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marley-manson · 9 months ago

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the topic is Trapper and the army as foils, you have three hours, go

In no small part the satire of Mash, particularly in the first half of the show, is tied up with gender performance.

The army represents traditional, stifling and violent masculinity. This is shown through everything from freudian jokes about guns (eg Frank and Margaret's flirtations in The Sniper or The Gun), to Margaret trying to cajole Hawkeye into performing a more traditional standard of masculinity while treating him like a soldier in Comrades in Arms Part 2, to many jokes and comments about (usually) Hawkeye not being a real man in contrast to army standards and various specific army personnel (eg Lyle in Springtime, Flagg in White Gold), to Frank and Margaret's worship of the masculinity of the army ("He's twice the man you'll ever be," re: Flagg and Hawkeye, Margaret's lust for MacArthur, Frank pursuing the sniper in The Sniper in an attempt to be a "real man" in Margaret's eyes, etc) to many jokes positioning the military as a sexually aggressive man pursuing Hawkeye ("Sure, the sun the moon the stars, your high school letterman jacket. Same deal I promised nurse Baker." "A receipt please, and promise you'll go out with other doctors," etc.)

In contrast, the main characters all fail to perform traditional gender in some way, from crossdressing to immaturity to indecisiveness to peacefulness to Margaret's masculinity and Frank's pathetic failure to live up to his own masculine ideals, to just about everything about Hawkeye. His cowardliness, his jokes about not being a real man, his jokes about taking the feminine role in sexual encounters with men and women, even multiple double entendres about his average at best penis size.

Trapper is the most traditionally masculine of the main cast. He still subverts masculinity in some subtle ways here and there, such as the occasional feminizing joke and mentions of not being in great shape, but overall he's the more butch counterpart to Hawkeye's fem. He plays the role of boxer while Hawkeye plays the role of diva in their respective manager/star roleplaying episodes. He's broader and buffer and plays football, often seen playing catch with someone while walking around the compound, while Hawkeye disdains sports and doesn't participate. He reads Field and Stream which Hawkeye derides in Alcoholics Unanimous while making a wry comment about shaving his armpits. A past lover nicknamed him Big John.

And there are many, many jokes about Hawkeye and Trapper being sexual partners. The recurring Uncle Trapper and Aunt Hawkeye gag, if my father sees this you'll have to marry me, for me? only if you put those on, your father and I will tell you what we did to have you, that's when I fell in love with him, etc etc etc. It's constant. In these jokes Hawkeye usually takes the feminine role, though not strictly every time ("Me and the missus," is one exception in As You Were, the dance in Yankee Doodle Doctor is another).

Trapper's masculinity is differentiated from traditional military masculinity in a few ways. Most obviously, Trapper abhors the military's violence. He never uses guns and mocks Frank's obsession with them, he's a healer rather than a soldier, and he's disgusted by the results of military violence on the men on his operating table.

He's also secure in himself. The military's brand of masculinity is strongly characterized by insecurity and overcompensation. Frank is the main representative of this military insecurity - a coward who insists he's brave (The Army Navy Game), a man who clings to a phallic gun to compensate for his sexual and gendered inadequacies (a main theme of The Sniper, perfectly mirrored when the army itself comes in with a vastly disproprotionately powerful automatic machine gun on a helicopter to shoot down one sixteen year old), a homophobe repressing his own attraction to men (As You Were, the original script of George), etc. We also see this in Flagg, who implicitly sublimates sexual urges into violence (seen when he suggestively caresses his gun while describing how he wants to torture a boy in Officer of the Day).

Trapper doesn't need to overcompensate. He's well-endowed physically, he's portrayed as a competent and considerate lover, he's a brave man who doesn't mind being seen as a coward, and he may or may not be attracted to men but either way he's not a homophobe (George) and he doesn't express his sexuality through violence. When Margaret proves herself stronger than him, his response is to be impressed rather than offended (Bombed). When he dances with Hawkeye for a gag, he doesn't mind letting Hawkeye lead.

He's also differentiated in terms of tradition, with the mliitary representing a more propagandic 50s traditionalism, and Trapper representing a 70s, countercultural freedom from tradition. We see this in the way Trapper has plenty of sex despite being married, while adultery is a court-martial offense in the military. It's notable that he's open and carefree about it, while Frank and Margaret are surreptitious and hypocritical in their affair. This lack of traditionalism is also shown in his disrespect for authority, often in direct contrast to Frank and Margaret's worship of it, and his allyship to George who the military would persecute for his sexuality.

So ultimately we can see that while Trapper and the military are both examples of masculine performance, Trapper's masculinity differs from the military's in being more flexible, less violent, less traditional, and more secure. The military's masculinity is far more toxic than Trapper's, particularly in the context of 70s counterculture media, which aligns womanizing with sexual liberation rather than a lack of respect for women, accurately or not.

This contributes to their respective dynamics with Hawkeye.

Hawkeye, we've established, is usually more feminine, and there are a myriad of jokes characterizing Trapper as his sexual partner, as well as the military as a sexual pursuer.

The jokes Hawkeye and Trapper make about their relationship tend towards cozy domesticity. They're Radar's "aunt and uncle," they directly roleplay marriage ("Martha, we're going to have to move, the people upstairs are impossible,") and less directly behave as though married (the bickering in Alcoholics Unanimous, the discussion about naming their pony in Life With Father). Occasionally they're treated as a healthy couple in contrast to Frank and Margaret's toxicity ("While I'm gone, promise you'll go out with other doctors," vs "Touch anyone else and I'll cut off your hands" in Aid Station).

In some instances the jokes lean towards predatory - "If you're trying to get me drunk, it'll work," or "Who is this man in bed with me?" "I followed you home from the movies," but they're always playful, always fond. If Hawkeye takes on a submissive or victimized role in these jokes, it's one he has fun with and discards just as easily in the context of the rest of his relationship with Trapper.

So, it's important to note that Hawkeye and Trapper support each other and look after each other in an equal, enthusiastic friendship. From Trapper ensuring Hawkeye gets to sleep in Doctor Pierce and Mr. Hyde, to Hawkeye supporting Trapper when he wants to adopt a child, to Trapper right at Hawkeye's side as they attempt to procure an incubator, they are there for each other every step of the way. If their relationship is a marriage in some ways, it's a healthy, strong, and non-traditional marriage, an equal and open partnership free of jealousy and insecurities.

Compare that to the military's relationship with Hawkeye. In jokes it's characterized as powerful and predatory, far from an equal partnership. Sometimes it approaches positive - in Carry on Hawkeye, much of the humour is derived from Hawkeye and Margaret's gendered role reversal as she assumes military command of the unit. Hawkeye playfully calls her sir, seductively lies on her desk like a secretary in a porn film, and most notably treats an immunization shot as sexual penetration in a prolonged gag about sexual role reversal. Hawkeye has fun playing a sexually submissive role to a representative of military authority in this episode, but it is a submissive role.

Several of the one-off jokes have a similar sensibility, such as the double entendre of "My bellybutton's been puckering and unpuckering all day," in response to a representative of MacArthur assuming their excitement over the general's arrival to the unit, or Hawkeye's "Okay, take me, I'm yours," to Colonel Flagg. They demonstrate a willingness to play the receptive role on Hawkeye's part, but they also, pointedly, disturb the object of the jokes.

When Hawkeye makes these jokes that sexualize military authority, he's attempting to be provocative as well as defiantly drawing disruptive attention to his own powerlessness as a drafted surgeon. The power dynamic between Hawkeye and the authority of the military only goes one way, and Hawkeye gets a kick out of pointing it out in ways that perturb the representatives of that authority, but it's a power dynamic that takes its toll on him.

Many of Mash's plotlines revolve around Hawkeye rebelling and attempting to seize some scrap of agency back from the military. Adam's Ribs, for example, in which he starts a mild riot over the food he's being fed and spends the episode attempting to procure barbecue ribs from Chicago (which Trapper procures for him), or Back Pay where he tries to charge the military for his forced labour. A particularly notable example is Some 38th Parallels, in which Hawkeye complains about being paid the equivalent of a nickel per operation, and his frustration manifests in impotency until he can perform a gesture of rebellion against the military.

One unfortunate consistency of these episodes is that the army ultimately retains its power. When Hawkeye achieves his goals, it's only in small ways that do little more than satisfy his own need to assert his sense of self. Often, Hawkeye doesn't achieve his goal at all, but is thwarted by the army, such as in For Want of a Boot. In every instance he remains powerless in comparison to the authority of the military.

So the context in which Hawkeye makes these sexualized jokes about the military literally fucking him is one of abject helplessness. In a sense, all he's capable of is pointing out what the military is doing and putting it in his own, audacious terms. He's not capable of preventing it. His jokes usually have an edge of bitterness to them in delivery, and when they don't, that tone is imparted anyway by the greater context.

With Trapper, Hawkeye can play-act a marriage or an assault, but in either case he's an enthusiastically consenting, equal partner. Trapper's performance of masculinity allows for Hawkeye to take any role from victim to wife to husband, and enables Trapper to respond in kind from a position of equality and respect. The military, in its insecure, domineering performance of masculinity, is a dictatorial authority, never allowing Hawkeye perform any role but a feminized, victimized one, and only ever giving him the choice of whether to perform with a wry smile or a sneer.

In short, Trapper is the cool, considerate service top to the military's insecure domineering boyfriend.

I'm tagging everyone who enabled this lol, share the blame. @beansterpie @majorbaby @professormcguire @rescue-ram

#mash #this was dumb but writing it was somehow cathartic for me lol #i should've done this with frank and hawkeye as foils wrt subverting masculinity bc i think that would've been much easier #but i got caught up in this honestly. it's incredibly fun to write this kind of shit #maybe i'll post a round 2 sometime #marley on mash #ship ht #mash gs #and like... it's a little bit parodic but also sincere to an extent lol. this is absolutely one way of reading all the freudian #undercurrents in the show. it's definitely silly to contrast trapper and the military to make a point about how the show depicts #masculinity especially for like 1800 words lmao but it's a very fun angle #trapper mash #hawkeye mash #long post

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ineedmojoe · 26 days ago

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Six times Ryan described Eddie as straight

(Bolding is mine. I’ve highlighted where he’s said Eddie is straight as well as his point that he wants to “dispel” that just because Buck and Eddie are vulnerable with one another, it doesn’t mean Eddie is queer. I also bold where he says that it’s more important to show audiences that Eddie, a straight man and ally, can be friends with a queer man, and it doesn’t affect their friendship or "change the sexuality" of the straight man. I’ll also note that he answered almost every interview question that implied Eddie was queer this way during the end-of-s7 interviews. He seems to only not go into this spiel if the interview question is clearly about Buck and Eddie's platonic relationship. Edit: I want to add that I think the queer Eddie headcanon is totally valid, and I see how people see and write that from various moments in the show. It just seems like they have no plans to go there in canon.)

9-1-1’ Star Ryan Guzman on Buck & Eddie: ‘It’s Baby Steps Towards Anything & If Anything’ — May 9, 2024 — Meredith Jacobs — Swooon (formerly on TVInsider)

Even before 9-1-1 Season 7, fans have wondered if the drama would eventually pair Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) together romantically. And now, with this season featuring Buck exploring his bisexuality—he’s with former 118 member Tommy (Lou Ferrigno Jr.)—the question does have to be asked if the show could go there with him and his best friend.

“We just got to the point where Buck is having this own personal growth of himself, so it’s like baby steps towards anything and if anything,” Guzman tells TV Insider.

Furthermore, he’s especially enjoying what this arc is “showcasing on national television: a bisexual man coming out to a heterosexual man and having the strength to do such, and then having the heterosexual man giving that man a safe space to be caught in and to be loved and nurtured. I think there’s still an air out there in the world that your sexuality preference determines if you’re weak or not, or determines if you’re capable or not, of being just a good human being, which is such a crazy thing to think about,” Guzman continues. “I love that we get to dispel that ideology and we get to showcase and reflect to the world that your sexual preference has no meaning in friendships and connection. Accept people for who they are, love people for who they are, and let’s keep it pushing. Let’s have fun. Let’s have a great time.”

9-1-1′s Ryan Guzman Reacts to [Spoiler]’s Return and Eddie’s Betrayal: ‘He’s Weaving a Dangerous Web’ — May 9, 2024 — Andy Swift — TVLine

TVLINE | I think I have more appreciation for Eddie this season after watching his friendship with Buck reach a new level. Buck is in such a vulnerable place, and it’s given Eddie a chance to step up and support him. A lot of guys come out and worry that things won’t be the same with their straight friends, but Eddie handled everything perfectly. He’s a true ally, that one.

I just access from my own personal life with friends that have come out to me. I think we were all raised in a generation where men were expected to be hardened and not access our feelings. … You can still be that type of man and be friends with a person who has a completely different sexuality than you. It has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t make his jokes less funny, the time you hang out with him isn’t any weirder or more awkward. If it does, the person who’s feeling that way has something they’re going through that they maybe need to come out to, too.

I would love to reflect onto the world that you should be there for your brother, you know, be there for your sister. If someone comes out to you, handle it with a net of safety and love and just keep it pushing after that. Like, “That must have been hard for you. Now that we’re past that, let’s go enjoy your lives.”

9-1-1’s Ryan Guzman on Eddie’s Shocking New Love Interest and the Consequences He’ll Face — May 10, 2024 — Ashley Bissette Sumerel — Tell-Tale TV

Guzman also discussed Eddie’s reaction to Buck coming out as bisexual earlier this season.

“[Buck] coming out as a bisexual man to a person who is, not necessarily machismo, but a typical heterosexual individual with all these accolades behind him, that could be very scary for a man like Buck to come out to,” he noted.

However, when Buck reveals to Eddie that he and Tommy had been on a date, Eddie’s reaction is one of acceptance and love.

“Partly why I love that specific scene so much is because it was an opportunity to showcase to the world [that] this is how you handle that situation — that sexual preference doesn’t dictate how we should interact with each other and how I should treat you as a human being. And that doesn’t make me love you any less or think of you any less,” Guzman said.

“It just shows me what you like. I’ve already shown you what I like… and clearly, it’s my dead wife,” he laughed.

“Oliver [Stark] and I are aware that everybody has their own renditions of what Buck and Eddie are to be,” Guzman continued, referring to the hope many fans have that Buck and Eddie will eventually develop a romance.

“We love the love. We love that they’re invested so much into these characters,” Guzman said.

“Everything has to fall in its own truth, and at this moment, I think the beauty and the truth is that a man saw another man in need and was seeing another man be so vulnerable in front of him. And what he did was say, ‘Hey, I got you, brother. Don’t worry.'”

Speaking of the possibility of a Buddie romance, Guzman said that while he didn’t want to speculate, his feeling is that audiences are drawn to the vulnerability between the two characters.

“I can’t read the audience’s mind, and I don’t want to speculate on anything that I don’t know, but I think that people tend to lean on the vulnerability side. That’s something that I’ve always tried to explore in this character specifically because I can relate to it,” he said. “A lot of people feel that just because you’re vulnerable, it means that you’re a certain thing or not. And I’ve always wanted to dispel that a little bit.”

“You can be a very macho man and be vulnerable at the same time, but it’s who you’re vulnerable to. Because vulnerability is a gift. You just don’t share it out to the world. And if you do, you better have strength in that vulnerability and confidence in that vulnerability. It’s gotta be tried and true.”

“So, I think that this is another great opportunity to showcase that men can be vulnerable with each other and allow for that space of growth. And we might’ve met each other at one time in our lives, but it doesn’t mean that we have to hold each other to that point,” Guzman said.

‘9-1-1’ Star Ryan Guzman Breaks Down That Emotional Finale Goodbye — May 30, 2024 — Max Gao — The Hollywood Reporter

Eddie was raised with the toxic masculine ideal that he had to suppress his emotions, and it’s only been through his relationships at the 118 that he has begun to feel more comfortable with expressing his feelings. How do you think Eddie’s upbringing has influenced the kind of person he is in the present day? And as someone who has drawn plenty of parallels between yourself and Eddie, what parts of your own lived experiences have you drawn from?

I pull from a lot of my own personal history. I always had emotions when I was younger. Growing up in Sacramento, it was always frowned upon to have these emotions and even trying to understand them. Actually, I was told that it was homosexual to feel these feelings, and I’m like, “Wait, so having feelings makes me be this kind of person? I don’t understand this.” So it was always something that I never could understand in the setting that I was growing up in.

Now I use that as a conduit to Eddie, because the setting he was growing up in was similar. Coming into this new family of seeing Hen and now Buck being versions of themselves who are living in their truth, it now allows Eddie to live in his truth and see there is new life and new opportunity. He’s allowing himself to be vulnerable and realize, “No, [being vulnerable] doesn’t make me less of a man, and it’s not an indication that my sexuality has to completely change because I feel these emotions. I’m still the same man. I just now have a greater awareness and greater depth of who I am because of these emotions.” This has always been something that I’ve wanted to portray on camera, and having Eddie be the conduit for that has been an incredible opportunity for myself as an actor and as a person. I love the fact that I’m able to show to the world, through Eddie, that having this vulnerability with your brothers or your sisters doesn’t make you anything that the world might throw at you as a title. It just makes you more aware of who you are and gives you an opportunity for some emotional intelligence.

Ryan Guzman of 9-1-1 — May 20, 2024 — Tommy DiDario — I've Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario (Podcast)

Tommy (12:46): You can't predict the future. Nobody can on this show. But if the opportunity one day happened to come your way where they were like, "This storyline might be explored between Buck and Eddie," would you be open to that storyline in the future? I see you smiling. Oliver had the same reaction, a big grin on his face when I asked this.

Ryan (13:06): Yeah, you know, like I said, it's got to live in the truth. And I think right now we live at a moment, or me, I live moment to moment. So I love the fact that the biggest plot point between these two characters is one happens to be bi, one happens to be hetero, and they have this vulnerability towards each other. And that is the truth to me. It's the fact that you have such a safe space, and it doesn't matter your sexuality, that you have a safe space to talk to this individual, and he can fully accept you. If we can stay with that, then whatever happens happens. But I don't necessarily want to push the fact that because you're vulnerable, you have to be one way or the other in your sexuality. I would hate to, you know, have a lot of other men who are struggling mentally and not sure about, "Oh, do I even open up? Will that make me something that I'm not?" I would hate to push that narrative. So if we live in the truth, whatever happens happens. And again, I'm here for it all.

9-1-1’s Ryan Guzman Breaks Down Eddie’s Biggest Season 7 Moments: Bachelor Party Hijinks and More — June 10, 2024 — Kat Pettibone — Us Weekly

Whether it be through his military duty, being Latino, his religion or his relationship with Buck — which some fans perceive as romantic — Eddie Diaz is someone who makes viewers feel seen. Playing a character who can connect to so many, Guzman shared, is something he takes seriously.

[Note: Kat Pettibone shared that this is the specific question she asked here: “There are a lot of queer fans who see themselves in Eddie Diaz despite him not being canonically queer himself. How does it feel to play someone who makes people feel seen and represented — in a multitude of ways, but for queer people as well?”]

“I love the ambiguity of Eddie and that there’s connective tissue there — for queer people or not — to relate and to fall in love and to find themselves in who Eddie is,” he said. “I mean, there’s a vulnerability in Eddie, there’s also a chaos in Eddie. There’s so much realness in Eddie. And I love that there’s so many fans out there of all demographics that find themselves in Eddie.”

Guzman said that he hopes to show “the more humane side” of Eddie, highlighting that “within community, we can all heal.”

“That’s what I see the 118 being for Eddie,” he continued. “It’s this therapy, this family, whether you’re lesbian like Hen or you’re bisexual like Buck, it does not matter your sexual orientation. We can all share the same dinner plate and we can all love each other and feel safe enough to say whatever it is we want to say. That’s the kind of world I want to live in. And that’s what I love about Eddie. And the fact that he gets to portray to all these other individuals who are militant and raised Catholic and very hard-edged, to let those boundaries go.”

#please feel free to use this as a reference!#i ship buddie and in the middle of s7 - before these interviews - i thought there was a chance they could go there #but after i read all these interviews in may and june it seems clear that they do not have any plans to make eddie queer #and ryan seems opposed to the idea that eddie must be gay because he's vulnerable with buck. he seems very into them being platonic friends #he also mentions that he hopes catholic and ex-military people can just accept that a straight guy can be friends with a queer guy #in terms of his rhetoric and the fact that this was all greenlighted by abc publicity/PR -- we seem miles away from queer eddie #we should keep headcanoning eddie however we want and i think the queer headcanon fits well. i just don't think it's happening in the show #911 abc #eddie diaz #ryan guzman

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acosmic · 5 months ago

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the popularity of clothing in fixed sizes encountered “multiple cultural resistance[s]” because “they were established for ‘dominated’ people and colonial subjects who usually were part of administrations: children, prisoners, boarders, or soldiers.”

from "Body Doubles: The Origins of the Fashion Mannequin" by Alison Matthews David, quoting Manuel Charpy; available here

#please pardon the weird citation and lack of date i can't find a way to access the quoted source for free #pattern cutting #military fashion show #19th century #[again that is approximate]#historical fashion #original compilations #ignore the rest of that tag i don't stand by most of it

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suzannahnatters · 3 months ago

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Many people have asked me why I say THE RINGS OF POWER is far more faithful to the spirit of Tolkien’s work than the Peter Jackson films. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

(Warning: if you deeply love the Jackson movies, feel free not to read this. I’ve been meditating on this for 20+ years. You are not going to argue me out of any of it.)

FIRST – Jackson is, how shall we put it, not sufficiently familiar with Tolkien or his influences. He repeatedly and stubbornly made mistakes both large and small. Tolkien was a master of medieval military tactics. Jackson... is not. Every military decision taken by the characters in Jackson’s TWO TOWERS is pure stupidity. In Jackson’s RETURN OF THE KING, Aragorn casually beheads the Mouth of Sauron, which is a war crime, since the Mouth is Sauron’s ambassador. Jackson’s Eowyn tries to flirt with Aragorn by cooking him stew, even though she is a noblewoman from the warrior class who was raised to act as a civil and military leader in a medieval-coded society where cooking is not intrinsically linked to femininity. Jackson’s Theoden, grieving over the death of his son, utters the words “No parent should have to grieve the death of their child,” which is the kind of sentiment only imaginable in a society where infant mortality and death in battle is a good deal rarer than among the Anglo-Saxon Cossacks during the War of the Rings. Jackson’s Dwarf women are reduced to a punchline; Tolkien’s were miners, craftspeople and adventurers in their own right.

I won’t go on. BUT I COULD.

SECOND – One problem that by itself ought to have disqualified Jackson from adapting Tolkien, is that he is incapable of depicting or even understanding goodness the way Tolkien does. This deeply pervades all Jackson’s films. Jackson’s idea of goodness is ethereal, anaemic, and ineffective before gross and creepy evil. His Elves are not the vivid, passionate, hearty warriors Tolkien wrote: they pluck mistily at harps and feed on spinach. (TROP has Galadriel scaling frozen cliffs and Elrond splitting boulders. That’s FAR more like it).

Tolkien insisted on the concept of Faerie as being foundational to his work. This is a difficult concept to explain. It meant the beauty and glory of Valinor, yes. But it also meant an element of otherworldly, yet immanent, beauty and glory in Middle Earth itself. This is a good summary:

“Faerie may be roughly translated as Magic, but not the vulgar magic of the magician; it is rather magic "of a particular mood and power," and it does not have its end in itself but in its operations. Among these operations are "the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires" such as the desire "to survey the depths of space and time" and the desire "to hold communion with other living things."” (Source: https://www.ewtn.com/.../tolkien-and-the-fairy-story-4094)

When Lewis said of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, “here are beauties that pierce like swords”, that’s that he meant. Peter Jackson had no sense of Faerie. When, at the end of his trilogy, he has his characters get on a ship to go to the Undying Lands, he makes it a metaphor for death. Death! Tollkien’s Valinor isn’t the afterlife; it’s the earthly paradise of his world. Jackson cannot imagine an earthly or material locus of goodness.

This affects many of his narrative decisions. In the book Faramir resists the temptation of the Ring handily. Jackson’s Faramir succumbs to the power of the Ring and has to be scared straight. Jackson justified this by saying that Faramir needed to fall to the Ring’s temptation so that it remained an effective narrative threat. Basically, having failed to grasp the importance of Tolkien’s vision of powerful and present goodness and beauty in the first place, Jackson believed he needed to further degrade it for the sake of the story.

Obviously, THE RINGS OF POWER isn’t perfect, and still has plenty of time to betray its early promise. However, so far its showrunners appear to have a far better grasp of Faerie, beauty, and goodness than Jackson ever did. Its vision of Valinor is ineffably beautiful while still home to flawed living people. Its Elves are noble, ceremonious, dignified, warm, and grave. It is also actively pursuing Tolkien’s original themes. Elanor has a discussion of Providence that contains intentional echoes of “The Shadow of the Past” in LOTR, but there are also meditations on art and mortality that show an attempt to engage with themes Tolkien himself said were foundational to his entire work (Letter #131). These themes may yet be mishandled: but THE RINGS OF POWER has clearly at least READ the assignment. (Jackson’s films, by comparison, did dumb stuff like having Theoden, who in the books is simply dealing with depression, be literally possessed by Saruman and in need of exorcism “because exorcism is a Catholic thing and Tolkien was a Catholic, lol!”)

Jackson didn’t completely obscure the beauty and goodness of Tolkien, and I’m aware that THE RINGS OF POWER could not have happened without his pioneering and often sacrificial work in adapting the story to screen. I don’t want to discount the things that are good about his intentions, his work, and his love for the source material. But watching THE RINGS OF POWER was the moment when 20 years of frustration boiled over as I realised that, contrary to what I’d always told myself, it WAS possible to do Tolkien more justice than this. So far, I’m very pleased, and I’ll be waiting for future seasons with bated breath.

#the rings of power #lotr trop #trop positivity #repost from twitter #how's this for the golden apple of discord #haters to the LEFT #I wrote this two years ago after seeing the first couple TROP eps #and I still stand by it today #although to be fair the TROP military tactics are the one (1) area where the show is as bad as the movies

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s0fter-sin · 3 months ago

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retired ghoap going on a renovation competition show

ghost takes over the budget and he's ruthless with it; tracking every paint swatch and piece of lumber down to the last cent, haggling for every purchase and making the most of their coupons. soap's in charge of design; he can visualise floor plans better than anyone, seeing the completed spaces in his mind when they’re little more than a steel shell

they run their site like a military base, treating their builders like rookies; expecting them to follow orders but also waiting for them to inevitably mess up so they can fix it

they're an immediate shock to the judges; they fully expected them to have no idea what they're doing, to have no understanding of style or trends, but they didn't sign up just for shits and giggles

they know how to hit a brief and can do physical labour faster than the actual builders. with soap's discerning eye and ghost's practically, they design gorgeous rooms and become a real threat for the prize money. they handle the stress and sleepless nights like it's second nature bc really, it is; a few all nighters painting are nothing compared to being shot at

they also take great joy in messing with the other couples

it takes a while for them to figure out they're even married; they argue like it's going out of fashion, never holding their opinions or frustrations back but it's their love language as much as their banter. you can hear them barking at each other from across the site; callsigns and “It” and “sergeant” thrown around just like in the field

the challenges are where they have the most fun

the day to day? that's work; they're strict, both with themselves and the schedule, never letting anything fall behind or go incompleted. but the challenges? that's play time. they love pushing the brief, toeing the line of the rules purely bc they can

they get to a two part art challenge and ghost's scheming before before the host even opens their mouth. part one? one half of the couple has to design some kind of art piece that will feature in their house. part two? the other person has to gather supplies and tools and make the art

there's a time limit for how long they can take to gather the supplies; once it's up, they can't go back for more and they can only use what they can carry themselves to their station. they're in a warehouse filled with scrap and paint and tools, the choices almost overwhelming

ghost politely interrupts the host to ask for a clarification; absolutely anything in the warehouse can be used so long as they can carry it?

the host confirms; anything under the roof is their's to use

ghost thanks them and steps back in line, standing at attention and waiting for round one to start

ghost volunteers to be the one to do the art, shocking everyone since soap is well known as the artist of the two of them. but soap sees the mischief in his eyes; he knows he's up to something and can't wait to see where it goes

the timer starts and ghost immediately shucks his hoodie and gets to grabbing; stuffing the impromptu bag with everything he recognises from soap's own supplies. there's seconds to go when he bolts for soap, throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry

the other couples are pissed and call it cheating, trying to get them disqualified

ghost just shrugs, soap still over his shoulder, "they said we can use anything we can carry. i followed the brief"

soap just laughs like a mad man

they win the challenge by a landslide

everything's going smoothly, they've won enough room reveals that they’re in a good financial position, they’re ahead in their current room and in a great headspace

then soap gets injured

it's an honest mistake, a part of the roof they thought was stable collapsing and hitting soap

and ghost, always calm and in control, panics

he's on the other side of the site when he hears soap cry out and goes running; shoving past cameramen and builders, screaming to know what happened before he even sees him. he finds soap on the ground, blood dripping from his temple and it's too familiar; a thing he sees in his nightmares

he doesn't know what to do with all his fear so instead, he channels it into anger

he goes off on all his builders, demanding to know how they could be so useless and careless as to miss the unstable roof; screaming at them in a way he hasn't done since he was on active duty, tearing down a rookie for poor trigger management

all the while, his gentle hands tend to soap; checking the wound, if he's concussed, soothing him before he can slip into a flashback of his own. he growls at the cameras, doesn't let the onsite medics anywhere near him; he doesn't know them, doesn't trust them with his johnny. it's only soap's gentle convincing that makes him step back, that forces him to stop and breathe; glaring the medics down from soap's side as they check him and come to the same conclusion soap already reached

he'll be iust fine; a few stitches and he'll be right back in it

ghost goes with him to the hospital to get the stitches laid, abandoning the site to their terrified builders to look after. it takes a few days before he can handle them being separated again, can't even handle one of them going shopping while the other site manages

but soap doesn't begrudge him for his clinginess, not when he knows it's rooted in the fear of losing him. he just keeps him close and calls him his good luck charm when they win the room reveal that week

#new season of the block's on you know what that means! putting my blorbos in every other aspect of my life!#it was so hard writing this without using tradie instead of builder lmao #i love putting ghoap in real situations #like these guys arent normal lmao so putting them in something as typical as a reno show is hilarious #can you imagine ghost shopping for tiles? comparing feature tiles and splash backs and tapwear like its life or death #i just know production would hate him a little bc of the mask he still wears but they also know theyll bring in a different demographic #they also think they can spin the drama of these clueless soldiers who have no idea what theyre doing #just for them to be completely blown away by how skilled they actually are #i just know theyd weird people out tho even retired theyre still unsettling #theres just something about them that puts people on edge #that eases when they see how maddeningly in love with each other they are #just them using military vernacular to build a flat pack #soap still referring to ghost as his superior officer #i love them #coming out of my cage and ive been doing just fine.txt #we’re a team. ghost team #ghoap #ghostsoap #soapghost #soap cod #john soap mactavish #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod fic #save post

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