#altho i find the relationship between the writer being so encouraging of others writing their own stories in that setting

[nenoname]

watched a video on higurashi ch 2 and 5 again and yet again my brain is going twinstwinstwinstwinstwinstwinstwinstwins

[hellswolfie]

SANA REMAKES RANKING

Aaaaah Sana and her Cursed Season. It is really remarkable what an awesome character -defintely one of my fave- she is and how yet not one remake ever did her justice when it came to writing her story (and og too, imo).She still manages to be great tho, and I still love all of her remakes.

PS : for this ranking, there will be two absents. First, Sana from Skam Italia, because i did not watch skam italia. And Imaan from skam nl, because she was so absent from skam nl, even in season 1, that I really can't see the point of ranking her as i would have nothing to say about her. Instead, when it comes to skam nl, I will rank Esra.

Obviously those are just my opinions, not facts, i mean absolutely no offense, feel free to tell your own in the comments ^^

the other characters i ranked :

Eva remakes

Jonas remakes

Noora remakes

William remakes

Isak remakes

Even remakes

Anyway, let's fucking go!

1- Imane (Skam France)

I might be biaised because i already knew the actress before Skam and i really liked her in the previous movie she played in, but i still really think she deserves this place.

Imo, she is THE Sana remake that managed to find the exact right balance between her kindness towards others and her headstrongness, which all make up her strenght. She was most of the time the voice of reason and it felt good to see her kick the other character's ass too, her being the only one with braincell so many times. Well other than time where she encouraged Manon to go with Charles Dickhead, and when she even sent him and email to make him come back after knowing what he had done, but you know no one is perfect and i blame more the writer's obsession with this toxic couple than her. So yeah, I loved seeing how kind and compassionate she could be, while still being THE person who would be there to kick your ass if needed to. Especially with Arthur, for exemple, as she did not even have any real connection with him but she still reached out to help him, which showed just how big of a heart she has.

She also offered a real interesting dynamic with others. I loved seeing the one she had with her family, especially Idriss (deserved better). Her relationship with Lucas was amazing too, the best Isak x Sana remake imo, as it succeeded in bringing out their "hidden" softness while also letting them both be their natural snarky little shits they love to be together ^^ . I also would love to have seen her relationship with Eliott more, because it really had a sibling "i will tease him mercilessly but if anone ever says anything remotely mean to this pure sunshine i WILL throw hands" vibe. All in all, i really thought that her loyalty and fierce protectiveness of her friends was so amazing to see!

I loved how she was not afraid to stand up to others, even her friend or someone in a group friend like Ingrid. To bad the writers seemed to think in the end that it was a bad thing tho. But anyway, this was a real strenght and so inspiring of her, how she so rarely backed down when she knew she was right, but was still able to question to herself and own up for her actions (and here i'm talking about Lucas and Idriss, the girlsquad can fuck off). It is really admirable, especially for someone as proud and stuborn as her lol.

I do think, however, that her season wasn't well handled at all, and that she deserved way better than that. We should have seen more of her relationship with religion instead of the whole pointless, tiring, love triangle thing.

But she also brought so much energy and brightness to the show with so much as her presence. I loved how the writer gave her the dance as a hobby as it really was such a good way to show her express herself and be so talented, it was really beautiful. Altho I would have loved to see her more playing backetball too, giving a Sana an artistic vibe was such a good idea, it showed her talent, softeness, and intelligence all at once and I loved it!

2- Esra (Skam nl)

Probably the most different version of Sana, for obvious reason. It was great that they managed to incorporate her character even though her original actress was gone. Like she was very different, but still a muslim woman with many of the characsterics that made Sana so awesome, just shown in their own way, and it was really well portrayed. I guess we could see her as a grown up Sana?

This would be showed by her maturity, for exemple. It was always present in the Sana, how she was almost always the most level-headed person in the group, but here it's even more present and emphacized by the fact she is older than the girlsquad. And because of that, she has a wiser side of her than Sana had, and I do think it was really interesting. She really was the mum of the group in some way in season 2. I would have loved to see her relationship with Lucas as an old-suffering older sister of some sort (rip), and her managing to see past his snakey aptitude.

But she is also allowed to be goofy and super cool, like with her dance lol. She is so laid back but also is not afraid to speak her mind and to call out people or encourage them. I really think she was a really interesting take on Sana and really wish she had her season :(.

3- Amira (Druck)

My boxer girl! I love her so much! Probably the more savage Sana and I am here for it ^^

Her season really started well imo, even though it turned out to be pretty disappointing in the end. But I really appreciated how her story with religion was portrayed. It felt very nuanced, and even without being religious, her love for her religion was pretty clear (and I can't say the same thing for all the remakes...).

I loved that she was such a cool badass character but there were so many soft moments of her helping others, be it with her brother or her friends, moments that also successfully portrayed her ressourcefulness and cleverness.

The fact that she boxed!!! Loved it!!! I loved all the boxing moments with her. I felt like it was a really good way of showing off all of the anger bottled inside of her! And also a way to show her own idols, what with the badass muslim boxer girl she admired. It added more to her view on her religion and what sort of women she wanted to be, so I found that very interesting.

Also I have to say that her sassiness and aloofness really won me over.

Her relationships with other characters were so touching too, especially the one with Mia, they were really so soft with eachother, and there were no stupid love triangle to tear their friendship appart !

4_ Amira (Skam espana)

Probably the most Mom Friend of all the Sana after Esra lol.

She was so fucking sweet and patient (kind of have to be to be Cris's BFF i guess) and always there to help others, but i also loved to see her completely done with others. She was kind of like Ezra in the way that she seems way wiser than the other characters tbh. And she was super strong, even though we also got to see insecure and having issues before her own season, for example in season 2 when she was afraid Cris was willingly pushing her away, which only gave her more depht and made her more "human".

However, when it came to her season, the writers oddly seemed to have forgotten it was about her, and so it seems like it was about the story of everyone else and she was just here to watch. Which is a shame, because I do feel like her season had potential, like for exemple with the group of muslims women she was in, but appart from that her life, her story, was always left in the background in profit of other characters. And I get it, it was the last season, so they really wanted to give closure to all the other characters, but they could have found a better balance. So in the end, she kind of became flat in her own season, which was disappointing. Not to mention how she outed a guy (who was indeed kind of an asshole to her but still, not cool). I also would have loved to see her getting more snarky or goofy, but sadly she did not, she was always too nice and too wise. So yeah, it is for that that she is that low on the ranking but I still love her!

5- Yasmina (WTFock)

I really like her too, tbh. She just has this comforting energy that make you feel good anytime she is in a scene. She was really sweet and warm. I love that, like with Imane for exemple, they also added an artistic vibe with, what with her drawing, and I wish the writers had explored that more. I also loved seeing her break down, not just crying but also having panic attack and stuff, even though she was the strongest character to me, it really made her long even stronger and real. Tbh, In the end, she was the only character besides Senne and Sander that I still liked.

However, while she was not made unlikeable or simply unbearable like other characters, she still suffered the WTFock treatment : as in her character became inconsistent, and the writers kept going back and force between abolutely wanting to change things and hype up things for drama and doing the same thing as in the og without any dephth or logic whatsoever.

In the first seasons, for one, she was very absent. I get that the actress did not want to do party scenes, but they still could have found another way to give her the important Sana scenes instead of simply erasing them. Like the throwing drinks on the girls who were dishing Amber, the scene where all the girls help drunk Amber after she passed out get to bed, the iconic slow mo of the girls together...It really took a lot of her character that she was not given those, especially since this was the season that was supposed to introduce her. Like I said, they could have gave her other (either original or simply in another context) scenes to help build up her characters as much as the others, which would have even made the serie more original. And in season 2 and season 3, most of her scenes are rushed or given to someone else, like Milan, which was cool for HIS character i admit, but she suffered greatly for it. Her scenes with Robbe were so superficial and rushed, which was very disappointing since the Sana x Isak relationship is to me one of the most entertaining and interesting relationship on the show. And in season 4, she was almost completely cut off and treated like shit, only there to be reprimanded every single time she called out Kato on her bullshits, which was...not great.

And then, in her season, she was also put aside in favor of other characters, especially Amber, and she was also treated like shit, especially by her supposed friends (I mean Moyo turned out to be the one to be the nicest to her! MOYO!!! and they barely knew eachother!) and I never felt like we actually explored her character.

To me, one of the thing that makes me like or be interested in a character the most is their dynamic with other people, and there, the relationships the Sana normally has with other characters had been rushed and devoided of any dephth.

So, while I really do like her, I really think her potential was totally wasted :(

6- Zoya (Skam Austin)

Like for the others, I really liked her. I love that she was so unashamedly herself, even more than the other Sanas. Her dynamic with the Ingrid was pretty fun to follow, it was cool that the writers explored on that to show another side of her with an ennemy-to-kind-of-friend arc (other than with the Vilde). Because of that we really got to see how sassy, headstrong, confident and kind she could be. I have a bit of mixed feelings with her love interest (i guess???) so far though. Like on one hand, I've always loved the idea of getting to see a main's relationship with their li before their season and I wish remakes had dared to do that more, but on the other hand, she deserves so much better? Like this guy is an ass and clearly does not respect her belief or simply her as a person (like telling her they could just hook up if she wanted because he was too afraid to present her to his parents like wtf???). He can go fuck off, seriously. And Yousef deserves to be better represented too lol.

I liked her storyline in season 2, or just the fact that she even had a storyline besides encouraging Noorhelm. It was interesting that we got to see more of her issues and her personality and desires before her season.

However, there were a few things that irked me a bit about her. Like in season 1, I felt like instead of being cold or brutally honest, she was simply mean at times, way harsher than she needed to be. And of course her whole slutshaming and victim-blaming speech to Grace, how it is apparently impossible to only dress for yourself and that everything you do always has to be about and for men. This speech was so stupid and offensive on many levels and honestly felt very OOC for a Sana tbh, like something a Vilde would say, and that's one of the first scenes she is in so yeah way to make first impression lol.

But other than that, she truly is amazing.

[joneswuzhere]

hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

-  i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time.  and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go