not doing a lot of things.

I’m not allowed to ask about the record. What are we going to see next?

I don’t know, actually. It’s yet to be determined and it will all be thoughtfully synchronised as far as the unveiling of the art piece or the record. They’ll both come this year but I haven’t figured that part out yet.

Is the art installation something you’ve made, or a curation of other people’s work?

No, it’s a thing that I’m making. And it doesn’t have anything to do with music. There’s no score. It’s completely unrelated to music. I don’t know that I can talk about that too much either, except to say that I’m very excited about it.

[norxhwrites]

Below the cut you will find my roleplay masterlist. It contains three lists of: Wanted Opposites, Wanted Fcs, and Wanted Plots. If any of these fcs or plots interest you either: Message me, heart this, or write a starter and I’ll reply to it!

Below the cut you will find my roleplay masterlist. It contains three lists of: Wanted Opposites, Wanted Fcs, and Wanted Plots. If any of these fcs or plots interest you either: Message me, heart this, or write a starter and I’ll reply to it!

So, I know that face claims aren’t everything, and that looks don’t make a character, but these are some faces I’d like to play opposite of.

Jon Bernthal

Jason Momoa

Charlie Weber

Ben Barnes

DJ Cotrona

Charlie Hunnam

Jessica Sula

Skeet Ulrich

Troian Bellisario

Shay Mitchell

Monica Raymund

Jon Seda

Chloe Bennet

Michael Ealy

Jesse Williams

Shemar Moore

Jesse Lee Soffer

Alicia Vikander

Priyanka Chopra

Crystal Reed

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Willa Holland

Arden Cho

Ricky Whittle

Dacre Montgomery

Margot Robbie

Theo James

Katheryn Winnick

Faces I’d like to play/test out! (They will become test characters, and if I like them, I’ll add them to my muse page!)

Female

Ana De Armas

Shelley Hennig

Caity Lotz

Monica Raymund

Charlotte Spencer

Alexandra Park

Gabriella Wilde

Shailene Woodley

Naomi Scott

Lindsey Morgan

Leah Pipes

Chyler Leigh

Leighton Meester

Rachelle Lefevre

Torrey Devitto

Tina Desai

Emily Browning

Jamie Clayton

Alicia Vikander

Adria Arjona

Emily Kinney

Diane Guerrero

Hayley Kiyoko

Maisie Richardson Sellers

Sophia Bush

Meaghan Rath

Gina Rodriguez

Vanessa Morgan

Ginny Gardner

Emilia Clarke

Jessica Chastain

Brianna Hildebrand

Danielle Campbell

Male;

Taylor Kinney

Jai Courtney

Hayden Christensen

Jack Falahee

Henry Cavill

Aaron Taylor Johnson

Tom Hiddleston

amadeus serafini

Mike Vogel

Taron Egerton

Shiloh Fernandez

Charles Melton

Ewan Mcgregor

Ben Barnes

Richard Madden

Tom Maden

Max Riemelt

Jesse Williams

Charlie Weber

Boyd Holbrook

Nick Gehlfuss

William Moseley

Aaron Tveit

Manish Dayal

Now, these are some storylines I’ve written and would love to try out! (though some of them I’ve lost muse for!) Some of these are based off of tv shows, movies, books, etc.

Behaving Badly -

[ Muse A ] never stood a chance. Even though they grew up in a decent household, they were always drawn to things they shouldn’t have been, and people who they should have stayed away from. Bad choice after bad choice led [ Muse A ] into a spiral of uncontrollable destruction. They seemed to destroy everything they touched, including their relationship with their family, their ability to have a career, or find love. Until [ Muse B ] came into the picture. Attracted to danger as much as [ Muse A ], [ Muse B ] was equally as screwed up, and just as good at being bad. After months, or even years on the road, stealing and cheating their way through the country, [ Muse A ] realizes that perhaps [ Muse B ] was better at being bad then they were, so much in that they they’ve begin to wonder exactly what they’ve gotten themselves into. [ Muse A ] misses their family, and wonders if they’re able to go back and start over. [ Muse B ]’s only family is their partner in crime, and they’ll do anything to make sure they stay together. Can this modern day Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde and Clyde/Bonnie and Bonnie) give up their wicked ways? or will they continue their bad behavior?

 Come Back Home -

[ Muse A ] is married to a member of the Military. They’re a loyal spouse who’s done everything they can to support [ Muse B ], though things have changed. They aren’t the love struck teenagers they were when they got married right out of high school. They’re different, [ Muse A ] is lonely, and [ Muse B ] finds it difficult to talk about the things they’ve seen and done. They’ve done everything they can to make things work and things don’t look like they’re every going to change. But when [ Muse B ] is medically discharged from the their Unit, [ Muse A ] looks at it like a second chance for them to get things right. [ Muse B ] is still haunted by their past, and [ Muse A ] is still unsure of how to help, but maybe their lives can get better?

 Wrong Side of the Tracks -

In a town were deep prejudice divides their residents, [ Muse A ] is the perfect child of the towns Sheriff/Mayor etc. They’ve always been the type to make their parents proud and do exactly what they’re told. [ Muse B ] is bad news, or at least everyone says so. Accused of a horrific crimes and basically driven out of town, [ Muse B ] has returned after a few years, and the rumor mill begins again. When [ Muse B ] meets [ Muse A ], they click instantly. [ Muse A ] is curious, and wants to know if the rumors are true, and [ Muse B ] sees [ Muse A ] as a pure light among all of the terrible people that live in their town. But when a student from the nearby college goes missing, all fingers point to [ Muse B ]. [ Muse A ] knows that [ Muse B ] couldn’t have done anything wrong, and wants to prove their innocence. [ Muse B ] refuses to allow [ Muse A ] to get involved, and begins to push them away. [ Muse A ] begins to do their best to find out what really happened, but instead finds a web of lies that tie into the towns Authorities, and a cover up of the crime [ Muse B ] was accused of years ago.

 The End -

[ Muse A ] has given them a chance. Over and over again they’ve tried to see past all of the lying and cheating, but [ Muse B ] just doesn’t seem to want to change. They don’t seem to see the wrong in their actions, and no matter how hard [ Muse A ] tries to work things out, there’s only so much a single person can do. So this is it, the end. [ Muse A ] is ready to walk out the door and never look back. Unfortunately, [ Muse B ] finally believes it, and can’t bare the thought. So, [ Muse A ] has given one more chance. One. [ Muse B ] must prove to them that they’ve changed and that everything is going to be better, or [ Muse A ] is gone.

 California Dreaming -

[ Muse A ] is living the California Dream. Surfing all afternoon, partying all night, sleeping all morning and repeat, nothing can make this dream any better. Until they meet [ Muse B ]. [ Muse B ] fits perfectly into [ Muse A ]’s laid back, carefree lifestyle and the two fall for each other very quickly. As the two get to know each other, [ Muse A ] realizes they don’t know  [ Muse B ] as much as they thought. [ Muse B ] is involved in some very shady, very illegal things, that don’t exactly fit into [ Muse A ]’s lifestyle. Dragged into a world of drugs, violence, and sex, [ Muse A ]’s life is turned upside down when they get caught up in an investigation into [ Muse B ] and the people they work with. They California Dream turns into a nightmare, and the only way out is to leave that world behind, but can they without getting dragged back in by their feelings for [ Muse B ]?

 Defiance | 1940s Setting |-

[Muse A] is a Jewish person living in early 1940s Belarus. German Nazis have ordered the execution of all Jewish people living in the ghettos. [Muse A] witnesses the murder of their family before they flee to the Naliboki Forest, a large rural landscape covering a large portion of Belarus. That is where [Muse A] meets [Muse B], another Jewish escapee fleeing from the Nazi soldiers. The two set up camp along with multiple other Jewish men, women and children fleeing Nazi controlled areas. They begin stealing from local farms, hunting, and moving their camp in order to stay alive. As winter approaches, the group must learn to survive sickness, starvation, and perhaps even betrayal as the Nazi soldiers begin to close in on the camp’s location. Getting caught is not an option, it means death for the entire group.

 A Summer Affair  -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] are from two different worlds, yet they found themselves vacationing at the same place for a couple of weeks during the summer. After weeks of hot, passionate romance the two say goodbye in order to get back to their normal, boring lives and normal, boring jobs. [ Muse A ] is a recent college graduate who’s in need of a job. [ Muse B ] is the CEO of a huge company and is in need of an assistant. Not knowing [ Muse B ] runs the company, [ Muse A ] applies for the job. [ Muse B ] is now [ Muse A ]’s boss, not to mention they have a life that [ Muse A ] wasn’t told about during their summer fling. Now, [ Muse A ] must do all they can to keep the job they desperately need, while juggling feelings for their boss, keeping the secret of their summer affair from their coworkers, and deciding if they want to rekindle the spark between them and [Muse B].

You Mind as Well Go to Hell -

If you don’t go to church, then you mind as well go to hell. That is the policy in the [ Muse A’s ] House. Of course, you tell a teenager one thing and they do the opposite. [ Muse A ] is the Pastor’s pride and joy, of course they wouldn’t be if they knew the kind of stuff their child did in their free time. Finally [ Muse A ] decide to get out. They climb into a van and head west to California. Except it isn’t at all what they expected. Getting to Cali was hard enough, but making it in Cali could break this sweet kid from the south. Did they just enter the world of their dreams, or did they go from singing in the church choir, to the Hell they were taught to be terrified of? Then comes [ Muse B ]. Street smart, headstrong, wise beyond their years, [ Muse B ] knows their way around California’s underground. With [ Muse B ] as their guide, [ Muse A ] begins to navigate through the streets of California, hoping to find the life they dreamed of back home in Alabama.

Something’s gotta Give -

Growing up, they only had themselves. Living in a world fueled by violence, family doesn’t always mean safety. For the [ Muse A ], family wasn’t something they believed in, being foster children half their lives, and the child of terrible parents the other half. They believed in evil people, hard times, and the fact that someone’s always got an angle when it comes to lending a helping hand. No one is inherently good. Finally, [ Muse A] has turned 18, making them free from the foster care system. Criminal record half a mile long, [ Muse A ] must find a way to make it in the big world. Enters [ Muse B ]. Successful, hardworking, seemingly perfect. [ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] meet by chance, this chance encounter turns into more as the two begin to see each other. What happens when [ muse B ] finds out about [ Muse A’s ] past? Will it ruin the best thing that has happened to [ Muse A ] in a long time? Or will they finally be able to move past the dark things that have followed them their entire life?

Wicked Attraction | 1920-1940s Setting | -

[Muse A] was always considered to be perfect. They graduated at the top of their class, have a great job, but they’ve always felt like something was missing. [Muse B] was always the same way, though beneath the prefect was a secret. A wicked secret. [Muse B] is part of an underground world of drugs and violence. What happens when [Muse A] and [Muse B] meet and [Muse B]introduces [Muse A] to an underground world of sex, drugs, and violence? Is this what [Muse A]’s always been missing? Can they escape this Wicked Attraction?

Welcome Home -

[Muse A] seemed like the perfect child, good grades, good family, good friends. Everything about except when it came to their feelings for [Muse B]. [Muse B] was too old and too damaged to be involved with someone like [Muse A], but it didn’t stop them from falling for each other. [Muse A] left their infectious little town, leaving all of the bad (including Muse B), behind them. Years later, they return, only to find that [Muse B] never got out. Will their old flame rekindle? Or will [Muse A] realize that[Muse B] is all wrong for them?

On The Road Again -

[ Muse A ] has always been a drifter, never staying in one place, feeling as though the only place they belonged was on the road. [ Muse B ] has always been the conservative type, the type to go to school, get a boring job. One day, [ Muse A ] was passing through the town that [ Muse B ] lived in. They meet, and [ Muse A ] begins to think they may have found a place where they might actually be able to call home. The two begin a relationship based on all the lies [ Muse A ] had to tell in order to keep their past a secret. But [ Muse A ]’s past begins to catch up with them, will they be able to face it, or will they have to run away again?

How You Remind Me -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] had been dating off and on for years. Breakups, make ups, harsh words, drug/alcohol fueled nights, and flying fists. Unhealthy is the only way to describe their relationship. Loving each other was the easiest and hardest thing they had ever done. Finally unable to take it anymore, [ Muse A ] left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. With their lover gone, [ Muse B ] fell into an even deeper hole of drugs and violence. Years later, [ Muse A ] has cleaned up their life, gotten a good job, and made a difference in the lives of others. [ Muse B ] is still stuck in a life of one night stands, but they’ve gotten themselves clean from drugs and alcohol. The two meet unexpectedly, and see how different each other have become. This chance encounter turns into another, than another, but [ Muse A ] is unsure of whether or not they want to get themselves caught back up in that world. For [ Muse B ], seeing [ Muse A ] reminds them of all the terrible things they had done in their past. Being reminded of all they had done, [ Muse B ] decides to they need to show [ Muse A ] they’ve changed for good.  

Teacher, Teacher. -

[Muse A] is a college Professor. All of their students love them, both because they’re physically attractive and a very good professor , who has little trouble with connecting with students. [Muse B] is a student college that [Muse A] a teaches at. They’ve always been an average/above average student, but for some personal reason, they’ve been having a lot of trouble in the class that [Muse A] teaches. So, in a last effort to get their grade up before the end of the term, [Muse B] has been staying after class to get extra help. The only problem is, they’ve slowly found themselves having feelings for each other beyond the normal professor/student relationship.

Almost Stepparent -

For as long as [Muse A] could remember, it had been only them and their single parent. Their parent had dated and brought home every type of person imaginable, but this one was different. This one was [Muse B]. [Muse B] is everything [Muse A] is looking for in a partner, not to mention at least a decade younger than their parent. What happens when [Muse A] finally realizes they have feelings for [Muse B], their parent’s partner. [Muse B] has feelings for [Muse A], feelings well beyond what is appropriate to feel towards the child of your partner. What happens when the two are left alone for a week while [Muse A’s] parent is out taking care of a sick family member?

Now these are plots that I DIDN’T write but would still like to try! (All gender roles are changeable!)

i want a plot where a guy goes on a roadtrip just wandering around the state trying to find meaning of life with his big ass doggo and one day he comes to diner where this shy young woman works and like her boss is always yelling at her and she has abusive boyfriend and her father used to be abusive as well and this guy he is the first man who ever treated her nicely and he just asks her completely out of the blue if she doesn’t want to leave with him and she’s like “why not?” so she takes all of her things and leaves with him. Pleaseee!

i really, really want a plot where muse a is a naive, sweet, romantic, whimsical little thing with a whole lot of optimism and sunshine in their veins and muse b is the complete opposite; a total player who has someone new in their bed every weekend and hates responsibilities and just spends a lot of their time fucking around. somehow these two have been friends for a while, despite their differing personalities, and one day muse a ends up having to move out of their apartment due to a fire or an infestation or something and muse b is the one who offers to put them up for the time being. it’s all well and good except muse a has terrible nightmares constantly and one night muse b is sick and tired of it (and deep down a little concerned) so gets into bed with muse a until they stop crying and shaking and fall asleep in muse b’s arms instead. cue awkward muses sleeping in the same bed every night and it actually helping muse a a lot with the nightmares, and lots of cuddling and feelings ensue. muse b, being the player they are, are terrified of the idea of liking someone but muse a is pretty much already head over heels and ANGST !!

ok but someone give me that cute bartender storyline though? like this guy tends bar at a restaurant or a pub or something and always sees this cute girl hanging out there, but she’s always either with friends or with some guy so he never really gets the time to talk to her BUT ONE DAY she walks into the place alone and orders so many drinks until she’s so bloody drunk, screaming about how her boyfriend cheated on her, that the bartender had to bring her home himself. she wakes up with a horrible hangover, stumbles out the room to find the bartender cooking breakfast and rolling his eyes, laughing. “first of all, you’re an idiot. second, we didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re wondering. third, breakfast will be ready soon. sit.” and fluff commences HELP PLZ

muse a is a new single father, a teenager at that living in an apartment complex with his newborn. it’s one of those apartment complexes in new york city, where everyone kind of keeps to themselves. muse b lives on his floor and has heard this newborn baby crying at ungodly hours, distracting her from her cramming for midterms. she had complained to the landlord about it and one night, she hears the baby crying again. stepping outside in a fit of rage, muse b is about to yell at whoever is the parent to this bastard child until she spots muse a, pacing the hallway with the child in his arms, his hair disheveled and his eyes giving away the sleep he’s been lacking. she feels sympathy instantly; she had no idea muse a lived on her floor, much less was he the father of this child. so, at 3 in the morning, muse b offers to help muse a get the baby back to sleep. and muse b becomes some sort of baby whisperer to muse a, and he continues to go to her for help and they start to dig each other and this is just so cute please

someone give me a plot where muse a was arrested in high school due to drug dealing and was sentenced to ten years — except he’s let out a couple of years early due to good behavior. with no car, his feet take him to the one place he never thought he’d set foot again in a lifetime. his ex-high school sweetheart, muse b. except, when the door opens, it’s not her. it’s a seven year old little girl with her mom’s hair and her dad’s eyes.

a plot where muse a just needs to get away from everything so she packs up everything into her small shitty car that barley runs and just drives. she loses count of the boarders she crossed until she lands right into the middle of a small town where the population is like 2 thousand and her car breaks down. so she goes into a diner that she sees is open and she asks about a mechanic so the lady in the diner calls up her friend who happens to be muse b, the local mechanic. so muse bcomes over and tells her that he wont be able to check her car out until morning bc its like 10 pm now so muse a is going to check into a motel or smth but muse b offers to put her up for the night and bc shes broke she says yeah and basically they end up banging with the intention that after tomorrow they are never gonna see each other again - wrong. muse b goes down to his shop and looks at the engine and a really important parts gone in it and its going to take a couple weeks for it to come in and basically muse a has to stay in this shitty small town for the next couple of weeks AND THEY FALL FOR EACH OTHER AND WE CAN FIGURE THE REST OUT!

ok but a plot based on (not) the one by bebe rexha though. like muse a is a serial lover and has a different lover each week but then muse b happens. andthey end up in the same bed more often than usual. but muse a knows it’s not a good idea because they fear they’ll end up moving on and breaking muse b’s heart, which is when they realize they care for them. so even if they want to stop it there, they can’t because they are themself, unconsciously, falling for muse b.

[norxhwrites]

I’ M  L O O K I N G for long term partners! People who are interested in: multiple threads, ooc/IM chats, memes, multiple characters/pairings, tagging each other in ship inspo, playing a variety of characters/plots/relationships! I want angst, and drama and love, I want to be able to say “hey, this isn’t working, you wanna try something new?” without fearing that the other person will take it personally. I want to enjoy roleplaying and writing and interacting with others. If any (or all) of this interests you in any way, please like this/send me an IM/or tag me in a random starter! Roleplaying is supposed to be fun and I seriously want that to be the case! I’m not looking for commitment, I’m looking for someone to have fun with, someone who loves writing as much as I do! I’m a very laid back, accepting person and I’m always looking for friend and roleplay partners!

In conclusion, below the cut you will find my roleplay masterlist. It contains three lists of: Wanted Opposites, Wanted Fcs, and Wanted Plots. If any of these fcs or plots interest you either: Message me, heart this, or write a starter and I’ll reply to it!  Also, please  take a look at these links for inspiration, information and more!: wanted opposites | plots | open starters | rules | | Fandoms |

So, I know that face claims aren’t everything, and that looks don’t make a character, but these are some faces I’d like to play opposite of. These are some of my favorite faces, and I’d just really like to play against them. (bold are those I really want to play against!)

Jon Bernthal

Jason Momoa

Charlie Weber

Ben Barnes

DJ Cotrona

Charlie Hunnam

Jessica Sula

Skeet Ulrich

Troian Bellisario

Shay Mitchell

Monica Raymund

Jon Seda

Chloe Bennet

Shemar Moore

Jesse Lee Soffer

Alicia Vikander

Priyanka Chopra

Crystal Reed

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Willa Holland

Arden Cho

Ricky Whittle

Dacre Montgomery

Margot Robbie

Theo James

Katheryn Winnick

Faces I’d like to play/test out! I love creating new characters, and these faces are some of the ones I’d like to try when creating a new character. (They will become test characters, and if I like them, I’ll add them to my muse page!)

Ana De Armas

Shelley Hennig

Caity Lotz

Monica Raymund

Gabriella Wilde

Shailene Woodley

Naomi Scott

Lindsey Morgan

Leah Pipes

Chyler Leigh

Rachelle Lefevre

Tina Desai

Emily Browning

Alicia Vikander

Diane Guerrero

Hayley Kiyoko

Maisie Richardson Sellers

Sophia Bush

Meaghan Rath

Gina Rodriguez

Vanessa Morgan

Ginny Gardner

Emilia Clarke

Jessica Chastain

Brianna Hildebrand

Danielle Campbell

Taylor Kinney

Jai Courtney

Hayden Christensen

Aaron Taylor Johnson

Tom Hiddleston

amadeus serafini

Mike Vogel

Taron Egerton

Shiloh Fernandez

Charles Melton

Ewan Mcgregor

Ben Barnes

Richard Madden

Tom Maden

Max Riemelt

Jesse Williams

Charlie Weber

Boyd Holbrook

Nick Gehlfuss

William Moseley

Aaron Tveit

Manish Dayal

Now, these are some storylines I’ve written and would love to try out! (though some of them I’ve lost muse for!) Some of these are based off of tv shows, movies, books, etc.

Behaving Badly -

[ Muse A ] never stood a chance. Even though they grew up in a decent household, they were always drawn to things they shouldn’t have been, and people who they should have stayed away from. Bad choice after bad choice led [ Muse A ] into a spiral of uncontrollable destruction. They seemed to destroy everything they touched, including their relationship with their family, their ability to have a career, or find love. Until [ Muse B ] came into the picture. Attracted to danger as much as [ Muse A ], [ Muse B ] was equally as screwed up, and just as good at being bad. After months, or even years on the road, stealing and cheating their way through the country, [ Muse A ] realizes that perhaps [ Muse B ] was better at being bad then they were, so much in that they they’ve begin to wonder exactly what they’ve gotten themselves into. [ Muse A ] misses their family, and wonders if they’re able to go back and start over. [ Muse B ]’s only family is their partner in crime, and they’ll do anything to make sure they stay together. Can this modern day Bonnie and Clyde (Clyde and Clyde/Bonnie and Bonnie) give up their wicked ways? or will they continue their bad behavior?

Come Back Home -

[ Muse A ] is married to a member of the Military. They’re a loyal spouse who’s done everything they can to support [ Muse B ], though things have changed. They aren’t the love struck teenagers they were when they got married right out of high school. They’re different, [ Muse A ] is lonely, and [ Muse B ] finds it difficult to talk about the things they’ve seen and done. They’ve done everything they can to make things work and things don’t look like they’re every going to change. But when [ Muse B ] is medically discharged from the their Unit, [ Muse A ] looks at it like a second chance for them to get things right. [ Muse B ] is still haunted by their past, and [ Muse A ] is still unsure of how to help, but maybe their lives can get better?

Wrong Side of the Tracks -

In a town were deep prejudice divides their residents, [ Muse A ] is the perfect child of the towns Sheriff/Mayor etc. They’ve always been the type to make their parents proud and do exactly what they’re told. [ Muse B ] is bad news, or at least everyone says so. Accused of a horrific crimes and basically driven out of town, [ Muse B ] has returned after a few years, and the rumor mill begins again. When [ Muse B ] meets [ Muse A ], they click instantly. [ Muse A ] is curious, and wants to know if the rumors are true, and [ Muse B ] sees [ Muse A ] as a pure light among all of the terrible people that live in their town. But when a student from the nearby college goes missing, all fingers point to [ Muse B ]. [ Muse A ] knows that [ Muse B ] couldn’t have done anything wrong, and wants to prove their innocence. [ Muse B ] refuses to allow [ Muse A ] to get involved, and begins to push them away. [ Muse A ] begins to do their best to find out what really happened, but instead finds a web of lies that tie into the towns Authorities, and a cover up of the crime [ Muse B ] was accused of years ago.

The End -

[ Muse A ] has given them a chance. Over and over again they’ve tried to see past all of the lying and cheating, but [ Muse B ] just doesn’t seem to want to change. They don’t seem to see the wrong in their actions, and no matter how hard [ Muse A ] tries to work things out, there’s only so much a single person can do. So this is it, the end. [ Muse A ] is ready to walk out the door and never look back. Unfortunately, [ Muse B ] finally believes it, and can’t bare the thought. So, [ Muse A ] has given one more chance. One. [ Muse B ] must prove to them that they’ve changed and that everything is going to be better, or [ Muse A ] is gone.

California Dreaming -

[ Muse A ] is living the California Dream. Surfing all afternoon, partying all night, sleeping all morning and repeat, nothing can make this dream any better. Until they meet [ Muse B ]. [ Muse B ] fits perfectly into [ Muse A ]’s laid back, carefree lifestyle and the two fall for each other very quickly. As the two get to know each other, [ Muse A ] realizes they don’t know  [ Muse B ] as much as they thought. [ Muse B ] is involved in some very shady, very illegal things, that don’t exactly fit into [ Muse A ]’s lifestyle. Dragged into a world of drugs, violence, and sex, [ Muse A ]’s life is turned upside down when they get caught up in an investigation into [ Muse B ] and the people they work with. They California Dream turns into a nightmare, and the only way out is to leave that world behind, but can they without getting dragged back in by their feelings for [ Muse B ]?

Defiance | 1940s Setting |-

[Muse A] is a Jewish person living in early 1940s Belarus. German Nazis have ordered the execution of all Jewish people living in the ghettos. [Muse A] witnesses the murder of their family before they flee to the Naliboki Forest, a large rural landscape covering a large portion of Belarus. That is where [Muse A] meets [Muse B], another Jewish escapee fleeing from the Nazi soldiers. The two set up camp along with multiple other Jewish men, women and children fleeing Nazi controlled areas. They begin stealing from local farms, hunting, and moving their camp in order to stay alive. As winter approaches, the group must learn to survive sickness, starvation, and perhaps even betrayal as the Nazi soldiers begin to close in on the camp’s location. Getting caught is not an option, it means death for the entire group.

A Summer Affair  -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] are from two different worlds, yet they found themselves vacationing at the same place for a couple of weeks during the summer. After weeks of hot, passionate romance the two say goodbye in order to get back to their normal, boring lives and normal, boring jobs. [ Muse A ] is a recent college graduate who’s in need of a job. [ Muse B ] is the CEO of a huge company and is in need of an assistant. Not knowing [ Muse B ] runs the company, [ Muse A ] applies for the job. [ Muse B ] is now [ Muse A ]’s boss, not to mention they have a life that [ Muse A ] wasn’t told about during their summer fling. Now, [ Muse A ] must do all they can to keep the job they desperately need, while juggling feelings for their boss, keeping the secret of their summer affair from their coworkers, and deciding if they want to rekindle the spark between them and [Muse B].

You Mind as Well Go to Hell -

If you don’t go to church, then you mind as well go to hell. That is the policy in the [ Muse A’s ] House. Of course, you tell a teenager one thing and they do the opposite. [ Muse A ] is the Pastor’s pride and joy, of course they wouldn’t be if they knew the kind of stuff their child did in their free time. Finally [ Muse A ] decide to get out. They climb into a van and head west to California. Except it isn’t at all what they expected. Getting to Cali was hard enough, but making it in Cali could break this sweet kid from the south. Did they just enter the world of their dreams, or did they go from singing in the church choir, to the Hell they were taught to be terrified of? Then comes [ Muse B ]. Street smart, headstrong, wise beyond their years, [ Muse B ] knows their way around California’s underground. With [ Muse B ] as their guide, [ Muse A ] begins to navigate through the streets of California, hoping to find the life they dreamed of back home in Alabama.

Something’s gotta Give -

Growing up, they only had themselves. Living in a world fueled by violence, family doesn’t always mean safety. For the [ Muse A ], family wasn’t something they believed in, being foster children half their lives, and the child of terrible parents the other half. They believed in evil people, hard times, and the fact that someone’s always got an angle when it comes to lending a helping hand. No one is inherently good. Finally, [ Muse A] has turned 18, making them free from the foster care system. Criminal record half a mile long, [ Muse A ] must find a way to make it in the big world. Enters [ Muse B ]. Successful, hardworking, seemingly perfect. [ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] meet by chance, this chance encounter turns into more as the two begin to see each other. What happens when [ muse B ] finds out about [ Muse A’s ] past? Will it ruin the best thing that has happened to [ Muse A ] in a long time? Or will they finally be able to move past the dark things that have followed them their entire life?

Wicked Attraction | 1920-1940s Setting | -

[Muse A] was always considered to be perfect. They graduated at the top of their class, have a great job, but they’ve always felt like something was missing. [Muse B] was always the same way, though beneath the prefect was a secret. A wicked secret. [Muse B] is part of an underground world of drugs and violence. What happens when [Muse A] and [Muse B] meet and [Muse B]introduces [Muse A] to an underground world of sex, drugs, and violence? Is this what [Muse A]’s always been missing? Can they escape this Wicked Attraction?

Welcome Home -

[Muse A] seemed like the perfect child, good grades, good family, good friends. Everything about except when it came to their feelings for [Muse B]. [Muse B] was too old and too damaged to be involved with someone like [Muse A], but it didn’t stop them from falling for each other. [Muse A] left their infectious little town, leaving all of the bad (including Muse B), behind them. Years later, they return, only to find that [Muse B] never got out. Will their old flame rekindle? Or will [Muse A] realize that[Muse B] is all wrong for them?

On The Road Again -

[ Muse A ] has always been a drifter, never staying in one place, feeling as though the only place they belonged was on the road. [ Muse B ] has always been the conservative type, the type to go to school, get a boring job. One day, [ Muse A ] was passing through the town that [ Muse B ] lived in. They meet, and [ Muse A ] begins to think they may have found a place where they might actually be able to call home. The two begin a relationship based on all the lies [ Muse A ] had to tell in order to keep their past a secret. But [ Muse A ]’s past begins to catch up with them, will they be able to face it, or will they have to run away again?

How You Remind Me -

[ Muse A ] and [ Muse B ] had been dating off and on for years. Breakups, make ups, harsh words, drug/alcohol fueled nights, and flying fists. Unhealthy is the only way to describe their relationship. Loving each other was the easiest and hardest thing they had ever done. Finally unable to take it anymore, [ Muse A ] left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. With their lover gone, [ Muse B ] fell into an even deeper hole of drugs and violence. Years later, [ Muse A ] has cleaned up their life, gotten a good job, and made a difference in the lives of others. [ Muse B ] is still stuck in a life of one night stands, but they’ve gotten themselves clean from drugs and alcohol. The two meet unexpectedly, and see how different each other have become. This chance encounter turns into another, than another, but [ Muse A ] is unsure of whether or not they want to get themselves caught back up in that world. For [ Muse B ], seeing [ Muse A ] reminds them of all the terrible things they had done in their past. Being reminded of all they had done, [ Muse B ] decides to they need to show [ Muse A ] they’ve changed for good.  

Teacher, Teacher. -

[Muse A] is a college Professor. All of their students love them, both because they’re physically attractive and a very good professor , who has little trouble with connecting with students. [Muse B] is a student college that [Muse A] a teaches at. They’ve always been an average/above average student, but for some personal reason, they’ve been having a lot of trouble in the class that [Muse A] teaches. So, in a last effort to get their grade up before the end of the term, [Muse B] has been staying after class to get extra help. The only problem is, they’ve slowly found themselves having feelings for each other beyond the normal professor/student relationship.

Almost Stepparent -

For as long as [Muse A] could remember, it had been only them and their single parent. Their parent had dated and brought home every type of person imaginable, but this one was different. This one was [Muse B]. [Muse B] is everything [Muse A] is looking for in a partner, not to mention at least a decade younger than their parent. What happens when [Muse A] finally realizes they have feelings for [Muse B], their parent’s partner. [Muse B] has feelings for [Muse A], feelings well beyond what is appropriate to feel towards the child of your partner. What happens when the two are left alone for a week while [Muse A’s] parent is out taking care of a sick family member?

Now these are plots that I DIDN’T write but would still like to try! (All gender roles are changeable!) Italics are preferred!

i want a plot where a guy goes on a roadtrip just wandering around the state trying to find meaning of life with his big ass doggo and one day he comes to diner where this shy young woman works and like her boss is always yelling at her and she has an asshole boyfriend and her father’s an alcoholic,  and this guy he is the first man who ever treated her nicely and he just asks her completely out of the blue if she doesn’t want to leave with him and she’s like “why not?” so she takes all of her things and leaves with him. Pleaseee!

i really, really want a plot where muse a is a naive, sweet, romantic, whimsical little thing with a whole lot of optimism and sunshine in their veins and muse b is the complete opposite; a total player who has someone new in their bed every weekend and hates responsibilities and just spends a lot of their time fucking around. somehow these two have been friends for a while, despite their differing personalities, and one day muse a ends up having to move out of their apartment due to a fire or an infestation or something and muse b is the one who offers to put them up for the time being. it’s all well and good except muse a has terrible nightmares constantly and one night muse b is sick and tired of it (and deep down a little concerned) so gets into bed with muse a until they stop crying and shaking and fall asleep in muse b’s arms instead. cue awkward muses sleeping in the same bed every night and it actually helping muse a a lot with the nightmares, and lots of cuddling and feelings ensue. muse b, being the player they are, are terrified of the idea of liking someone but muse a is pretty much already head over heels and ANGST !!

ok but someone give me that cute bartender storyline though? like this guy tends bar at a restaurant or a pub or something and always sees this cute girl hanging out there, but she’s always either with friends or with some guy so he never really gets the time to talk to her BUT ONE DAY she walks into the place alone and orders so many drinks until she’s so bloody drunk, screaming about how her boyfriend cheated on her, that the bartender had to bring her home himself. she wakes up with a horrible hangover, stumbles out the room to find the bartender cooking breakfast and rolling his eyes, laughing. “first of all, you’re an idiot. second, we didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re wondering. third, breakfast will be ready soon. sit.” and fluff commences HELP PLZ

muse a is a new single father, a teenager at that living in an apartment complex with his newborn. it’s one of those apartment complexes in new york city, where everyone kind of keeps to themselves. muse b lives on his floor and has heard this newborn baby crying at ungodly hours, distracting her from her cramming for midterms. she had complained to the landlord about it and one night, she hears the baby crying again. stepping outside in a fit of rage, muse b is about to yell at whoever is the parent to this bastard child until she spots muse a, pacing the hallway with the child in his arms, his hair disheveled and his eyes giving away the sleep he’s been lacking. she feels sympathy instantly; she had no idea muse a lived on her floor, much less was he the father of this child. so, at 3 in the morning, muse b offers to help muse a get the baby back to sleep. and muse b becomes some sort of baby whisperer to muse a, and he continues to go to her for help and they start to dig each other and this is just so cute please

someone give me a plot where muse a was arrested in high school due to drug dealing and was sentenced to ten years — except he’s let out a couple of years early due to good behavior. with no car, his feet take him to the one place he never thought he’d set foot again in a lifetime. his ex-high school sweetheart, muse b. except, when the door opens, it’s not her. it’s a seven year old little girl with her mom’s hair and her dad’s eyes.

a plot where muse a just needs to get away from everything so she packs up everything into her small shitty car that barley runs and just drives. she loses count of the boarders she crossed until she lands right into the middle of a small town where the population is like 2 thousand and her car breaks down. so she goes into a diner that she sees is open and she asks about a mechanic so the lady in the diner calls up her friend who happens to be muse b, the local mechanic. so muse bcomes over and tells her that he wont be able to check her car out until morning bc its like 10 pm now so muse a is going to check into a motel or smth but muse b offers to put her up for the night and bc shes broke she says yeah and basically they end up banging with the intention that after tomorrow they are never gonna see each other again - wrong. muse b goes down to his shop and looks at the engine and a really important parts gone in it and its going to take a couple weeks for it to come in and basically muse a has to stay in this shitty small town for the next couple of weeks AND THEY FALL FOR EACH OTHER AND WE CAN FIGURE THE REST OUT!

ok but a plot based on (not) the one by bebe rexha though. like muse a is a serial lover and has a different lover each week but then muse b happens. andthey end up in the same bed more often than usual. but muse a knows it’s not a good idea because they fear they’ll end up moving on and breaking muse b’s heart, which is when they realize they care for them. so even if they want to stop it there, they can’t because they are themself, unconsciously, falling for muse b.

Note: If I don’t continue to reply to you after the first couple of replies it normally means: 1) I’ve lost muse. which I tend to do quickly if I’m not interested. 2) I don’t think we’re compatible writers and I don’t ant to hurt your feelings by telling you so. 3) My notifications are acting up and I haven’t seen that you replied (which I normally catch on to pretty quickly.). Don’t take any of this personally, I just tend to be super picky sometimes. Feel free to message me if you’d like to know why I’ve stopped reply/would like to remind me that we have a thread!

[sometimesrosy]

Good morning, Rosy! I would like you to sum up your opinion on Finn Collins. You mentioned you liked Flakrke at first, but then changed your mind. Why? I saw Finn as a kind of tragical hero - he was the only one who tried to draw some lessons from the nuclear holocaust and search for non-violent solution of Grounder-Skycrew conflict. He was forced to kill a Reaper in selfdefence. Not shoot him, but smash his skull with stone.

From the moment when he was frantically trying to wash blood from his hands started his trauma. Than he was kidnapped with Clarke, Anya sent him to be killed, he helped with the defence of dropship, ran into fight to save Bellamy, survived ring of fire, was captured by Tristan and saw his friends slaughtered… And then Clarke and others vanished! He had every reason to think they were taken by Grounders So he went on quest to save them. And under all this pressure he cracked and in a moment of panic murdered 18 unarmed people… I read a comment by army vet that this is how it is in real war - people crack under stress and commit war crime. And then Finn gave himself up to torture by Grounders to save his friends who were ready to fight and die for him. He died with a kiss from girl he loved and by her hand. “Thank you, princess”. And the thing with Raven? He did not “cheat” on her, he met some [i left off the last ask, because i have to limit it to 3 or it’s too much for me.]

I am not mad at Finn for falling in love with Clarke when he was with Raven. But I’m gonna argue with you about that cheating thing, because he pursued Clarke in the dropship, when he was SUPPOSED to be having a visit WITH Raven. She knew something was wrong because her visit with him was cancelled, because they’d sent the dropship down. Therefore those events happened at the same time. You don’t hit on another girl when you’re supposed to be on a date with your girlfriend. Yes they didn’t have sex until he thought Raven was lost to him, but everything that developed their relationship and made Clarke fall in love with him was when he was still together with Raven in his head, and certainly in hers. This is not in itself enough to make me not like Finn. And even then, when I first watched it, I was like, “oh how sad. This is a terrible situation they’re all in, to fall in love with someone new while you are still with someone else.”

My mistrust of Finn’s character came in retrospect, when I started to look at his behavior through what happens next. (AND NO I DON’T MEAN THE MASSACRE. I UNDERSTAND TRAUMA.)  Finn’s treatment of everyone at the dropship was rather sinister. He presented himself as Clarke’s hero again and again, to the point that he would try to remove her own agency so that he could be her savior. He also tried to undermine both Bellamy AND Clarke, so that he could, again, be the hero.

 He also showed a distinct lack of concern for everyone at the drop ship, except Clarke. He was sneaky. He refused to share the bunker stash with the rest of the dropship, and in a world where people don’t have clothes, blankets, supplies of any kind or anything to help them survive, that can be the difference between life and death. This is not a “nothing.” He wanted to keep the advantage for HIMSELF, and not incidentally, keep Clarke beholden to him for his gifts, and treating her as more special than the others. Making her complicit in his secret. Because she’s not like the others. 

Holy Crap. That’s the same thing that Lxa did at TonDC. Saved Clarke while leaving the rest of her people to their own fate, and making Clarke complicit in it, but at a much lower level. Honestly, that’s how you go down dark roads. You take the small steps that don’t seem so bad, it’s just a little bit of clothing, some pencils, a bunker, tech supplies…it’s not EVIL to keep it to yourself. But it’s the same instinct that saves “the special one” and leaves the others to die, when taken to the extreme. It started the path of gray morality. But Clarke doesn’t keep the secret of the bunker for long, maybe because she discovers that Finn was not quite as honorable as he seemed. Clarke seems to see behind the facade with him. His sweet behavior, motivated by selfishness. This is in contrast to Bellamy’s bad behavior, motivated by selflessness. Finn and Bellamy are definitely foils to each other in season 1. As we begin to understand the real motivation of each character, our understanding of them switches.

And as Clarke starts to value Bellamy more, Finn goes behind Clarke and Bellamy’s back to force her hand on those peace talks. And I don’t believe that he would have done that at all, if Clarke hadn’t put her trust in Bellamy. He needed to undermine Bellamy so Clarke would turn back to him. And he already knew of her high ideals. He wanted to keep Bellamy as the villain so he could be the hero, instead of realizing that they were all on the same side, and working with them all to figure out a better solution. 

People always misunderstand the reasons why I don’t like Finn. It’s not the cheating. It’s not the massacre when he was losing it. It’s the way he tried to manipulate Clarke, the way he sold out the other delinquents on a regular basis. The way he tried to keep the delinquents divided, so Clarke would be on HIS side. When he sacrificed himself to the grounders, that was actually him REDEEMING himself for wanting to leave Mel and Jasper to die, and withholding from the delinquents.

His quest was not at all about the missing 100. It was only about Clarke. Because as I interpret it, he had fixated on her as being his princess. And that made HIM the hero. He had a hero complex. He needed to save the girl he loved, and he needed to keep her dependent on him, and to do that, he needed to keep her weak and undercut her confidence in herself. Questioning her decisions and judgement on a pretty regular basis. Watch his treatment of Clarke. He isn’t sweet. Or he is, but most of his sweetness is to make her feel as if she owes him something. As if HE is the only one who can give her things or rescue her. As if HE should be the most important person in her life, screw everyone else. Because look what he would do for HER.

And if you think about it, this is the same relationship he had with Raven, who was a neglected and abused kid and he was the knight in shining armor coming to save her, support her, create her, literally feed her, save her life. 

Two women. Two hero complexes. Two women who are better, stronger, and smarter than him. Two women he tried to make dependent on him. One of whom he succeeded with, and then dumped, when he found his next focus. But Clarke wasn’t needy. No matter how he tried to make her need him. She never did.