#but their relationship is so tragic and narratively interesting you gotta admit

[nataliescatorccioapologist]

The Night We Met by Lord Huron

I’m sorry TravNat haters, this is their song.

[reallytiredartstudent]

Okay watched the movie a second time. Because I'm currently Very Normal about this movie. I have more things to say about Gwen.

Spoiler under cut.

Yeah, her story still tragic. But also so interesting! But also so much more ouch now that i knew what was coming. And also she's such a badass. She's such a spider, it's awesome. I love the way she moves?? It's so fluid. These animations are going to be my death.

(also is it like, a genetics things that all spideys need to make extremely dumb decisions??? Does that come with the mutation?? or is it like a pree-requiste?? Gwen my beloved emo-spider, you are an idiot)

(this is going to be long. Sorry. i do not know how to be concise and this is slowly turning into a full analyse of Gwen throughout the movie bc my brain says so.)

The start of the movie? Goddamit. I had forgotten how much the start had foreshadowed. She basically said from the start 'I hurt my friends and I can't stop it and I hate that'. Idk that she's so self aware about how much she fucked that up makes it worse for me? Because it's not even a 'I didn't know better'. It's a 'I know. I know it's fucked up. And I don't know how to do this and i don't know how to undo the damage'. (She literally said that last part in her confrontation with her dad)('i don't know how to fix this') (she also said that yeah, she knew about Miles and the wrong spider, but she didn't know how to say it. Which. Fair. How do you tell someone 'hey you're an anamoly that shouldn't exist and your Spiderman had to die because of that and another world is without a spider because of that'? Well you don't do it like Miguel did, that for sure lol)

(Literally my only beef with this movie is that it all makes so much sense. All of their actions fit. Even Peter B who i would have the most beef with for not saying anything - if he was with Miguel while the world fell apart then yeah - that will do something to you and your views on how 'canon' works) (gotta admit the whole Miguel and Peter dynamic is pure gold, i loved every second of it)

Omg img img her first solo fight we see???? So gooood!! The way she looks at the helicopter and searches for the rythm with her drums to find her timing? so fucking good. the whole 'huh calling normally works' 'yep it did'? That's such a spidey move. oh and when Miguel came to take over and the 'knock yourself out' bit? I was laughing even though i knew it was coming, she's such a lil shit i love it.

(Blue Panther? DARK GARFIELD? Gwen there was no need to massacre Miguel in the first five minutes, he was needed for the rest of the movie)

Also how the whole colourscheme changed when she had the mask on and was Spider women. It felt like she was breathing again, and without the mask she was just a lil emo teenager with a few identity issues and in the mask? So much more confident.

(Do i love in general just the whole bit of people hiding themselves behind their masks and being like that second persona and then struggling with the fact that they can talk to nobody about both parts of themself? yes i do. I love it escpacially if it's also visually so satisfying. This movie haunts me)

She and Miles are like. Parallels?

Both her and Miles are so lonely. The got a glimpse of what it could be not to be lonely and then they had to give it up. Miles has been so desperate he gave up ART do go find a way to travel dimensions. ART. My boy loves his art.

Gwen is the kid that doesn't have support from home, nobody to tell her 'go do your thing i love you regardless' and she's desperate for that approval and support (without wanting to aknowldege or show that of course). She's the one that accepts the narrative of 'canon' because that's her world. That's the condition for the support she currently gets. She and Miles have about the same amount of idea what they're doing at that point. She has Spideys around her. Miles has his family. Both currently ehh with a rocky relationship to them.

But when Miles confronts his mom, she sents him on his way with like a 'look after yourself and come back to me'. After Gwen goes against her spidey ppl, she gets blamed for the whole thing and then thrown out.

(not saying that Miles didn't have it rough or that Gwen was innocent in that. I'm just looking at the parallels they have because this movie has so freaking many, i can't.)

And they both care so much for each other.

LIke the moment she sees him she just gets super excited? And wants to tell him all the stuff she's learning? You rarely see her in the movies as carefree and as happy as with Miles. (hobie. Hobie is a different thing) My point being, she cares really, really deeply about miles (i do not care if romantic or nah, they mean a lot to each other) and so does Miles.

Which makes the whole betrayal thing so much worse.

(the heartbroken face from Miles when he figured it out? The heart broken face from her when she tries to go against her orders the first time and catches him and he cuts himself lose? Because it's too little too late? Ugh. My poor heart. My poor spider children.)

(Also can i say how cute it was that despite all that happened both her and Peter B always were so proud of Miles? Like Gwen saw him do what she so feared and disrupt a canon event and all she can say is 'what i always think - that you're awesome.'??? Ugh. Peter B trying to catch Miles and having to stop like every three seconds because he's so proud of Miles for coming so far? I'm yet undecided if that is hilarious or hurty ouch lol)

But also like there are two more layers to her whole desperation that i forgot about in my first ramble?

Her Peter died. Her best friend died. We don't know if someonelse died (i don't think so? I don't know what happened to Aunt May. Oh fuck now i'm thinking about what happened to Spider Gwens Aunt May. Nooooo) but even then. Her best friend died, she had a hand in it (no matter how little she could do about it) and now she's searched for murder. Of course she does everything she can to keep Miles safe. Away from all that could annihalte him. For the, yeah, selfish reason of not wanting to lose another friend. No matter the cost.

And the next thing she learns? In nearly every other universe she's dead. Everywhere else is it like a death sentence for Gwen Stacy to fall for Spider-man. Sure, must be weird to have endless Peters. How weird is it gonna be to know that you're destinied to die in every other universe? (I think that's also why she's so ready to accept that she's gonna lose her dad. Because one, she already lost him (in a way) and two, once you accepted that you were destinied to die yourself everywhere else i think you're morals are going to be funky lol) (oh damn now that i think about it does she blame herself for Peter?? because normally it's her that dies and here it was the other way around? That Peter's death is her fault? Oh no. (i know this isn't stated in the movie, that's just my brain) but oh no)

The sent her home scene was even worse than I had remembered. The whole chase long she tries to say 'hey my gut tells me this is wrong' and got told 'no. Use your head.'

(jess looking at you, I'm having words with you and Miguel about how you treated my baby spiders)

and despite that she tries? The mirrored scene of her catching Miles how Miles had caught her earlier? (let's not talk about the heart attacks i had the whole movie long every time she was falling sheesh) And yeah, it wasn't enough. She hurt Miles real bad. And then later on the train? (Miguel we got a problem with each other, I don't care about your trauma) that was the same thing she told herself over and over again (as seen later in the scene with her father, oh dammit that scene with her father) and Miles was so right when he said 'I'm telling my own story'. But both Peter B. And Gwen looked so proud of him? Anyways, not the point. What Miles said definitely had an impact.

So when he tries to go home? She does what she avoided the whole movie long. She spoke up. Against Miguel. Against Jess. Not the rules she had observed from others, not the rules that had been told to her. She looks at them, has found her own morals, her own rules, her own story (sensing a theme in the story here? Hehe) and tells them, no this is wrong and 'Aren't we supposed to be the good guys?'

Thats the point where Miguel blames all the fault on her. (Very mature from a guy that loved to point out how childish everyone else is and that Miles is just a little kid hmmm) and what happens? She gets sent home.

Remember? The place she's been visibly scared off. Where she literally says in the movie 'you can't sent me back'. They stranded her. (fuuuuck that scene where she just stood there and 'access denied' and then she threw that container in frustration? idk what her plan was, but she went back to get the picture of Miles and her, fully ready to either be arrested or to never come back. That scene with her faaaather, omg)

also my original point of how torn she is - yeah. Like when she visited Miles and went from yeah come on let's go, to when she was alone and saw that she fucked up? She panicked. Like, she and Miles had literally the exact same reaction as they watched the footage. And afterward? When she ended the call? My girl nearly cried. Like her whole arc was kinda built around the same thing Miles first arc was built around - not knowing what to do, who to be. Because that was the theme of the movie. The finding your own story.

The talk with her dad was so good. He was so tired and worried and she (understandbly) wary. The admission 'If only tried to be a spider-women that you would approve of and i failed even at that'. Her father, the source of her rules and morels looking at her and telling her 'I quit. Do what you need to do'. Oh and then the parallel with how she had looked at him the first time she stepped trough the portal and then the second time and the 'I'm coming back'. She fled her past and now she's ready to face her fight.

The first part was about how everybody deserved a mentor and nobody was truly alone.

The second part was about finding their own stories, their own choices. That's why Hobie was such an important character btw. (Promise, different post)

The first movie was the 'help them find their wings'.

The second part was 'let them fly'.

"Never found the right band. So I started my own. You want in?"

okay i can't stop about this movie. I need to talk about Gwen.

Spoilers under cut.

Okay. Gwen's story was so fucking heartbreaking. i can't get over it. There more i think about it the worse it gets.

(It's great. I love it. I love her. It's very much ouch in the feelings department.)

Like. She fucked up real bad, she did, but her story is so tragic and it makes so much sense for her to react like she did. Lost her best friend, watched him die in an attempt to be like her because of injuries she was parly at fault for (what a fucking nightmare of it's own) watched her own father try to catch spider-women for his murder, like that gotta fuck with you so bad. And then? Finally she made a friend again. And then this friend is across another fucking dimension. And more fucked up shit starts to happen. Her own father, that we get showed how much he means to her, how he was her light and pulled her out of her spiralling, he was ready to call her in. She told him who she was and he decided on calling her in. It broke him, that much was clear but she pleaded with him and he just. Called her in. Like. Her last resort, her last island proved to her that he couldn't be safe for her. (fuck the scene broke my heart)

And then more and more happens and she doesn't even can go home anymore because the worst thing that all Spiderpeople fear happened to her - her identity got leaked (or so she thinks). There's a reason why she was so ready to abandon her own world and flee. There was, in that moment, nothing left for her. She's a teenager, a wanted criminal.

(the whole sending her back was super hard to watch, back to a world that had not a single thread of safety for her anymore. Where she couldn't escape, neither in her hero nor her civilian persona. Nightmare)

She appearntly found a refuge with Hobie that took her under his wing (Hobie is the best, whole different thing) and then.

Then.

Then she's getting told she has to let her father die??? And has to let the one friend she really made, she really trusted, she had to let him suffer because otherwise the multiverse would explode? Wasn't allowed to tell him anything? She has to betray him? Like. Every new thing about her story just makes it more tragic. She doesn't have the room for failure anymore and yeah. I think what Miles did to save the Captain was right. But for how desperate Gwen was? That was her new reality. Canon events. She needed to let them happen. That was what she was told, what her safety and her new life depended on. Those were the rules, there was no way around it. What everyone around her, the Spiderpeople that were the only ones around her, believed.

(Again. Hobie. Different story. Have i mentioned that i love him?)

(Fuck the talk with her father? Where she directly said 'you thaught to do things by the book'? It made so much more sense for me why she was so ready to follow those new rules. Because that's what she thought was the way to make it right. And her father then telling her 'I quit'? Essentially telling her 'don't mind those rules'? ugh.)

She's trying so hard and it does something to me to watch her struggle so desperately with everything. She's torn between what she needs to do with no idea what right or wrong even is anymore, and it was so plain how desperate she was to prove herself. How confident she was infront of Miles, how different she was with the elder spiderfolks just a minute later, how much she hides herself behind the mask (hehe get it? Sorry). The way it cracked when she thought Miles had gotten himself killed? My girl abandoned all pretenses, you can hear the panic in her voice.

Like. Among all of the main spiderpeople we interact with? She's also just a kid. With no one in her corner (I'm not starting about Hobie, bc i won't stop lol, that's his own post), she can't even go home. The new people she has, their love is in a way very much conditional.

And yeah i think that if she'd really talked to her friends, talked to Miles about what was going on, much could've been better. But then - what in her life would've told her that to be a good idea? Every experience so far had taught her the exact opposite.

So her last scene there? Where she finally admitted that she did have people in her corner, that there were folks that would help her, when she realized what her arc the whole movie was about?

'I always wanted to join a band. I created my own.'

That was so satisfying.

[radioactive-earthshine]

So I finally read Young Justice after 2 years of promising I would and I gotta admit 10/10 should have read it sooner. You have influenced me tho and I cannot stop thinking about Slo-bo and what would things have been like if he lived? His death to me just read as the writer just wanting to get rid of him. I think he could have found a way to live. Really I just didn't want him to die and I knew it was coming.

There are a lot of dead/decommissioned characters that had so much potential and that's why they are great characters, that them dying is not what made them great or tragic but the loss of what we might have had and what they were able to do while we had them.

Ultimately I believe his "death" was not something that was just suddenly decided on by Peter David and TPTB during the time, they likely had a very clear idea of what was going to happen to him from the moment they created him, so I am extremely hesitant to say that he was "killed off" just for getting rid of him so they didn't have to write him anymore (which does happen, see Heroes in Crisis).

There was a level of CARE involved in him, and it shows because YOU as a reader CARE about him when we lost him and never heard from him again.

Getting into the meat of your question though; if Slo-Bo "lived", what would become of him...

The comic pretty much tells us through implication...

Young Justice 1998 #55

Hypothetically, had Slo-Bo not "died" via Darkseid's omega effect (his soul was flung a million years into the future and imprisoned in his own statue), and hypothetically if his genetic viability was stabilized - we would likely see him and Anita together.

Anita had a date with Lil' Lobo and that was a whole issue... Slo-Bo is NOT Lobo but he retains his memories of their date and he has some intense fondness for Anita and shows more interest in her than just thinking she's hot.

Young Justice 1998 #48

He shows empathy for her, saved her life, tried to save her father and holds her while she weeps and offers comfort. Things that Lobo would not do.

Additionally, in Anita's own subconscious she places Slo-Bo in her life while she deals with the mourning of her father and the rage at the one responsible through a dream (she dreams in black and white).

Young Justice 1998 #49

Anita sees Slo-Bo as someone she trusts, and even when Cassie turns her back on him and kicks him off the team for aiding Greta in breaking her father out prison (which helps accelerates Darkseid's indoctrination of her which led to the finale of the series) she still cared for him and wanted to pursue a friendship.

She worried for him.

Young Justice 1998 #54

So, hypothetically speaking, had Slo-Bo "lived" and was not actively dying, then he would likely stay with Anita. He also was amazing with her infant parents and probably could be a support role for Anita.

Young Justice 1998 #54

Young Justice 1998 #55

He would likely stay with her, and maybe when the next generation of comics rolled out (Teen Titans v.3) he would appear now and then but the narrative focus of Teen Titans was so drastically different from Young Justice I struggle to see where he would 'fit' as a consistent character.

I missed the hell out of Anita, Cissie and Greta when Teen Titans began, but retrospectively they each dodged a bullet and I really fear what would have been done to them if they stayed on.

Slo-Bo would have likely just have been written as a carbon copy of Lobo, albeit blind, even when YJ made it clear he was his own person. That's not something I want to see, that's not something I feel ANYONE wants to see.

I love Lobo for being Lobo.

Slo-Bo and he are two different bastiches.

Slo-Bo's fate in a hypothetical universe where he lived seems to point that he would have had some sort of relationship with Anita, likely romantic considering writing conventions of the time, but that is entirely up to the reader and their own interpretations.

It's still fun to dream.

Honestly, I would LOVE to have seen a blind Slo-Bo kicking ass, showing up every now and then to do something EXTREMELY morally dubious but for everyone's benefit.

[allexteriordark]

oh there are just so many factors. it's a long fucking show with different writers and their different visions so of course but besides that, too.. you've got the big sibling and little sibling roles that people could relate to, that could make them feel much closer to one brother than the other but i'm a big sister and i always felt like i could relate to sam (and very rarely to dean. only in certain moments). i'll say why a bit later.... i was often mad at dean, even, for being a shitty big brother while i was watching the show lol like i was personally offended every time the narrative suggested dean's,, always doing things for sam's benefit and his ideas are always right while sam's have to be shut down etc, sam gets punished and dean gets rewarded narratively and i think if someone doesn't see how unfair dean is and how unfair the show is to sam, that's... probably not good, not saying very good things about that someone?.. :( you know? like you can love dean to death but you've gotta admit there's an imbalance in their dynamic, you could say in power. my whole childhood and adolescence i had to watch my father abuse my mother and i was her only friend and confidante and so i'm.. i feel like that's why i'm very sensitive to abusive behavior and always drawn to characters that are family members and also an abuser and a victim. this part of their dynamic is integral to my enjoyment. and i can't help but feel a connection with and affection for the character that gets beaten down

there's others things of course that sam has going for him lol like the demon blood/psychic powers/vessel of lucifer thing; as a kid i hated myself deeply, powerfully, i always felt like i'm just broken or defected or rotten inside and i can't be fixed, that i can try to do the right things but my nature will show and it'll steer my life. you see how that would translate to relating to sam and his struggles. also, while i love the sam-dean relationship the most and i'm most compelled by the two of them together, in my opinion the best things about dean are sam and john while sam's.. interesting on his own... because of his relationship with religion and with his own nature and his humanity. and i like sam more on a surface level too, liked him from the first moment. he's softer, better with people in certain aspects (like emotions.. he's more empathetic ig, or communicates better, and i really appreciate that in men because i didn't see much of it in my life haha). sam knows nuance when it comes to the supernatural, dean barely, although they're both hunters and i shan't elaborate but that's already not so good. lol! just saying that so as not to give too much credit to sam. i just appreciate that 'kills supernatural beings with a consciousness indiscriminately' applies to him less lol.... plus i just don't find dean funny or endearing 😔 sorry, part of it is definitely me having something against jensen ackles's acting but i'm kind of digressing

hmm so yeah these are the first things i thought of, i see sam as a better person than dean, i understand his motivations as less selfish, the unfair treatment he's subjected to increases my sympathy and compassion for him, while dean as a character disappoints me many times throughout the story (i don't see many of these positive characteristics dean girls describe tbh. i still love dean but jesus does he make it hard 🥴). sam's the antichrist, the tragic hero, the battered wife later on, he's very interesting to me

[bloodyshadow1]

just finished Alanna’s route and I gotta say, I’d give it a C, it wasn’t bad, but I didn’t see a lot of good either.  There was so much crammed in as much as possible between the Society (that we barely get to see anything of), Time travel (which is fine but done pretty poorly with little buildup or fanfare or explanation), Immortals (like time travel, a decent story enough on it’s own, but only mentioned in the final 3rd of the story and barely talked about afterward), and Magic power stones (pretty vague power system that no one seems interested in telling the MC about) it feels like they accidently threw 4 darts at the idea board this time and never bothered to throw again.  It’s such a mess that the MC has to take on faith without ever being given a real reason to side with the Circle over anyone else other than her ex girlfriend is part of it and they hate her dad.  It’s so quick and it doesn’t ever feel like the right decision at least to me since you spend so little time with the Circle even as background characters to Alanna’s story.

Alanna as a character is kind of meh for me overall.  Physically her design is fine, seems cute more than hot or sexy, but sort of bland and generic.  there are other cute love interests that never felt this generic, she feels like she should be the sister or best friend character instead of the love interest of the MC.  It doesn’t help that by making her the MC’s ex returned, we know little to nothing about her, so much of a romance arc is missing because even if the MC knows, we the player don’t know what’s so great about Alanna.  All of Alanna’s character feels told instead of shown, the MC seems to worship the ground she walks on, but the actual story leaves much to be desired because we don’t really see her do anything super charming or amazingly skilled.  She’s pretty, but she’s not even the most beautiful woman in her route much less London or the world. I could understand why the MC would love her since she’s still hung up on her, so I could believe it if I took the story with a grain of salt, but the fact that her personality seems to be she’s so charming and everyone loves her without every truly delivering on such claims makes her whole route fall even flatter than it’s plot led to. The fact that the MC slept with her right away as a ‘palette cleanser’ was sort of interesting, but it still felt like being told about her, nothing about what she and the MC had gone through felt like she was so irresistible that the MC would need to get her out of her system, because we don’t know anything really about her relationship with Alanna.  And that’s a big problem to her selling points as a love interest

  We don’t know all the stories the MC has with Alanna, especially if they only dated for 2 months, the audience/player/readers, need to understand why the MC is in love with their love interest besides the route being named after them, by making their entire relationship when they first fell in love we miss all of that and are left with empty feelings and gestures between the two of them. The little back and forths between them about their past are okay to start with, but nothing about Alanna as a character from her 12 chapters makes me believe that she’s so lovely the MC can overlook her massive flaws and go along with her very unpersuasive desire to have the MC join them to help the world.  Her depression and feelings of helplessness after 200 years was interesting, but it felt like it came too late.  I’m actually really glad the MC called her out on her bullshit, by the end of her first chapter, I get a bit of where she’s coming from, but what Alanna did to the MC was fucked up and she doesn’t get to just pretend it never happened.

Plot wise, the story is a mess, like Alanna, so much of the story is told to the MC and she’s supposed to take it on faith that the Circle is somehow more morally right than the rest of the Society.  It fails because the Circle has barely any real character, they have interesting traits that if they were around more to make me care about them as something other than the vehicle to do the time travel and nothing more.  In so many routes, you’re introduced to all your love interests at the same time and they’re already a group, while you spend the most time with your love interest, you get to know most of the characters as people outside of their routes, but the rest of the Circle is pretty bland.  Not to mention that the Society is built up as this big maybe evil maybe just powerful and in the wrong hands thing..., but you barely interact with them at all.  The only people tell  the MC and her brother that the Society is bad is the Circle who are actively members of it and nothing about what they say or do makes me feel like they’re any more trust worthy than the rest of the society except most of them are going to be future love interests.  In Alanna’s route, the only member of the Society not in the Circle that has a unique character portrait is Arabella and she’s kind of a more interesting character with a more sympathetic story than the Circle. We hear about how corrupt and morally bankrupt the higher ups in the Society are, and we know the MC hates her dad, who seems to be considered the worst, but aside from being a bit stuff and arrogant, (much like the wealthy elite of our world) we don’t see much evil, and it confuses me if the Circle wants to bring down the Society or try and take control of it for the greater good without much of a reason to trust them.

The Immortal plot point fell flat to me, like the story basically skipped over the time travel plot device by making it literally a this happens and barely talk about it, but adding the Immortality plot felt unneeded in a narrative that needed a lot more structure, not irons in the fire.  I feel like if Alanna/your love interest was the only one of the Circle that was immortal other than the Elites of the Society it would have made a better route to go.  Having an immortal character in your romantic story is fertile ground, they could be a tragic figure, a figure who is hedonistic and loving their immortality, etc, there are plenty of ways to go, an immortal character with a bunch of their pals who are already incredibly powerful and have a vague sense of goodness about them, makes it feel far from a curse or whatever they’re trying to portray it here.  It could have also been introduced better to the MC by say meeting Arabella in the present day and being shocked by seeing her and needing confirmation from the Circle or Alanna, instead of Alanna dropping it in a mood to the MC.  

Overall, it felt to complicated of a story to tell with all the moving pieces that didn’t deliver on any of them sadly.  the whole story felt like it was a mix between Queen of Thieves and Astoria Fates Kiss, without the charms of either the story or the characters, replacing Greek Mythology with time travel.  I will also say, it the plot made me kind of uncomfortable with how a bunch of mostly white young adults have decided to be judge and jury throughout time with the first antagonist being a powerful black lesbian in london 200 years ago, and we only have their word that something is afoot.  I know that she actually was doing bad stuff, but the Circle is just a vigilante group with no actual authority and using time travel as their own means of policing people and if it wasn’t a simplistic romance story disguised as a scifi fantasy story, I feel like more nuance would have saved it.

The good parts: Alanna’s route for Immortal Hearts Society wasn’t all bad, I  I will admit I am probably overly harsh since I just finished it.  I actually really enjoyed the both the Female and Male MC character designs, they both were surprisingly interesting compared to a lot of MC’s.  I really did enjoy the MC for the most part and I liked her relationship with her brother, most of the time I’ve seen sibling relationships in Lovestruck they’re fine but don’t tend to have much actual conflict, just superficial.  But I like that the MC loves her brother, but burned her bridges with him to keep him safe, she regrets what she had to do but not what happened which is a pretty interesting take.  Alanna was enjoyable as a love interest in the beginning, but as the story got more and more convoluted, it felt like she didn’t have much actual character.  I do have a soft spot for the Circle characters, except for the two current love interests, I’m more annoyed that we didn’t get to see and interact with them more, especially since it looks like they’ll be future love interests if the pattern holds.  It was a fine story and I know I’m being overly harsh, but it just felt underdone instead of bad, which tends to make it worse in my mind because the lost potential is frustrating. 

 I wouldn’t mind continuing if the writing got tighter next season, I’ll still give it a try.  I would very much like an Arabella route before anyone else, she has such a gorgeous design and despite not seeing a huge amount of her character being a warm genuinely kind person stuck between a rock and a hard place for her family was an interesting take instead of making her one of the many false sweethearts in Queen of Thieves that stab you in the back.  I also think that if she still is around in modern day she would have fit the story as a love interest better than Alanna. 

Not sure if anyone is going to bother to read this but it feels good to get it out.  Maybe you think I’m full of shit and I’m fine with that, maybe you love Alanna and she’s your favorite love interest.  I’m sorry you read this because I don’t want anyone to feel bad, this is simply how I feel after reading the first chapter

[bthump]

If you could change one thing about the whole Bersek series, what would it be?

Hands down, Guts and Casca hooking up.

That is the grit around which nearly every writing choice I hate grows like a terrible pearl. So maybe this is an unfair answer lol, because by erasing Guts and Casca’s sexual relationship we erase just about everything I hate about Berserk, so it’s kind of more than one thing, but I’m still going with it.

Like, Guts and Casca’s hookup shows up to the story 5 minutes late with starbucks and derails a shitload of what I actually love about it, and I’m not even talking about the gay subtext because it doesn’t derail that at all lmao.

Before Miura came up with the bright idea partway through of adding Guts and Casca’s relationship for the sake of more Eclipse drama (ie a long offensively gratuitous/eroticized/manpainy/etc rape scene), Berserk was a story about a dude and his own personal trauma. Black Swordsman Guts’ parallel backstories of childhood abuse and the sacrifice were all about things that happened personally to him, which is surprisingly refreshing.

Even the fetus wasn’t a fetus but just a random creepy demon meant to symbolize Guts’ own burgeoning monstrosity, with a much more sad and pathetic vibe than the beast of darkness, which tbqh I preferred.

After they get together Berserk is manpain central. During the Eclipse Guts doesn’t even care that Griffith sacrificed him, he only gets angry when he realizes all his friends are dead followed by the rape scene. And yeah okay in fairness I do kind of love that Guts doesn’t blame human Griffith at all or seem to hold any hard feelings towards him lol, but Guts feeling personally betrayed by the sacrifice as an echo of his childhood trauma is still way better writing and I’d take it over the Eclipse rape any day.

And everything just snowballs from there. No regressed baby Casca (who still gets fanservice-y panels, eugh). We’d have some entirely different plot to replace the Elfhelm sidequest, and chances are I’d enjoy it more. No moonlight boy, Guts would still be dark and fucked up but he wouldn’t sexually assault his infantalized ex girlfriend, the fetus would still be a symbol of Guts’ pathetic monstrousness maybe as a telling contrast to the “cool” beast of darkness, Guts wouldn’t be motivated by a fridged damsel in distress. I wouldn’t be living in dread that Miura is going to keep teasing the possibility of Guts and Casca living happily ever after together even after he assaulted her.

God just the prospect of Berserk not expecting its readers to ship Guts with a helpless baby woman who’s afraid of him, and find their dynamic heartwarming and sweet instead of disturbing as all fuck would be an enormous relief. Like I’m sorry, the narrative wants me to read scenes like the one where Moonlight Boy first appears and everyone awws about how Guts and Casca look like its parents and feel happy and hopeful??? Even if it’s set up for eventual tragedy, which I’m 90% certain it is, it’s still fucked up to expect the audience to want them to live happily ever after.

Also without the Eclipse rape NeoGriffith’s storyline would be so much less awkward lmao, and would actually work tonally. Like, all Miura had to do to prove that Femto is evil is have him like, casually murder a few surviving Hawks or something. Easy peasy.

Oh even back during the Golden Age, Casca wouldn’t need to be depowered so Guts could rescue her multiple times as a prelude to romance. I mean maybe we’d still have the one time, when they fall off the cliff, because that whole scene is more significant to Guts’ Griffith-related storyline than future het romance, but at least she could take Silat out herself, and she wouldn’t be casually sexually assaulted by Wyald just so Guts could quippily wake up in the nick of time and save her.

She wouldn’t have a breakdown by a waterfall and weepingly declare that she lied about caring about Griffith’s dream and wanting to support it, really she was just in love with him all along, because that ~revelation~ was just a set up for sex with Guts. Like she could’ve just been motivated the whole time by sharing Griffith’s vision for the future! She wouldn’t suddenly decide apropros of nothing to ditch the Hawks she considers family to leave with Guts, without getting any internal conflict about it or the same sense that she’s choosing to abandon loved ones that we got with Guts (that still completely floors me lol, what the fuck Miura. Guts leaving was a huge tragic production but Casca deciding to leave is neither here nor there? Fuck off.)

And we also wouldn’t have that painful “am I feminine enough for you Guts???” shit lol, complete with Guts’ wonderful “yeah you’re a hysterical woman ofc you’re womanly” response to one of those moments. Also in general the vast majority of Guts’ most unlikeable moments, at least in my opinion, are when he’s interacting with Casca after she becomes his love interest. We could cut most of his misogynist tirades, more sexual assault when he grabs her tit while she’s angry with him, yelling at her after Wyald nearly rapes her, and all the times he treats her like shit post-Eclipse even before the assault scene.

We could’ve had a great rivals to reluctant friends who bond over their mutual feelings towards Griffith type of relationship between them throughout the Golden Age! Just thinking about how much better that would be is depressing lol. And then when Guts destroys Griffith and his dream by leaving Casca could actually be genuinely incredibly angry with him because he actively ruined her life and hopes and dreams as well. God like, Casca’s storyline would be so much richer with the romance removed.

The only negative would be that she would’ve died during the Eclipse with everyone else. Like while I can imagine amazing scenarios where she’d survive and get a tertiary narrative of her own without being Guts’ love interest, I gotta admit that’s not what Miura would’ve gone with lol. But she’s been functionally written out for 250 chapters anyway now, at least a sad death scene would’ve been more respectful. And it’s not like I’m turning to Berserk for good female characters and representation anyway let’s be real here.

lol sorry this just turned into a long ranty list of everything i hate about berserk lol. Also to be fair if I had to pick just one thing to change, while keeping the rest of Berserk as close to the same as possible, I’d pick the Eclipse rape. Change it to Femto driving Casca insane with magic mental torture or something. It could even be significant to Casca’s narrative, like, hell, we could get a revealing hallucinatory and nightmarish trip through Casca’s mind and memories or something like that.

But yeah my first choice would be cutting the romance.

[aion-rsa]

Why Zack Snyder’s Justice League Isn’t Canon

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League will unveil what was once the Bigfoot of the film industry: the titular director’s true rendition of the 2017 DC megamovie from which personal tragedy initially incited his exit. Indeed, rarely does a legendary unrealized project manage to manifest in such a definitive manner. Yet, while the film’s imminent HBO Max premiere will be a clear victory for the legions of fans behind the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement, Snyder revealed a major concession he made regarding its place in the DC Extended Universe continuity.  

If you needed confirmation straight from the horse’s mouth about the Snyder Cut’s place in the disjointed DCEU, then Snyder obliged during an interview with podcast DC Cinematic Cast, on which he clarified where his lengthy redux stands vis-à-vis the canon he launched with 2013’s Man of Steel and 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Potentially upsetting passionate proponents, Zack Snyder’s Justice League—for all its elaborate new bells and whistles—will not be considered canon in the DCEU. Rather, the version released at theaters in 2017, which took shape under the now-controversial stewardship of pinch director Joss Whedon, will remain the acknowledged version of the onscreen superhero tandem.

“It’s interesting, sort of in the DCEU, or whatever it’s become, that that trilogy [Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Justice League] sort of insulates itself in some ways it becomes, like, it’s its own thing now,” explained Snyder. “I famously said, and it’s true—this isn’t controversial—but you know, this film, my Justice League, is not canon, right? Canon for Warner Bros. is the Joss Whedon version of Justice League, right? That’s—in their mind—that’s canon. And what I’m doing is not, everything I’m doing is not. So, it’s just interesting, that relationship. And I’m fine with it because I feel like the only way that I could have made this film with autonomy was because of that, because of me admitting and agreeing to the fact that it is not canon.”

With the Snyder Cut set to manifest with double the length of the preceding two-hour Whedon version, Zack Snyder’s Justice League was always destined to take the storyline down narrative paths intended to be consequential for the subsequent array of DCEU movies—most notably his plans for Justice League to serve as the kickoff for follow-up films. Indeed, besides the expanded backstories for heroes The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg, we’re set to see a more realized rendition of the film’s primary conflict, with the invasion of armies from Apokolips led by a still present—and significantly pointier—Steppenwolf to be accompanied by heretofore unseen fellow Jack Kirby-concocted lieutenants Desaad, Granny Goodness and, most notably, the character widely acknowledged as DC Comics’ main big bad, Darkseid; a character whose mere presence alone changes the entire dynamic of the film, and anything that would have followed. It’s a stark contrast from the theatrical version, which only had the main heroes fending off an initial incursion of the Apokoliptian armies, and only built to a climactic battle with Steppenwolf.  

HBO Max

Consequently, with the less-extensive theatrical cut of Justice League having uniquely shaped the DCEU canon for its successors in 2018’s Aquaman, 2019’s Shazam, 2020’s Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman 1984, it stands to reason that the lavish narrative avenues inevitably explored in the Snyder Cut were always destined to step on the established continuity already shaped by Whedon’s version. Therefore, barring an eventual retroactive timeline-altering, Crisis on Infinite Earths-type take on the big screen, the Snyder Cut will be relegated to the realm of apocrypha. It’s a development that seemingly stultifies some of the hype for the film, since there was a mostly-unspoken notion that Zack Snyder’s Justice League would serve as a canonical course correction to the widely-panned, fiscally-underperforming 2017 film in a manner akin to the DVD-released Richard Donner cut of the 1981 Richard Lester-pinch-directed Superman II or even the handful of director’s cuts for Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi opus, Blade Runner, which are seen as having successfully corrected the pacing issues that hindered the film’s initial theatrical run.

“I understand the frustration,” says Snyder regarding the potential fan blowback. “If someone was frustrated by that concept, I wouldn’t say don’t be frustrated by it. It’s fine to be frustrated by it, I’m frustrated by it. So, I would only say, though, that the grander, greater concept for the DCEU is on another road. And there’s nothing I can do about that. That is just, it is what it is. That’s not my decision.” However, Snyder emphasized how the non-canon place of his Justice League was a firm condition connected to the unlikely deal that made the Snyder Cut a reality; a deal that, as a recent report revealed, defied overwhelming odds, since it was later learned that Snyder was enduring a tumultuous relationship with Warner Bros. by the time the tragic death of his daughter Autumn became the catalyst for his exit from the film.  

Read more

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Snyder nevertheless remains passionate about the opportunity he was given to complete the movie he’d always intended to make, seemingly having attained a level of acceptance about what he refers to as the “clear delineation” between his cut and the DCEU canon that’s now irreparably shaped by the events of Whedon’s movie. However, he clearly think the Snyder Cut can be seen as its own thing. “It’s not a secret. Obviously, Justice League is [an] anomaly, a never heard of scenario, so it does represent in a lot of ways, this other way of doing it,” he explains. “I think it’s an interesting intersection between… it’s not like the fans said ‘do it this way’ right? The fans said ‘look, we’re into what Zack is doing, so just let it—it was going somewhere, yes, we’re paying attention. You gotta stop going this way and that way.”

The idea that audiences will appreciate Snyder’s film, perhaps in a multiverse-type context, is not outside the realm of possibility. Besides potential passionate boosts from Snyder’s hashtag campaigners, the DCEU has already segmented its film universes, notably with the Joaquin Phoenix-headlined 2019 critical favorite Joker being set outside the DCEU (as Jared Leto’s earlier Suicide Squad version makes a return in new footage shot for the Snyder Cut), and upcoming Robert Pattinson-headlined reboot The Batman also confirmed to take place on a different Earth. This concept was further intensified by the recent news about writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ J.J. Abrams-attached Superman movie project, which is believed to present a different version of the hero than Henry Cavill’s DCEU iteration. Therefore, it’s reasonable to view the Snyder Cut as its own divergent DC universe, a DC Snyderverse, if you will. Let that one sink in, folks.

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League lands on HBO Max on Thursday, March 18.

The post Why Zack Snyder’s Justice League Isn’t Canon appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jamesnelsonart]

Black Panther Review (spoilers)

Marvel movies! Seems like every dang week there’s a new Marvel movie. They’ve been coming out for awhile now and have often (justifiably) received criticism for being similar to each other, be it through forgettable musical scores, bland, unoriginal villains or underutilized supporting actors who mainly serve as props to make an origin story happen, or being crammed with unnecessary references in order to pave the way to more sequels. Thankfully Black Panther is not guilty of any of these things because Black Panther is good. Black Panther is great, actually!

 The first way the movie begins setting itself apart from other Marvel films is the art design and aesthetic. As you might expect, the fashion and architecture are heavily influenced by African art, which gives it a distinctive look. Let me emphasize the fashion-- it’s good as hell. There, I emphasized it. Nearly every character goes through three cool outfits in this movie(this is an estimate). It’s just nice that there was so much work put in the film to help create an atmosphere. This is technically a superhero film, sure. But as a story about secret, forbidden countries and royal family drama and successions, it is also very much a fantasy movie, which makes sense. Black Panther’s role as a king is a vital part of his characterization. The movie also thankfully doesn’t rely on tons of previous continuity. You don’t need to watch any Marvel movies to get this, it stands on its own. Also of note are the characters. Most Marvel films don’t give too much screen time to anyone who isn’t the main character, and god help you if you’re a member of the supporting cast who doesn’t have super powers, you maybe get a few lines and then lose all relevance later. Spider-Man: Homecoming and Civil War both averted the underwritten supporting characters that seem to plague a lot of Marvel Movies (don’t get me started on Dr. Strange, a movie in which everyone is boring as hell. Shit, his cameo in Thor: Ragnarok was more entertaining than his whole damn movie). Thankfully in Black Panther the supporting cast is both big and fleshed-out. Each of the characters have motivation but also have personalities as well, which allows the audience to really connect with them. There are clear relationships between each of the characters, which are important as it allows the viewer to understand the politics and traditions of Wakanda. It’s organic worldbuilding, which is the best way to world-build, and the faster the viewer understands your world, the faster you can get into the story and begin exploring its themes. But I can’t talk about the film’s themes yet. First I gotta talk about other people talking about the films themes.

 Now there’s been a lot of hype and attention around Black Panther. Some of it is due to the fact that Marvel advertises their films. The louder hype has been the political attention surrounding the film. The film has collected the attention of everyone from hoteps to nazis so you can hear some beautiful drama such as racists pretending they were assaulted by black people in the theater to hoteps getting mad that members of the cast are in interracial relationships to Ben Shapiro angrily proclaiming that “Wakanda isn’t Real!” despite that never being a thing anyone has seriously claimed.  And then there are right-wingers trying to justify begrudgingly enjoying a good film by saying Black Panther is essentially a black Donald Trump. My point here is that all this commentary is very fun. And by fun, I mean not fun at all. It fucking sucks logging on and reading everyone’s terrible opinions because there is only one good opinion: Mine. I do have to admit that it is pretty interesting that there is political drama surrounding THIS particular film. Oh well, it must be a complete and total coincidence. Better not discuss it at all. Haha, I’m fucking joking. Of course I have to discuss it because the film itself is actually quite political. Have fun.

 Thematically the film presents a battle of many ideas, mainly the ideas of imperialism and isolationism. Black Panther is torn between exporting his culture and helping others or keeping Wakanda isolated in hopes of maintaining his nation’s security. In a topical moment, his friend even shoots down the idea of inviting refugees as “they bring their problems with them”. So this is probably where some morons got the idea the Black Panther is black Trump or something and I want to congratulate those astute viewers for recognizing a message in a film. I also want to congratulate them for apparently turning their ears off after the first fifth of the movie as the isolationist, ethnostate ideas cause every fucking problem in the entire film and the pal espousing these views to Black Panther turns on him later in the film. Just because an opinion is expressed by a character in a work of fiction doesn’t mean the narrative is agreeing with that character. In terms of the isolationist ideas causing problems, just look at how they led to the origin of the movie’s villain, Killmonger. Despite being of royal blood and T’Challa’s cousin, he was abandoned as a child due to his status of being the son of a Wakandan and an American. He is judged despite having done nothing wrong. Throughout the film Killmonger is shown to be thoroughly evil, he doesn’t hesitate to kill anyone, be it his cousin or his girlfriend(he succeeds at the latter and comes close to accomplishing the former). Yet despite his evil actions, Killmonger is clearly portrayed as human. He misses his deceased father, clearly wants to return to his ancestral homeland that refused him, and he views enacting his own brand of proxy wars and imperialism as an action that will ultimately enrich black people around the globe. He’s a bad dude, sure, but you can see why he became the way he is which makes him rather tragic. The isolationist attitudes created him. Something interesting occurs once Killmonger takes over Wakanda: T’Challa’s isolationist friend allies himself with him. Why would two characters embodying two opposing viewpoints(isolationism and imperialism) come together? Well, because these two beliefs feed into each other. Isolationism closes you off from others, which breeds the idea that you are better than other people since nobody can really counter this belief. Imperialism makes the moral argument that because you are better you have free reign to treat others as you please. The general logic is you are doing others a favor by dominating them. These two beliefs feed into each other, breeding conflict.

 The script for the movie is tightly-written. Things like the sonic dampeners being introduced on the hover trains and later being a factor in the final fight are smart touches. There are no weak or boring moments in the film as there is either an exciting action moment that moves the plot forward or an interesting character moment that lets the viewer discover something. My only complaint is that the action can be a bit too quickly-directed and you can get lost in what exactly is happening during a fight. But as I said, that’s my ONLY complaint. This film was a fun time. I recommend you see it, and then see it again.

[alexanderwrites]

Thoughts Roundup - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 10

“Laura Is The One”

After the wild, nuts-to-the-wall freakout that was Part 8, Parts 9 & 10 have returned us to a more conventional mode of storytelling - it should be noted that “conventional” is used here very loosely, and that by episodic TV standards, these episodes are still pretty nuts-to-the-wall. Maybe part 8 pushed its nuts THROUGH the wall whereas 9 & 10 just gently press the nuts up against the wall. Maybe I should drop this analogy altogether and get into what was a slow, ruminative but intensely powerful hour of TV. (Also - I didn’t do a write up last week because i’m stupid and forgot).

. The violence against women in this episode can’t be ignored. It’s right there, front and centre. We start with Horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE Richard Horne being his horrible self and killing (or at least brutally attacking, she seemed to still be breathing) a witness to his earlier hit and run, before we move on to Amanda Seyfried’s Becky, who is viciously attacked by her ALSO HORRIBLE boyfriend. The trifecta is completed when Richard heads to his Grandma’s for a vicious, intrusive robbery. There is commentary on violence towards women here: when Robert Knepper’s Rodney is accidentally swatted in the face by Candie, it leaves a small mark, but no harm is really done. She is beside herself the rest of the scene, wailing and crying and overridden with guilt and fear. She feels genuine sorrow - contrast this with Richard’s nonchalance towards his violence against women and we start to get a look at how disparately different victims of violence are treated. 

The violence on display is as much about our perception of gender roles and their function within narratives as it is about highlighting how HORRIBLE these characters are. Having said that, it would be nice to see more female characters with a little more agency in the foreground. I do wish we had some more diversity when it came to leading women in the show (not to mention the almost non-existence of women of colour in the show) to counter-balance the violence against them. I believe the characters ARE there, but due to the unimaginably huge roster of characters, a lot of them are shuffled to the back. It’s a shame because you know what? I could watch an entire hour of Jane Adams’ Constance. She’s such a charmingly funny and unique character, and every time she turns up I hope she’ll get more than a few lines. Diane is similarly fascinating, but because of the narrative structure (and this and last week’s revelations), she’s being kept at arm’s length. A great character again, but I hope she isn’t absent in future episodes like she was tonight. Luckily we have Janey-E (Naomi Watts is just the greatest of all time and I won’t hear any arguments against it) as a prominent character, and she is a fascinatingly complex one, as she swings from being weirdly performative to achingly sincere. It’s easy to list a whole bunch of other great female characters, but I suppose what I wish is that they were more central to the plot in a positive way. Twin Peaks couldn’t be Twin Peaks without violence. It’s one of the things that the show is fundamentally about, and furthermore, how we react to, or DON’T react to that violence. But I don’t know that we need three scenes of it in one episode to highlight that. Then again, discomfort was probably the intent. We’re meant to feel like something deeply wrong is happening, and if that’s the intention then this episode succeeded. 

. I talked about that more than I expected, so moving on! Nadine got the moment of the night for me when her Silent Drape Runner store was revealed. Get it, girl!! I adore Nadine, the absolute weirdo. I dearly, dearly hope we get more of her over the next 8 episodes. It’s almost impossible to see how she could tie in to the central story which is a shame because she’s one of the most fun people to watch on the show. 

. The scenes with Cooper were a mix of hilarious and tragic, as they tend to be. It is both understandable and unfathomable how Janey-E could find him attractive - on the one hand, the doctor’s scene reveals how scarily in shape he is. No one’s blaming her for checking him out. On the other hand....come on. You’re attracted to the guy who drinks coffee like it’s a sippy cup of ribena? It’s a funny notion, but also a little sad because it makes you realise how starved for warmth and affection she probably is, as anyone would be. Him, too. Their sex scene is initially pretty funny because of Kyle Maclachlan’s fucking expressions (literally). Man, he has proven himself to have adept comic skills this year - as well as pretty much every other acting skill known to the profession. But as they lie together afterwards, it feels poignant again. It’s another reminder of how close yet far away our Coop is, and as much as I want him to find himself, I want Janey-E to be happy and find herself, too. She’s been put through some shit, having unwittingly married a non-human doppelganger manufactured by an evil entity who has escaped from another dimension. That’s a lot for one person. Plus she’s named Janey-E. How unlucky can one person be?

. I sort of liked the stuff with Jim Belushi and Robert Knepper. They give a couple of very intense and solid performances, but the problem for me was that it’s another complex storyline being introduced so deep into the series. If it’s one that lasts a few episodes - fine. But i’d almost like to see their part wrapped up - or advanced dramatically - by next week, mainly because there are more interesting threads the one these two linger on. I want more Doppelcoop. I want the Bookhouse Boys heading to the black lodge. I want more Patrick Fischler rather than the guys he gives orders to. It’s hard to judge from episode to episode which assortment of characters you’ll get, and it’s starting to feel like this series’ logline should’ve adapted an existing catchphrase: “Twin Peaks is like a box of Gormonbozias: You never know what creamed corn nightmare you’re gonna get”. I personally am happy with whatever assortment we get, but getting Belushi and Knepper’s characters is like getting a pretty nice plain milk chocolate when I could be getting a delicious hazelnut deluxe. It’s not bad at all, just...perfectly fine. 

. When it comes to Diane and her relationship with Doppelcoop, i’m utterly intrigued and utterly uninterested in guessing where it’ll go. There will be a million theories floating out there about how and why they’re in contact, but i’d rather just watch the story play out rather than guess ahead. It’s a very cool development though, and Cole’s vision of Laura at the door was completely disarming and haunting. Again, I don’t really want to guess ahead at how Laura will play into the following episodes, but we know she will. That’s enough for me. I’ve been browsing the Twin Peaks reddit lately (I know...I know) and i’ve gotta admit i’m waring very thin from it. Not EVERYTHING is a thing, guys. I’m beginning to think all the fan theories are detracting from the story, when really i’d rather just experience the ride. We can’t outsmart Frost and Lynch and they’ll tell us what they want and in the manner they want to. And anyway, more interesting than a tenuous “it’s all set in another dimension and i have proof!” theory is something that put maybe the biggest smile on my face yet: ALBERT ON A DATE!!! With CONSTANCE!! How utterly delightful. I guess he’s got over his love of Harry Truman, then. 

. I really thought we were going to get Audrey this episode, as we inch closer and closer towards her through her horrible bastard son. Seeing more of Johnny this season has been a surprise, but from what happens to him tonight, not a pleasant one. It is fully heartbreaking watching him try to wriggle out of his restraints to rescue his Mum, and a pretty solid metaphor for so many of the male characters on the show: When a woman is being hurt, the men are impotent to help. For Johnny, it’s understandable that he can’t, the poor guy. But for the other men? It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they won’t. Harry Dean Stanton’s Carl plays a lovely old folk song outside his trailer, looking briefly torn up when he sees a mug go flying through a trailer window, the sound of a furious male voice growling from inside. Does he go and intervene? He doesn’t. And he’s a ‘good guy’, right? I re-watched Blue Velvet again yesterday, and was blown away by how full of shit Jeffery Beaumont’s good-guy image is. Like Carl, when he sees Dorothy’s attack, he doesn’t step in. He just watches. This seems to be a recurring theme with Lynch: those who see violence against women stand by and allow it to happen. And there ARE Carls everywhere, who’d rather say “That’s sad but not my business” than stand up and help. What happens to the Woman who witnesses evil (ie Richard’s hit and run) and tries to report it? She’s destroyed by a Man. God, it’s heartbreaking. The layers of commentary get deeper even as I write this, and I realise things about this episode I hadn’t thought of. I think part 10 is the most troubling and divisive, yet most fiercely critical yet. 

. And then, we get a surprise I truly wasn’t expecting: more of The Log Lady. Maybe the most iconic, important and wise character on the entire show, leading us onwards through the dark night. God bless the log lady, and god bless Catherine Coulson. Every word she speaks is fraught with such pain and feeling, and it’d be a fucking sin for us to not cherish every word of it. I found myself listening to her words just as Hawk does - with eyes almost closed, in utter silence, revering them and their power. At the centre of this Season, underneath it all, the real heroes are Hawk and The Log Lady. It is so nice, so utterly refreshing to have such a pure moment of goodness and beauty, and for it to be between a Woman written with true agency and a Native American Man who has risen to protect his town - two beautiful souls who are stepping in to save the day that the white dudes have repeatedly fucked right up. It’s a gorgeous scene, and it segues into a road house performance that is easily my favourite of the year so far. Rebekah Del Rio’s performance of No Stars (No surprises, it was co-written by David Lynch) is haunting and it feels like a turning point for the series - from here on in, the darkness in the woods around Twin Peaks is out in full force. Perhaps this is why the episode is so aggressive. I left this terrific episode feeling unsettled and troubled - and that’s exactly how we’re supposed to feel. There’s a bad moon rising over Twin Peaks. 

“But in these days the glow is dying. What will be in the darkness that remains?”

[queerbrownfox]

Despairing Or Deceased: Why Don’t Queer People Get Happy Endings?!

I’ve never met a wlw girl who doesn’t have a soft spot for Carol. I mean, Cate Blanchet and Rooney Mara fucking in the fifties during the rise of McCarthyism and housewife culture? You watch the trailer, you’re already in love with both of them. “My angel. Flung out of space.” And you’re thinking, How is it possible that I’ve gone all this time without having a big old gay crush on Cate Blanchet? But while you’re so busy contemplating that, and hating Carol’s husband, slowly your satisfied grin is turning melancholic. And then you’re frowning. And you’re like, wait… she isn’t just going to… they’re going to find a way to… a fucking letter?! That’s how this ends? A letter.

Sure, I’m an emotional movie watcher, and well, yes, admittedly I was crying by the end of that movie, but in some respects, I feel like it was out of sheer sadness and disappointment as it was, well, indignation. 

I thought to myself, “There is no possible way on this planet that a lesbian would’ve written that ending.” And guess what? I was wrong. 

The film, which won an Academy Award in 2015 for best adapted screenplay, was based off of a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, who also happened to have written The Talented Mr. Ripley, another big one. And, shocker, she was a lesbian. Then again, she was also infamously alcoholic and world-hating according to her biography, which would explain the desire to ruin such a beautiful, forbidden and therefore all the more lustful relationship between Carol and Therese. (But still, I’m not satisfied one bit by this supposition).

After seeing Carol and feeling quite personally offended so to speak, I started thinking about how often I’ve thought about it before, how often I’ve felt slighted by the queer movies I’ve seen, that drove me to frustrated tears of longing by the end. There are the obvious ones, like Blue Is the Warmest Color, and Brokeback Mountain, even Rent, I’d put in there (Angel’s death deserves an honorable mention at least). And furthermore, the contemporary lesbian film classic, Pariah—that one absolutely wrecked me, as it hit so close to home with the entanglement between religion and sexuality.

Oh yeah, and why is it always about religion? God, I’ve searched near and far, I’ve even delved into Hebrew language movies, gay of course, to find Secrets, an excellent movie about women studying the Torah in a monastery-esque school, and then they fall in love and it’s amazing, but, lo and behold, religion tears them apart and just to really rub it in everyone’s face, the lesbian lover attends her gal-pal’s wedding at the end. Jesus. (Although I have to admit—highlight of that movie is when the nerdy bookish protagonist tries to convince her girlfriend that being a lesbian isn’t against scripture. “It says man cannot lie with another man, but it says nothing about women!”).

To boot, I’ve just never seen a movie involving the story of a trans person that ended well. Lots of beautiful stories, like in The Danish Girl and Boys Don’t Cry, but again, we end up in a puddle of tears when we see these beautiful human beings who we’ve grown to love throughout the course of the story be absolutely shattered in the end by their circumstances.

Look, I know it’s an unforgiving world. It would be a terrible injustice to overshadow the extent to which gay and trans people have suffered at the hands of this close-minded and objectively moralistic world. I mean it when I say that. Feel-goods that are sugary sweet and totally bullshit never have been my cup of tea. But why can’t we gay people catch a break? Is there nothing out there to make us feel better about a shitty break up or a #foreveralone Valentine’s Day? No? Nothing? Netflix, I’m counting on you here.

And... another let down.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve got too many straight filmmakers trying to make bank out of hopping onto trendy, “kinky” gay stories that fetishize the coming out process and sexy firsts between ladies and gents . . . I don’t know. But I look at Blue Is The Warmest Color, written and directed by a straight male and directing straight girls to scissor and quiver while he stands in the corner with crossed arms and probably a gross smile (that’s how I imagine it, anyways), and I start to imagine this narrative falling into place in a gruesome way. 

See, it’s the whole thing with straight guys watching porn, or getting hard-ons when you say, “Sorry, I’m not interested, I’ve got a girlfriend” and they get that look on their face that means they either think they can “turn” you or hop into bed with you: it’s only about the sex. These movies send the message that when it comes to queer folks, it’s not about the relationship. Why else would Blue have that twelve minute sex scene in the middle of it? For a jerking off break, nothing more, nothing less. The gay people, they can have sex, sure, but they can’t have a relationship—that’s weird. I can use them to help me jack off, but I don’t want to think about them holding hands or walking their dogs or going to the grocery store together. I don’t want to think about them ending up together.

These movies, they send messages. They act as though us deviants can’t ever work things out in the end—we don’t deserve our identities. In the end, like in Blue, we’re just bound to be torn apart in fits of rage and jealousy that end in slut-shaming, or worse. Now, even Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars Van Trier, features an asexual man living alone, who takes in a sex-crazed destitute woman off the street and listens to her story with kind eyes, even making these quaint references to fish and their instincts as she goes along with her exploits, trying to make a connection in his own quaint way. And you think, how nice. This asexual man and this nymphomaniac sharing an ironic moment that just feels kind of nice to the viewer. You think, there’s a glimmer of hope in humanity.

And then, at the end, he rapes her. What, the actual fuck.

The end of that movie saw me easily the angriest I’ve ever been at the end of any movie, ever. And I’m not the only one. The IMDB comments spoke for themselves.

I said it once, and I’ll say it again. The way these movies end makes it seem like we don’t deserve our identities. That our desire for “traditional” sex is either going to win out in the end, or else, we won’t get our happy ending. Because we don’t deserve happy endings. We don’t deserve normalcy. What we get is passionate, lusty love affairs that are more often than not seen as kinky and deviant, only so that they can end in the utter chaos that they deserve. 

I’m so sick of these endings. I’m sick of sitting through straight rom coms, in which the girl almost always gets the guy, so it seems, and yet I’ve gotta search high and low, though foreign films, biopics, documentaries and musicals to find just one goddamn gay love story that turns out alright for someone in the end. 

Sigh.

Well, to any of you simmering in indignation like me sitting through these sob stories, I guess I offer you a sliver of consolation. I get you. I feel it too. And it proves to me more and more each day why I have to write these wrongs and make the gay flicks we all deserve. Preferably before anybody else dies a tragic, gay death. ♡