#if we do get a s3 i need to flip the whole hero's sacrifice thing

[laerryncoramar]

#god i love how they wrote Ava's character (don't get me wrong i adore Bea too okay)#but like. what an MC. the girl who never was allowed to live and now she's given a second chance#only to realize that all this only happened so she could die again#like we joke that ava is the golden retriever gf but god damn do you ever think about what's going on under the surface#she's so energetic and full of life! but this is a girl who has spent what..a decade? and change?#being told that her very existence serves no purpose and now..now she knows it DOES and that purpose is to die#so that OTHERS can live. do you ever think about how when its too dark and too quiet how ANGRY ava must have been#and how even with all that when she finally goes to fight adriel (and to die) she does it willingly#wholly embracing her fate because it means *Beatrice* gets to live? do you ever think about how many people have called Ava#selfish and spoiled (and maybe she was sometimes! because she's human!) but her heart was also so big#and so full of love that when it really comes down to it she doesn't hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice#even though she knows from personal experience there is no 'next life' ( @racethewind10 you’re killing me)

AVA + being protective of BEATRICE

WARRIOR NUN (2020-) SEASON 2

[kane-and-griffin]

ahhhhh kabby mom I'm so scared about Abby in these new episodes! I'm rlly happy she's back in the next ep but I'm already seing people hating on her in the tag even before they know what's gonna happen and comparing her to Lorelai Tsing(!?!) as if sacrificing 1 willing person to save the entire world is somehow the same as brutally painfully murdering 50 children just so you can go outside?? if its this bad NOW, is this season is gonna make the fandom hate Abby because this ALWAYS happens!! :(:(

I mean, if there are people who can’t tell the difference between Abby being emotionally devastated at merely ENTERTAINING THE VERY THOUGHT of taking one life deliberately even to save the entire human race, and Dr. Tsing coolly and calmly committing attempted genocide on innocent grounders and 50 children, then that’s not a person whose opinion on this show I feel like I really need to take all that seriously.  I’m sure there are people whose hate for Abby is such that they will find a way to make her a villain over this, and that’s exhausting as hell, and I feel like it’s sort of an individual judgment call for each of us whether we dig in and try to explain or just mute and block them all so we don’t have to see that shit.  But if you’re worried about this storyline because it’s going to make the fandom hate Abby, first of all, what I’d urge you to remember is that a great deal of that will go away if - as it definitely seems like the show is setting it up - Abby’s solution ends up being the solution that works.  If Abby actually does end up being the person who cracks Nightblood and saves the entire human race, if Abby’s the reason your fave is still alive for Season 5, then “but she still shouldn’t have done it” becomes a totally specious argument we can all happily ignore.  And it 100% appears at this point that that’s the direction we’re headed; Nightblood will work, but there will be complications (my guess is they’re going to need a ton more blood and that’s when Gaia becoming a Nightblood scout becomes plot-relevant), and then of course they’ll still need somewhere to ride out the storm, which means either Becca’s bunker, the lab if it’s radiation-proof, or wherever this Bill Cadogan story ends up going.  But the Nightblood is what’s going to make a Season 5 possible so they can actually, you know, go outside and walk around and repopulate the earth.  And they can’t get there without Abby. 

So if you’re concerned about people unreasonably demonizing her and the fandom being a shitshow, like I FEEL YOU MY DUDE but also all we can do is block and move on.

If what you’re worried about is whether the show ITSELF is in some way villainizing her, I really and truly don’t think that’s something we need to panic about either.  First of all, it’s hugely significant that what we see in the trailer is Abby agonizing over the decision, but we don’t see how that person in the tank comes to be there.  We haven’t seen Abby “there has to be another way” Griffin try to find another way.  (For example, does somebody volunteer?)  We haven’t seen the whole context of what leads up to that conversation over the radio, we haven’t heard all of what she says, we haven’t seen how the other characters - Kane, Clarke, Raven, Luna, Murphy, Roan, Jackson - respond or what their position is on this same issue.  But I don’t think they’re making her the bad guy, I think they’re setting her up as a conflicted and flawed hero, just like her daughter is, making the hard ugly choices that have to be made for everyone to survive, but busting her ass to try absolutely everything else first.

This is different from the ridiculous, out-of-character Raven slap, or all the characters at the beginning of S3 loudly announcing what a bad chancellor she was in order to move the chess pieces around to get the chancellor pin to Kane for plot reasons.  Those were bonehead writing choices that demonized Abby unnecessarily and they continue to annoy me (physical violence is anathema to Abby, this is a running thread, and obviously she was a pretty damn good chancellor since she’s the one who built Arkadia into a home and gave them three months of peace; so like, THOSE THINGS DIDN’T MAKE SENSE).  But this is a classic Abby conundrum.  I’d encourage you not to get pulled into listening to people compare her to Dr. Tsing, and to think about this in the context of the The Culling.  It was inarguably necessary that they needed to float a certain number of people in order to preserve oxygen.  But Abby tried everything else first.  She tried to convince the Council to wait for the kids to reestablish contact, for a decisive sign from the wristbands.  When that failed, she commandeered a Russian dropship and a Raven Reyes and sent her to Earth to report back.  When that failed, she released Jake’s tape to the whole Ark so everyone knew what was happening, to keep Kane and Jaha from killing all of Section 17 with no warning.  It worked by getting people to volunteer - that is, it became self-sacrifice and not murder - but all those people still died, because based on all the information they had, they TRULY believed that that was necessary for them to survive.  So we know who Abby Griffin is in these circumstances.  We know she doesn’t have the capacity to just stand back and watch, or hide behind the rules, and we know she feels every single one of those deaths acutely, and we know how hard she fights to preserve every life that she can.  So knowing what we now know - that Nightblood may be, like the Culling, the thing that needs to be done for humanity to survive - the question is how Abby will handle it. 

Yes, the Mt. Weather parallels are there - this season has been all about parallels with major events from past seasons.  But the important thing to note is that those parallels have all been flipped in some way.  For example, the Clarke/Jasper/Monty parallel to the Jaha/Clarke/Jake situation.  Clarke (in the Jaha slot) shocklashes and arrests Jasper (Jake) to keep him from telling everyone the truth, then Monty (Abby) runs over and shouts it out through the intercom anyway. So far, so good.  Nice clear parallel, right?  Except then what happens?  Clarke realizes she crossed a line and lets Jasper go.  She works hard to make it right with Jasper and Monty.  She doesn’t want to be the kind of leader, like Jaha, who could float his friends.  And then Arkadia burns a few episodes later, making the list moot.  So the parallel is set up the same way, and then switches direction.  We’ve seen a lot of these throughout the show so far, and they’ve all been switched up or turned on their head in some way.  So if they’re setting up a line between Abby and Dr. Tsing, the way they did between, say, Jasper and Jake, then the thing to watch for is how they pull the rug out from under us and flip that parallel in an unexpected way.  And my guess with Abby is that it’s going to be something to do with the idea of sacrifice or consent; can she convince someone to volunteer their life to help her make Nightblood?  Can she find another way?

Anyway, I’m not freaking out about this and I hope you don’t either.  I’m really excited when Abby is relevant to the plot - she got so shafted last year - and when we get to remember she’s not just Clarke’s mom and Kane’s girlfriend, she’s a brilliant scientific and medical genius who has a supercharged ALIE brain.  They’re setting her up to be the person who saves the day - as she so often is - and I’m here for it.  If people want to deliberately misinterpret her motives, I can’t stop them, but I’m ready for emotionally conflicted doctor hero Abby to save humanity.