#i feel like it's a bit of a disservice to call him an actual lazy moron because he really doesn't seem to be

[licorishh]

For personal reasons I like to think Jing Yuan is narcoleptic and that's why he's constantly dozing off because my word the average human being is not slipping into unconsciousness as often as he does with as little intensive work as he has going on

[usuallydeepcoffee]

Hi! 😄 Love your blog! 😄

And I love violence, so for the ask game, could you please answer to: 2, 8, 10, 17, 22.

Hi! :D

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Already answered that here. I'll add this tho: I'm kinda picky when it comes to Steve's characterization while getting dicked down, because sometimes it feels like he loses some of his personality.

(*taps sign* in want of good Steve Rogers content, and inevitably disappointed by fandom)

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I hate how fandom treats Fury as an antagonist who exists just to exploit the heroes or steal their secrets and create "tension". Idk if it's still a trend, but I remember a ton of fics where Fury was either preying on Tony's tech, so it was okay to bash him, or he was manipulating Steve, uncaring of how depressed he was.

Such a lazy plot device. And also a disservice to the guy who actually wanted the Avengers to be a thing, and the one who had a connection to Steve well before any of the other Avengers. (and lol Steve and Fury obviously respect one another, they even banter together but god forbid Steve has any type of relationship with a non-white man)

10. worst part of fanon

Already answered that here, but ugh, I also hate the way fans treat Sam. Glad as I am that he seems a little more popular now since his show came out, because he has a more substantial relationship with fandom's favorite white boy I can't forget the days when Sam was always suspiciously missing from art and fics even though he and Steve always ended up side by side at the end of all the movies they were in. Or, when people used his and Steve's line for uh... other characters. I see all and remember all.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Time.Travelling.Steve!!

You know, for a fandom that loves to complain about Steve's ending being ooc and would rather imagine him stuck somewhere in time, why not take full advantage and imagine him time-hopping to your favorite events. Are you a fan of dinosaurs? Have him befriend a scary t-Rex (which uh... kinda canon in the comics?) You like Ancient Egypt? Have him take a bath in the Nile while the Pharaoh has a cartoon-esque reaction to the water glistening off his body! You like the Plague? Have him... beg everyone to please wash themselves?

(these are rhetorical questions, I know why fandom doesn't, but still)

I would also take more Avengers 2.0 content. Or even better, SteveSamNat on the run after cacw, I'm not picky 😉

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

This is probably really obscure, but I love those little glimpses of a relationship between Rhodey and Nebula in Endgame. Like when she warns him about Scott being on the compound, and she calls him Rhodey. Not War Machine, Rhodey. And then they have that nice moment during the time heist together. Idk, it makes me wonder what kind of relationship (even if it is just friends!) they might have developed between IW and EG. Plus, I think they deserve a little bit of happiness.

choose violence ask game

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Hi! I just read your rant about how Duggan uses and sees feminism. His book is nothing of that. To me, it uses fantaisies of white men and makes it believe it's feminist. His feminism is very lazy, it's like he read twitter and hop he put it in his book. Actually, if i have to call it feminism, i would say it's white feminism and nothing else. His book isn't inclusive, it's just about Emma and Kate doing badass stuff. Now, it's easy to say productions, writers and tv shows use the feminism to sell their creations. To me, it's the case for Duggan. It's clear he doesn't understand a bit of what the feminism is. It's not just being badass or using the me too movement. No it's far than that. It's a fight for equality and for men to acknowledge, we the women, are also human being and have the right to be respected and to have the same rights and duties than them.

I'm sorry to say it but duggan is far far of being a feminist. He used Emma in particulary as one of his strong female character fantasy. She is always sexy, she knows everything, she is always strong. To me, his version of Emma is badass and great but something is missing in her. She is just badass. So since he creates his fantasy of strong females characters, it's logic he is dismissing the men of the show. Look at who they are. They are all traits who can make us think the book is inclusive, all suffered from the humans, iceman is gay but he does nothing with them because he sees no interest in them. They are just here to tell us how amazing the strong females characters are. If you want my opinion (which you don't sorry), Duggan is very insecured with the way he writes Emma and Kitty who are very basic. His writing is just here to tell "yo look i understand you, i am a feminist, i can't be sexist see". If he starts to give a proper writing to the others characters, we will start to see that his writing of his fantaisies aren't that great.

But again it's an opinion. It's just to sell his book.

Hey, I very much appreciate your detailed opinion!

I think we're also talking about the difference between Strong Female Character and actual strong female characters. Writers and film-makers have interpreted the desire for strong female characters as "more sexy, badass women" (and of course, they must always be sexy), when what many of us female readers/audience members really want is women who are complex, flawed, interesting, and allowed to be an important part of the narrative, just like male protagonists. It's nice to see strong, badass women - I admit, after the MCU being so male-centered for so long, I really loved seeing Captain Marvel being incredibly powerful in her own movie. But having a woman be a badass isn't the same as having her be an actual good character, and many movies will have the Strong Female Character who kicks ass then winds up playing second fiddle to the male protagonist, for whom she is also, of course, a love interest. A female character doesn't have to be a badass or physically strong to be a strong character, she just needs to be complex and fully realized.

I think Duggan is trying to give us strong female characters by making the women front and center, but he's really giving us Strong Female Characters by making Emma and Kate virtually flawless, which is really a disservice to both of them. Emma in particular is interesting because she is so complex, and capable of both great evil and great good, so watching her strut around being right all the time really flattens her character. (And it's kinda boring - I don't want to watch Sebastian lose to Emma yet again, I've been watching that for most of this series.) And he is also pushing a white, wealthy, model-beautiful woman into the spotlight, and down-playing Storm, the WOC on the team. And if you want to talk representation, the men who are being mostly ignored or used as window dressing in the series are: 2 POC (Bishop and Shinobi), 3 LGBTQ guys (Iceman, Christian and Shinobi). Not to mention Sebastian himself, who basically admitted to being bisexual in Hickman's X-Men, but that is being ignored. Pyro is the only supposedly cis, white, "straight" guy, and even he is arguably being "straight-washed" given that he was originally queer-coded back in the day.

I think the treatment of the guys has underlying layers of toxic masculinity, since they are so rarely allowed to to express complex emotions and are just expected to make witty quips or get angry. (Especially Bishop, Iceman and Pyro.) Not that I necessarily want to see "sad boy Pyro" breaking down in tears, but at least that might feel like serious character development for him. We don't get to see Bobby's grief over Kate's death, just his anger, and his relationship development with Christian is virtually nonexistent. We still haven't dug deep into Shinobi's relationship with Sebastian, and his "I still want to kill my father" is treated like a joke. (Admittedly, it's a funny line, and very in character for Shinobi.) The only guys who get to have "tender" moments are brief guest stars, like Masque, Forge and his human friend, and Jumbo Carnation. Which makes it extra frustrating, because Duggan clearly CAN write good, emotional character moments, but for some reason he can't be bothered to do so for much of the male cast of the book.

Damn, my Marauders critique really has gone far in the direction of "But what about the poor meeeeeen?" Maybe I'd feel differently if the two stars of the book were more obscure female characters, instead of two well-established and iconic X-Women. Like, I don't mind that Kwannon is clearly one of the stars of Hellions, because she is desperately in need of her own development and storylines as a character, and because Wells has managed to balance his writing to give all the cast something to do, rather than just dropping certain characters for months at a time.

[duhragonball]

I'd like to suggest Majin Buu for the character asks. He's a strange dude who stuck around longer then expected, so I'd imagine you have some mixed feelings on the character. I'd say any version of Buu applies, but thats up to you.

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Those who know me, know that I am all about that post-Frieza era of DBZ.  That’s why I want Hit to kill him again, because it did wonders for Z, and maybe it could improve Super II or whatever they end up calling it.   I’ve already discussed why I love Cell, but for me, the Buu Saga was not much of a step down.   I came out of the Cell Games wanting more, really craving an epilogue to show how everyone was getting along after Cell’s defeat.   And the Buu Saga gave me exactly that.   

The common criticism leveled against Buu is that he isn’t much on personality.  He doesn’t have the charisma of a Frieza or Buu, but I think that works in his favor, since it gives the good guys more time to work out all their issues.   A big part of the arc was about Goku and Vegeta getting on the same page, and it’s tough to make that happen when the bad guy has his own monologue.   I think that’s why you don’t see much of them together on Namek, or during the Androids crisis.   

I’ve seen Team Four Star compare Super Buu’s absorption forms to sort of a carbon copy of Perfect Cell.    I��m not sure I agree, but 1) I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, even if it’s true, and 2) If you don’t like Buuhan, don’t worry, because he doesn’t stay that way for very long.    Majin Buu has lots of variety, is my point.    No one’s going to love all of his different forms and appearances, but you’re probably going to find a few that appeal to you.    I had trouble picking a header image for this, because it feels like it does a disservice to the character.    He’s so many different things.   He can be cute and cuddly, or vicious and terrifying, or sassy and rude.  

I also like what he represents to the series as a whole.   When he was first introduced, Buu was presented as this instant “game over” for the universe.   If Babidi reawakens him, that’s it, we all lose.   No one can stop him.    But then he breaks out anyway, and the good guys still manage to rally.    He proves too powerful to defeat, but Goku comes up with a plan, and the Supreme Kai comes up with a plan, and the Old Kai comes up with a plan, and finally Vegeta comes up with a plan, and all of them are premised on the idea that maybe we’re not so doomed after all.    Maybe the Z-Fighters are strong enough to pull this off.   And they do pull it off, and somehow turn Buu good in the process.   There’s a very hopeful message in that.   

Why I don’t: Not gonna lie, I find it somewhat uncomfy that Fat Buu survives the conflict and just... stays that way.    I’m not talking about his appearance, mind you, I mean he still seems like the same guy who gouged out Dabura’s eyes, who creeped on that one lady, and seemed unable to stop eating.   

Let me put it like this: When I first watched the episodes where Mr. Satan befriends Buu, I wasn’t entirely surprised, but what worried me was that he cooked food for Buu, and then he’d immediately demand another meal.  The implication, for me anyway, was that maybe Buu couldn’t be reformed, and he would be compelled by an endless hunger to destroy everything in his sight, regardless of how he might have felt about it.  

In hindsight, I think the “can’t-stop-eating” bit was just intended to set up the emergence of Evil Buu.   Once he got that out of his system, he was fine, but it still bugged me, and even Vegeta was concerned about Buu making another Kid Buu someday.   Because no one really understood what Buu was or how he worked, so who’s to say that he could truly shake off the ways of evil?    Also, Fat Buu owes his existence to absorbing two of the ancient Supreme Kais, so it bothered me that they got everyone else de-absorbed but not them.  

But, I can’t say that bothers me too much, since the final episodes of DBZ show that he lived peacefully with Mr. Satan for at least a decade.  Even so, I wasn’t surprised to see Dragon Ball GT merge him with Uub.   I think the urge to write him out of the story was pretty strong.    Notice how Dragon Ball Super has Majin Buu, but they hardly ever use him.   It makes you wonder.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): You know, I think I might go with the one where the Supreme Kai explains Buu’s backstory to the Old Kai.   Pretty sure that one ends with Kid Buu blowing up the world, so it’s got a lot going for it. 

Favorite season/movie: The Fusion Saga is kind of my go-to answer for the best of Buu, but after I rewatched everything last year, I think the Kid Buu Saga make be the better arc.   It’s tough to decide.

Favorite line: When Goku and Vegeta power up on the Supreme Kai Planet to draw Buu’s attention, he senses their ki and grins, saying “Dum-dums!” like he’s so excited that they’re gonna try and fight him again.   That’s in the dub, anyway, but I always liked that this was Kid Buu’s pet name for those two idiots.

Favorite outfit: I don’t think I have a preference, but it might have been nice to see more of this version:

OTP: I guess that female Buu he made so he could have children?   Honestly, the less I have to think about Buu being romantic the better I like it.  

Brotp: Gotta be Mr. Satan.

Head Canon: The Xenoverse games and Dragon Ball Online introduced this whole notion of Buu starting his own race of Majins on Earth.    I’ve been trying to figure out how to work with that in my fanfic, and the main thing that sticks out in my mind is that Buu is the progenitor of that entire population, and I’m pretty sure he’d still be alive at any given time, so it intrigues me that a Majin OC I might come up with could just stroll on over to Buu’s house and say hello.  But I’m not really sure what they’d talk about.  

Unpopular opinion: Killing him off was one of the few smart moves GT made, and providing a means for the absorbed Supreme Kai’s to escape was one of the few smart moves Toyotaro made.  

A wish: If they do another Tournament of Power, Buu should actually be in it.   He can absorb Frieza and that way they can get around the cap on team members. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: If they do another big fight, for the love of crap, don’t just have him nap through it.   I just realized he probably slept through the Broly movie too.   Lazy bastard.

5 words to best describe them: That’s the tubby custard machine.

My nickname for them: “You r--” whoa ho-hoooo.   Just kidding.  

[theplatinthehat]

*nails my piece of paper to Philip Pullman’s front door*

So, I made a joke earlier today about writing up my grievances with the world-building of the His Dark Materials trilogy. I genuinely didn’t think anyone would be interested enough to ask me about this. But someone did, so I’ve abandoned the actual jobs I needed to do today and went away to cobble together this post to summarise My Thoughts (and no-one was more surprised than I to find that there were more than two).

Let me say that these are my thoughts and opinions on this particular canon of work. I don’t judge anyone who likes them (hell, I love the idea of daemons and I certainly think there are some interesting concepts explored in the series) and you are more than welcome to disagree with me on any (or all) of the points that I outline below. And you’re certainly allowed to acknowledge that there are issues with a text and still find enjoyment from them. I’m not looking to Cancel anyone – I just have questions and I’m prepared to shout them into the void.

If anyone does reblog this, I ask that you don’t tag it with #hisdarkmaterials or #hdm, because that’s unfair on the people who are using those tags to curate a positive fandom experience.

Caveat to all of this – I haven’t read the books, but I have watched the current BBC/HBO series in great depth. I’m also writing a fanfic called The Shadow Mandate set in the world of His Dark Materials and that has required me to do extensive research and engage with multiple sources about the world. It’s as a direct result of this research that much of these questions and critiques have arisen. I am planning to read the books soon though (mainly so I can roast them more thoroughly)

Don’t send this to Philip Pullman (or Philman, as I will probably refer to him from here on out). 1 – he isn’t going to care what I say (he’ll just say it’s a metaphor and to not read too much into it or something equally as infuriating) and 2 – I don’t care what he says.

Now all that boring stuff is done, let’s get to it. I’m putting this all under the cut so the poor folk who want nothing to do with this can ignore at their leisure.

This will possibly get a bit tongue in cheek in places – just a warning

One Church to Rule Them All, One Faith to Bind Them

So, one of my main questions about the world of His Dark Materials is the Magisterium and the Holy Church. And that question is “How?”

Overlooking the fact that this was probably a conscious decision by Philman to Make A Point, I still have questions behind this behemoth of an institution. Based on my research, I’m of the understanding that Lyra’s world parted from our own when John Calvin became the Pope, and transferred the seat of Papal power to Geneva. After Calvin’s death, the Magisterium was formed and they consolidated power from there.

In my mind, this just doesn’t work. Because it makes it sound like Calvin was the only person standing between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation. Whilst he had a big role in the Reformation, he just wasn’t the only person working for reforms (I mean – Luther? Hello? He had 95 problems, and Indulgences were all of them). You could probably argue with me on this, as he was a significant figurehead of the Reformation, but there were so many people working for change in Europe at the time that I would have thought that someone else would have taken that place (you can read more here).

The lack of denominations also doesn’t really sit with me because if there’s one thing I know about Christians, it’s that we love to argue over teeny-tiny details and build whole new ways of worshipping around them. The fact that the Magisterium doesn’t just tear itself apart is, to be honest, quite surprising. And, you know, the Eastern Orthodox tradition was already a thing at the time… (here’s a brief overview of the East-West Schism of 1054)

I’d also like to point out that Papal power was dominant in Western civilization. That leaves a lot of the world for the Magisterium to then suddenly gain power of. Or did Philman conveniently forget that Judaism (although the Jewish people had suffered significant persecution in Europe by this time), Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism (and many others) were all already very well-established religions in other parts of the world that I doubt would have taken too kindly to the Magisterium’s political advances. This idea of a religion having such a heavy-handed control over the whole world just seems a bit too far-fetched for me to believe.

However, I have to acknowledge that I say this as a white, Western Christian – perhaps people genuinely feel that is the case.

I do know that the witches are mentioned at having their own religion, but I can’t really find any information about it, so I can’t really compare them. It could well be that other religions and faith practices are mentioned in the books themselves, but I’m struggling to find them (do the shamans count? I’m not sure). Perhaps this is just me, but one religion consuming the whole world (or, at least, the vast majority of it) doesn’t strike me as particularly plausible.

 Beast from the East

This is probably my most serious critique of the series, and one that’s actually been the most nightmarish for me to deal with in my own expanded world-building of Lyra’s world for The Shadow Mandate. This is an issue that has been discussed at length Marek Oziewicz in the paper ‘Representations of Eastern Europe in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Jonathan Stroud’s The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series’ – which I highly recommend you read!

(And it dunks on Ms R*wling too – what a treat!).

I’ll do a little summary for those of you who haven’t got the time to read a whole paper:

The His Dark Materials trilogy is told from a very British point of view (understandable, the author is a white British man)

Britain is a positive and exciting place, where all the characters are individuals with the capacity for good or evil

The general geographical sense of the world-building is that the further East you go (in Europe) that the less ties the people have to the Holy Church and the more barbaric they are – see the Tartars and their ‘Breathless One’ practices

The Eastern European races are frequently described with qualities such as “cruelty, pitilessness, barbarism, fierceness, physical and emotional instability” (Oziewicz, p. 8)

A lot of nationalist stereotypes surround the peoples of these races/countries

I mean, the treatment of the Tartars (which is a living, breathing ethnolinguistic group) as a whole is pretty disturbing. They’re described to be like a ‘warmongering race of xenophobic genocidal humans who want to conquer the whole of the Earth’ (Quote) - compare that to the complexity of the characters from the West. Oziewicz notes that the Tartars are somewhat akin to the Imperial Guard of Star Wars, as their helmets have ‘no eyes – or at least you couldn’t see any eyes behind the snow slits’ (Northern Lights, p. 289). As far as I can tell, they’re pretty much just tarred with one brush – made particularly plain by the fact that all Tartars seem to have identical wolf/husky daemons – unless that was a requirement when the Magisterium put the job posting on Indeed.

So, a whole nation of people has been reduced to a single archetype – one that plays on existing prejudices in British culture. That just feels like extremely lazy world-building to me – I don’t know a single country or ethnic population that could accurately be described as one archetype.

I also feel that a lot of other countries in the world are written off with sweeping generalisations – or just kinda lumped together? So, a lot of my research has involved me looking at the canonical list of Globetrotter Maps, and a whole bunch of countries tend to get lumped together – particularly, I’ve noticed, the South American countries. It does this really intriguing and complex world a major disservice. As I said, this is something that I’ve had to grapple with for my own work – and I hope that I’ve done enough work so as to begin to dissemble what Philman started.

 A new and exciting way to get around the ‘G’ slur

For those of you who are unaware (although, you’re on Tumblr – how could you possibly not be aware?) the G-slur is considered to be a pejorative description of the Romani ethnic group, associated with idleness and itinerancy. It comes from the mistaken European belief that the Romani people came from Egypt (they aren’t). You can read more about that here and here.

Philman decided to name his ethnic group known for travelling and trading as they go ‘Gyptians’. I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining any further.

Should I let this slide with the explanation that the term is so pervasive in Britain that it’s actually a legal term? Perhaps, but I’m not going to.

 Kill Bill God

My only issue with this is that if Philman wants to kill God, he should kill… God. Not some angel with a superiority complex. But seeing how badly some people took it, I can understand why he didn’t. I still think he’s a coward.

 Sex, Dust and Dragons

I have a whole other bone to pick with Philman about his obsession with sex in children’s literature, but that’s not what you’re here to talk about. No, you came to hear about His Dark Materials.

It’s established in the world that Dust doesn’t settle on children because they don’t have experience – they are too innocent. Based on the research I’ve done, and the language used in both the film and the mini-series is this maturation from childhood to adulthood is though protosexual experiences e.g. kissing. And this is what Mary Malone’s role as ‘the serpent’ is – she’s the one that make Lyra think about her sexuality for the first time:

As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She found a stirring at the roots of her hair: she found herself breathing faster. She had never been on a roller-coaster, or anything like one, but if she had, she would have recognised the sensations in her breast: they were exciting and frightening at the same time, and she had not the slightest idea why. The sensation continued, and deepened, and changed, as more parts of her body found themselves affected too. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, deep in the darkness of the building she felt other doors opening too, and lights coming on. She sat trembling, hugging her knees, hardly daring to breathe, as Mary went on...

Marzipan, The Amber Spyglass

(That’s such a long quote)

It’s then made explicitly clear that it’s the intimacy of Lyra and Will’s relationship, and the touching of one another’s daemons, that causes Pan and Kirjava to settle in their true forms.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was right – love really does change everything.

Here’s where things get a little bit petty.

So, if Dust begins to settle on children once they’ve had their first ‘sexual awakening’ – what about those people who don’t ever experience that? Because, believe it or not, asexual people have existed for a very long time. If they don’t experience this, then would their daemons settle? What are the implications of this? Are asexual people remaining in the ‘childlike innocence of the Garden of Eden’? (Quote)

Asexual fans of His Dark Materials, I pass this question to you – do you lack a soul because you’ve never experienced sexual desire? Is sex truly instrumental on the road to maturation? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and what you’d do if your daemon never settled. Would you let them shift into a dragon? I know I would if I were in that position.

This issue, to me, is massively indicative of the prevalent attitudes towards the asexual community. There is a tendency for media products to portray a-spec people as immature because they don’t experience sexual attraction – which is just not true. The ace community has said many times that they feel that this attitude infantilizes their orientation, and it’s a view that needs to be challenged. Check out this source for more information on the microagressions faced by this community – section six is particularly relevant. Asexuals are mature – despite this lack of ‘experience’ that Philman seems to think all people need to have in order to become free-thinkers. This just isn’t true. I don’t understand why society seems to believe this theory, but with its prevalence in media it’s not too difficult to see why this view pervades.

Anyway, the only reason I’m so petty about this particular aspect is that I’m so bored of reading stories where sex and romance are the most important thing. I think heresy is a much more interesting sin than sex, so that’s what The Shadow Mandate will be about once I’ve finished it.

I also have some more minor world-building issues both in HDM and the later Book of the Dust trilogy including, but not limited to:

Why is it New Denmark? The Dutch were quite famous for reaching America – New Amsterdam being the original name for New York. Admittedly I’m only cross about this because I got mixed up in my own world-building.

There’s even more ‘othering’ of non-British races – particularly the Skraelings who are analogous to the Inuit people (but possibly a term for all Native-American peoples) who carry out ‘barbaric’ practices such as trepanning

Witches can’t forgive men that turn them down. Well I don’t have much of a problem with this as such, but it just makes me think of that quote about fairies from Peter Pan – “Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.”

The treatment of Pantalaimon by Lyra in subsequent adventures

Malcolm Polstead needs to leave Lyra tf alone

 I appreciate that this is a very long and whingy list about things that I don’t like, so congrats on making it this far! I’d love to give you something – perhaps your time back – but alas, my powers only extend so far. I appreciate that the His Dark Materials books are well-loved and that most people would probably disagree with what I’ve said – I just have lots of questions and Philman doesn’t have as many answers as I would like. But then again, should I really read this much into the work of a writer who seems willing and capable to ignore the personality of their protagonist for a whole book? I don’t know. But I do know, that axolotl daemons would require a lot of work.

(I have beef with Philman – thank you for humouring me)

Leave your hatemail in my inbox <3

[peppermintbee]

15 easy changes that would have made Kairi a more compelling character

Ever since finishing KH3 I’ve been completely preoccupied with what a disservice the writing does for Kairi. This isn’t an unpopular opinion; the KH3 tag is full of complaints regarding Kairi’s treatment. I think what’s really disappointing is that fixing her portrayal wouldn’t require that much work. So, if I was Nomura’s co-writer for KH3, here are the changes I would have suggested.

1. Don’t put her in the time chamber to train

Not only does the pocket dimension cause plot holes (Why can’t Sora train there? Why didn’t Kairi and Lea become high level in there?) it’s only narrative purpose was to keep Kairi and Lea out of the story while Sora was visiting Disney worlds. Having her literally anywhere else, where Sora can see and talk with her, would have been better than that.

2. Let her train and travel with Sora

Conveniently, the game is set up perfectly for having Kairi as a team member. Sora starts the game at LV. 1 and Kairi is a beginner keyblade wielder. They could visit the Disney worlds and git gud together. We know team mechanics were programmed for Kairi, since she briefly fights alongside Sora at the end. In the Disney worlds you can have up to 4 team members, so it doesn’t seem like a stretch that at least one of them could be Kairi (and/or Lea). With that, the opportunities for character building are endless: team banter, selfies, special team attacks, commenting on the Disney stories, etc. 

3. Or, give Kairi her own missions

Riku and Mickey are off screen because they are trying to find Aqua. Even though we don’t see much of them, this makes them active participants to the plot. Therefore, if she can’t be a team member, have Kairi be on her own  important story mission. A really easy one would be involving her in the Twilight Town investigation to find Roxas’ data and/or rescue Ansem the Wise. Maybe one of the turncoat Org 13 members works with Kairi. At some point, Sora and Kairi’s paths would cross, and they’d work together just like Sora and Riku did.

4. Have Sora mention Kairi every once in a while

Honestly, this is such a low bar it’s sad the game didn’t clear it. Sora frequently mentions Riku in the Disney worlds when something reminds him of him, he tries to call him, and he even talks about Riku in the social media loading screens. Kairi doesn’t get the same amount of attention. (Riku also doesn’t talk about Kairi.) It makes it feel like Kairi is not a priority to the characters, which makes it hard to be invested in her while playing.

5. Have Sora and Kairi greet each other when they finally meet

The first time Sora and Kairi are in a room together is after Ventus gets saved and everyone is talking in Yen Sid’s room. During this scene, most of the time Kairi is OFF SCREEN and has almost no lines. When she finally talks, she apologizes to Aqua and says something about saving Namine. Sora and Kairi stand about 5 feet away from each other and he only looks at her when she’s talking. This is dumb, especially considering Kairi and Sora haven’t seen each other in person since KH2 (!!!), a game that she also had very little presence in, and now that she’s finally here, she may as well be a part of the wallpaper. While Sora and Riku are reunited in the most badass way possible (a dimension crossing rescue and summoning of the great rainbow keyblade), Sora and Kairi aren’t even given so much as a chance to say “hi.” Simply include few lines of them being excited to see one another. A hug, a compliment, an “I missed you,” ANYTHING.

6. Just rewrite the entire paopu scene

This scene has such wasted potential. It’s the first time Kairi and Sora really talk to each other, which already starves the scene of emotional impact because their relationship feels underdeveloped and unearned. If this scene had even a little bit of foundation setting (see the above list) it wouldn’t have felt so forced. I’d argue the only foundation their relationship has is from KH1, which not only is over a decade old for players, but the characters themselves have changed a lot since then. 

Secondly, it is almost funny that a scene that’s supposed to be about Kairi and Sora starts with Sora talking about Riku. Would it have been so hard to put a scene change between the Riku/Repliku talk and this one and not awkwardly segue from Sora worrying about Riku to Kairi proposing to Sora.

Third, Sora shows almost no excitement about sharing a paopu fruit with Kairi until the very end, which only makes it feel more forced. He expresses shock, confusion, and even insinuates they don’t need to share a fruit since they are together in spirit. He says he’ll protect Kairi, which is kind of a lame promise since Sora protects all of his friends. Instead, Sora should have looked genuinely touched and excited about the paopu thing, and they should have made a promise that went beyond protecting each other, since that’s a given. (I do really like that Kairi vows to protect Sora, but considering what happens later it feels pretty hollow.)

8. Sora should protect Kairi with his keyblade, not a hug

Honestly, this was so dumb I don’t even know where to start. If there’s gonna be a Kairi hug, it should have been when they were reunited, or the paopu scene, or like... any other time. I get that it’s supposed to be a parallel to KH1, but that defense-hug made sense because Kairi was unarmed and untrained. (Plus, Kairi could actually shield heartless-Sora with her body. In this scene, Kairi and Sora are about the same size so it just looks like a normal hug, not protection). Just hours ago, Sora protected Riku from Aqua with his keyblade and it was badass. At the end of this scene, Riku protects Sora with his keyblade, and it’s badass. The hug isn’t badass, it’s stupid and it makes both Sora AND Kairi look incompetent, which it frustrating to witness.

9. Let Kairi literally protect Sora

As much as I like the scene where Riku protects Sora from the heartless cyclone, that would have been a perfect opportunity for Kairi to make good on her promise and protect Sora. We already know Riku will defend Sora, he did that in all the other KH games. Kairi shedding her damsel persona to defend Sora would have been amazing.

10. Play as Kairi in The Final World

If Kairi’s “light” is the reason Sora can persist in the final world, just abandon the whole deus-ex-kairi and let us play as Kairi. Kairi should collect the Sora fragments (or her own fragments), and save at least Sora and Riku’s heart. I think we should have been able to play as Kairi at some point anyway, but this seemed like an especially good time for it. That would elevate her role in saving Sora into something really believable, instead of Chirithy and Kairi just telling us she saved him when it feels like Sora just saved himself and everyone else (as usual).

11. Give Kairi a cool team attack

We only get to fight alongside Kairi for like, 10 minutes. At least give her a cool team attack. I’m not asking for a lot here.

12. Kairi doesn’t get kidnapped (and if she does, she goes down fighting)

Literally anyone else. I don’t care who. In fact, I think Riku would be a good candidate for kidnapping: not only does it subvert the damsel thing, but it would make the bad guys look pretty formidable if they were able to pull it off, and, Riku is important enough to Sora to “motivate” him to rescue him.

I’d rather she not get damseled at all, but if she really has to get kidnapped, it should at least be because she compromised her safety to save Sora or Lea. Then, when she’s grabbed, she should go down kicking and screaming, maybe taking out an Org member on the way out. Instead, the way it’s framed makes it looks like she got kidnapped because she sucks at fighting.

13. Give Kairi’s death/disappearance some real weight

I still stand by the fact that Riku is the one who should have been kidnapped but I digress. When Kairi explodes, Sora gets upset briefly before talking about closing Kingdom Hearts and receiving encouragement from his other friends. Xion reassures Sora that Kairi is fine, likely to justify why Sora gets over losing Kairi so fast. With a smile, Sora goes into the next battle and doesn’t mention Kairi until long after Xehanort is defeated. This makes her death feel like a cheap way to add superficial stakes and write Kairi out of the story (again). This can be fixed by having Sora react like a normal person, such as falling into complete despair or wracked with grief and vengeance, and having the other characters react appropriately too. 

At the end of the story, Sora and the gang are weirdly understanding of Xehanort when he gives his sob story, even though he exploded Kairi just a little while ago, and they don’t even demand to know how to save her. It really makes it feel like they forgot about her.

14. Don’t gloss over Sora’s end-game rescue of Kairi

We’re shown that Sora saved her somehow and now he’s gone. That’s all the script thinks we need to know because the next game is about Sora and Riku just like most of the KH games. Not that I really want another game about Sora rescuing Kairi, but the fact that this is barely graced with explanation really makes it clear that Kairi is little more than a plot device to set up the next game. I don’t really know how to fix this other than not fridging Kairi, or bringing Kairi back right after Xehanort is defeated, or making the next game about Kairi saving Sora. Which brings us to my last fix...

15. Send Kairi after Sora, not Riku

Kairi explicitly said she was going to protect Sora. Therefore, she should be the one implied to search for Sora at the end of the game. Having her cry on the beach while Riku went after him was lazy and cheap and everyone knows it. But, I suppose it’s fitting end for a character that Nomura clearly didn’t care enough about to write decent character development for.

And there we have it, 15 ways to make Kairi more compelling. If the game included even a few of these, Kairi would have felt like a more meaningful person and not a watered down version of KH1 Kairi. I can only hope that the next game has some strong female characters that we can all root for, but honestly, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions, I want to hear them!

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Thanks for answering!! I loooove Peter and John and Emori and well most characters on your list really! While we're at it, which characters are your least favorite in MCU/the100? And which characters do you think are overrated or underrated?

Hey, awesome! And no problem! I love talking about the characters I like. You can come talk to me about them anytime! Or even characters you like that I don’t pay enough attention to.

Okay, this was a GREAT question, and I basically wrote you a novel in response.

The 100 – Clarke Griffin (if that wasn’t already obvious)

I used to love Clarke Griffin, but at this point, I just get annoyed whenever she comes on my screen. Clarke was a much stronger character in s2, when the writing committed to portraying her as flawed and morally grey and kind of ruthless in a way that was necessarily but also kind of concerning.

Now it seems like they always want to remind me she’s The Most Important – she’s almost become a version of the Chosen One trope in a narrative where that really shouldn’t be a thing – and a hero and just, like, suuuper pretty (the staircase scene was ridiculous). They’ve made her The Popular, Pretty Girl trope and I hate it. They might tell me in dialogue over and over again that there are no bad guys, but even when Clarke does bad, selfish things, they refuse to commit to it. She doesn’t face consequences and the writing is too concerned with making us side with her than actually calling her out. Even this season while other characters have been listing why they’re angry with her, everything is framed in a way to make us sympathize with her.

Letting a character do flawed things but trying to sway the viewer to ignore those flaws and loudly tell me that they’re still a good person rather than showing it is the easiest way to get me to not like a character. They’ve written Clarke as incredibly selfish, arrogant, and unwilling to listen to anyone else, unwilling to truly apologize or learn from her mistakes – but they just won’t admit to it or let her grow. OR commit to an actual downward spiral arc. Either would be accepted.

Plus, she’s just boring now. Everything comes too easily for her – people she’s hurt forgive her too easily, and the nightblood is basically a superpower at this point. The writing of her is just lazy and it’s not compelling.

MCU – Steve Rogers

I also used to like Steve. Whedon’s characterization was always off (and I think AoU really contributed to the problems in his overall arc), but I liked him a lot in Cap 1 and Winter Soldier is still one of my favorite MCU movies and the best handling of his character overall.

I need to rewatch the MCU before I really dive into just what went wrong with Steve’s character, but I just never really found him as compelling a character past WS and I was mad at him more than I liked or sided with him. Even with Endgame, I was just indifferent to how his story ended.

I think he suffers from a lot of the same problems as the writing for Clarke does. Steve has flaws and that’s great – it makes him interesting and human – but even while the narrative shows you his flaws, it tries to push you to ultimately ignore them because he’s a hero and we’re supposed to side with him because they already established he’s a good man. The problem is that Steve’s flaws ultimately get shown a lot more than his heroic, moral side as the movies go on. And despite not showing us that heroic side, they keep loudly telling us over and over again that Steve still is a selfless hero who will lay down on the wire – something he actually hasn’t shown he will do (for anyone but Bucky, maybe) for several movies now. In fact, he’s the only one in Endgame who really doesn’t do “whatever it takes” or have to sacrifice ANYTHING.

What @gamorazenwhoberis says in this post really explains it better than I am right now.

In short, starting with AoU (the root of so many characterization issues in the MCU), the writing starts telling us that Steve’s a selfless hero and a shining example of a good man while only really showing us his flawed behavior. It’s hard to keep buying that Steve is the “lay down on the wire” type when he doesn’t do anything to prove it. I also really struggle to side with him in later movies because I find him, in the wise words of Rhodey, “dangerously arrogant.” Steve’s intentions are always good, but he never believes he can be wrong, and that’s a problem. And again, that could be a really interesting character flaw if portrayed as a flaw – but I think too often the narrative ultimately expects us to side with him because…I don’t know, he’s Captain America, you know?  

It’s not necessarily Steve’s fault, because I think he IS meant to be portrayed as an ultimately heroic man who wants to help people but still has realistic human flaws – it’s the writing’s fault, because they way they end up framing it makes it look like Steve is all talk when it comes to heroic sacrifices but, unlike his fellow Avengers, unwilling to sacrifice or compromise.  

Also, I’ll be honest - I relate so much with Tony and project so much onto him that a lot of his actions in Civil War felt like a personal betrayal and I had a hard time liking him again after that movie. I still like him just fine in the first few films and I actually did enjoy a lot of scenes in Endgame, but a lot of his actions bother me and never feel like they’re actually addressed in a way that calls him out and the writing of him REALLY bothers. And when I’m not mad it him in later movies, I’m mostly indifferent. I do love him in other universes though.

Underrated

1. JAMES RHODEY RHODES DOES NOT GET ENOUGH APPRECIATION!!! He’s fantastic and I love him and I really wish he was given a bit more room to shine in IW/Endgame, even though I get they’re juggling too many characters. They just handled him SO WELL in Civil War that I wanted to see more writing that showed how much conviction and sense of duty he had. Also the brief moment where he talked about being paralyzed and how they have to “work with what they’ve got” was so good, I wanted so much more of it.

2. Maria Hill! The writing has really wronged her. I didn’t like her writing in Age of Ultron at all (she’s not a secretary, Whedon), and she’s been such an afterthought in the MCU since then. I’m so excited to see her come back in FFH, because I think there’s still so much cool stuff they could do with her. I’d actually love them to write her with a bit more 616 characterization, because in comics she’s kind of both The Worst and The Best all at once. She’s just MEAN. But she also helps run a massive intelligence agency with an iron fist and has a strong sense of duty and right and wrong and she’s more than a little terrifying. She’s just great. I’m glad to see her back. I love that she’s still been doing her part to help protect the world even with SHIELD gone.

3. NEBULA!!! She has such a good arc and she was wonderful in Endgame and this whole fandom sleeps on her and it’s unacceptable.

Overrated

1. Wanda Maximoff. :/ I really, really WANT to like MCU Wanda, and Elizabeth Olson does an amazing job with what she’s given, but her character bothers me a lot. I like the concept of her arc going from villain to hero. She’s really similar to Nebula in that way – her turn to villainy was born from trauma, but over time she learned to repurpose that trauma into a way to help other people.

The problem is that….it just kind of doesn’t work for me. Part of it is that she also suffers from the Clarke Griffin Problem – aka, she’s flawed and she makes mistakes and the dialogue tells me this, but she either avoids consequences or she fails to apologize for them. In theory, I like her arc about mistakes and atonement and doing better (which is exactly why I love Tony and Natasha and Nebula), but the writing of it doesn’t work for me. And her relationship with Vision is just so boring it’s hard to be invested. I think they did such a disservice to her by killing off her most interesting relationship, even though I know it was for legal reasons. (I do like her relationship with Clint, though.)

2. Carol Danvers. :( Again, I WANT to like her so badly. I love comics Carol so much. I bought a Captain Marvel shirt for the premiere. I have a Captain Marvel coffee mug. I’ve been looking forward to her movie for YEARS.

But I just find MCU Carol incredibly bland. There isn’t much depth to her even after her own solo movie, and I think Captain Marvel did a terrible job of developing her – especially in comparison to how well other MCU heroes have been developed in their own solo films. She has a lot of surface-level qualities that are fun – like being headstrong and snarky and a badass (I AM delighted that there’s no question she is the strongest hero) – but there just isn’t much emotional depth to flesh her out. I still feel like all I really know about her are basic facts and not anything about what she believes in or feels, and I feel like I was more emotionally connected with Maria in one scene than I ever was with Carol. I’m really hoping her next movie fixes that problem for me because I want to love her.

Thanks for asking!! I’m not kidding. You can always come yell at me about fictional characters. :)

[the-canary]

Starlight - B.B (4/6)

Summary: Mysterious, but life changing things always happen if you just let life take its course – you decided to try it for once. (Modern AU!Reader/Bucky Barnes).

Prompt: Emily Dickinson: XXI

Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

A/N: This is for @abovethesmokestacks ‘s Summer Writing Challenge. Revelations! And me using that certain type of knowledge. 

Feedback is always welcomed.

It starts off timid at best, a good morning here and hello there throughout the day between the two of you though while taking into mind that there is a 3 hour difference between the two of you, as Bucky moves from Arizona and into California. The first step of more interaction is a bit before that when Bucky decides to sends you a series of photos from the Grand Canyon late in the afternoon. A huge smile is on your face for the rest of the work day that even Wanda couldn’t help but notice, as she shakes her head at your brightening attitude. You are slowly getting back into the rhythm of things and while it hurt just a little, you were used to your mother not talking to you once more.

It’s such a drastic change from a few months back that one day Wanda can’t help but ask.

“Are you seeing someone?” she asks during one uneventful lunch break, as you look up from your phone, looking away from the wildflower trail pictures that Bucky had sent you earlier in the day. Her brown eyes are curious as you look at her, but there is also a huge grin on her face -- waiting for your answer.

“No,” you manage to say, but the next thing that comes out of your mouth is a bit bitter as you aren’t sure what the hell Bucky is to you at this point, “I’m just chatting with a friend who’s traveling.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I asked you?” she quips with a hopeful tone, as you raise an eyebrow though a little bit fearful about what your sort-of work friend wants from you, but you would always be kind enough to listen to anyone out at least once.

“Ask what, Wan,” you ask cautiously, as she gets up from her seat and moves to sit on your desk and as much as you enjoy her company, you can’t help but lean back like a frightened cat.

“I am going on a double date in a few nights with my boyfriend Viz,” she explains and you watch her carefully from your corner of the cubicle, “And I actually needed a date for my brother. ”

“Wanda--” you say in annoyance as she puts her hands up as if trying to defend her idea.

“He’s a good guy. I think you could hit it off,” she gives you a sweet smile and deep down you know she is trying to look out for you in a certain way. Wanda is the type of person that wants to see everyone happy and in her own way and that means is she’s together with someone, she wants everyone around her to be happy together as well. It was a little annoying, but you could tell she was coming from a good place not unlike --

No romantic life either, what good are you for anyways?

“Could I think about it?” you give her the most vague response possible. Her smile wanes for a moment  before she agrees since she sprang it up on you last minute before going back to her side of the office. You take a look at your phone for a moment before ignoring it for the rest of the work day, uneasy over what had just transpired and feeling like you were doing a disservice to Bucky as well.

 It’s been awhile since Bucky has had a “bad episode” as he moves from Arizona into Southern California and he is sure that it is from the easier transition and travel he has been having since entering the state. However, as Sam liked to point out in his most recent phone call -- Bucky also had a new connection to the world around him, someone that supported him in on this new journey. He wasn’t short changing Steve, as his lifelong friend, or Sam, who had been helping him since they meet at the VA. However, with you there wasn’t any old standards to uphold nor was there any coddling because of what he was facing. You knew a different Bucky and while he had been scared to show you the side that was scared of the dark, that had nightmares or heard voices sometimes -- you didn’t turn away. You didn’t put him under an x-ray, but gently accepted him at his own pace and that’s the most Bucky had ever gotten from anyone.

It had help that you had shared a bit of yourself during those days back in Arizona, and Bucky wholeheartedly took in everything you had shared and kept it in a corner of his heart. It also wasn’t helping that every time he sent you a new set of pictures, you were ready and waiting with a cute comment even if some of his pictures were a bit blurry -- Bucky wasn’t as good with his phone camera as he was with his carry-on one. He knew that this wasn’t healthy: how he looked at your very first picture together in the front of his journal, how he wrote to you sometimes in it, how he missed your warmth in the middle of the night and the sound of your laugh when he had something funny to say.

“Have you thought that maybe you’re sweet for her, Buck?” Steve finally breaks the ice that Bucky has been avoiding during the call between Hemet and Death Valley National Park. Bucky can’t help but want to deny it, but his oldest friend knows him better than anyone else. Bucky remembers the flower trail he had just sent you a few hours before, wishing that you had been there with him smiling and laughing at just how blurry his pictures tend to come out -- but you can only do that through emojis.

“Maybe, Stevie,” Bucky’s voice breaks towards the end, as he comes to another realization, “But, I don’t think I deserve her.”

The voice rings loudly in his head one more: He’s no good. He’s no good for anybody.

Death Valley National Park, CA

Neither you nor Bucky have contacted each other in the past few days, what with you trying to convince yourself if you should go on the date as Wanda had asked and Bucky dealing with his own turbulent emotions at the prospect of falling for someone he barely knew. Yes, he knew you lived in New York just like he did, you had a growing love for astronomy and mythology from all the old stories that you read up on, and that you have anxiety plus a strained relationship with most of your family. But, he also knows that you laugh at the strangest things when he says them in just the right tone, you carry a book everywhere you go, and that you enjoy lazy mornings more than anything else.

Bucky just thinks that it’s a case of meeting someone at just the right (or bad) moment and getting attached to them. It had happened to him all those years ago with a redhead in college -- one that he had been hopelessly in love with and couldn’t see the dangers of until it was almost too late. Looking out at the vast desert wilderness, Bucky wasn’t sure what to call what he was feeling towards you -- it was deeper than an infatuation but not quite that l-word yet, but he knew give time it could be. How could this have happened to him?  

My grandma always said that the universe will guide you to what you need.

He remembers you saying that with a fondness in your voice, and he wants to believe that with all his heart. He takes a seat on the steps of the small VR that Tony, Steve’s good friend and the designer for his prosthetic, had let him use for the time being -- the man was loaded and though they’re weren’t on the same wavelength all the time, Tony knew when someone needed a breather and would gladly helped one of his friends if need be. Blue eyes stare out at the darkened sky with a drink in hand and the soft melody of a familiar song not too far away from him, as he finds the stars that lovers destined to only meet once a year -- their time having already long past them.

Vega and Altair.

And thus Bucky sends a message, desperate and lonely, not really caring about what time it might be on the other side of the coast, just hopefully that he can hear your voice once more.   

Can I call you?

Truth be told, it takes you awhile to see Bucky’s message because it’s the same weekend night that you are having your double date with Wanda, her boyfriend Viz ( it’s a nickname , she swears), and her older brother Pietro. And while he could be sweet and rather humorous, it just didn’t feel right -- it felt like you were trespassing into a tight group that had known each other for years and were trying their hardest to make you feel included. It didn’t help that deep down you couldn’t help but compared the track star to Bucky because while one was lively with grand gestures, you were more used to the reserved silence of someone else.   

Both you and Pietro know that there isn’t going to be a 2nd date, but he is happy to meet the person that his sister talks so much about and you are happy to have a new potential friend, since he seems more like a sibling that won’t stop annoying you after everything is said and done. It’s nearly 10pm when you finally see Bucky’s message and as you lay down into bed, you hope that he still wants to talk -- because oh how you miss him.

Hey! I was a little busy, but if you still wanna call I’m all ears.

You’re in bed already, trying to read by lampshade as you try to get a bit sleepy but are too anxious about Bucky’s call. While there had been several messages and pictures traded between the two of you, this would be the first time you were actually going to have a phone call. It wasn’t that you hadn’t wanted to, but you didn’t want to bother Bucky at an odd hour or if he was enjoying the moment somewhere else. You jump at the sound of your phone ringing, as you pick up to see a picture of Bucky from that weekend -- hairy sticking all over the place with a bright smile and eyes, as he laughed over something off screen which had given you the chance to take said picture. You take a deep breath before answering.    

“Hey, stardust,” he breathes out as a greeting and you can’t help the goofy smile on your face.

“Oh, that’s a cute nickname,” you giggle out.

“Well, I’m glad you like it then,” he admits, his voice not showing that he was actually quite nervous over how you were going to take said new nickname, but your reaction made him joyful, as he took a nervous gulp of water before resting on the doorframe of the RV.

The two of you trade pleasantries for awhile going over how you were doing at work and what he had seen since you had left him, though less about the details and more about he had been feeling. It should have been just like talking with Steve or Sam, but Bucky couldn’t but notice how more open he was about his feelings and you never deterred him from talking about anything that came to mind. Your laugh sending a warm feeling through his chest and he couldn’t help but get dragged into your stories over work or just random little moments in your daily life -- wishing he was there to share them with you. Eventually, you both run out of things to talk about as the clock reaches midnight and that’s when Bucky decides that he has to ask you -- to see just exactly if there is any inkling over what you might actually think of him, if he might have a chance with the star that has been shining so brightly in his life.

“Do you think everyone feels lonely when they fall in love?” he asks, finally breaking the silence.

“Wow, that’s deep, Bucky,” you murmur with a soft laugh that catches his heart as he stares at a familiar  constellation, as you admit the last part a bit more bashfully, “But, I can’t really tell ya about that, I’ve never been in love before.”

“Never ever?”

“Not that I can think of. I mean there have been dates and stuff, like tonight,” you say without much thought and Bucky swears he stops breathing for a moment, though a little sad over the idea you had never been in love before, but he could understand from what he knew about your past, “But I have never been crazy over someone like that, but maybe that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

“You went on a date?” Bucky says as calmly as possibly, already waiting for the utter defeat of realizing his feelings too late, that you had already been taken away from him, “H-How did it go?”

“Hmm, he was all right, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again,” you state, as Bucky lets out a sigh of relief trying to mend together his bleeding heart, though he can’t help but be a little envious at the mysterious man that you had gone out with, “So what about you, have you ever been in love?”

“I think I was once,” Bucky explains, though clearly confused himself, “I think I am now, but it’s not the same feeling?”

“Oh, what do you mean?” you can’t but ask.

“Have you ever heard of Vega and Altair story?” Bucky explains, giving a bit more detail before going on and you can’t help but let out a sigh, though you aren’t sure if it’s due to the story or how he talks about this woman, “They’re only meant to meet once a year. It’s maddening, doll. Sometimes, it feels like she’s a dream, something I came up with in my head until I hear her voice or see her messages. But, I’m scared -- that if I tell her or if she learns about the past me, she’ll disappear and I’ll never seen her again.”  

“Bucky Barnes, you listen to me,” you exclaim, jumping in momentary anger from your bed as you let out a tirade at this mystery woman, “Any gal would be lucky to have someone like you, if she doesn’t return your feelings, then it’s her damn loss. And I know it’s hard, but don’t you ever lower yourself for another person, ya hear me?”

“You’re a little scary right now, doll,” Bucky exclaims, as for a moment your fierceness over him reminds him of Peggy, though if you only knew it was you he was talking about. It’s ironic, but he still appreciates it either way, “But thank ya.”

“Just stating the truth,” you state confidently, as Bucky shakes his head on the other side of the phone.

The conversation swings from there to all the things, mainly constellations, that Bucky can see from the outside of the RV, and you can’t help the smile growing due to the fact that it isn’t bothering as much as before, something you had worried about when leaving Arizona. A smile can’t help but appear on your face as you close your eyes and just imagine yourself being there with him. His voice, deep but soft, slowly easing the tension and anxiety you went through just a couple of hours ago being forgotten as you started to fall asleep.

“--If I turn a bit more, I can see Lupus,” he remarks offhandedly, turning to the right for just a moment though he is surprised as to what you have to say next.

“Hmm, that one reminds me of you,” you state with yawn, remembering the talk from some time back that only made you wonder now if you could be like Cassiopeia in his eyes as well.

“And why would you say that, stardust?” he says with an easy laugh that makes your heart sped up for just a moment, as you turn on your bed and can’t help but think that’s it’s missing a mass of warmth you had gotten too quickly used to. You cuddle closer to your largest pillow and let out a sigh.

“Wolves get a bad rep, but they care about each other,” you explain and Bucky is happy that you aren’t there to see the massive blush reaching down to his neck in that moment, “Loyal and protective, it all reminds me of you.”

“That’s really sweet of ya,” is all he can manage to say through his embarrassment, as you hum in response. With that Bucky comes to the realization that you are falling asleep and while he wants to spend the whole night talking to you once more, he knows that it is late in New York with the 3-hour time difference.         

“It sounds like you’re falling asleep on me,” Bucky remarks with teasing quip as all you do is give him a hum in response, “Well, I should let you go then. Sweet dreams, doll.”

“Sweet dreams, Buck,” you response in kind, the tiredness and ache of tonight and not being near him dragging you somewhere where you can be -- at least for a few hours, “ Love ya. ”

And with that you leave a very confused Bucky Barnes on the other side of the phone, unsure of what you meant with your words, but with a hopeful beat in his heart at the possibilities he hasn’t felt he was worthy of for years finally flourishing around him. And for a moment, he wishes he was back home -- back in New York where he could be close to you, but for now he had to keep playing at being Altair for a bit longer.   

Part 5

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Shadowhunters 3x11, Lost Souls -- Review

It's that time of the year again where I put myself through the torture of enduring this show. Watching this show is like going on an endurance run. You drag your feet when you first start, when you get acclimated to the level of exercise, you think "hey, this isn't too bad" and then by the end, it's just pain...but also a sense of pride that you made it through. That's been my experience with the show, anyway. And it's basically how I felt about Shadowhunters 3x11, Lost Souls.

I would like to preface this review with saying that I am NOT a huge supporter of this show. I do enjoy certain elements of it but I'm not what would be classified as a devoted fan. For me, Shadowhunters is not a good show and I do get very critical of the show in my reviews. Honestly, for me, I watch the show because 1) I'm too curious not to and 2) I find that this show can be so bad its funny and that's how I reap enjoyment out of it. I am not at all invested in this show or its characters anymore. I'm just watching to see what happens. If you're a die hard fan and you lash out at everyone who has a different opinion than you, you might want to skip these...I'm just saying. My reviews may not be for you. If you do decide to be a total troll, well then pay attention to the below disclaimer.

This is going to be an honest review of my thoughts and feelings regarding this episode. If you're the kind of Shadowhunters fan where you only want to hear positive things about the show, this is not the place for you. If you decide to stick around and get offended by what is said, then that's on you. I warned you. Just know that if you send me any rude comments or messages, I will 100% ignore you. I find that's the best way to deal with bullies. I work 14 hour days. Do you really think I want to waste my incredibly valuable free time dealing with derogatory comments? Hell no. This review will consist of my honest opinions. Opinions are never right or wrong. I'm not telling YOU how to think and feel. I'm telling you what I, quirky and socially awkward me, think and feel. So please, lets discuss with dignity and respect. If I'm critical about this show, it's only because I want it to get better. There is, in fact, a difference between hating a show and being critical of it. I do not hate Shadowhunters, I am being critical and analyzing the flaws as I would with any other show. There are positives but there are also negatives. It's great if you want to promote positivity with this show (and I encourage you to do so) but that doesn't mean I'm not going to point out the things that are legitimately wrong with it. Also, keep in mind that despite the fact that I do like the books, me being critical of this show has nothing to do with my fondness for the books. I don't really care if the show deviates from the source material as long as the changes are good, it makes sense, and it doesn't create plot holes within the confines of the world the show has created. My problems with this show are problems I would have with any show or book for that matter. I think it's perfectly reasonable to take issue with a show that has plot holes, shoddy world building, and inconsistent characters. There will be spoilers for the books and movie.

We are at last embarking upon the final episodes of this show and if this episode is what's going to set the tone for the remaining episodes, then I'm glad it's the final episodes because...well, this episode wasn't great and is a perfect example of what I won't miss about Shadowhunters. Bland and cringey dialogue, more characters than it knows what to do with, and too much jumping across plot points. There are individual moments in the episode I enjoyed but overall, this isn't an episode I loved.

The Loss of the Mary Sue

I'm not entirely certain of the timeline in this episode. The episode never specifies on exactly how many days have passed since the 3A finale but I'm going to estimate about a week or so. Everyone believes Clary died in the explosion caused by Lillith attacking Simon.

The episode opens with Jace, Izzy, and Alec chasing after a downworlder and Jace makes some very shoddy decisions in this fight that lets you see just how reckless he's become in the wake of Clary's "death". We then get a montage of everyone missing Clary and the more significant one is Jace, that's the one they spent the most amount of time on. He's basically walking through Clary's room remembering all the times he spent with Clary...so basically three memories. Another classic example of what I've always been talking about when it comes to the adaptation changes. Clary and Jace have barely spent any amount of time together, even less actually dating and I'm supposed to believe that they're each other's one true love...not going to happen because the show didn't develop it at all. There's a moment in the montage where Jace starts looking at Clary's drawings and getting really emotional about it and I felt nothing because Jace has never been shown to take any sort of interest in Clary's artwork before. In fact, if it weren't for that one scene in 3A, I wouldn't even have known that Clary was still drawing. By the show deviating from the books in the way they did, Clace had less development but yet the show still wants to continue the aspect of Clace being hopelessly in love from the books. You can't make a significant change from the source material and then pages down the line expect to pick up exactly where you left off. By making the change, you changed the entire context of the relationship so now the entire story has to change in order to fit that new narrative. Sadly, the Shadowhunters writers have not figured that out yet and continue to make that same mistake...or they're lazy, it could be that, too. Jace eventually gets so depressed that it's implied that he's contemplating suicide but Izzy is able to talk to him and get him to think. And then she just leaves him after making him promise he won’t go through with it. If anyone's wondering, if you catch someone who you believe may be contemplating suicide, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! Particularly in a dark room. Being in a dark enclosed space is not the kind of place that typically sends out positive energy. But I suppose I can cut Izzy a little bit of a break. It's entirely possible the Shadowhunter world doesn't really understand how to help someone who's experiencing suicidal thoughts. They certainly didn’t help out Jace’s mother. Alec also confronts Jace about this in probably the only believable scene in this entire episode. Seriously, I've never been a Jalec shipper but I totally understand why people ship them. Matt and Dom are probably the only actors who actually have any chemistry with each other. But Alec tells Jace he's doing the memory of Clary a disservice and that if Jace were to die, it would destroy him as well. In other words, Jace isn't the only one who's going to be affected by this decision. Jace eventually is called by Luke who for some reason appears to be living in a motel room. I don't know why but whatever. Luke doesn't believe Clary is actually dead and he tries to convince Jace through some really weird conspiracy theory that probably even flat-earthers would find difficult to believe. But hey, if it leads to them finding Clary, I'll go with it. And I understand why Luke is unable to accept even the possibility that Clary might be gone for good. He can't think that about someone who he basically views as his daughter and the last connection he has to Jocelyn. Luke gives the evidence to Jace and tells Jace to at least check it out.

Simon, understandably, is also having a difficult time with all this. And Maia returns to give him emotional support despite leaving for a very particular and totally understandable reason but Simon needs her so of course she comes back for him. It's not like Maia exists for anything else but for Simon's character arc. Both Simon and Izzy kind of passive-aggressively shame Maia about leaving. And I'm particualrly disappointed in Izzy telling Maia about what happened to Simon's family as that's a very deeply personal issue and Simon should've been the one to tell her. It wasn't Izzy's secret to tell. I get that they were trying to use that scene to exposit information to the audience but there were better ways of doing that. Hell, it could've just been Izzy making an off-handed comment about Simon. Maia could've been talking to Izzy about how badly Simon is doing with the Clary situation and Izzy could've been all, "especially with what happened with his family" and Maia could've been shocked and Izzy could've been flabbergasted because she didn't know Maia didn't know. That would've been a much better way for the situation to be handled. But I'm not too pleased with Izzy saying in response to Maia not knowing, "well how could you? you weren't around." Just the insinuation that Maia should stay around and support her man and not go off and get in the right head space to properly heal herself after dealing with the re-emergence of her abuser. But I suppose I shouldn’t expect any different from Izzy seeing as she, herself, also only exists to give support the other characters. I think these passive aggressive intonations of shaming Maia are really horrible and shame on the writer. Maia, Izzy, and Simon decide to work together to find a way to get rid of the Mark of Cain from Simon's forehead. They talk to Raphael who now works at a soup kitchen in Detroit and Raphael tells them the tale of some dude chilling in the sewers of NYC who could possibly be the oldest vampire alive and may have answers to the removal of the Mark of Cain. Maia decides not to help Simon on this as its a bad idea for a werewolf and a vampire to meet and I almost forgot that was a thing, the show so rarely does anything with the vampire vs werewolf dynamic. But of course Maia has to back off to give room for Sizzy. I’m really not a big fan of Sizzy being explored here as everything that made Sizzy fun and interesting in the books has been completely stripped from the show. I’d much prefer Saia on the show. But really, I just want Maia and Izzy to have their own character arc, though that doesn’t revolve around shipping. 

The Malec B-Plot

We have a Malec B-plot that I found just completely unnecessary wherein Iris returns and kidnaps Magnus because she wants to get Madzie back. She falls for the most obvious trap in the world and hopefully we never see Iris again. What it does for Magnus's story works I guess but I just found it to be a really obtrusive subplot that didn’t fit at all with the episode. I'm not sure if it's just the fact that I've been away from the show for a year so I can see the the show a little more clearly now but the Malec chemistry is no longer working for me. Maybe it's just that I've always paid more attention to how alarmingly unequal their relationship is but I'm looking at the body language they're giving off and its not the kind of body language you would expect from lovers. They're so stiff around each other and not relaxed at all.

In fact, there's a line in this episode where Malec has just put Madzie to bed as they're baby-sitting her and Alec kisses Magnus and Magnus tells him to stop because they have a child in the apartment currently. Alec kind of scoffs because it's just a kiss and Magnus is all, "You know how we get." And I'm like, "Do we really, though?" There's plenty of scenes of them talking and I can buy them as friends with that but lovers? I’m having a difficult time actually buying that now. Like I said before, the Jalec scene was way more believable than any Malec scene in this episode.

But Magnus decides he doesn't want to feel helpess ever again so he decides he needs to learn how to fight. Honestly, I was surprised to learn that this is implying he doesn't even seem to really have any basic self-defense capabilities. The way he was swinging the sword earlier in this episode lead to me to believe otherwise. Plus, Harry Shum Jr is a pretty buff dude but I guess maybe Magnus lifts weights and that’s it. Alec decides to help him out on this venture, though.

Siblings Reunited

We find out that Clary is indeed not dead and that Jonathon's back. I'll be real, here. It's kind of hard to feel sad for Jace or Simon or Luke or anyone really regarding the "death" of Clary, considering this entire episode is interspliced with moments of Clary being very much alive. Honestly, I think this episode would've functioned better if it was just about showing everyone going through all the different stages of grief regarding Clary and at the end of the episode when they've hit the acceptance stage, that's when we see Clary wake up in the apartment with Jonathon. But whatever. The show decided not to go that route so we have to make do with what we got. Clary wakes up and looking pretty damn fantastic for someone who's been asleep for days. Not a strand of hair out of place, make-up is flawless, and not a wrinkle to be found on her clothing. In fact, I think they're in even better condition than they were when Clary initially had to put them on. Clary also isn't even the slightest bit groggy, she knows exactly where she's at and everything. Clary does comas well. Jonathon tells Clary that it is indeed him, her big brother and that before Lillith was sent to hell she sent them away to Siberia, apparently. Clary plays nice for a little bit with Jonathon but decides to chance out in the cold of Siberia. It's nice to see that in her state of unconsciousness her muscles didn't atrophy from lack of movement or deteriorate from lack of food. But Clary fails in her escape, Jonathon finds her and brings her back. Clary tries to stab him with a knife but they both find out that what happens to one person will also happen to the other. So yeah, we're full in City of Lost Souls plot here which is ironically the title of this episode. Shadowhunters has never been all that subtle. This new actor for Jonathon is going to take some getting used to. Will Tudor did a phenomenal job with him so its difficult to see this new guy as Jonathon. But it also is difficult to take Clary's anger and hatred of Jonathon seriously when you think about all that Jonathon's really done on the show is kill a shadowhunter Clary had never met before and then injured Max and Max swiftly recovered. Clary is all about painting him as the worst possible being and indeed, in the books, he is but here, while he may be a bad guy who's done really bad things, I don't know if its deserving of that level of hatred. We haven't exactly seen a lot of his horrifying dastardly deeds. Another example of making a change and then thinking you can still keep the same storyline at a later point in the story. I'm certainly not saying I wanted Max to die but story-telling wise, it would make the emotions Clary's feeling here a little more believable. But I'm actually really interested to see where this whole Jonathon and Clary plot goes. In the books, it's Jace that's put in this situation so it'll be interestig to see how the show tackles Clary being in this situation. I'm also wondering, because they seem to be trying to stay away from the incest vibes here, is Jonathon going to gain an unhealthy obsession with Jace instead of Clary? In the books, Clary was who Jonathon was creepily obsessed with. He was equating possession with love and viewed that Clary belonged to him in every way imaginable. So since the roles of Clary and Jace have been reversed here, will Jonathon's obsession now change from Clary to Jace? Probably not but it would've been interesting to see for sure. I mean, if you're going to do a role reversal, you might as well go all the way, right?

The Clave Acting Shady AF

The Clave is being super shady right now. They appear to be doing experiments on the incarcerated downworlders and all I can say is, "do we really need this?" And also, "Why is it being implied that Jia knows about this and is okay with this?" The interesting thing about Jia in the books was the fact that she was the first step in the leadership to help get rid of the more corrupt aspects of the Clave and instigating change. But I suppose it's per the norm for the show to make everyone but the main group a bad guy instead of morally grey. As I've said before, this show has no concept of subtlety. I can only imagine that this is leading into the part in City of Glass the show hasn't done yet wherein the alliance rune is going to be introduced but instead of using it to fight Valentine, they're going to use it to fight Jonathon. That's what these downworlder experiments seem to be leading into as it reminds me a lot of Valentine experimenting in the books. I'm sure there was 0 social commentary intended when writing this into the show, though...but I think its safe to say it's totally social commentary. The show isn't very subtle, once again.

But good news is it looks like Ollie is gone for good so yay! I am side-eying the show, though about that. What was the point of introducing her if you weren't going to do anything with her? I'd say they probably wasted about half of 3A with Ollie unnecessarily. But maybe if this show hadn't been cancelled, Ollie would've played a more significant role? Well anyway, at least some of the fat has been trimmed.

My biggest issue, as always, is the dialogue. The dialogue felt extremely one-note. It was almost like the writer made a flow chart of what they wanted to happen in this episode and was like, "crap! I guess my characters do need to speak, here's some lines to explain what's going on." The dialogue basically existed solely for the purpose of giving exposition but the real kicker is that it was really unnecessary. I could've had this episode on silent (and that might've even have made it an improvement) and I would've understood what was happening perfectly. The dialogue really didn't add anything to the experience, it just made the episode feel more awkward than it already was. And then there continues the trend of Shadowhunters treating their awesome plans as if they’re the most clever plans in the world when in actuality, the plan is beyond obvious and it was super cringey and awkward seeing Izzy being treated as this amazing strategist for making the obvious move. And the episode was already plenty awkward with the constant cutting. It's really difficult to enjoy any particular subplot going on in this show when we only spend maybe 30 seconds to a minute on any particular moment. I kind of wish this show structured their episodes more around themes as opposed to plot. Plot is temporary, plot is always changing but exploring themes through plot gives you more of an appreciation not only for the characters but the story, itself. While I didn't mind sequences in this episode, at the end of the day, it just kind of left me feeling empty. I also think the acting felt a little stilted as well. I wasn't a big fan of any of the performances given in this episode and whereas I've never thought anyone on this show was oscar-worthy for their performances in the past on this show, their performances have always been maybe a C+ to a B. But in this episode, it just didn't feel like any of the actors' hearts were in it. Now granted, that could be a side effect of the script because, as I've mentioned before, the script wasn't great. Or it could've been the directing. There's a lot of reasons for why acting can feel stilted and it very rarely has to do with the actor or actress being bad at acting.

I've made notes about how the dialogue and acting was stilted but those weren't the only things that were. The fight choreography and the blocking felt a little off as well. For starters, the fight choreography did not feel organic. It was strangely reminiscent of season 1 fight choreography. The constant jump cuts so you don't see too much of what's actually happening and just feeling like fight scenes move very slowly. Like the reaction times between sword swing to parry were very slow and it kept on taking me out of the moment. Then you also had moments where Alec and Izzy catch up with Jace in the sewer and everyone's staring at the seelie they're trying to capture for a good 5 seconds before the actual fight continues. And then there's just strange blocking choices where a character walks to a point in the room and then delivers their line but the walk to the new mark wasn’t organic and actually made the line feel more awkward.

I'd probably give this episode a C+. It was passable, with enjoyable moments but ultimately not something I have any desire to return to. There were cute moments (primarily Jalec and Madzie), but overall as an episode, not something to be too terribly impressed with. And yes, there were moments I did like. It’s not my fault the show just had more bad parts I felt compelled to talk about.

[loki-of-war]

On the future of TWD

(EDIT: Reposting due to a formatting error)

So I’ve seen a lot of people commenting and sharing their opinions lately on how Chandler’s departure will affect the show, if it will survive this hit or not, for how many seasons more will TWD run, etc, etc. And I decided, now that I’m thinking more rationally (I hope) and I’m able to form understandable sentences, to share my honest thoughts with you lovely people on this entire mess.

Which is as follows: I give the show a minimum lifespan of ten seasons (meaning, the show will end in two more seasons) and a maximum of twelve seasons in total. This is my verdict, feel free to disagree with me.

Now onto explaining why I think this is so:

I can sort of see why old fans who left and people who have never liked Carl or feel lukewarm about him are happy this death is going to happen. But on the other side I'm thinking this kind of mentality is the reason why the show gets away with terrible decisions and why they keep making them over and over, declining in quality. I don't think it's right to condone mediocrity; this is from someone like me who has stayed on the TWD's side so far hoping they'd find the right footing at some point this season  (then, obviously, because why wouldn’t they, my patience and tolerance was rewarded with this haha). And as I mentioned in a previous comment I made on YT, no matter what the public's feelings for Carl are, they won't change the importance of his role in the plot and his fundamental connection to Rick (this latter element has an effect on the whole cast, for better or for worse).

But anyway, Carl's death is going to change the entire mood of the series from now on so it definitely will never be as it once was and I think because of that the story will slowly bleed out. I mean, Carl has been the greatest determinator for every single one of Rick's decisions the entire show, and not only that but what he symbolised as a character, the hope for a better future, is gone now. What do children, sons, daughters, symbolise in every universal story? The next generation, what comes after, that not everything is going to be screwed up forever; especially after seeing how unmerciful TWD's world has proven to be for children and having Carl be the only exception to this 'kids cannot survive this world' rule has sort of become a moot point thanks to the...current circumstances.

Rick's and Lori's speeches to Carl in seasons 2 and 3 respectively justify this way of thinking: that after everyone from their generation (the adults) dies, Carl will have to take the reins and move on. I refuse to believe any writer with common sense would write such important pieces of dialogue just because they felt like it, just because they're emotional words without any other kind of meaning behind them. That is just lazy and awful writing in my opinion. Why write these poignant moments only to have the kid killed long before the end of the series? Why write/do anything if those things are going to be ignored later down the line, nevermind that every piece in a story must connect with the others? Why bother teaching him this morality lessons if they're all going to go to waste anyway; if he will never have a character arc/storyline that is plot relevant where his morals are challenged? (Good on you, whoever made the call, for missing out on possible great storylines for Carl that would have improved viewing and the quality of the show). That doesn't make a bit of sense, unless that what they were looking for was to give the events leading up to his sudden death some twist of irony, and that'd be perfect and all, except that Carl dying was so not part of the plan (the improvisation is so obvious it hurts me in the balls I don't have) and even the way his death was set up was graceless-the bite- and not something one would expect from the same people who made/directed/wrote/produced Season 4. In other words, killing him was basically flipping off the idea of a future in the face, whether they meant to do that or not, and this is bound to turn the overall mood the series to a much grim and darker tone to an already heavy themed and toned series. Many people won't find themselves too content with that heavier tonal change, I think, if the ratings for season 7 are to be trusted.

Ignoring that the conclusion to this was having him die though,  I do have to say the actual set up in the mid season finale itself was beautiful and emotional (Chandler's acting was on point, he was the star of this episode), but the chain of actions leading up to it was lackluster. With lackluster I mean that he is a very important character that has literally been wasted for far too long; if you look at his progression throughout the seasons you'll realize he has not done much from a plot perspective despite being a main character. Therefore, his death feels unsatisfactory and empty because one can't help but feel that he hasn't nearly done as much as he should have. What he did to save his people in the mid season finale was amazing but it wasn't enough to make up for a notorious lack of screen time over full eight seasons, moreover if the motivations that drove him to that point, to that mentality, to that philosophy, don't make sense because his personality has made a one eighty from how he was the previous season with no type of prior explanation as to why that happened.

It may not seem like it but I'm actually a huge fan of angst and favorite-character-slaughter. I love when books, music, movies, videogames, series make me suffer (great examples of this are my undying love for Hannibal the tv show and that my favorite videogames are the ones directed by this one man, life destroyer actually, called Yoko Taro). Perhaps that is another reason why I'm being so critical with the choice to kill Carl (asides from the horrible decision-making and poor writing), because I love being hit in the feels in the best way possible, without holding back any punches, just go straight for the kill and make me cry like a newborn. However, I don't like tragedy when it's done for shock value, or when it's done simple-mindedly. If a favorite character of mine is going down, it has to make sense and they must have had filled out their purpose in the story, reached a state of character development we're all satisfied with so that when they die one can accept it and be happy despite the possible trauma that could ensue after (well, one can't exactly pin point when that happens, when enough is enough, but to have had the character embark on a lot of adventures even without them accomplishing their purpose, is enough to embrace their death). I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that, while on one hand I would have preferred him outliving everybody else, if they were still so adamant on having him die at some point of the story (as if killing Carl had actually been part of a long term plan and not some last minute decision) they should have developed him first and foremost, and then assign him a proper death in later seasons, most preferably before the last season ends given that him dying before Rick is several different levels of wrong; if he wasn't such a huge part of Rick's character then fine, do it, but putting and end to him is equal to neutralizing Rick for literally years, which is time that both a comic and a tv show cannot afford, so to do it near the end of everything would be a better fit.

And, I don't know, even having Judith fill the void won't be of much help either, because we haven’t and we won't see her grow the same way we did Carl, her relationship with Rick will be vastly different, and so on. Probably this is just me but I'm not really attached to her; Judith so far is to me only a concept and not actually a person (yet). The fact that they keep changing the little baby girls who portray her doesn't really help, that gets me out of the story everytime. She just can't replace Carl, she might take his future storylines but it won't be the same. Besides, by the time she grows up, she’ll already be deep into this world, this is her normal life and probably by that time things will have changed.

So basically, not only in killing Carl they destroyed the image of a future, they have killed a foundational part of the essence that made The Walking Dead be The Walking Dead we all knew and loved, and that will never return. Also, allow me to point out that for those who think that The Walking Dead is about people dying whenever and wherever, and the cruel injustice that is life, I am not going to say that your interpretation is wrong but it is an incomplete one. The audience doesn’t watch TWD only to see tons of MC’s get murdered on a daily basis. Otherwise, why bother with investing time on a plot and just have them all killed at once. The soul of TWD is not about senseless killing and murder and tragedy and sadness. Simplifying it all to ‘this show is about the possibility of anybody dying/gore/zombies/etc’ is a great disservice to the show and the fans. Obviously, I am not neither the writer of the show or Robert Kirkman to claim to know to a T what the central theme of The Walking Dead is, and for full disclosure I have not read the comics. Nonetheless, basing my personal opinion on the tv show alone, I would like to think one of the core themes the show has explored and returns to time and time again is the topic in regards to the essence of human nature, and how in spite of apparent doom and the horrible circumstances we are forced to face, humans will always find the way to move forwards and stay strong, ergo, the message is a positive one, not a negative one, depressing, nihilistic one. And what better character to portray this versatility of human nature, this capacity for change, other than Carl Grimes, a child of transition, a child who was pulled out of his normal childhood and thrown right into the chaos of the apocalypse? A boy who has witnessed inhumane things, horrible things, has killed his mother, his second father figure, has done awful things himself, has always been toeing the line between right and wrong, cruel and kind, because of all the experiences he has had to process in a very short period of time? He was obligated to grow in a decaying world, watching his father and the ones surroundind him make mistakes, learning from them, evolving, seeing close ones die, starving, surviving insane experiences... If someone like that manages to grow in such a hostile environment and still remains true to himself and still has not lost faith in the world and humanity, and keeps close all the meaningful, important things his family and friends told him in the course of his entire life and not only that, but also applies them... What does that mean for you, to you? What does it mean for us? What does it say about human nature that hasn’t been told before or not quite in this manner?

Well, that is the point. I guess we will never get to find out in the Tv Show the answer to those questions. Regrettably.

If, and just if, the show manages to recover from this point onwards, I still have no idea how I'd feel about having the show thrive on the tails of throwing under the bus such a key character with no legitimate reasons behind the choice (don't even get me started on what they've done to poor Chandler). I'll still watch the show but I would be incredibly uncomfortable if that is how it turns out to be.

Finally, I apologize for any grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing you may find, it’s way too late to be doing such a long post and English is not my main language. Please don’t be afraid or feel awkward about replying to this post, even if it’s to hate on it. I really don’t mind having a long conversation about this topic with you all since I’ve literally been dying since Sunday night to discuss it.

Thank you so much for reading!

[dachi-chan25]

IT (1986)

What is it about? The Losers Club, a group of 7 kids that in different ways are outsiders among the other children in the little town of Derry must come back 27 years after defeating their worst fears embodied in a evil alien entity that has preyed on this small Maine town and its recidents since the dawn of time. Thoughts: - I have read this book a gazillion times and it’s my favorite Stephen King book of all time (though that may change once I finish this challenge, but only time will tell) everytime I read through its pages is like reuniting with an old dear friend, because most of the characters (read: the Losers Club) are just that for me, I read this book for the first time when I was 15 after growing up with the 90’s miniseries, and I loved it, that feeling hasn’t changed with the years and well I want to elaborate a bit on what I love about this book. - Derry’s history: One of the reasons this book is so damn big is that it delves on the history of this little town called Derry, of course this is to help the reader understand just for how long and how big is IT’s influence on the town, but I just found it so fascinating, I’ve always loved history, and this book just reaaaally fullfiled my needs in that aspect, the town’s history is full of gruesome events but it’s very intresting and through all the same. -Loser’s Club: I love this kids, we are introduced to them little by little through different POV’s and god, I just really like the diversity and complexity in them: a kid with a stutter, an asthmatic that is really a kid heavily manipulated by his overprotective mother, an overweight, a jewish with OCD, a girl victim of physical/emotional parental abuse, the class clown that most likely has ADHD, the only black boy in town… And what I love the most is that they are NOT defined by that, sure,that is how the world sees them but they are so much more than that and together they find their true identities: Stuttering Bill be comes the Leader, Asthmatic Eddie becomes the Compass, Fat Ben becomes the Constructor, Jewish Stan becomes the Logic, Poor Beverly becomes the Shooter, Trashmouth Richie becomes the Weapon (his voces physically hurt IT), Black Mike becomes the Historian. As well as the belonging and friendship they had never had before, their relationship is strong and beautiful, as a reader you will most often find some of yourself in them and even if you don’t you love them all the same for their flaws and virtues. -IT: I read somewhere that a story is only as great as its villian and in IT’s case that I think is only fitting, thus my love for is evil entity, because IT is really a big represantation of violence not necessarily(The Bradley Gang Shooting was afterall motivated by the Derry townsfolk rightgeousness) but mostly evil, IT transforms into awfull gruesome monsters yet his most terrifying act is the influence it helds on the people inhabiting Derry, on taking the violent nature of some people (Derry’s White Decency League, Eddie Corcoran stepfather’s, Alvin Marsh, Butch and Henry Bowers…) and exploit it for its own gain, IT is scary for it’s power, for the fact that one can really comprehend it’s magitude, and when we finally get to get inside it’s head we find something more akin to a beast, hungry and vengeful, he had turned lazy because he already had in Derry a comfortable feeding place and now wants to kill the Loser’s Club because for the first time in its long existance IT feels fear! and how wonderful is that? a group of scared isolated kids find strenght in each other to rid their Town and follow kids of this entity, even if they are afraid themselves, and they succeed in frightening a creature that literally feeds of fear. -The portrayal of the timelines and gruesome subjects: The 1950 are not usted only for aesthetics or praised as the “good old times” King shows a very gritty reality showcasing the racism (very prominent in Mike’s storyline), sexism, homophobia, domestic violence, anti-semitism,and it goes further yet showing that 27 years later these things haven’t changed and IT uses them for it’s benefit. The book doesn’t shy away from any of these things and often it is very hard to read through them but as well I think is important to read them to gain concience,they are not presented as good or romantiziced in any from or way, nor should they ever be (dude the anti-semitism in Patricia Uris’s POV is something that will open your eyes in many ways if you are not jewish, and the Black Spot story will horrify you but also help you understand it was not only the South of USA and the KKK that spread hate and horror for PoC people) this things are meant to horrify you thus I feel it would be a disservice not to read them (though I can understand if anyone simply can’t). -The bittersweet ending: Really heart breaking that after reuniting with the people they could really be themselves with the Loser’s Club are meant to not remember each other ( SPOILERS AHEAD DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANNA SPOIL PART OF THE ENDING OF THE BOOK: as a side note and I do not mean this as hate to the ship or anything but a real doubt I have can anyone explain to me why is everyone saying/asuming Ben and Beverly did end up together?, I mean going by the 90’s miniseries sure, but in the book Mike only says she is going to Nebraska with Ben and then back to Chicago with Kay and that he thinks they are/will be having sex, but also later we find that even if they are in the same Town Mike and Bill have begun to forget each other and it’s heavily implied the same will happen with them all? and that is a very Stephen King thing to do I mean most of the book couples I’ve read from him have similar bittersweet endings so… Pls someone explain) I just always about cry about the End and you know the THING that happens with two of the losers. But also I am a ho for this kind of bittersweet stuff so of course I love it. -Richie and Beverly’s friendship: Listen I LIVE for them, of course I just about adore every Loser’s friendship (Bill/Eddie, Richie/Stan, Richie/Eddie, Richie/Bill, Mike/Ben, Stan/Bev duuuude everyone is amazing) but this two just about make me crazy about them, tbh I kinda lowkey ship them in a platonic kinda way, and I was endlessly frustrated by the lack of scenes between them in the 90’s miniseries after I read the book cuz booooy, the yo-yo scene is so goddamned amazing, Richie being the first POV in which Bev is mentioned and he reminds her through the lyric of a song, his Humphrey Bogart voice he does when speaking with her, how much he respects her, also Miss Sca'lett!!!, not to mention that sweet ass scene they have in the book “22/11/63” where Bev is teaching Richie how to swing for a school talent show, ahhhh Imma stop right there cuz I am fangirling waaaay to much and probably y'all think I am wierd for liking such an unpopular thing. -There is just one thing I always felt was completely unecessary to add and was gross to read (you already know what I am talking about and if not I’m not gonna spoil you/gross you out), I have read of course why SK did it but I still think he should have looked for another way to make the Losers enter adulthood : / Movie/TV Adaptations: There are 2: The ABC’s 1990 miniseries “IT” and the 2017 movie by Andy Muschietti “IT (chapter 1)” of course it has been already confirmed there is going to be another movie for the Second part but I will not to go too much into it now. 1990: The opinions on this one are very polarized, some love it with a passion, some hate it… I actually love it, and by that I do not mean is a perfect adaptation, but it was such an integral part of my childhood and family life that it would be impossible for me to hate it, and I feel most people are terribly unfair with it, because it is not a Bad adaptation like let’s say Kubrick’s Shining (yaa I’m going there) it had a lot of limitations in budget and technology and still managed to capture some of the best parts of the book (the Loser’s friendship mainly, it was beautiful) of course it wasn’t gorey or violent but in it’s time it was scary as hell, which beings me to Tim Curry’s performance as Pennywise that became so iconic people automatically recognize the clown’s design, for fuck’s sake Pennywise became one of the most iconic monsters of that time and terrorized an entire generation of kids and adults alike, of course it has it’s faults (the adult’s part wasn’t great, tho the scene with Bev in Mrs. Kersh house was great, and the ending was bound to be confusing af to people that didn’t read the book) but overall it was a good atempt and it already has a place in pop culture and the hearts of many horror fans. 2017: Oh boy I was really looking forward to this one since they anounced it was going to be a thing (ahhh remember the time Will Poulter and Cary Fukunaga were our only hope?) and just had the chance to see it today, because a lot of awful things happened in my country (I am mexican btw) and yeah, so I left the theater with a very pleasant sensation IT 2017 is a great movie and I LOVED it, the acting was GREAT everyone did amazing, Georgie’s death scene was simply amazing and so sad, the projector scene was wow, lots of winks to book readers like the turtle and Eddie Corcoran’s missing pamphlet, Bev’s bathroom scene, the rock fight!!!,Eddie changing Loser to Lover is iconic, some of Richie’s one-liners were amazing, Pennywise dance pfffftt, Ben was adorable with his crush and love of New Kids on the Block, the Losers,“they’re Gazebos they’re bullshit!” iconic, mainly I feel it captured the general feeling of the book however that does not mean I didn’t had some issues with it as well, first thing that bothered me a LOT is the treatment to Mike Hanlon, excuse the fuck out of me but no, they took his thing (history of Derry) and gave it to Ben (also Ben not constructing things like ??? Could have been a perfect chance to have him build lego stuff but k) where is my beautiful spring loving child?? I just couldn’t find any single trait on his character apart from the wierd sheep thing and his parents, which takes me to another issue why is every adult on Derry so shitty? Like yeah there was a lot of shady awful stuff in the book but there were also ok people namely Mrs. Starret (the librarian, that is so unnecesarily creppy? Wierd? In the movie), Richie’s parents (his dad is hillarious), Mike’s parents they are the best tbh, Mr Keene (ok this one is a sarcastic asshole but he did try to help Eddie instead of letting him keep on believing he was sick to keep selling stuff, and also was never a wierd pervert), Mr. Nell (dude I would have killed to hear Richie doing the Irish Cop voice), the Tracker Brothers (boy Eddie looking longingly at the baseball diamond would have been 10/10, my boy loved sports)… thing is the Losers did love Derry and some parts of their childhood in it and that’s were the nostalgia hits on part two, Stan well I loved they delved more onto his jewishness (a thing not much touched in the book because Stan’s family is not very strictly religious) but was very side lined as well ( in my opinion that part about Richie being scared shitless and Bill punches him would have fit Stan better, also almost all of the Losers got closure (Bev rebelled against her father, Ben kissed Beverly and she got to find out he was the one who wrote the haiku, Bill got to talk with Georgie kind of?, Mike stepped up against Henry, Eddie confronted his mother,Richie let go of his fear to kill the fucking clown…) yet Stan doesn’t I just think it would have been nice to have him iniciate the pact as he did on the book and also his bird book????, the slut shaming and over sexualization of Beverly (I won’t even go into how much it broke my heart to see/hear Richie saying all that stuff about her like no, he respected her a lot thx) just why change the white trash problem to a slut shaming thing???(also while his dad did not beat her in this movie he was so much more GROSS than in the 90’s) I am however not bothered by the ‘Kiss of Life’ trope nor do I think she was reduced to a damsel in distress if anything she was the bravest of them all, also some things not really bothered me but made me wonder what will happen in Chapter 2 namely wft is gonna happen with Henry is he alive?? Same for Bev’s dad what happened there? Is he alive? Is he dead? Though of course we will get answers in chapter 2 I was just like wow how is this gonna pan out. Basically an amazing movie I was not disappointed at all and I would love to watch it again but as an adaptation I think I would still love to see a longish miniseries covering more of Derry’s history and the kid’s personalities/misadventures (of course I do not want THAT scene to be in any adaptation ever) but generally covering more book stuff. but hey all this is just my humble opinion and I admit I adore the book, though I am not closed off to changes just those things kinda made me go hmmmmmm…. Quotes: Stan: “Every- thing’s a lot tougher when it’s for real. That’s when you choke. When it’s for real.” “He wanted to tell them that those dead boys who had lurched and shambled their way down the spiral staircase had done something worse than frighten him: they had offended him.” Bill: “If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, I’m going to kill myself, because I won’t know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do” “Silver flew and Stuttering Bill Denbrough flew with him; their gantry-like shadow fled behind them. They raced down Up-Mile Hill together; the playing cards roared. Bill’s feet found the pedals again and he began to pump, wanting to go even faster, wanting to reach some hypothetical speed — not of sound but of memory — and crash through the pain barrier.” Richie:“Now he had to go back to being himself, and that was hard — it got harder to do that every year. It was easier to be brave when you were someone else.” “He knew a great deal of the Bible already, and he knew the Bible believed in all sorts of weird stuff. According to the Bible, God Himself was at least one-third Ghost, and that was just the beginning. You could tell the Bible believed in demons, because Jesus threw a bunch of them out of this guy. Real chuckalicious ones, too. When Jesus asked the guy who had them what his name was, the demons answered and told Him to go join the Foreign Legion. Or something like that” (#make chuckalicious happen 2k17) Ben: “Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for … and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.” “A child blind from birth doesn’t even know he’s blind until someone tells him. Even then he has only the most academic idea of what blindness is; only the formerly sighted have a real grip on the thing. Ben Hanscom had no sense of being lonely because he had never been anything but. If the condition had been new, or more localized, he might have understood, but loneliness both encompassed his life and overreached it. It simply was.” Eddie: “Sometimes home is where the heart is, Eddie thought randomly, I believe that. Old Bobby Frost said home’s the place where, when you go there they have to take you in. Unfortunately, it’s also the place where, once you’re in there, they don’t ever want to let you out.” “Maybe, he thought, there aren’t any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they’re always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that’s what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.” Mike: “Haunted, haunting, haunt.Often visited by ghosts or spirits, as in the pipes under the sink; to appear or recur often, as every twenty-five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven years; a feeding place for animals, as in the cases of George Denbrough, Adrian Mellon, Betty Ripsom, the Albrecht girl, the Johnson boy.A feeding place for animals. Yes, that’s the one that haunts me.” “But Mike enjoyed most of the places in Derry his father sent or took him to, and by the time Mike was ten Will had succeeded in conveying his own interest in the layers of Derry’s history to his son. Sometimes, as when he had been trailing his fingers over the slightly pebbled surface of the stand in which the Memorial Park birdbath was set, or when he had squatted down to look more closely at the trolley tracks which grooved Mont Street in the Old Cape, he would be struck by a profound sense of time … time as something real, as something that had unseen weight” Bev: “oh shapes of men, sometimes seen as day closed down, sometimes seen across Watertower Square in the noonlight of a clear windy autumn day, shapes of men, rules of men, desires of men: or Tom, so like her father when he took off his shirt and stood slightly slumped in front of the bathroom mirror to shave. Shapes of men.” ‘Is it because I’m a girl?’[…] she exploded.‘Well, fuck you!’ She whirled around to look at the others, and they flinched from her gaze,so hot it was nearly radioactive. 'Fuck all of you if you think the same thing!’ She turned back to Bill and began to talk fast, rapping him with words. 'This is something more than some diddlyshit kid’s game like tag or guns or hide-and-go-seek, and you know it, Bill. We’re supposed to do this. That’s part of it. And you’re not going to cut me out just because I’m a girl.“ Adding this one cuz I love how stupidly cute it is and cuz that Richie is such a charmer XD (wot-wot?) ”[…]'Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date?’ For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben … except hadn’t he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadn’t said anything about owesies to Beverly. Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the ice-cream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms. Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity. 'Yes! A date!’ he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. 'Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, ay-wot? Wot-wot?’ 'Oh, Richie, you’re such a fuzzbrain,’ she said, giggling again … but weren’t her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever. 'Get up before you get arrested.’“

Next Book: “The Eyes of the Dragon”

[whovianfeminism]

Whovian Feminism Reviews “Oxygen”

After Star Wars and Star Trek, one of the first space movies I watched as a kid was Apollo 13. It was unlike any of the movies I’d seen before. Space wasn’t a grand place filled with spaceships the size of palaces and doors that went “shuck-shuck.” Space was a dark, cramped place that was probably trying to kill you. Life in space wasn’t a given -- it was a fragile, tenuous existence where every bit of survivable space had to be fought for. Jamie Mathieson’s “Oxygen” brought me right back to that feeling I got the first time I watched Apollo 13, when I realized that the only thing scarier than the monsters lurking in space was the endless, indifferent void you’d have to cross to find them.

Space hasn’t been scary in Doctor Who in a long, long time. The limitations and dangers of life in space are more likely to be hand-waved away so we can move on to other dangers. We’ve also had a lot of cute scenes of incredulous companions leaning out of the TARDIS into the vacuum of space, like Amy floating around in her night gown. Those moments aren’t bad -- they’re actually some of my favorite scenes -- but you do forget after awhile that space is meant to be dangerous.

Mathieson brings the terror back to space. The Frankenstein-esque spacesuit zombies border on ridiculous for a moment, but Pearl Mackie’s horrified reaction absolutely sells them. I believed they were frightening because she seemed genuinely terrified. And Mathieson is able to create real, lasting consequences when things go wrong. The Doctor is blinded after walking with insufficient protection through the vacuum of space, and no magic cure from the TARDIS is able to restore his sight. I’m curious to see how long the Doctor will remain blind, and how they intend to address it moving forward.

“Oxygen” may reflect Apollo 13′s terror and wonder at space travel, but the political message is much closer to Alien. On this space station, you live and die by capitalism’s whim. Human life is only valued for its ability to provide value to the corporation. And once their efficiency declines and they are no longer profitable, they are expendable. Human life has no value outside of profit. 

The political messaging could be a bit on-the-nose (I admit I giggled when the Doctor said they were fighting “the suits”) but it was an interesting critique of the dehumanization and impersonalization of capitalism. Never once do we see a human involved in the decision to kill the crew. An algorithm determines that the station has become unprofitable, a line of code is sent to the suits to have them kill their operators, and the suits’ onboard AI hunts down and exterminates the remaining survivors. A human probably created and approved that system long ago, but the humans whose lives are determined by it have no recourse or appeal if it decides they are expendable. It’s maximum corporate efficiency. No pesky morals or emotions can intervene to spare an unprofitable workforce at the last moment due to sentiment.

But they didn’t count on an interfering Time Lord. 

The Doctor has another opportunity to give a grand speech about his and his companion’s unique role in the universe to help those in need, but it rings a little more hollow this time around. The Doctor didn’t end up in the middle of this crisis by accident -- he sought out a distress call. And he’s not doing this solely out of the goodness of the heart. He’s bored. He’s an adrenaline junkie seeking his next fix.

And Nardole is not having any of it. This is the first episode where it starts to feel like he might actually have a purpose for being on the TARDIS. His continuous shading of the Doctor’s cockiness and dereliction of duty added a bit of levity throughout the episode, and we even got a reference to fluid links! But the humor dries up by the end of the episode when Nardole starkly lays out everything the Doctor’s actions put at risk. Matt Lucas can play the buffoon very well, but Nardole is at his most effective when he’s playing the jester -- mixing insightful and sharp commentary in with his humor. 

There was only one sour note for me in this episode, and that was the subplot with Ellie and Ivan. Ellie’s speech about wanting to have a child with Ivan was a sweet, humanizing touch at the beginning of the episode to remind you about the lives these workers want to have outside of their jobs. And then she is immediately killed. At the end of the episode, her corpse hands over her oxygen pack to help keep Ivan alive so we can watch him be sad about it. 

Look, I know I must sound like a broken record on this. And I know this is a relatively small, not particularly compelling example of fridging. But I’m going to keep pointing it out every single time it happens because it’s a lazy plot trope that does a disservice to female characters and fans. Plenty of people die in Doctor Who, but I want the women’s deaths to be about them and their lives and their pain, not about the men surrounding them!

[nieladasdenani]

On Supergirl

Hello there. I’m going to rant about this show for a bit. Before the finales airs. 

Listen, I was excited and thrilled about Supergirl when it was announced. Then I fell in love with it when it premiere and even though season one wasn't perfect, it was lovely and I loved it.

It was a show I was always up to watch and had this happy feeling to it. It leaved me, always, in a good mood.

When it was announced that season 2 was going to move to The CW (hell) I was a bit worried, because this network has shown time and again that it does not care about its viewers.

And I don’t just mean LGBTQI viewers, or minority viewers. I actually mean all viewers. They have act in a way that tells me they just care about buzz and money.

So not even its content or actors matter much to them.

They do know how to cast, though. Their casting teams are top notch, for sure. They know how to cast very attractive, charming people.

But I trusted the producers of the show, they have given me no reason not to.

When they said Superman was going to be in the first few episodes of the season, and when I saw how heavily promoted that was, I became a little more worried.

But then it happened and I was pleased with the result. Not only Alex Danvers put Superman in its place. But Kara remained her adorkable lovely main self.

Then Mon-Hell happened and I just knew something was wrong. Because, sure, we had Trashwell Lord in season one, but he was clearly the villain. Mon-Hell is presented to us a charming dude.

He’s the worst kind of villain there is. The “nice guy”. He’s disrespectful, lazy, an abusive. I’m sorry, I know some love him and that kind of dude.But the fact that he is cute and good looking and plays with a nice smile on its face, doesn't excuse his awfulness.

He constantly lashes out at Kara and insults her and/or brings her down. He doesn’t listen to her or her wishes, he calls her his weakness (a perfect excuse to justify his awfulness) He constantly blames all his faults on her and how she makes him feel.

Ok, I didn’t want to talk about the dude. Sorry, it’s pointless to try and reason with people who defend him. And frankly exhausting. I mean he was a literal slave owner, he lied to Kara the whole time about who he was.

“Oh, but he disagree with his parents about the slave thingy”. Yes, and also did nothing about it. Unless you count having orgies a form of protest against slavery.

Anyway, I have tried to keep my faith in the Supergirl team, writers and producers. I have. But every time I see this guy who’s placed as a being funny, I mean his awfulness is supposed to be hilarious. It just makes it so hard.

So I focus on the good stuff: Sanvers mainly. Almost exclusively, tbh. Lena Luthor.

But look at all of the downsides: We lost Cat Grant, Lucy Lane and Agent Vazquez. Kara’s normal life as a reported is hardly even subplot. We pretty much lost James Olsen. J’onn faded slowly to the background.The Superfriends were manhandled. The SuperSisters are a shadow of what they were (this is the worst, because this is the most important thing in the whole show. period).

Don’t get me wrong, there has been good stuff (Sanvers) M’gann came and then it was gone, which sucks. I feel like they exchanged us all this amazing female characters and a couple of male characters of color for this one toxic dude.

Sanvers is amazing. Is healthy and treated right and wonderful. I hate that they try to pitch Maggie and Kara against each other over Alex, tho. 

But, I’m sorry, you don’t get free pass on being horrible in the rest of the plot just because you have this great lesbian couple.

And I swear to the cosmos, if they make Lena Luthor evil (because she’s a Luthor she must be a villain. Not like Mon-Hell, the slave owner, he is not to be judged for his family. She is, tho), I’ll burn the place down.

I confess I am behind. A show I couldn’t wait to see, now I find myself avoiding. because of one dude. Because Kara is suddenly reduced to the woman who has to make all the sacrifices for a guy, because poor him he’s new, he doesn’t know better.

It’s not even about SuperCorp or SuperCat. I was going to ship whatever the hell I want to ship either way. But tossing James like that (seriously what a disservice) just to force Mon-Hell into the plot... ugh.

I really want to keep my faith in Supergirl. I really, really do. I want to have this show back. I want to see my girl being her adorable, angry, awesome self. I want the SuperSisters, I want all the fantastic female characters. I want the SuperFamily and the Superfriends back.

Give Me Back My Show!