#I'm sure there are other nitpicks for this episode

[randomfoggytiger]

sorry. I entered my ask about 2 shy too quickly.

I have a bone to pick with 2 shy:

1st: the old man detective acknowledges only Mulder when they get on scene.

2nd: After Mulder introduces his partner, old man detective doesn't greet her and just turns and walks away.

3rd: when they are looking at the body, he seems to listen only to Mulder and seems to ignore Scully when she says ahe will call him with information. I believe she has to repeat herself. It's like she isn't even there once rhe man walks away.

4th: he is surprised to find out that Scully is a medical doctor and his reasoning is that he is old fashioned.

5th: women, of course, are victims- again, and lonely hearts.

6th: AND what bothers me the most- why did Mulder leave Scully at the scene? Did they not drive together? Is that possible? Don't they usually arrive together? Did she drive herself? I think it's possible that he got so in his zone that he forgot he was her ride.

Most importantly, the complete Scully disrespect!

I loved that about the episode. XDDD The detective was a hypocritical misogynist who smacked up against Scully's immovable dignity. She earned his respect, which was why he later assented to her request (to lead the officers.)

Women are disproportionately victims to these types of crimes, so that aspect didn't bother me, either. The episode even gave Scully space at the end to speak for those women in her final confrontation with the killer.

Mulder ran off because he thought he was hot on the heels of the criminal; and he trusted that Scully would help the woman half-covered in digestive bile (not knowing, of course, that 2Shy was hiding in the bathroom.)

What I will say: ...that mother landlord was way invasive and way thirsty. Felt for the girl a whole lot, too.

[cmyk-anaglyph-honeycomb]

Some thoughts on HB S2E12

I'm hoping the plot about millie being pregnant is just an excuse to shove her and moxxie further into the background. I do not want to watch that shit show go down. HB has handled none of the serious topic within the show with any grace.

Seeing millie cry about being pregnant hurt to watch. Not that I care for the character, but that is such a shit situation and again, I'm not looking forward to see how it's handled later on. I really hope this plot thread is drop and never mentioned in season 3.

In contrast, Sally May sliding out of the house to say she was alone was one of the best jokes in the series. Really wish we got more comedy like that.

Also, I don't think the message with the human family was supposed to be it's okay to cheat if you're gay. I see a lot of people on here saying that, I'd I think that mark is off a bit.

The message seems more like 'its okay to cheat if your partner is an asshole'. Which, idk, break up. Anyway, not better, but I think it being about two men is just to bash us over the heads with this could be stolas and blitzo +daughters. (It's funny how blitzo imagines that little scenario, but how often had he and Via even spoken? Not checking, but I'm pretty sure up to this pint it was only is ep two when he was telling her to be quiet so he could complain at stolas. They are nowhere near a family dynamic.)

I know it's a nitpick but cheating on a partner that's sucks anyway as been an excuse for stoliz since the series started and I think this episode is just hammering that in.

Its funny how Via had enough magic to defend stolas and blitzo from ice bird but stolas needed to get help literally every time he was attacked.

Stella is more of a prop than an actual character so I pretty much ignored her during this ep and will continue to. But she does bring up a good point that stolas waited way too long to try and contact Via. At best it's the next day. He was so worried about her when he lost his powers but not once thought to call her?

He says that he can't see her for another 100 years but like, giver a week or so to cool off and try again? Via deserves to cut him off but stolas gives up way too fast for how much he claims to love her. Dude isn't going to try at least one other time, no, that's it? okay

All in all I can't wait for season 3. I love a good trash fire.

Also sinsmas is a dumb name and a christmas ripoff is so uncreative and what do you mean they don't know what christmas is

[homerforsure]

TL;DR: it's not my ship, but they were done dirty

I always always always come back to that weird little reveal that when they were first floating the idea to bring Tommy back, they said it was to do a storyline with Eddie and it got switched to Buck because it was too weird or tricky to have them both break up with their LIs offscreen but only one actress could come back.

Because a stepping stone relationship makes perfect sense for Eddie. Something short and intense with angst and softness for him to get to this moment of letting himself feel joy and to taste how truly good it can be. He didn't need an endgame relationship right now. He did need to have his "first."

Buck didn't need that. Buck is absolutely ready for his forever and he has been for a while and giving him the "inviting Natalia to move in and then catching his own bad habit for once and backing out" would have been great.

But that didn't happen. Instead Eddie had to sit like a hot dog on one of those rolling warmers for a season while Buck started the queer dominos falling (and I admit this is a little bit from a Buddie endgame perspective because it doesn't feel to me like the show was deciding to explore the a character's sexuality just for exploratory purposes and I'm willing to admit I have a blind spot here.)

And honestly I think the fact that Oliver cares so much about Buck and telling this story well both for the character and everyone who sees himself in him and that Lou met that energy turned the storyline and the relationship into a more beautiful beginning than it would have been in the hands of other actors.

Which gave the show it's next problem. Because we can all see that Buck is ready for his forever love and you introduced a new love interest and then instead of sticking to a few episodes of awakening and moving on, I think they saw that people were starving for it and latched onto it and Tommy harder than they expected. So it's an easy thing to do to milk that for a little bit longer, but it was absolutely the wrong choice because people got invested in a way they wouldn't have if this had ended after the original number of episodes we expected.

And Buck and Tommy worked! I think you can nitpick relationship things if you weren't that into it and write a breakup narrative using those seeds, but their puzzle pieces absolutely fit together. So much so that they definitely had forever after potential that everyone could see and a lot of people were excited about and investing in and oops wait that wasn't the plan.

So what do you do? You either abandon the plan and embrace the accidental beauty that you discovered and let it ride or you write your way out of it. Give them some hurdles, some angst. Give them a tear-jerking breakup that respects what you built and the viewers who are invested in it and slowly work your way back to where you wanted to be.

They didn't write their way out of it.

And I so don't want to believe that after the work the actors put in and the viewer feedback that they were still viewing the relationship as a placeholder ready to be yeeted once Eddie's arc got back in position again, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are?

Either it's being talked about that this is the last season and so if they're really doing buddie then it's now or never? Or actually the internet is not a valid reflection of the viewership as a whole and someone from on high said the plug should be pulled?

Or the storyline was stumbled into and fumbled around from the beginning and never treated with as much care by the people in charge of it as it was by the people who loved it.

IDK it's just messy messy storytelling and I say that as someone who is not a multishipper but who does value a good story and a good narrative. They let the relationship go on for too long to end it so abruptly. If there was going to be a breakup, there was a better one to be had and it doesn't make me feel good that my preferred happy ending could come from one that breaks the heart of so many of my friends. And if it isn't in the service of a bigger, already in motion endgame, literally what the fuck?

[ann-atar]

After the season 2 finale episode I've been thinking about how skillfully TROP 1) shows how things fell apart in Eregion,* and 2) so accurately depicts codependence and the stages of gaslighting and abuse as Sauron tries to control and manipulate Celebrimbor.

*If I had to nitpick I would say that it was hard to tell how much time was passing and the only sure way to see that progress was by checking Elrond's hairstyle, but anyway.

I have quite a few thoughts about both of those things and I'm still trying to get them settled, but I am quite focused on Celebrimbor's relationship with Sauron, and on what motivates Sauron-Annatar, consciously or not, to take the actions he took during his time in Eregion.

I just reblogged this gif post from @cuthalions that shows Celebrimbor working alongside his smiths, and celebrating with Narvi, and I'm sure it's been said before, but I believe we can see one of Sauron's conscious and unconscious motives for manipulating Celebrimbor if we look at those scenes; they show Celebrimbor working happily with others, including dwarves, to create things that are new, powerful, and exceptional. The scene with Celebrimbor and Mirdania when the mithril "disappears" and is only visible in moonlight -- that's beauty for its own sake, there was no utility for it at that point, just Celebrimbor trying something with this new material that was novel and lovely.

And that's what was happening in Eregion after the forging of the Three and just after Sauron arrived, and Sauron could only sit back and witness it. Even after they forged the Seven for the dwarves, that fellowship was still intact. Celebrimbor and the smiths were still following their creative instincts and forging friendships along the way. And Sauron ... couldn't truly participate in either thing. Not the truly creative acts, or the friendships.

Sauron can't belong, or won't let himself, and by the end of the season everyone else pays the price for his jealousy. He's jealous of what they are able to make/create, and he's jealous of their closeness with Celebrimbor so, consciously or not, he steps in to disrupt it, break it down, manipulate and destroy what he cannot have in favor of forcing the creation of artifacts that will deliver a corrupted facsimile of the closeness and fellowship he craves. But domination is not fellowship and abuse can never stand in for love, so he's doomed, not just by Celebrimbor's prophesy but by his own hand, to be a prisoner trapped in the pattern of abuser and abused.

His Annatar persona was a pretty fiction, a depiction of himself he thought Celebrimbor would like, and a shadow of Mairon that he believed might fit with Celebrimbor's worldview and expectations. In a twisted way, Sauron was trying desperately to please him. And I think Sauron was trying to resurrect a version of himself that existed before Melkor broke him, and that's (almost) heartbreaking.

Because rather than live as a shadow of Mairon, with a fraction of the light he had when he awoke, but still enough light to see a way forward and out of the dark, Sauron is still only Sauron, a shadow of Morgoth instead.

[oodlyenough]

dw christmas special no. i lost track: joy to the world

I went into this with low expectations because I generally don't really like 1) Christmas specials, 2) Moffat, 3) Moffat Christmas specials. Because of these things I also wasn't really paying attention to promo and was pretty much unspoiled for everything besides "time hotel" and "Nicola Coughlan".

Anyway possibly for that reason, this exceeded my (low) expectations and I mostly had fun, lol. Cynicism pays off

Spoilers:

I think this had a lot of the basic problems I have with most Christmas specials, and it speedran through a lot of the cliches that mark them, but... tbh whatever I guess, I mean, there were some enjoyable bits and at this point it's a Christmas special, right, you know what you're getting.

Time Hotel was a very cool idea and was executed pretty well. Put Disney's money to work

Fifteen abruptly having to spend a year waiting was not an angle I anticipated at all, though perhaps I should've. I think at this point "omg I've NEVER done this EVER before" is just so comically untrue it's an inherent eye roll BUT I'm also at a point with this show where I'm like... it's been over 60 years... of course they've done everything. I'll look the other way. It's fine. The Doctor in mundane scenarios is fun when he's not being an asshole about it and Anita and the Doctor were fun to watch. I also appreciated that they addressed the obvious elephant of "call Ruby ffs" lmao. (Or call the other guy who literally has a TARDIS ... but again, I'll give it to 'em.)

Fifteen's angst about being alone doesn't hit quite right because Ruby didn't leave him, he left Ruby behind. I think you can argue he left Ruby behind because he was trying to get ahead of it -- you can't break up with me I'm breaking up with you! -- but, well, in this era of Doctor Who character stuff comes at you fast and you either roll with it or are miserable I guess. Ncuti is very good and that helps a lot

The general plot of "they want to sell a star so they are using a time hotel and will sacrifice Earth to do it" like. Sure. That's fine lmao whatever it's a DW plot it's serviceable

Joy herself was kind of a letdown ... I def felt more of a connection to Anita than to Joy, unfortunately, and as the Anita montage was wrapping I thought why wasn't the whole ep about this... But I did like the mom-died-alone-during-covid reveal and particularly the jab at the tories. I thought that hit. Fuck em.

It's not a Moffat episode without some generalization about human nature that makes absolutely no sense to me and the "hotel rooms reveal who you are as a person" was way up there lmao. Hotel rooms reveal how much disposable income I have at the time of booking actually.

Moffat's humour is hit or miss with me but it was more hit than miss here, I think. The mansplain bits for example made my eyes roll back into my skull but I liked the plunger joke, the TARDIS toys from the internet, I even thought Joy's boner joke was funny lmao

The ending w the star and Bethlehem and stuff ... pretty naff imo but hey it's a Christmas special. I liked the fakeout of Ruby getting a call and it being from her mom too ... I know they'll reunite next season so I don't mind the tease here.

tl;dr I had fun! I could nitpick a lot of this but what's the point. it's Christmas. is this character growth? hm. tbh I think I enjoyed it more than Boom lmao

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Legend of Vox Machina: Thordak's Throne (3x09)

Oh shit, I can't believe they did that. And by that I mean... well, I'll talk about it in a bit.

Cons:

I have one small and one kind of medium-large complaint to lodge here before we go into how much I really did adore this episode.

Okay, obviously Travis broke my heart with his line delivery on "can you fix him? Please, you gotta fix him." But I do kind of miss his original improvised version that had more heat to it. The bellowed "FIX HIM" lives in my head rent free and we didn't get that here. Small nitpick, this version also tore out my heart, but thought I'd mention that. The thing about Grog is that he's our big lovable dummy, but the other thing about Grog is that he can be scary sometimes, even to the people he loves most.

Then there's the bigger thing. Pike's big moment was like... well, I'm not like, super angry, really, it's more of a "let's see where they're going with this thing", I guess. I have thoughts. Honestly, the stuff with Pike and the Everlight in this show has always been kind of muddy to me, and a plot progression where Pike finds strength in herself instead of in her goddess is totally fine with me in theory. But I thought in the past seasons the setup was more like... her faith as an anchor to her own strength. Or believing that she is deserving of the Everlight's favor and that thus the power she wields is her own, but the goddess is her supporter as much as Pike is a follower of her goddess? Like, does that make any sense? Pike having a complicated but ultimately loving relationship with her deity is what I was looking for here. That image of her actually throwing aside the Everlight's symbol was kind of... Not It, for me. I wish it had been more like "It's not just the Everlight's magic, and it's not just the Dawnfather's armor. It's me, who I am, being worthy to wield the powers they offer." That's the nuance I would have wanted here.

Maybe they're setting shit up, I don't know. There's clearly something going on with Pike here that I don't fully understand, since it's new material added to the show! But her big triumphant moment of using the armor to deal a devastating blow to Thordak left me a little uncertain, if I'm being honest. Pike does love her goddess, it's part of her strength. I don't want the story to take that away from her. Maybe whatever Zerxus was on about, that whole thing about her being "special," will shed further light on this, and what seemed like a triumphant moment in this episode will ultimately turn back on itself? That's kind of what I'm hoping for, in a way. I want Pike's final resolution as a character to be her reconciled and comfortable with the Everlight's place in her life, even if it's a relationship that has evolved, somewhat.

Pros:

But okay. Enough of that. This episode kicked ass.

Let's get back to the "oh shit, I can't believe they did that." I can't believe they killed Kash!!! Like, okay, there are so many things to talk about in this episode but I have to start with how fucking shocked I was by this. Totally out of left field, did not see it coming, completely crushed my soul. Because that's not just Kash, character who has been in like... two episodes of this show and cracks wise and flirts with Keyleth and how he's dead. That's who the character is to animated series watchers, and I'm sure his death is very sad from that perspective, but... but that's... fan favorite guest PC, played by Will Friedle, that's a character who gets to live happily ever after in the world of Exandria as far as the campaign story is concerned, and they killed him dead! And like... he's dead dead, we all know it, don't we? Yikes, this was so depressing! They did that very effective thing of having him and Zahra being all cutesy and kissing and then engaging in banter and doing cool battle combos together and then... SQUISH.

It was an enormously effective change, I can't even be mad at it. This show is not beholden to the streaming canon, they've told us that a thousand times. And let's be honest, we know what's coming up for certain other beloved characters. It makes a lot of sense to me that some named characters needed to be casualties of these big bad dragons before the end. This was... a fucking heartbreaking choice but I found it enormously impactful in exactly the right way. Zahra's despair was so moving, and I love how she got to give Pike that final angry pep talk to push her into her final moment of figuring out how to use her vestige. I also loved the imagery, of Kash standing up and looking down on his own mangled corpse, looking over at the group, and... seeing Vax, seeing him? Then the Matron imagery behind him as he turns and walks into shadow. Just... masterfully done, a super emotionally devastating death for a character who didn't need a lot of screen time to make a huge impact on my heart. Also, just, it was so MEAN! Ouch!

So much else to say. I don't know how to go in a linear order just talking about all the moments that I loved, so get ready for me to jump around just listing things that totally destroyed me and/or I totally cheered at.

All of the cool NPCs and side characters getting shown in small moments, kicking ass! Allura and Gilmore with their spells, and Kima and Groon as always being cool as shit, and Vex and Vax's dad being just kind of... shell-shocked by the mass destruction but then bickering with Cassandra about how to evacuate the troops. It just makes the world feel so full and like we've been to all of these places and met all of these cool different people.

Grog really got a lot of shining moments in this episode! I loved how when their original plan went to shit, Grog is the one who steps up and comes up with an alt. That was such a clever way to adapt one of my favorite aspects of the campaign, which is that Travis often had interesting strategic ideas at the table, but Grog wasn't allowed to be smart enough to think of them. So Grog would occasionally have these tactical insights, but Travis had to hold back a lot of the time. This was a fun way for Travis to possess Grog's body and come up with a good idea and get the ball rolling!

Seeing Grog and Scanlan teaming up was such a joy, you get this sense that theirs is a friendship full of wacky shenanigans and so much heart and love, that Grog has some of his best fun times with Scanlan Shorthalt and really enjoys his company. I loved Scanlan getting him into the rage mindset to defeat the eggs, and I loved Scanlan acting as bait with Thordak. And then... man, this show knows how to turn your emotional reality on its head. I was waiting for how the Scanlan death stuff would translate here, and despite wishing for the more angry version of "FIX HIM," I still was emotionally crushed by Grog's realization that Scanlan wasn't moving! Noooooo. He's gotta wake up, if only because Grog couldn't live with it otherwise!

We get a Keyleth moment where she turns into her fire elemental self, but it doesn't seem to work, which I thought was a cool moment - it makes sense within the mechanical logic of D&D that a big powerful fire thing wouldn't work that well against a big powerful fire thing, but it was also such a cool subversion of expectations to hear that amazing musical theme and see Vax and Keyleth do such a bad-ass combo and then have it not play out the way you would expect it to!

The final beats of everyone circling up around Thordak, then Pike getting that moment to really take him out and get rid of the soul anchor, was visually very cool even if (see above) I'm a little worried about the implications for Pike's character journey.

And then. Man. I knew I'd cry about Vex and Vax's mother, and this is one of those things I think is really enhanced by having watched the stream, and knowing how much this story became healing for Liam in particular. The visual of Thordak getting away, and Vax holding Vex's hand before launching himself into the air, the way he himself became the final weapon, punching through Thordak's body... so fucking beautiful and intense and cathartic. And then we get the twins holding each other in relief. They can't do anything to bring their mother back, or Percy, but at least they've stopped this dragon from doing any further harm.

Tracking Keyleth's mistrust of Raishan through the season has been so interesting, because here she turns up, seems like she might be about to turn on our heroes, and then she plays her part and attacks Thordak in a vulnerable moment instead, forcing him to fly off to lick his wounds, and setting Vax up for that final kill shot. Then you have Keyleth being the bigger person and going to tell Raishan she knows she was wrong, and thanking her for the allyship. But of course... Keyleth was fucking right, y'all, she was right all along, don't mess with my GIRL lol. Raishan is doing something with runes, and then before Vox Machina can stop her, she's vanished with Thordak's corpse in tow. Dun dun dunnnn.

I'm really curious about how we're fitting in the events I think we still have to hit in the next three episodes. Obviously things are so topsy turvey and out of order here. Percy didn't get to do the Thordak fight in this version! Keyleth doesn't have her vestige! Scanlan is unconscious and out for the count and I have to assume that's dealt with... before the Raishan combat? Or maybe Scanlan sits that one out? I don't fucking know, man, everything is so out of order that I'm on the edge of my seat as much as the just-animated-show viewers!

I'm not going to dock too many points for my big Pike question in this episode. I still want to see where they're going with this in the final three episodes. Other than that aspect, I really really loved this episode. RIP Kash, you really caught a stray by showing up in this episode and getting squished so bad. Gonna miss that guy.

9/10

[bogkeep]

grousing about ai art stuff

every time i open twitter (my mistake) there's a new thread on how to spot ai art or ai photos by finding all the mistakes in it, and like obviously this is useful and it's good to watch out because they kEEP SHOWING UP EVERYWHERE AHHH HELL WORLD HELL WORLD, but it's also a little depressing that we're training ourselves to nitpick all kinds of details within a piece of art.

like even before the artifically generated image boom randos on twitter would reply to fully finished illustrations with the most asinine unsolicited advice possible. art's gonna be flawed sometimes! i'll draw someone in a weird pose because of vibes! i'll wing a hand! i don't fucking know what a house actually looks like!!! like yes of course the way a human artist creates flawed art is different from the way an algorithm doesn't actually know what anything looks like because it has no mind. it doesn't know shit. so it's not that it's UNRELIABLE but it's like. it's like... i've been telling myself and others every time i'm struggling to make something look Just Right that actually nobody i going to be staring as hard at my art as i am while making it. if i don't point it out people aren't likely to notice unless they are going through it with a fine toothed comb BUT NOW WE ARE DOING THAT APPARENTLY. WHICH IS ANYONE'S PEROGATIVE AND FAIR ENOUGH! PEOPLE CAN LOOK AT MY ART HOWEVER THEY WANT IT'S FINE

but it's ALSO so depressing to consider having to analyse every single piece of art you come across like that my goddddddd i just wanna enjoy it!! i wanna enjoy art!!!! i mean the main reason i finally stopped going on twitter regularly was during the NFT boom and i got so tired of having to vet every single artist i came across to make sure i wasnt retweeting nft stuff. like that really ruined my previously enjoyable experience of LOOKING AT NICE ART ON MY FEED WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.

god another thing that happened during the dark nft times was how certain art styles tended to be nfts. and i don't mean the ugly apes and stuff, like of course there's those, but there were a lot of artists who sold their souls to crypto and there was just a certain Vibe to a lot of those styles. like i got a sixth sense for it, i would see a piece of art by an unknown artists and when i checked - yep, that was a crypto guy now. and you know what!!!! i hated that!!!! i hate that it ruined entire art styles for me!! AND NOW ARTIFICIALLY GENERATED IMAGES ARE DOING THE SAME!!!!! like what tends to tip me off is less because i spotted some wonky hand or a weird flap but because the style is a popular one for the ai bros to imitate. you know what i mean right!!!!!! it's kind of how the ai photos look a bit too clean and crisp and smooth in an unsettling way. it just pings the brain a bit.

ULTIMATELY the absolute main method i have for filtering away ai images isn't so much looking for mistakes, but by checking sources. it's the same way i check that i'm not reblogging from reposting accounts Because That's A Thing I Care About Too - if there's no description or the description seems off and i don't recognise the OP, i check the original post/blog to see what's up. if the image gives me a weird vibe, i check where it comes from and who posted it. oftentimes the comments on posts with ai images will point it out - they're not always accurate and there's definitely been times where people are a little too trigger happy to accuse art of being AI... but it can be a good lead or confirm suspicions. on one hand, i don't want to do detective work while im having chill scrolling time, but on the other hand - i already had this habit for other reasons, so it's less disruptive to me than the alternative. it also helps that it's very rare for ai shit to turn up in my tumblr feed. i don't want to keep looking over my shoulder!!

(also for anyone who wants a little bit of optimism in the middle of all this, here's an episode of Better Offline podcast that outlines how it's very unlikely for generative ai to actually get much better. here's the part two also.)

[darkfeanix]

I've got conflicting feelings about the new episode of Vows and Vengeance. Under the cut in case of spoilers.

On the one hand, great to finally have some real Taash content.

On the other hand, it feels like the people behind the podcast had only a passing knowledge of Dragon Age. The way the Temple of the Lost Dragon was handled felt too... religious, for starters. If it was meant to be sacred to the Qunari, I feel like it should have been tied more directly to the Qun, perhaps a site visited by Koslun or something like that? My understanding of the Qun is limited, but I actually wonder if they would even have sacred sites in the way that it seems to suggest in the discussion of it between Taash and the Qunari soldier.

Speaking of the Qunari soldier, there was at least one, maybe even two, that sounded a bit too feminine. I don't know which actor was voicing them, they listed a few for additional voices. It just broke my immersion a bit when one of the biggest things about the Qunari is their extremely restrictive gender roles. Could this soldier have been Aqun-Athlok? Sure. But that feels more like a Watsonian explanation than a Doylist one.

Really, the portrayal of the Qunari as a whole felt just... a little off. The whole "kadan" exchange... I could almost dismiss it as an intentional case of miscommunication, but it really feels like they were writing it to just mean "friend", when we know from past uses that it has a much deeper meaning than a friendly stranger.

Also, saying Taash will be hanged? It feels so un-Qunari like. Wouldn't they send her to the Tamassran to be re-programmed, or if not that, to be subjected to qamek? I feel like executing an able-bodied woman like Taash would be considered wasteful under the Qun, which feels like it ties back to the idea of the temple being "sacred".

Unrelated to any of the above, Nadia is really starting to frustrate me as a protagonist. I'm trying to interrogate those feelings, asking myself if her behaviour would annoy me as much if she were a man... and to be honest, yeah, I'm pretty sure it would. It's a really unfortunate combination of selfishness, self-pity, and angrily lashing out at everybody that is hitting all the wrong buttons for me. I get where it's all coming from, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Also, this is absolutely the nitpickiest of nitpicks, but at one point Drayden asks how Taash knows the Gamordan Stormrider is female, and Taash says it's the "ridges and colouring of her spine". But it's established in lore that only female dragons can grow into high dragons, so it should go without saying that the Stormrider is female, because a male wouldn't have gotten big enough to cause the damage done to the Qunari settlement.

As I said, it was great to finally get some Taash content, and I absolutely loved Jin Maley's performance in the role, but this was probably my least favourite episode so far.

[sirfrogsworth]

Thoughts on Live Action Avatar: TLA

I'm sure people are going to hate this. Some for valid reasons. Some because of endless nitpicking that really has no bearing on how good or bad it actually was. Some because they have already chosen to hate it and it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I always root for things to be good. I want them to succeed. And I always go into everything I watch with the hope and expectation it will be good. I turn off my critical brain and try to just experience the show for what it is. As I said, I saw no trailers. I read no reviews. I knew almost nothing about the production of this going in.

Initially, things were rough... buddy.

And I think that is a longstanding problem with live action TV shows in general. I am always reminded of Star Trek TNG and how it took two seasons (48 episodes) before they figured out what the hell they were doing. Back then shows were able to find their footing and grow and learn. Actors were given time to find their characters and understand them and finally become them.

But now, every show has to be amazing from the start or they get cancelled. And I think people have become very unforgiving of first seasons as well. I feel like not enough people consider the potential of something getting better. And I think that is a shame.

So, yes, Avatar started out rough. They tried to cram all of the exposition into the first 20 minutes. And that was unpleasant. The effects were jarring at first. It is incredibly difficult to translate animation into live action. And please don't say the CGI was "bad." It wasn't. There was just so much that needed to be packed into every frame of this show to make it work, and finding a way to make it all seamlessly blend is a monumental task. I think the artists did an amazing job with the constraints of essentially making an 8 hour movie in the time usually given a 2 hour one.

But as the show continued, the actors seemed more comfortable in their roles. The showrunners seemed to figure out what worked and what didn't. The quality across the board started to improve. Especially when they started to deviate a little bit from following the cartoon. I also noticed that the effects that were jarring in the beginning eventually stopped bothering me and breaking immersion. I got used to them and was able to just focus on the story. And I think they got a little better as well. The bending was much more convincing as the show progressed. And it was a bajillion times better than the slow-motion bending of that movie that shall not be named.

And by the final episode, I was all in. The Avatar monster was really cool. And I was crying my eyes out and having all kinds of emotions. And there were some changes they made to the story which I actually thought made more sense. And I was glad this show was doing a few things to differentiate rather than being an exact carbon copy.

It won me over.

And I know it won't do that for everyone. And perhaps I am forgiving a lot of sins just because I wanted it to be good. The original was my absolute favorite show of all time. I just liked spending time with these characters again.

But I liked it more than I didn't and I'm hoping that is the general consensus, but I fear that is not the case.

Things I really liked...

I thought the actor playing Sokka was really great. They didn't give him enough humorous material. But I think this kid absolutely nailed the role. And if this gets another season, I do hope he can show Sokka's lighter side a bit more.

Ken Leung also did amazing as Zhao. I think he surpassed his cartoon counterpart in villainy. I loved hating him.

The final battle was beautiful. I think they probably dedicated a lot of resources to that. Maybe at the expense of other things. But I think it was worth it to end strong.

In the first season of the cartoon, the trauma was often skipped over or kept very brief. I'm sure the idea of dealing with genocide and war time trauma was not an easy sell to Nickelodeon initially. But they did actually take the time to show some of that trauma, especially with Katara and Sokka. And I cried a bunch.

They seemed to go to considerable effort to have a diverse cast. I am glad they learned that lesson from the movie.

That said, they probably could have brought back Dee Bradley Baker to make the animal noises. This might have been an overcorrection...

I guess this will give the anti-wokesters something to complain about since the original was already super woke and it is probably a challenge to complain about the new thing being woke as well. Though I'm sure they are up to the challenge.

Things I didn't care for...

The compressed timeline caused a few stories to be combined and accelerated. I understand why that was necessary. But there were some important moments of character growth that got lost.

Sokka's missing sexism. I think it is much more useful to see someone grow and change and let go of their problematic traits than to pretend that never existed. Sokka's sexism was a symbol of the conservative views within water tribe culture in general. It was also foreshadowing for the conflict with Pakku (which was also minimized). I just think young viewers seeing a character overcome ingrained ideals has a greater influence than just erasing that aspect from the character.

Things I hated...

Princess Yue's hair. You get the amazing Amber Midthunder to play Yue, and she does an amazing job with extremely abbreviated screen time, but I couldn't stop staring at whatever that was they put on her noggin. I know I criticized people for nitpicking, but that was very distracting. I don't know exactly how it could have been done better, but I worry a great performance is going to get overshadowed by... hair.

In conclusion...

I think the people making this show loved the source material. I can see that love. I think they tried very hard to make the best show possible. And I also know they are probably going to get a lot of hate. I still haven't looked at the reviews because I didn't want to be influenced when writing this. But I can feel the review bombing as we speak.

But this was not a Witcher situation where the writers didn't respect the source material. This was displaying how incredibly difficult it is to convert one of the most beautifully animated shows in existence into live action. Maybe that is an argument for not making live action versions. Though I usually love them when they work and am happy both versions exist.

I really hope people can remember the original still exists and they can completely disregard this and watch the cartoon any time they wish. This doesn't have to "ruin their childhood." These two things can exist and everyone is perfectly capable of ignoring all of the live action material.

But I do hope this gets another season. I think that final episode showed the potential. I think the cast was getting comfortable in their roles and they deserve another chance to show what they can do.

I love Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and I think he was a great choice for Iroh. But Mako's shoes are probably the biggest shoes in the existence of shoes to try and fill. I do not envy the task he was given. But every once in a while I saw that Mako spirit come out in his performance and I think he could use another season to really find that and show us what he is capable of.

This felt a lot like The Phantom Menace to me. There was actually a ton of amazing stuff to love in that movie. But it didn't quite work the way the original movies did. But I think this was good enough to hope for the future.

[olderthannetfic]

Anti-ish thoughts are bleeding dangerously into real life. I’m at uni doing a Star Wars: the Clone Wars marathon with my friends and out of curiosity we decided to count the episodes that passed the Bechdel test. This got us onto the topic of sexist media, and my friends were complaining so hard about how female characters are sidelined and treats as subordinate by the source, and. while structurally that may be true to some extent, so is a lot of old media. The original Star Wars is also sexist but people enjoy it too! This devolved into such a toxic debate because they think it’s “not progressive enough for it’s time” but this was fifteen years ago. I don’t think it’s fair to hold it up to ultra-modern standards.

Especially because this is the show with AHSOKA TANO in it (one of the characters with the richest and most complex character development arcs). They were basing this impression of sexism on the fact that Anakin and Obi-Wan (Ahsoka’s seniors both literally and in the hierarchy) constantly talk over her in the episode about Ahsoka learning to take orders and not be reckless in a war. Like, sure it looks bad on the surface, but the power dynamics aren’t because Ahsoka’s a woman— Anakin respects the hell out of the other female Jedi Masters— but because Ahsoka is a *child* in a war endangering herself by not listening to authority, and she’s also Anakin’s student. By Jedi standards she has to.

Plus, in Rebels, the exact same power dynamic of Master and Student executed here plays out with Kanan and Ezra: Ezra being frustrated and confused at why he’s constantly on a leash and being reprimanded for his recklessness. It’s the literal same— he’s a student and he needs to listen to what his master says— but it’s two guys. These were shows released nearly contemporary with each other.

Anyway, this ended up with one of them suggesting they slap the historical “this may have socially unacceptable attitudes depicted in it” warning people put on historical movies. Or, even worse: “why don’t they just remove the sexist bits?” (How do you *define* “sexist bits”?) it’s so baffling to me.

Anyway they still watch it with us just to shit on the female representation every episode. We did hate-watch some shows together, like Loki S2, but this time they’re hate-watching something other people are *trying to enjoy*. Idk, I feel like it’s an asshole move— you can have a calm discussion about the structural biases of any show but like, if people enjoy it, can you not shit on it in our faces using that kind of argument? Aaaaaa.

--

Feeling superior by nitpicking is a time-honored tradition, especially among college students, I'm afraid.

[chaifootsteps]

was there a particular point you gave up on HB?

first episode I hated as a whole was The Circus. it did get some backlash but I remember fans still defended it - Diregentleman's vid got some pushback where fans nitpicked small details to defend the writing without really engaging with the critique as a whole

personally I hoped it was a weird fluke - sure, we have an unnatural childhood friends plot shoved in and the divorce storyline now functionally sucks, but as long as it doesn't bleed into the rest of the show...

by western energy I realized all enthusiasm I had for new episodes coming out had totally gone and I was basically just watching to see how bad it would get/when the writers would address the one big hanging plot point the show actually has (the full moon deal; I don't count all the unresolved villain storylines because there's no real emotional investment in them from the show itself)

I'm thinking of dipping totally soon. HB is increasingly feeling like a waste of time, whereas I've had a much better time with other indie shows. I do get some catharsis out of seeing the critical community collectively pick apart all the lost potential (especially for Blitzo, he's so well characterized he deserved a better show), but I feel worse & worse for the animators having to work on a project that I don't think is gonna be remembered that fondly, even on the internet where most of the existing fanbase is

For me it was a combination of The Circus and Seeing Stars. The moment season 1 began I had a feeling where it was going, and when Stolas started singing about what a poor baby he was and how Blitz led him on, I pretty much gave up all hope. Whatever shreds of optimism were left, Stolas pawing and sexualizing Blitz in Seeing Stars killed.

It's never going to get better. I genuinely don't think you're missing anything by dipping.

[randomfoggytiger]

React: A Late-Canon Reviler Gives the Revival a Try (My Struggle I), Part I

For David Duchovny’s birthday, I put out a poll asking Tumblr which of his projects I should watch for the first time. 

The Revival won. Welp. 

I then, fool that I am, put up another poll wherein I doomed myself by including an option to watch the whole thing. 

And here we are. 

My Struggle I. 

Oh, boy. 

This post will be long because I'm laying the groundwork for the rest of the series.

MY MODUS OPERANDI

I don’t care how cute or cuddly or happy or heartfelt individual MSR moments are, popcorn will be thrown if those scenes are achieved through incomplete, inane, or nonsensical plot points. Give me 1+1=2 or give me death.

The Revival is part of a whole that includes all of Seasons 1-9 and Fight the Future and I Want to Believe. As much as I prefer to distance this series from canon, the reality that it functions as a direct follow-up remains; and it needs to be judged accordingly.

And, as always, I separate the art from the artist~.

...WELP. It’s time to face my doom. 

Let's go!

MY STRUGGLE IV

The intro’s… fine. Engaging, even. 

I did notice, though: the last series and Fight the Future and I Want to Believe began with the same formula: glimpses from what will be an x-files case, then straight to Scully’s perspective. Usually Mulder’s narration and POV didn’t feature until the tail-end of a two or three parter, i.e. Redux or Amor Fati or… well, even then, it was juxtaposed against Scully’s. 

Scully was the voice of The X-Files-- even Chris Carter noted that her report of each episode’s casefile became a motif of the show. Mulder’s narration was rare, very rare, even in episodes that were written to focus on him. 

A definite and purposed choice, to be sure. Mulder as an active agent in his own story. …OR a story that focuses on Mulder’s voice instead of Scully’s. 

We shall see. 

The intro continues; and it’s still engaging, possibly gripping (too bad I know where this leads)... but the music got a bit LOTR there. Is that just me? Seems… mellow, orchestral, a little more fantasy than sci-fi. Am I nitpicking? Maybe. 

The BIBLE references UFOs?? Lol, no. (Unless you count the objects described in Revelations-- the book, not the episode-- but even then, those are largely considered to be drones, not UFOs.)

Chris Carter, I see you. 

(Note from the future: NOW I see why the Bible bit was included-- lots of heavy-handed "God means this, Scully" in order to get her on-board to join the files. Ugh.)

…They’re really doubling down on the UFO lore, huh. All of which evaporated because of global warming, I guess. 

GUYS, why couldn’t this have been about life on Earth after Colonization?????

It fits with the disaster footage, it fits with Mulder’s voiceover, it fits with the character progression from Season 9 (I GUESS), it fits with a whooooooooooole ton of other factors. 

I’ve never been one for wanting Colonization in canon, but it literally would have worked for this series. There wouldn't need to be a complete wipeout of humanity, maybe just a “disaster happened, but the humans are fighting back” scenario. 

And that would fit with Mulder and Scully’s "breakup", PERHAPS-- they spent so much time working, trying to save the world (she in science, he on the ground or with untainted factions who coalitioned post-Colonization) that their relationship cracks would need to be actively worked through. Not broken up so much as together and repairing.

It would also help CC and co. to avoid the tempest of modern US politics and the more mainstream conspiracies that were taking hold at that time-- a broader reach to all audiences, a "bigger picture" for everyone to unite under.

(Guys, they should have let me write for this show. …I take it back, I’d have quit after three days.) 

Also: The show writers spent all their brain power on this sequence and this sequence alone, didn’t they? 

Obiwan Kenobi and Military Man are going on a bus somewhere.  

...On closer inspection, neither man looks like anything like Obiwan Kenobi, but the nickname is staying.

We’re back to Scully at a hospital-- not unlike I Want to Believe’s opening.

Skinner called? Oh. Didn’t know he was “here��� this early. 

WAIT. 

Wait, wait, wait. 

Scully just called up Mulder like nothing’s a big deal? He answered like nothing’s a big deal? She’s smiling over his joke from the get-go?

…And we’re supposed to believe they’re seriously broken up. Which the show will insist is the case. 

David and Gillian really said, “Script? What script?” and did what they wanted. I salute them. 

Also, “What’s happening out there, Scully?” is a great line to point to Mulder’s continued isolation… which the series will IMMEDIATELY toss aside because he’s, apparently, not been as much of a hermit lately? (Granted, this could be a joke at his own expense because he’s no longer claimed by ~the darkness~, but…. I don’t think the writing’s gonna be that clever, I’ll be honest.)  

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

Fine, I admit it. 

I’m loving this so far. 

And that’s gonna make me even angrier later on. 

“Why doesn’t he [Skinner] just call me?”

“He doesn’t know how to reach you, Mulder. I barely know myself.”

Mulder is baffled and a tinge annoyed, Scully is amused and straight shooting. 

THERE IS NO HINT, BEHAVIOR, OR MANNERISM SUGGESTING THEY’VE BROKEN UP. None. At all. He’s isn’t reluctant to answer her call, isn’t sad or withdrawn, isn’t affected by anything she’s saying other than to be teasy or poky. She isn’t hesitant to call, isn’t sad or depressed, isn’t anything other than a little pleased to dangle a juicy tidbit in front of Mulder’s face. 

This is gonna follow IWTB’s ping-pong writing-- they’re fun and in-character, they’re suddenly out-of-character, they’re fun and in-character, they’re suddenly out-of-character, etc. etc. etc.-- isn’t it?

(Mulder taping over his laptop’s webcam is a great touch and not something at all that I’ve done before. At all.) 

“I thought you were done with UFOs-- the ‘stranglehold they put on your very existence’, I believe you put it.” 

“I’m just the messenger, Mulder.”

That’s GOOD, that’s necessary writing. That’s planting the seeds of what happened between them, what led to a cooldown or a breakup or a whathaveyou. AND STILL neither character acts as if they’ve broken up: no melancholy, no sadness, no nothing. 

Mulder’s timbre became a little sardonic while quoting back her words, but that doesn’t mean they’ve broken up. If anything, that points to a bicker and line-in-the-sand between them-- him bringing up UFOs at the dinner table and her reminding him to talk to someone else about it before turning the topic to how the lettuce is growing or something.

Neither actor is performing like one would if pain and trauma and heartbreak and distance were placed between them; and that really complicates things because the breakup is built on top of the aforementioned list of struggles. 

Would Mulder have dug his heels in post 2012, seeing it as a sign that “the aliens” just changed their plans? Yes. 

Would Scully have seen a pursuit down that rabbit hole as a waste of time? Debatable. The Truth S9 Scully wouldn’t have-- the aliens are still out there; and they cost her months of her life, months of Mulder’s abduction, months of Mulder’s death, months of Mulder’s separation, and the ultimate cost: William’s adoption and their life on the run. Post The Truth Scully would have seen this as her quest, too: she won’t give up, she says in the finale, because he won’t. 

IWTB Scully, however, would- and that's a problem. 

I’ve already discussed, at length, how out-of-character Scully was in I Want to Believe (posts here.) Although Mulder doesn’t escape from the same writing blunders, she is really, really scalped: of her courage, of her will, of her determination. 

Whenever Scully gave up, in canon, it was only because she thought she was holding Mulder back, or when she felt Mulder had lost his faith and trust in her. That held true in Season 9-- despite the appalling writing choices there, too-- but didn’t in IWTB. 

The Revival had the perfect opportunity to factory reset the writers' mistakes: portray a wiser duo who continue to fight the fight according to their strengths, like they always have before Mulder ever met Scully. (When Mulder tells Scully to set up a meeting with Skinner, he adds, “Don’t pretend I’m going alone”-- which reinforces my point.) 

But I know that's not going to happen.  

Scully goes without argument-- THAT’S GOOD, THAT’S GOOD CHARACTER WRITING. At this point in the game, of course she would-- they trust each other, they have for years, they’d have reached even deeper levels after going on the run for [insert math] years. All good things! 

The problem: this will create a huge conflict with her actions later.

(I’m already so disappointed.) 

“Uber?”/”Hitchhiking. Relax, Scully, I’m kidding” was a fun modernization of their humor, I’ll take it. 

This scene is starting to highlight the distance between them, which is all well-and-good, but feels tonally different from the previous scene. As in, their two scenes were definitely filmed on different days, in different moods, and with different intents. 

She’s worried about him, with tears in her eyes; he has his walls up; there’s distance, as previously noted. 

“Good for you to get out of that little house every once in a while”/”Certainly was good for you” is followed up with knowing, indulgent, pleased smiles and you expect me to believe these two are seriously broken up. Nope. I’ve seen Scully sad but amused, I’ve seen Scully too sad to be amused, but these two? This moment? Nah.

Tonally dissonant-- the IWTB problem: at-ease and close one minute, at-odds and distant the next. Hoorayyyyyy....

None of this makes sense for a long-term, permanent (as Scully infers later to someone else) breakup. Nor for a short-term, semi-permanent one. Math doesn’t math. 

“I’m always happy to see you,” she says, implying he's the one who permanently pulled away… which will be contradicted later this very episode. 

“I’m always happy to find a reason [to leave the house],” he says, somberly. 

Both of which are odd lines. 

If he’s happy to leave the house to see her… why hasn’t he? 

If she’s happy to see him, always, but says a relationship between them was "impossible" (which she will later), why is Scully staring at him with heart eyes, hoping he gets better so they can continue their relationship? (And mark my words, this tone underscores her interactions with him the rest of this series.) 

Tad’s here. He’s... fine. He represents the overly cautious very well. At least he hasn’t gone full Alex Jones mockumentary (...yet.) 

I’ve heard criticisms that Mulder and Scully don’t act like themselves in this series, but based off the few minutes I’ve seen here… I don’t agree. 

The essence is the same. Truly. Scully’s got the same face that lights up the same way, Mulder’s got the same expressions and young-at-heart humor. Neither are really melancholic. Neither are David or Gillian esque. 

Perhaps that will change. 

(Note from the future: OH BOY. Which Mulder and Scully are we talking here-- OG Mulder and Scully? Nope. IWTB Mulder and Scully? Yep. David and Gillian? Once or twice.)

But, again, their interactions feel… wasted. Hollow. They’re supposed to be broken up, but their breakup doesn’t contribute to their interactions or the plot. They’re supposed to have suffered and are working back to each other… but they aren’t really separated, haven’t seemed to suffer (note from future: except for one scene which comes outta nowhere), and won’t collapse back together on-screen.

They’re supposed to be wiser and more mature, but they’ll still engage in a silly will-they-won’t-they while Mulder eats up the latest UFO or conspiracy slop he’s either already engaged in or debunked [insert math] years ago and Scully clings to her cowardice like a leech. 

First nagging problem: Scully smiling at Tad, Scully excusing Mulder’s mannerisms when he becomes briefly jealous, Scully making nice with a conspiracy nut. 

…Isn’t that Mulder’s job? Didn't she leave because conspiracies were consuming her life? Does this mean she actually does want this life back but is she playing coy or elusive because...?

Furthermore, when Mulder popped a comment off to a witness or informant in the past, Scully never excused him-- just breezed over it professionally with another question. She’s only saying “excuse him” here because she’s taken a shine to Tad. WHY, on this post-2012 global warming green Earth, WOULD SHE?

Tad says Mulder is the X-Files, Mulder says that “book is closed”... WAIT. Wait, hold up--

Pause. Stop. Rewind. 

Mulder wants to believe. Actual proof is hard to come by. 

Tad thinks Mulder is the X-Files. 

MULDER SAYS… *ahem*... Mulder says, “I’m afraid that book is closed.” …Which means he’s no longer into UFOs or aliens, too. SO. why did Scully LEAVE.

If that’s behind him, why aren’t they together again???? Mulder didn’t know who Tad O’Malley was a minute or so ago, meaning he’s been outta the conspiracy scene for a bit. That MEANS his departure from Conspiracyville's been long enough to patch-up his obsession and ensuing depression, I guess.

But then... what about Scully??

Because Mulder wants her to come back (already subtly established in each scene), and Scully is concerned for his welfare; but Scully thinks he’s still into UFO conspiracy and hasn’t come back because of it? BUT SHE ISN’T SHOCKED WHEN HE SAYS “I’m afraid that book is closed” MEANING SHE KNOWS HE’S PUT THAT BEHIND HIM... BUT STILL HASN’T RETURNED?

And both of them aren’t acting as if they’ve broken up, anyway, except for a pointed line of dialogue here and a brief reaction there before they yeet back to the status quo.

They’ve left that behind them, Scully says, for better or worse. And Mulder latches onto that better or worse, making a pointed barb at their breakup, but…. There’s no writing glue, just suggestion and inference; and the suggestions themselves don’t add up. 

Here come the bullet points. 

Season 10 posits Mulder became depressed after the aliens didn’t invade in 2012-- that’s reasonable and logical, his nature is depressive when his expectations are subverted or smashed or etc. 

Season 10 also posits Scully left because Mulder became too much to deal with. That’s… not logical, since her nature is to rescue and nurture, even when Mulder’s being an actual boil on her sittin’ cheeks (ala Demons, etc., etc.) 

Season 10 posits Mulder’s hard to get a hold of-- despite being in the same house the FBI helicoptered to in IWTB-- and posits it might be hard for Scully to get a hold of him-- despite the fact both characters easily got in contact, knew it was each other, and even joked about the fact it’s hard to get in contact with Mulder… which means it really isn't. (The script doesn’t catch these discrepancies, of course, pretending Mulder is very hidden away at the same ol' house he'd been discovered at in 2008.) 

Season 10 says Scully doesn’t want UFOs to be part of her life anymore, that it was a stranglehold… yet she came along on a conspiracy gig without question to… what? Be around Mulder? But then, why warm up to the conspiracy guy-- an embodiment of what drove her and her partner apart?

Season 10 posits Mulder chased Scully off with his conspiracy spiraling YET ALSO states he’s put that part of his life-- conspiracies, UFOs, the X-Files-- behind him. Which implies: A. Mulder’s aaaaaaall better now and B. he put that all behind him but Scully never came home and C. Scully shouldn’t know he put that all behind him if that’s what’s keeping her away; but she does know because his declaration doesn’t take her by surprise, which means she’s still driven away and concerned for him for no discernable reason.  

Season 11 posits Scully didn’t leave because Mulder became too much to deal with but because she, too, had issues to deal with. This point wasn't mentioned or hinted at in the episode that introduces their breakup, which makes that line of reasoning a complete rewrite. (Whatever. I’ll judge how well that’s executed when I get there.)

It doesn’t add up. 

Are we surprised. 

Five seconds after this, I had to listen to a back-and-forth between Tad O’Malley and Mulder on conspiracies and Conservatives and alien beliefs and the O’Reilly Factor and….

This seems out of touch, I’m not sorry. 

When this show aired, Conservatives already had their miles-long conspiracy theories. For Mulder to be ignorant of that fact while allegedly knowing exactly who and what Tad believes while also alleging….

More bullet points!

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder has, supposedly, been out of the conspiracy scene. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder isn’t aware that not only did 2015 Conservatives believe in aliens-- despite the fact Tad is a watered-down copy-paste of Alex Jones-- but that there were also Conservative believers in the 90s (who were a fringe in their own group, but.) This was Mulder’s expertise; and his eidetic memory isn’t likely to have tossed that info because it was no longer relevant to his life. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder has supposedly not been out of the conspiracy scene-- despite saying he is-- because he does know who Tad O’Malley is-- despite not knowing who he was two minutes ago. 

Mulder is assuming that Conservatives “of your credentials” don’t believe in UFOs or “9/11 false-flag conspiracies” despite people from the Left, Center, and Right publicly believing those conspiracies in 2015. 

Fox “I’m afraid that book is closed” Mulder is supposed to be dismantling Tad’s grift; but he (and the writers) sound uneducated and incredibly out-of-touch during this dialogue-- as if all Conservatives were still Bush-era believers. Most were suspicious of the government by this time (they helped elect a man who ran on a “drain the swamp” campaign, after all.) Mulder’s bewilderment here is old and tired, even by 2015 standards. 

This writing is flashy-- long sentences, quick back-and-forths-- but poorly constructed and badly executed. 

This is also the first segment where David Duchovny is peeking through Fox Mulder; where Scully is swinging wildly between absolutely-fine-with-Mulder and we’re-no-longer-together; and where we, the audience, are being force-fed that only one side of the political aisle believes in aliens-- or the Bigger Question or whatever-- on a show that wants to poke at unfounded conspiracy beliefs.

Oh, look! Scully made a Scully-face, so everything’s good now! 

(UuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH--)

Sveta. Aww, I like her--

“You don’t remember me.”

“No, I think I’d remember.”

WHAT WAS THAT. 

Show writers, STOP with the romantic triangulation, it’s NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. David doesn’t even TRY to make that romantic-ish. Yet you angle on Scully’s face as if she’s supposed to be out-of-the-loop and a tinge jealous. 

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, hoooooooooooooooooooold up. 

Svetta was a dark-haired little girl Mulder interviewed after her first abduction, meaning she’s set up to be another Samantha. 

So…………………. What’s with the murky jealousy issue, CHRIS. You wedged it in solely so Scully would feel jealous over Mulder? Y’know. Like I Want to Believe? 

And I say Chris Carter because he wanted to play the breakup angle:

"We do it in an interesting way," Carter told The Hollywood Reporter. "We put some of the tension back in that was relieved by them being together. It added to the storytelling opportunities. It's something that I came up with; I had been thinking about it. There was always talk of [breaking them up] if we did another movie."

The first shot canon takes right between the eyes:

Scully being “familiar” with the “screen memories” abductees are given was a cool touch… except she’s never been given “screen memories.” The abductees in Jose Chung’s From Outer Space were given screen memories-- she was returned a blank slate. (Even Mulder didn’t have “screen memories” after his abduction.) 

Scully poking Sveta about aliens taking her unborn fetuses seems a tad (heh) strong except all the alien-related pregnancies have been the result of government testing, not alien probes. So. If this scene followed canon's rules, her skepticism would be warranted.

But this skepticism is still odd. 

Two seconds ago, she was making nice to Tad O’Malley in the car, and now she’s leading the questioning for Sveta. The odd icing on top of this odd cake is that Scully left because she didn’t want UFOs to have a stranglehold on her life, yet here she is leading an interview with an abductee.

Sveta: “I have alien DNA, for sure.”

Scully: “Have you had a doctor confirm that?”

Sveta: “No.”

Me, too, Mulder. Me, too. 

Scully doesn’t question the alien DNA bit, so that’s good. 

…I’ll bet everyone forgets she and Mulder have a bit lingering in their systems from the black oil and his brain thingy and residue from when she touched the ship and and and. 

“Something you can test. Dana.” 

What… what was that. 

Honestly, what was that. Whatever mood David was conveying through Mulder, it didn’t match anything from any previous scenes, let alone this one.

Is he poking at Scully? Why? He’s not jealous anymore (if he even was.) The way he says it and her expression in response implies they have a tense back-and-forth going on, but they don’t. THEY DON’T. 

We’re 13 minutes in and I could make another numerical list. But I won’t. Yet.  

Back to not-Obiwan Kenobi and Military Man. 

That alien’s stupid bad-looking. 

Wait. 

That’s not how canon said Roswell unfolded. 

And the first alien shot on Earth was by Deep Throat’s hands-- that was his whole turning-point backstory. 

CURSE YOU, LACK OF A SHOW BIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(Note from the future: All of that past canon? Fake. Faked. All lies. None of that happened.)

“What have you done??” Not-Obiwan Kenobi yells… and what have they done? 

Back to Scully and Sveta. 

Sveta can move things with her mind-- not all the time-- but at least Scully is listening to her claims without automatically shutting them down. 

But also…

“I can move things. With my mind,” should have IMMEDIATELY had a greater impact on Scully, up-close-and-personal as she was to her son’s abilities. But nope! No reaction! Of course! 

Sveta “You were together but now you’re not” is asking the right questions. I don’t even mind Sveta. I’ll bet this episode’s the last time we see her, though. 

Does she contribute to anything? No. But she’s nice, so. 

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT, WAIT, WAIT. 

Scully diagnosed-- wait, hold up, list time. 

Scully diagnosed Mulder with depression. 

That killed their relationship. 

…THAT killed their relationship? After everything? 

The writers are going to have to explain, in detail, why that killed it. 

Why does canon need to explain? Because we have a history of Scully sticking by Mulder during the worst periods of both their lives-- leaving him would have to require a very, very good reason.

And there is no indication, thus far, that Mulder’s depression drove a humungous wedge between them, forcing her to walk away. In fact, there is no indication a wedge exists between them, AT ALL-- only the odd, inconsistent word or phrase here or there that bears no weight on the plot or their ultimate decisions.

Whenever Scully left in canon, it was because she could no longer help Mulder. Season 11 will rewrite Season 10’s initial explanation but setting that aside: we’re not given any indication that she did try to help him; or that his depression was so deep and so dangerous that it drove her away.

And if it were that deep or that dangerous enough to drive her away, Scully leaving would have been the last and worst possible action she could have taken. If Mulder's mental state was in such a massive nose-dive that she couldn’t handle what he was going through, Scully-- a medical professional-- would have had him hospitalized, even temporarily against his will, because she would know (per Demons or Gethsemane or Amor Fati) that this level of depression always manifested in suicidal tendencies for her partner.

But Mulder, as per the rules laid out in this episode, never went that far in his deterioration. (Note from the future: We'll get to that.)

If he had, Skinner would have been aware of his hospitalization and wouldn’t have asked for his help; Scully would have been aware and wouldn’t have passed on the information; and Scully wouldn’t have called from the hospital with a degree of buoyancy when relaying Skinner's request to Mulder. 

In short: Scully leaving = very big, very drastic measure. Mulder suffering from depression = very big, very bad consequences. Scully's nature and past actions = getting Mulder help, even if he resists at first (i.e. shooting him in the shoulder to save his life.) Mulder and Scully's partnership = unbroken, except through distrust or botched writing.

“And you have a child together.”

Wow, that wasn’t clunky at all. 

SCULLY STICKS SVETA HARD WITH A NEEDLE BECAUSE SVETA MENTIONS WILLIAM, darkly saying "That's enough", SO SVETA WOULD KNOW SHE DID IT ON PURPOSE.

I’m… so disgusted. Like, eck. Urk. Awful. 

Telling Sveta to back off, strongly, would be in-character; USING PAIN TO DO SO is…. So wrong on so many levels. Scully never utilized medicine to inflict pain or injury on her enemies.

Wow, this grossed me out. You know why?

Scully diagnosed Mulder with depression and left. At first glance, that seem like an out-of-character action that the writing can salvage later by this or that means.

BUT THEN, Scully inflicts pain on Sveta for mentioning William, leaving the audience with the impression that she’s vindictive. 

Which then connects the dots between “vindictive” and “left Mulder when he was diagnosed with depression.”

And since we, the audience, haven’t been given a stronger reason for how Mulder’s depression got that bad or why she didn’t help him through it, we’re then left with a sour impression of Scully’s character. 

The writers then try to imply Sveta was spilling out Scully’s personal secrets to prove that her powers were real, but that still doesn’t give Scully the right to abuse her power. Especially because a traumatized woman was trying any method possible to be believed.

And the fact that Sveta is also a victim of the government weaponizing science and medicine makes me even angrier at Scully.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, BOY, another helicopter outside the Unremarkable House, my favorite part of IWTB....

Mulder’s never seen… an alien replica vehicle. 

Oh, my mistake: “No. Never. Not like that.” Covering all the bases, I see. Y’know, in case the writers FORGOT MULDER SAW ONE in SEASON 1, EPISODE 2. 

OH, LOOK, he’s got his wonder face back, everything’s aaaaaaaaaaaaall better now!

Running on free energy they’ve had since the 40s, sure Jan. Whatever you say. 

This just feels so old. Like. Tech we haven’t had since the 40S, GUYS, GET IT, BIG MONEY CORPOS KEPT IT FROM US. Yeah, we got it. 

And the flashbacks to Not-Obiwan Kenobi just walking off with an alien corpse because Military Man didn’t… see… value in studying… it. I guess. 

Scully doing “God’s work” giving kids ears because their biology neglected it.

I admit, that’s an intriguing window into her perspective of God vs. science, and how she sees a person’s biology separate from God messing them over or messing them up just because. I dig it.

(Note from the future: This will be used as a plotline club rather than a nuanced discussion of her faith.)

Mulder being the most challenging relationship she’s ever had-- “and the most impossible”-- is a weird line. Because yes, it’s true that their relationship is challenging; but her fervor at impossible is the only time in this episode we see an adversarial tendency, DESPITE My Struggle I trying to drum up moments to prove TENSIONS still LINGER (they don't.) 

It’s IWTB all over again. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. 

“Yeah. I got that impression.” Tad says, and Scully’s hurt because she thinks Mulder gave Tad that impression of her. 

So. So. Wait. 

Scully lied when she stated “It’s impossible” because she didn't like Tad poking into her private affairs?

But she sounded truly convinced their relationship was "impossible" while saying it.

So, she was either angry or still confused about her emotions-- which is fine, Scully's not always in-tune with her inner workings-- when Tad replied, "I got that impression."

Which explains why she was so hurt at Mulder's seeming rejection.

Because she thinks Mulder’s behavior led Tad to that conviction.

Which means CC just wants Mulder and Scully to be caught in a miscommunication fic.

Also, why is Tad so sad about this? Were they his OTP, or is he pretending to sympathize to get in Scully’s pants? Because that’d be crummy, Chris, to have her be overly nice to Tad only for him to try to twist that into an opening as the new conspiracy guy on the block. 

On a lighter note, Chris Carter said Mulder and Scully could still get it in their 50s, so there’s that.

HE DID, HE DID SET SCULLY UP TO BE PURSUED BY TAD--

WHAT. WHAT. WHAT WHAT WHAT--

KNOCK IT OFF, CHRIS. 

Poor Sveta. She’s gonna be butchered in this script, isn’t she?

The series is EATING up vast amounts of time with very little scale or grounding. For all I know, a day or a week could have passed. 

It’s so, so badly paced. 

Mulder’s investigating now, without Scully, because he noticed Sveta had a tell during the interview. 

Um. 

Sure, that’s a Mulder thing to do.

Oh, wait. This is the “work of men” realization.   

The dialogue between Mulder’s questions and Sveta’s answers are really disjointed, as if they’re mildly talking past each other-- another aspect of IWTB I couldn’t stand. 

Welp, at least it’s easy to prove they were both written by the same people. 

The second shot-in-the-head for canon: 

“Sveta, who took your babies?” 

“Men.”

“Men? Humans? You saw their faces.” 

Also, Sveta’s babies are referred to as her babies, but William-Jackson isn’t Scully’s baby despite sharing half her DNA but Emily Sim was Scully’s baby despite also only sharing half her DNA.

It’s a mess. 

Well… Mulder doesn’t seem too surprised here that men were involved in her abductions (I mean, he's long since been aware the government was involved from day one, so.) It’d be really stupid if the writing made him surprised about this later, wouldn’t it?

…Wouldn’t it?

Another poorly constructed set of lines:

“I haven’t worked for them [the government] in years.” 

“But you always wondered… if they were lying to you, too.” 

No, he didn’t wonder-- he believed it.

A wonky way to address his old skepticisms, for sure. 

JUST AFTER I NOTED THAT MULDER DIDN’T LOOK SURPRISED AT SVETA'S REVELATION, HE CALLS UP SCULLY AND MAKES A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT BEING A CONSPIRACY OF MEN. 

I knew this was coming, but maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan that was so, so poorly handled.

SCULLY WAS GETTING (sort of) WINED AND DINED BY TAD O’MALLEY??????????????

I HATE IT HERE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT IN THE WORLD AND WHY, HOW COULD YOU BE SO EASILY FLEECED, DANA, THIS ISN’T AN ED JERSE PARALLEL BECAUSE YOU THINK MULDER DOESN’T WANT YOU, THIS IS STUPID, THIS IS THIS IS THIS IS

WHAT. 

I thought Scully had dated Tad O’Malley in the past (sometime after the breakup) but this is worsefarworse. 

SVETA IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING, I’M SO TIRED. 

“Mulder, where are you going?” sounds exactly like Scully, and now I’m mad Gillian didn’t use that voice for the rest of the show (voice recovery aside....)

I KNEW SKINNER WAS BEHIND GETTING THEM BACK. He just calls up Scully to call Mulder up, then just unlocks the old office when Mulder wants to get back in. 110% Skinner thought this would help his buddy Mulder. And he’s not wrong. 

Wait. 

Did Skinner put in more effort to save Mulder from his mental health struggles (per this My Struggle I episode) than Scully??????

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-- my brain is broken. 

The hold on Skinner’s face while he says “Can you tell me what this is about” was way too long. 

Also, don’t try to play coy with me, Skinman. 

Now the camera’s zooming around and losing its “X-Files” feel by being too… modern. 

Skinner telling Mulder to calm down is the only time in canon where I agree with him. Mulder’s just spouting and demanding and not really making clear sense and this is why you don't let Mulder back into his basement without Scully by his side, Skinner-- don’t you remember that lesson?

Skinner telling Mulder to calm down then saying he doesn’t take orders from him only for Mulder to say “Who do you take orders from?”, ugh.

GUYS, THIS WAS RESOLVED IN SEASON. 2. BECAUSE MULDER KNEW MEN WERE BEHIND THE CONSPIRACY SINCE SEASON 1, EPISODE 2; AND SKINNER SINCE SEASON 2, EPISODE ASCENSION.

BECAUSE SKINNER’S ALREADY HAD HIS LOYALTY TESTED AND THIS IS HURTING MY BRAIN MAKE IT END.

I’m not even 25 minutes into this, help. 

“Why do you think I called you? Because I was looking out for you, because I’ve always looked out for you.” Is… is Skinner the only character who’s progressed? That’s exactly what he would do-- he’s acting sensibly, rationally, and in-character... and more mature, more veteran, than his agents.

I know the Revival is supposed to be “Mulder and Scully all grown-up” but none of their actions have been intelligent, measured, or informed by their age or life experience. It’s a farce that I hope future episodes will rectify. 

“A decade of my life--” Mulder rants and kicks his poster like a toddler AND YOU KNEW ALL THIS INFORMATION FROM SEASON 1, MULDER. NONE OF THIS IS NEW. WWWWWWWWWWWWWWHAT IS THIS. 

I can’t imagine how disappointed philes were when they tuned into this episode. Well... I can because of how I feel; but at least I knew, roughly, how bad it would be going in. 

This is worse. 

Skinner: “You’re blaming me for that?”

Mulder: “No, I’m blaming myself. I’m sure they lied to you, too.” 

This isn’t a revelation, chump. 

At least Skinner confirms my theory: “There hasn’t been a day since you’ve left that I haven’t reached for my phone to call you, Mulder, wishing you were still down here.” 

Feral Mulder is touched. 

“Since 9/11--” OH NO, WHY ARE WE GOING THERE “--this country’s taken a big turn and in a very strange direction.”

Guys. Guys. This isn’t… this… what. 

“Now they police us, spy on us, and tell us that makes it safer--” CAN THE WRITERS GET OFF A SOAP BOX FOR FIVE SECONDS. Of course it isn’t safer to be unnecessarily policed or spied on, but the answer isn't just "boo, the government!" What… why… my brain’s melting, I feel it deteriorating. 

This, again, feels so Bush-era. Like, whoever wrote this didn’t update their mentality. 

Also, the camera shots and cuts are weird. Holding too long, zooming out at “pause and take THAT in” moments, focusing on Mulder’s phone while he silently calls up Skinner to prove a point… it’s supremely unsubtle.

Back to Tad, I don’t care. You did this to yourself, Scully, cozying up only to be used as a name drop on his show. Stupid. 

Is Scully gonna be shocked she has alien DNA? She shouldn’t be. 

But then again, Mulder shouldn’t be shocked this has all been a work of men, so. 

She’s expecting-- no, hoping-- for a call from somebody named Mulder. 

Sure, they’re broken up with hard feelings. Sure. Absolutely. 

Is this old man Not-Obiwan Kenobi?  

Of course.

At least Mulder seems old hat at this informant business. 

But of course, he’s “not even close” to putting it all together. 

Stupid. 

WAIT.

The countdown was WRONG-- Mulder states it began, not ended in 2012, meaning he's believed this theory for some time. Meaning... why was he so depressed after 2012? Why are there still depression concerns in 2015?? Seriously, what's with his depression if the 2012 Colonization was allegedly the cause of it but there is no Colonization and the clock's simply been reset????

WHY WAS HE DEPRESSED IF HE RECONFIGURED THE COUNTDOWN. WHAT.

Mulder: "Not by aliens, not with aliens, but by a conspiracy of men--"

“You’re wasting my time.” Tell him, old man Not-Obiwan Kenobi!

“Ten years ago, you came to me--”

Wait, ten years ago? What, 2005? The guy showed up while Mulder was on the run? And Scully never… knew about this?

There were no aliens lighting each other on fire??????????????????? WAIT, I NEVER HEARD THIS INFORMATION. 

THERE WERE NEVER ALIENS, AT ALL???????????????????? Like, AT ALL????? 

The writers are saying that Scully's experience on Ruskin Dam in Season 5 was not two warring alien factions BUT TWO GROUPS OF MEN LIGHTING EACH OTHER ON FIRE, OR GIVING EVERYONE FALSE MEMORIES OF ALIENS LIGHTING EACH OTHER ON FIRE, OR...??????

hONESTLY. 

Let's be real specific for a second: Chris Carter expects us to believe that the ENTIRE mytharc from the original show was ALL faked; that there were no aliens, ZERO, ZILCH; and that CSM and Deep Throat and all the others created elaborate schemes JUST to manipulate MULDER because the aliens weren't a threat from the start????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES. THEY WERE ALL MEN IN SUITS.

Like… do you realize how stupid that is? How actually, unfathomably stupid that is? It’s not just “the aliens didn’t invade because of global warming,” no, it’s “they were never a problem to begin with, we just manipulated Mulder into believing they were because… because he’s so important, I GUESS.”

Roswell’s also a smokescreen, of course. 

Y’know how, during the 90s, DD thought The X-Files was a stupid sci-fi show? If he thought each mytharc plot was as bad as this one, no wonder he wanted to bail. 

Oh, by the way, the global warming explanation is part of a theory: the fascist elites will dominate the world and escape from consequences into space, leading the rest of humanity to die by a globally warmed planet. The aliens weren't chased off by global warming because they were never a factor to begin with.

Wow.

I CAUGHT A CONTINUITY ERROR!

Scully shows up at his place in her uniform from yesterday, panicked, like she’d just run from Tad’s side to see what happened despite her saying over a day has passed.

Going to ignore his “What are you doing here, Scully?” because we’ve ping-ponged back to the out-of-character Mulder that the writers use when it’s time to remind everyone he and Scully are broken up. 

It’s IWTB all over again, I’m so tired. 

They’re talking past each other and he’s touching her shoulders now because he needs her to trust him and yadda yadda yadda. 

It’s soooo, sooooo, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo highschool, I’m sorry. This is Riverdale. This is [insert whatever teen series you want to watch.] These are teenagers masquerading as adults, for the angst.

None of this holds up, their emotions shift left and right without provocation, things just happen, and there is no strand of continuity stringing anything together.

Scully trying to talk Mulder down from further pursuit doesn’t make sense because, AGAIN, she’s the one who's always gone back to the files even when he walks away; and every time he’s given up, or wanted to, SHE'S called him back and held him accountable and kept him going. 

This is the Scully from IWTB with no gumption of her own, who denies her leaps forward because of plot, plot, plot. 

Guys, I’ve been religiously dosing myself with caffeine (via chocolate), but my body keeps trying to make me go to sleep because it’s so uninvested. I don't even need sleep.

“This is my life, this is, this is everything I believe in--” HOW. MANY. TIMES. Has he said this before. WHEN HAS THAT LINE EVER WORKED ON SCULLY.

But that's beside the point: "this" was no longer his life after Amor Fati, by his own choice. Closure brought him closure, but he was already spittin' walk-away talk by Requiem, chose to leave in Vienen, and insisted Scully stay gone in Alone. In Season 9, it was Scully who had to beg him into hiding to pursue the Truth or whatever; and it was Scully who brought him the case in IWTB and Scully who relayed Skinner's request and tagged along both times until she got uncomfy and decided never mind, too hard.

Y’know? This claim gets to me because it’s a lie. A lie so blatant that 90s Mulder would have thrown hands over it, a lie so baseless that it erases his declaration in the hallway:

“I don’t know if I want to do this alone. I don’t even know if I can.” And every time Mulder yells his “THIS IS MY LIFE”, he erases that part of his past, the part that willingly left the files or the big Truth or the next chase to save Scully’s life or to keep her by his side. 

Chris Carter said Mulder and Scully were The X-Files post The Truth… but I guess he keeps conveniently forgetting that. More accurately, he keeps making MULDER forget that, in spite of all evidence in Mulder’s history and personality to the contrary. 

It infuriates me. 

“Tad O’Malley is a charming man--” get outta here. 

Now Scully’s been played the fool so she’s going to think Mulder’s being toyed around with by a social media sociopath. You’re an idiot, Scully. 

You’re an idiot, Mulder. 

You expect us to be idiots, writers. 

Here’s some ham-fisted “Fate” dialogue for you, *ahem*:

Scully: “How do you know he’s not playing you, he’s a player!” (You would know, Scully.) 

Mulder: “He’s a Godsend!”

Mulder’s not a believer in God, BUT this is also supposed to refer to the God conversation Scully and Tad had in the hospital, which will inadvertently make Scully ~believe~ again.

“What are you talking about?” I’m with ya there, Scully. I’m with ya, there. 

Scully’s trying to insist Mulder's on a verge of a breakdown, which… UGH. 

This scene implies Mulder hasn’t had a breakdown or a break from reality YET-- Scully spends the episode constantly concerned for his health and begging him, here, to watch what where he's stepping because he’s on the verge of spiraling. 

Which means he hasn't spiraled, because she's afraid of what would happen to him IF he did.

MEANING that there wasn’t an inciting factor that made her leave: no alcoholism, no outbursts, no nothing. He just became depressed, probably withdrawn, and wouldn’t change; so, she left. 

Do you realize what that means, per this episode? It means Scully ANTICIPATED a breakdown and left BEFORE it happened. Then hoped he’d get better before it did. 

Which breaks the established morals of her character. If she had been able to help, she would have stayed. If she hadn’t been able to help, she would have found another way to help him, even if it involved calling in a third party against his will. Instead, she withdrew and hoped he would get better BEFORE he reached a breaking point-- essentially, leaving him to an impending breakdown while hoping and praying against it.

This makes her decision to leave a mark of weak character-- not because she was a woman who left her depressed husband, but because Dana Scully, whose character we amply know, left. It checks none of the boxes she'd have to clear first before choosing to take one step out the door.

All the fic I’ve read to justify their breakup-- and make no mistake, CC wrote her to say “as your friend” intentionally--  or time apart or whathaveyou had Scully reach a breaking point. Because, of course! That's logical. But here, in canon-- in black and white-- that didn’t happen. 

We, the audience, have to create a plausible scenario in our minds to justify the steps she took. Because. it. Is. not. In. canon (as per this episode.) 

Now Scully’s gonna get jealous of Sveta, I’m so done. Riverdale, uuuuuuuuugh. 

Mulder just lets Scully walk away because Scully thinks he wants Sveta but “Sveta is the key to everything” and if Scully wants to misunderstand that she should have more trust in him, I guess, and I NEED A RESPIRATOR.

He just says “Scully” once  and lets her huff off.  

TAD’S BACK, GO AWAY. 

WAIT, TAD STOPS HER BEFORE SHE LEAVES. 

Mulder: “I would have invited you, Scully, but I didn’t think you would come.” 

That’s…

That’s….

Let’s break down this stupidity: 

Scully shows up. 

Mulder had Sveta in the house because he was calling her and O'Malley for a group meeting. 

When Scully becomes nearly hysterical over his safety, he doesn’t reason with her, just spouts like a lunatic. 

When she misreads the Sveta situation and stomps off, he lets her go with a weak, “Scully"--

--because he knew Tad was right behind her and was pulling in to stop her from leaving. 

Because Tad and Sveta were invited but Scully was not. 

And Scully was not invited because.  

Because she might not show up. 

I’m just preaching to the choir at this point, continuing on. 

Scully gave in, just like that. Guess she’s not leaving, anymore. 

She’s so, so… spineless. Has been since Season 9, has been a BIT since Season 8 (though that was at least justified and kept to a bare minimum.) 

I’m just. So sick of passive Scully. 

I HATE THOSE STINGER NOISES NOW. 

It’s always, “You can't let this information out because these men work in secrecy”/”What is it?”/”You’ll see”; then stinger; then we, the audience, are immediately shown what it is.

No suspenseful build-up.

Tad: “Then why are you [Scully] here?”/”Scully: “Mulder, what are you up to?”/Mulder: *knowing look*/stinger/next scene.

KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY.

“Implanting of alien embryos”-- so Sveta’s babies weren’t her babies. 

So Scully’s baby wasn’t her baby. 

But Emily was her baby but William isn’t. 

Sure, Jan. 

In spite of this information, the Revival will paint William as their son until it doesn’t; despite, again, stating from day one that the alien babies are implanted embryos and not biological babies.

So, these two boneheads should have suspected that William wasn’t theirs, anyway. 

Even though William is theirs because the CSM timeline doesn’t add up, which they would have mathed in their heads by the time little William was snuggled in their arms. 

It’s all so stupid. 

Why does this feel so fearmongery about the government? And I’m not going to sit here and say the government should be trusted-- it has a VERY bad history, I'm aware. But this is “my first conspiracy” level of worldbuilding.  

Did the writers think it was clever to set O’Malley up as a bad actor then reveal he was a good actor, modeling him after the notorious Alex Jones only to point and jeer, “HAH, you assumed! He’s actually on Mulder’s side!” 

Because that’s not genius, that’s laziness. 

Scully only now decides to inform everyone Sveta has no evidence of alien DNA? So, what, she was never going to tell them unless Mulder kept being, what, crazy? 

“They got to her,” says Mulder about Sveta, but Scully LITERALLY SAID she had no alien DNA, so what was Sveta supposed to believe???????? That Tad O'Malley wasn't using her for as a hoax???

Mulder ran all the way to her house, or ubered then ran, or whatever… and she’s gone, of course. 

Poor Sveta. 

Tad O’Malley’s Truth Site is gone, oh, noooooo. 

Look, I’ll always be against censorship. But this is sending so many odd and mixed signals that it’s creating craaaaaaaaaaaaazy levels of dissonance. 

Mulder wrote “Don’t Give Up” in Scully's car dust…. 

Riverdale. 

Mulder presents the global warming = no aliens theory? 

I’m so tired. 

WAIT, SCULLY BELIEVES MULDER'S THEORY NOW THAT HER BOY TAD’S BEEN PULLED OFF THE NETWORK. 

“We need to find her [Sveta], Mulder,” Scully insists. 

Hold on, prediction time: Scully only changed her mind because this case now involves her-- i.e. only extending empathy to Christian (a boy that reminded her of William) and not to the string of missing, possibly murdered, women in IWTB.

OF COURSE. Her results for Sveta ended up being wrong AND HER OWN GENOME HAS ALIEN DNA IN IT, TOO. 

You selfish, self-centered clone of Dana Scully. 

Scully truly hasn’t recovered since… Season 9, let’s be real, where she told Mulder to leave then spent the whole year crying over his absence. In IWTB, she brought Mulder a case then left him when he wouldn’t stop his pursuit (to SAVE. LIVES.) And in the Revival, she called Mulder and the gang crazy until her own genome showed alien DNA. 

Hate this, hate this, HATE this. 

Also, yeah, she already knew she had alien DNA in the OG series, moving on.

Oh, and now they get a call from Skinner just when Scully says someone has to stop the bad guys. 

OF COURSE. 

Remember the God convo from earlier, guys???? GOD. FATE. SOMETHINGSOMETHINGSOMETHING. 

You had ONE good idea to explore-- how Scully views God vs. the aberrations of biology-- and then just... used it as a convenient club to beat in the “God/Fate means for us to do this” instead. 

“Scully, are you ready for this?”

“I don’t know there’s a choice.” 

Can’t someone PLEASE just explore her faith with nuance? PLEASE? 

Sveta's DEAD???????? I’M SO MAD, I liked her!

YOU FAILED HER, SCULLY. 

YOU FAILED MULDER, SCULLY. 

WHY DOES SCULLY HAVE TO KEEP FAILING PEOPLE???????????? 

Skipping the CSM scene because I don’t care, the END. 

CONCLUSION

How does Scully’s mischaracterization keep reaching new lows? 

How does Mulder become less wise with age? 

How is Skinner the only mentally mature character here?

I’m so tired.

[cross-my-heartt]

Nitpicking episode four (affectionately so)

I know this may be controversial but sometimes we nitpick things out of love and that is very much the case for me here.

I love so much about episode four and much of it has already been talked about but I would still tweak some things to make it perfect because I'm an incorrigible Crosshair girlie and I'll both dissect and cherish every moment he's in the limelight while it still lasts.

Anyway without further ado

1.) Crosshair's recklessness. I love me a trigger happy sniper but my man would never come so close to decking that imperial officer.

By all means that should have been Omega. Crosshair's motto has always been playing it safe (the thematic manifestation of dispatching danger from a safe distance). The point of him staying with the Empire is that despite the drawbacks and the Empire's moral corruption, they would have been 'safer' there.

Crosshair is willing to tolerate a lot if it's in the name of safety and the only times he's downright reckless is when he's pushed to the brink (killing Nolan, escaping Tantiss). Omega on the other hand has already shown that she has a lower tolerance for injustice. Her standing up to Hemlock earlier in the season was a reminder of that and it would have been more consistent to make her the one nearly provoked into a confrontation here.

So I would have had him holding her back here seeing as assessing danger and realizing the benefit of laying low is something Crosshair should be better at between the two of them.

2.) Huge missed opportunity to make Crosshair and Omega cooperate during the gambling scene. It was fun to see them bump heads but I would have loved to see more of them cooperating in creative ways, like Crosshair using reflections to see the officer's hand and helping Omega cheat the game.

Otherwise I would have made it a game of Dejarik. Because we have context for her being good at that while we haven't seen her play much sabacc so far. It's kind of like saying that if you're good at chess you're automatically good at poker.

3.) This could just be me but that moment where it seemed like Crosshair was about to let Omega go after Batcher alone felt off for his character. Crosshair lives to fight for a cause and I'm pretty sure it's been established that Omega is that cause now.

The best explanation I can think of is that he was bluffing and I can completely see him doing that in an attempt to change her mind. If it were me I would have made it look more like a dropped bluff and less like a 'this could have gone either way situation'.

4.) Would have loved to see them resolve the escape situation a bit more creatively too. I'm not a fan of the all the creature moments (don't love them in the new Vader run either) and a cute little team up between these two, combining their shooting abilities and using stealth and the terrain in their favor would have been cool to see. And just imagine Crosshair caving in at the very end, agreeing to let the animals go anyway after Omega has puppy eyed him into doing it.

Ten out of ten would have lived for that.

5.) The tremor. Where is it?? Why aren't we seeing more of it??? This really should be a bigger deal, I really need it to be a bigger deal. Yes, we see him miss a lot of shots but I need more.

6.) Reunion. This is the hardest for me to criticize because it does make for some great drama and a great cliffhanger but I'm more for putting character before entertainment.

The only way I see them making dagger eyes at someone they were ride or die determined to rescue not too long ago is if they still suspect Crosshair of setting up some kind of trap. Which is a bit of a reach this far into the plot.

Character wise it just isn't a logical decision for me.

But yeah, I suppose it all depends on where they take this scene from here. Let me know what you think.

[lonelywretchjervistetch]

My DC Cinematic Universe - Creature Commandos: Part III

Chapter Three: Flags and Walls

(Warning before we start, this one's a little long, but better than it looks! Some big images in this one.)

So, before we get anywhere else with our conversation on the Creature Commandos and...well, Creature Commandos, we need to talk about something regarding the set-up for the team. In particular, we need to talk about its leadership. And admittedly, this is a bit of a nitpick, but also a genuine problem the DCU now needs to handle. Bear with me here, this is important to my point.

Episode 1 of Gunn's series, Collywobbles, introduces us both to the team, the seemingly central conflict of the series, and briefly to its leaders and administrative controls: Amanda Waller, Rick Flag Sr., and John Economos. And yes, believe it or not, I'm also going to touch upon Economos here.

Now, having these characters in charge of the team is not inherently a bad idea. At all, actually. It's understandable that Gunn would attempt a tie between his previous projects and the new DCU, retroactively incorporating them into this universe, and giving the audience an immediate connection via the previous material they've been seen in. However, this is also a massive problem when you think about it, because that means Peacemaker is canon, and that's basically confirmed in the first five minutes, when Flag mentions the role Waller's daughter played in the continuity of that series, and the wider DCU. And again...this is a problem. Why? Oh, and spoilers for Peacemaker, by the way.

Because now, Gunn has to explain this scene away.

Sure, you could say that Barry wiped the events of Peacemaker out of reality, but then the crack about Amanda's daughter doesn't make sense. So, now, we need to go back and explain that in Peacemaker S2, probably. But wait, maybe that did happen in canon, and it's just David Corenswet up there and an unseen actress as Wonder Woman. Cool. Uh. Ezra Miller's Flash and Jason Momoa's Aquaman were prominently featured in this scene. And it's DEFINITELY THEM, no question. And that's an issue, because Momoa was JUST CAST AS LOBO in the DCU, and he's definitely not playing Aquaman! Gotta assume that, since everybody else has been cast, Miller isn't coming back as Barry either.

So, that means we need to rewrite the events of Peacemaker to fit in this new universe, and/or we need to maybe reshoot or recontextualize that ending scene to maybe include Corenswet, and whoever is playing the others, just to show it took place in this universe. And that's just talking about the complications involved in one line of this series, and not THE CONTINUITY OF AMANDA WALLER AND RICK FLAG IN THE NEW DCU. Because we now need to explain and recontextualize Gunn's other project, The Suicide Squad, which means we need to discuss both the original Suicide Squad, and potentially even Birds of Prey!

AND I HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO THEMYSCIRA YET

...OK. Let's be completely fair, and say this may not be a big deal, at all, if handled correctly by Gunn in future projects. After all, a few throwaway lines in Peacemaker season 2, maybe a quick shoot that fixes those problems (which is unnecessary, but still), or maybe even just establishing that the events of these films happened with a few minor changes, thanks to Barry rewriting the universe in The Flash. Still has a hell of a lot of holes in it, but OK, fine. We can fix it, and I'm making a big deal out of very little.

...Of course...there was another way to handle this situation. Now, this is a bit off the wall here, and a little bit crazy, but hear me out. Maybe instead, you could've just...NOT. Just, like...don't. Don't include the events of those series. Don't reference those events. And maybe most importantly here: change the characters in charge of the Creature Commandos, and start with a new goddamn slate altogether, which I will remind you, IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF BRINGING GUNN ON IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I know, I know, I'm making too big a deal out of this, but to make this mistake at the very top of the supposedly new DCU baffles me greatly. But OK, what's done is done. Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad, at the very least, are in the DCU now, with as-yet unseen changed to their stories to make them work in continuity. So using Rick Flag Sr. and Amanda Waller is completely worth it and necessary, right?

...Right?

I think it's hard to deny that Amanda Waller is having a bit of a moment in DC Comics right now. This is a character that's been around since 1986, meaning she's going to have her 40th anniversary next year. And let me be clear about something right now: I adore Amanda Waller. She's always been one of my favorite characters in DC, ever since I got into this whole comic book fanboy thing. She's a no-nonsense taskmaster who cares about two things: her country and her family, in that order. The most lawful neutral character that's ever existed, with the occasional tip-over into lawful evil. And that word, occasional, is very important. Because Waller's personality has resulted in her...kinda being messed up in recent years.

Amanda Waller starts in comics in the way that most black female characters start: a single mother originally from the ghetto who clawed her way up to the top. And OK, it's incredibly overdone and mildly offensive by today's standards. And yet...I honestly think it works for every incarnation of Amanda Waller. This is an incredibly tough woman, and she has been through some shit. Doesn't matter what that shit is or was, because what matters is that she's at the top of her game now, and she's gonna stay there, no matter who she's standing on top of. And why? Because she's best for the protection of this country, and you'd damn well remember that. And she'll use anyone to get her way, no matter what happens to them, and no matter who stand in the path to victory. And because of that, she has no friends. Only subordinates, enemies, and those who are both.

Amanda's been a major player in comics for years, running Task Force X, AKA the Suicide Squad, from the lit shadows, having them do the dirty work for the USA beneath the radar. And they were good at it, because they knew they needed to be, or be killed in the process. Waller was a manipulative asshole, but she was an asshole on the side of good...probably. She ran organizations like Checkmate, Argus, and very prominently in the DC Animated Universe, Project Cadmus. I mention this because the DCAU is almost certainly the best incarnation of the character in other media. CCH Pounder's version is incredibly iconic, leading her to play the character for years. I won't spoil anything else about her, but if you haven't seen Justice League Unlimited, PLEASE FUCKING DO I BEG YOU.

Outside of this iconic iteration of the character, Waller's appeared in Young Justice as the warden of Belle Reve (playing the same role with slightly less authority than usual); in Batman: Assault on Arkham as head of the Suicide Squad once again; in Smallville as head of Checkmate (and played by Pam Grier, ooooooh); in Green Lantern, as head of the Department of Extranormal Operations (and played by Angela Bassett, OOOOOOH), in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay as the New 52 skinny version of the character (don't ask, it was a stupid, sexist, fatphobic era for the character. Oh, and played by Vanessa Williams, ooh); and most recently in Suicide Squad: Isekai, doing this:

That show is a fucking trip, and not one I really wanna take again. Yeah, I have issues with that one too, don't ask. If you really wanna know, ask me after I get over this essay series. Anyway, like I said, she's having a moment, and understandably; she's a great character. Which is why DC Comics has been turning her into a straight-up villain over the years, which I think is a mistake. Most recently, she went full-on, straight-up supervillain, taking charge of her own government division responsible for destroying all superheroes permanently, in exchange for her own little Legion of Doom. She lost, and was thrown in a prison of her own making...which is a choice, and maybe not the best for the character. I dunno, watching Amanda lose is fun, but we all knew she'd lose the fight. You go up against the Justice League, you best not miss, is all I'm saying. And, uh...she missed. Badly.

Fact of the matter is, to paraphrase a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude, you never go full villain. That's a surefire way to lose. But OK, enough about the comics version and other adaptations; I just love Amanda, and it kinda sucks to see her mistreated in recent years. What about Gunn's version?

Let's start this (again) by saying Viola Davis is basically perfect casting, and obviously loves playing this character. She's genuinely an excellent version of the character, and one of the only things about David Ayer's film that I thought was almost perfect. Almost perfect. Waller, unfortunately, shares something with her modern comic book counterpart, in that she dips into the villainous a little too far sometimes. In the first film, she murders a room full of technicians in cold blood, no remorse. Waller's not the type to get her hands that dirty, frankly, and doing so with no qualms makes her...well, straight-up evil. "No witnesses" isn't exactly a heroic statement.

And funnily enough, that leads to the main problem I have with Davis' Amanda: she loses a lot, and makes a lot of mistakes. Amanda is one step ahead, always, even compared to powerhouses of planning like Batman. But she makes a number of mistakes in her live-action appearances that are...bad. Most egregious is Suicide Squad, where her complete lack of preparation unleashes Enchantress on the world (yeah, entirely her fault, that one, hard to unsee that). The Suicide Squad spins out of her control, but her actions in and of themselves aren't the cause of the problem. Peacemaker is similar in that way. Finally, there's her role here in Creature Commandos. While she technically doesn't make any massive mistakes, the show proves she would be very easy to fool, in multiple ways. The master manipulator is manipulated. Twice.

We'll get to Circe later, by the way, because that's an even crazier situation that I straight-up don't understand the logic of. But as for Amanda Waller. She's obviously a favorite character of James Gunn's, understandably. But does she need to be the organizer of the Creature Commandos? To be honest...I don't really see why not. But also, no, not really? She's not a horrible choice, but she's far from the only choice available. Government leaders are a dime-a-dozen in the DC Universe, and while I think giving Waller an appearance in this series isn't a bad idea, I honestly don't think she needed to be in charge of this team. More on this later. Let's raise the flag real quick.

OK, real talk here: why Rick Flag, Sr.? This is a completely arbitrary choice that makes very little sense to me? Is it because he has a connection to Rick Flag, Jr., played by Joel Kinnaman who died in The Suicide Squad? Maybe, must is that a character that people were super-devoted to? He was great in the end, and I like Kinnaman in that move for sure, but...did it have to be a character associated with him? Is it because Rick Flag Sr. has a link to the Creature Commandos? Well, no, he's got a link to the original Suicide Squad, who fought in the 1950s. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. Is it because he's hot? No, you made him hot, and sure, that was an important plot point, but any character can be hot! WHY RICK FLAG, SR.?

I guess an important question is, why NOT Rick Flag, Sr.? Well, first off, you wouldn't have to have that awkward-ass scene where he explains how he's so seemingly young, but had a son in his 30s. Plus, you also wouldn't have had a scene where a man in at least his early 50s HAS GRAPHIC SEX WITH A WOMAN IN HER 20S? KINDA WEIRD, GUNN! Granted, you didn't need that anyway, except, again, it was an actual plot point? That's...questionable, at best. Anyway, without using Rick Flag, Sr., you also wouldn't need to establish that The Suicide Squad was canon. Maybe that was the point, though. Maybe Gunn really wanted to establish that that film is canon. Real weird, though, that Shazam: Fury of the Gods and Blue Beetle weren't confirmed to be canon, despite happening after Gunn's projects. Huh. That's not nepotism at all, NOW IS IT???!??

It's also at this point I should mention John Economos, played once again by Steve Agee reprising his role from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. This is another blank slate character from the comics, having been the warden of Belle Reve Penitentiary that housed the member of Task Force X. Gunn and Agee's version of the character? Fine. I think Agee is fun in the role, and there's also nothing inherently wrong with this character. But again, there's no real reason to include him outside of being one of Gunn's favorites. In the show, even, there's not a lot of reason for his presence outside of comic relief, and there's already a LOT of that in the series. So, is Economos necessary? I don't think so, frankly. Plus, again, his appearance is confirmation of the events in Peacemaker, considering his broken leg, and mention of an alien invasion in episode 4.

It's at this point that you may be thinking: "Wretch, you're complaining A LOT. Don't just criticize; make constructive suggestions!" Yeah, yeah, OK, you're right. Who should be the humans in charge of the Creature Commandos? And a second question: which one? I won't go into my full planned roster(s) as of yet, but I will say this: I love the idea of the team in my hypothetical series being the modern Creature Commandos, succeeding a previous long-gone team of Commandos that fought during World War II, and possibly more. But for now, let's focus on the leaders of the modern team, sans Economos' replacement. Like I said, his role isn't entirely necessary, so let's simplify things for the time being.

Last thing, though. I don;t think Waller and Flag are inherently bad choices for leadership; I just think they come with a lot of baggage and complication, and it feels like the only reason these characters are included is to form a connection with Gunn's previous DC projects. And is that enough of a reason? Not sure that it is. Having an opportunity to build up the DC Universe further feels like more of a priority to me than having something we've already seen. Maybe this was a choice to make the series more attractive to the unaffiliated, but I'm not sure anybody's going to be brought in by specifically Amanda Waller and the father of a previous character. Just saying. Let's look for more interesting choices here.

So, as I said in the first post, I'll put up two proposals: the purist option and the creative option. The former will try to stick to the comics as closely as I can, either through homage, or through direct adaptation. The latter will examine these characters narratively, and look at who can make the most sense (for has the most fun storytelling potential) for this role. Without further ado...

The Purist Choice: The General and the Hunter

For the administrator role, if we're choosing from the comics, let's put Wade Eiling in this role. A modern choice in the comics, but also a genuinely interesting character to use here. Like Waller, Eiling is an ardent believer in putting his country first and foremost. He's also a believer in making controversial decisions in terms of soldiers. In the comics, Eiling is a part of Project Atom, which aims to turn a soldier into a nuclear-powered super-soldier, and succeeds...almost. Said soldier, Nathaniel Adam, disappears for years, after Eiling had blackmailed him into being altered for the project. He seemingly dies, and Eiling honors his memory by...marrying his wife and having children with her. Ah. Yikes. Not a great guy.

Bringing Eiling in means that we not only get the possibilities of Captain Atom in this universe (which is awesome), but also get the possibility of Eiling turning into a monster himself, as he becomes a character known as the General in the comics. The Creature Commandos could not only be Eiling's second attempt at the super-soldier game, but also would be foreshadowing for his own villainous future. Plus, in the purist spirit, this is replicated by the recent comic-book run of the Commandos. Honestly, even without that series, I think this is a good choice. We'll also assume in this universe that Eiling is inspired by the original Creature Commandos. As a general of high clearance, he'd be made aware of that group, and seek to replicate it thoroughly. And to do that, he'll need a human agent to control the Commandos in the field. So, let's stick to tradition.

Our human field commander is Miranda Shrieve, a badass monster hunter, and granddaughter of Matthew Shrieve, the original field commander of the Commandos. Not only is this tradition, which would be important to Eiling as a conservative patriot, but Shrieve is a blank slate of a character that you can do anything with. Technically, this is a version that doesn't even exist in the mainstream universe of DC Comics, so go nuts! For our purposes, we'll say that Miranda was inspired by her grandfather's legacy to join the military, and was trained as a hunter by him when she was young. An excellent tactician with a stellar record of service, she's an obvious choice for Eiling to lead his new commandos as a liaison. And, honestly, she should hate it. But again, her personality is somewhat of a blank slate, which can be modified in whatever is the best creative direction.

Having Miranda here is not only an homage to the original Commandos and the Flashpoint team, but also references the Flags. If Waller hadn't snatched him up (and perhaps if he hadn't died in The Suicide Squad, if that's canon in this universe), maybe Rick Flag, Jr. would've been in charge of this group. Instead, we throw a different legacy character in the role, and the Shrieves are in charge of the Commandos then and now. She should be played, ideally, by someone in their '30s, and portrayed as such. Race, by the way, if flexible here; just saying. Broadens the field considerably, and the same goes for Eiling.

So, out first set of options: Wade Eiling and Miranda Shrieve. We're also solidly placing this team under the purview of the military, now. Let's get into the more inspired possibilities for these roles.

The Creative Choice: The King and the Soldier

For the administrator role, let's throw King Faraday into this iteration of the DC Universe. Faraday is a classic character in DC, essentially a more hand-on Nick Fury. A spy that was young when the Cold War was old, he should be played by an actor in his '60s or so (maybe late '50s), and should be mostly no-nonsense. The Creature Commandos, in this context, is a government-approved organization with a bit more oversight than Waller's Suicide Squad, and you can even reference them in the beginning of the show and have fans question what exactly is canon, if anything. The idea of using superhuman assets, however, is a good one, and Faraday would approve of it.

I also think it's a fun idea to see Faraday interact with Waller, as two allies with somewhat opposed moralities. Waller runs her Task Force X with no regard for human life in sacrifice for a presumed greater good. Faraday also serves the greater good, but puts more value in life, human or otherwise. Also, unlike Waller, Faraday should be played as somewhat of a cool customer, more seemingly relaxed, but frighteningly competent, even in his age. Again, similar to Nick Fury. A secretly scary customer, and somewhat of a monster himself, he should be able to prove himself pretty much immediately against any threats. You come for the King, after all, you best not miss.

My inspired choice for human field commander is...definitely controversial. But hear me out, I beg of you.

John Edward Brown is a veteran of the Iraq War, having served since he was 18, and climbing the ranks to become a sergeant, and known for an excellent service in the process. Still a member of the military over a decade later, he's called back for active field service by King Faraday, who brought him in based on his reputation, and upon rumors about certain aspects of his service. Regardless of this, when Brown is brought into this group, there's a serious question as to why. Oh, and he's Black American. Vital to his character, and absolutely cannot be changed.

But over time, he proves himself as an incredibly effective field commander, who also seems to be able to access surveillance information...without performing surveillance. He's not a metahuman, magic, or otherwise psychically gifted, so there should be no reason for this, outside of the occasionally heard mutterings and whispers to himself, often tinged with frustration. But we won't find out the reason for this until close to the series finale, possibly the penultimate episode. Turns out Brown is part of a long line of military men, with the family having served in every post Civil-War conflict. However, during his service in Iraq, John became the first military man in his family...to die. Not for long, however. When John, now a sergeant in charge of an armored tank division, and his command were ambushed by the enemy, John's heart stopped for exactly 31 seconds, until being restarted by his troop. However, when he awoke, they were still under attack...only to be saved by something truly unexpected.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST HEAR ME OUT

OK. So, the ghost of a Confederate Army general, J.E.B. Stuart, is protecting the members of this armored tank troop. After the dust settles, it appears that he's protecting Jeb Stuart, a young soldier in the tank troop from Virginia, named after this famous general who died young. Everyone in the tank can see him, though, including Brown, who's understandably not pleased about having a Confederate ghost in the tank. But, he's actually incredibly valuable, if not also very intolerant and stuck in his old ways. However, Stuart does begin to get along with the group, despite their differences. Except, of course, for Brown, who's literally named after abolitionist John Brown, whom J.E.B. helped to kill during Bleeding Kansas. But still, whatever, there's a ghost on the team, he's helpful and folksy.

But then, Jeb leaves the troop. Maybe he's reassigned, maybe he's injured, doesn't matter. Jeb leaves, and J.E.B....stays. He's still here. Huh. I guess he just haunts the tank now, rather than protect a descendant, right? Well, uh...no. He's still protecting a descendant. But it turns out that the descendant was John Brown. Yeah. Oh shit.

So. Again. Hear me out. The Haunted Tank is one of my favorite forgotten DC characters, and a GHOST most certainly would fit in the Creature Commandos, not to mention a military ghost at that. But obviously...this could easily be a problem. But it's one that I think somebody like Gunn could actually work with.

The Haunted Tank actually dates back to 1961, and is one of the classic weird war characters in the DC roster. However, that ghost of J.E.B. Stuart actually did haunt a good ol' Southern boy in a tank named Jeb Stuart, who was his descendant. But then, the character disappeared after an appearance in Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. Vertigo Comics, an R-rated subsidiary of DC, brought the character back in 2009 in the series pictured above, starring Jamal Stuart instead of Jeb, and set in 2003, during the Iraq War. And lemme tell you...DON'T READ THIS SERIES. Holy shit, this book is offensive as shit, so if you'd rather not read a racist (and especially Islamophobic), overall offensive MESS of a 5-issue series, ignore it. It also RUINS J.E.B. Stuart as a character at the very end, and while I won't spoil it...it explains how he has a black descendant. In unpleasant detail. It's just not the most fun read in 2025 hindsight.

Again, though, I think this character would be Gunn's vibe. And even without Gunn, I think this is a character worth adding, and sets up a tank in the last episodes of the series. And really, who doesn't like a tank? I recognize that this is a crazy choice, but I also think it's an interesting one, and a good excuse to bring in a human character, especially with some of the characters I have in mind for the creative version of the Creature Commandos.

OK, this post has obviously been very long at this point, but I had a lot to say about both Waller and Flag, and needed to establish their potential replacements. Feel free to comment your thoughts, opinions, questions, etc., etc.! There are more posts to come, and the next one is going to jump forward to episode 2, The Tourmaline Necklace. Didn't really "review" episode 1, but that's coming in the future when we discuss the villains of the piece. Because lemme tell you...I have problem. Still, next time: the Frankensteins.

See you next time (maybe, no pressure)!

Part One: Introduction and Adaptation Part Two: The Original Creature Commandos Part Three: Amanda Waller and Rick Flag, Sr. Part Four: The Frankensteins Part Five: G.I. Robot

[lexi-the-demon-69]

Since the new Dark Cacao Update is happening-

So, you guys have seen the post about the new Dark Cacao update and I have this very weird quirk of somehow predicting the future. (IE: my rant post about Dark Choco's character/Dark Cacao's half-assed apology/Mystic Flour)

Since I have my suspicions about the update's story, there are many things that I hope to the lord that they include/fix with the new story:

1.) Addressing Dark Cacao's poor parenting: This needs to be addressed in at least one way. Like I've mentioned before, I despise that Dark Cacao's parenting is put in such a positive light and how he's portrayed as a loving father. Sure, he does truly love his son, but that doesn't excuse what he did to him. Maybe in the story, Mystic Flour uses a manipulation tactic and shows him how badly he fucked up, but it's in his son's POV. That would genuinely be awesome to see. But, I highly doubt CRK would go THAT far. (That's alright tho. I'd still love to write a oneshot around the idea)

2.) Dark Cacao's half-assed apology: God, I hope they address this so badly. Seriously, I need a scene where Dark Choco realizes that his dad isn't truly sorry for what he did to him growing up, and after trying so hard to heal from this, the realization hits him like a freight train. He realizes that maybe helping out his father to make amends wasn't the best idea after all and he should've stayed away, which leads up to a big argument between the two. The DRAMA!! I NEED IT!!

3.) The voice acting: This is more of a nitpick on my end and this problem lies with Dark Choco's voice in the English Dub. Mind you, I am not attacking Dark Choco's voice actor and I am not laying the blame onto him because this is entirely the director's fault. Not him. (I honestly really like his English voice and his voice actor!) Anyway, I do not like how Dark Choco's voice is in episode 14... not one bit. How did you get from a dark, brooding, yet somewhat kind and gentle voice to fucking BATMAN!? I mean, I know the voice actor has stated before that he has taken inspiration from Batman to do his voice, but I feel like the direction really leaned more into the Batman voice, and fucking Jesus I hate it. Please, Devsisters, never do that again.

Other than that, I'm honestly very excited for the next update!!! I already have my Choco boi fully ascended and fully leveled up!! I can't wait for him and Caramel Arrow's magic candy!!!

[ego-meliorem-esse]

dude but the whole face family is a mess of mental disorders and shit. At least if you want to nitpick. Australia and Murica are both ADHD, Canada a depressive lil shit, England is autistic and france bipolar as fuck. I'm still figuring out new Zealand so I can make bingo!

What happened to hi hello how are you 🥲

Im fucking kidding lets go

I have many thoughts on this topic. I just wanna say first that i dont really want to talk about specifically what mental disorder or whatnot each of these characters have. I have my personal hc that i keep private just cus ive strayed so far from canon or even the classic hetalia 2014 country stereotyping. They are my blorbos in the purset sense of the word. So, i feel like if i told you “yeahh murica is adhd on legs” i think it would come across as insensitive.

But on the other hand, in the past 2 years that ive been in group therapy on and off, i have come to be comfortable with talking about mental disorders and dont find it as triggering or offensive as i know some people do. Which is also very valid. People deal with things the best they can and when youre in the trenches of ocd, having a weirdo (me ✊😎) say a fictional character is going through it, it might not sit right. So i wanna keep this as non triggering as possible.

As almost everything i hc, this is something I’ve looked over. And i do agree to a point. Alfred is definitely someone who exhibits traits like excessive talking, impulsiveness, interrupting conversations, difficulty focusing at something that he finds little interest in etc etc. He is easily distracted and tends to find certain people boring. But he also does not have time management skills and he does not forget tasks and plans. Could this be adhd? Sure. Does it have to be? Of course not. So i tend to leave it up in the air. Some people might find comfort in interpreting it as adhd and some would rather stay clear. Both viewpoints equally valid.

I truly dont know about Jack or Arthur. Eleanor too. Honestly i dont really try to make up disorders for them. One thing i dislike is the labeling. If someone, even a silly character, does show traits of some disorder, id rather not have it outright mentioned. It can be cristal clear that Matt has a full on depressive episode, but let me figure that one out myself, chief. I am all in favour of making these fuckers complex and give them shit to shovel, but the moment we start throwing mental disorder labels around, i think the focus strays. But again, only my preference. To someone else, its a comfort.

However, as he is my knight of the highest order, my highest ranking babygirl, my worst punching bag: Matt is depressed as shit. He functions but, God, at what cost?

Does he have depression? Probably. Will i ever make a serious post about his depression specifically? Probably not.

Francois though. He has no disorders, no hardships or difficulties. Makes it easier for me to actively and effectively hate. We are currently negotiating a stalemate, as ive, just today, heard Sous le ciel de Paris after forgetting that song existed. Good fucking song tho. Willing to negotiate the terms of Francois’ surrender.