#if we ignore the parallel we are forgetting history and there's a saying about those who forget history

[smonk-wonk]

how are you a holocaust survivor if you're POC?

I'm not a Holocaust survivor I'm 25?

I'm gonna guess you mean descended from Holocaust survivors & victims. In which case it's really sad that you think this way firstly? POC and non Jewish people did in fact die during the holocaust and many were targeted for not fitting the Nazis' idea of the "superior Aryan race".

From The Holocaust Encyclopedia: "When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were several thousand Black people living in Germany. The Nazi regime discriminated against them because the Nazis viewed Black people as racially inferior. During the Nazi era (1933–1945), the Nazis used racial laws and policies to restrict the economic and social opportunities of Black people in Germany. They also harassed, imprisoned, sterilized, and murdered an unknown number of Black people."

Also contrary to what some believe, and this may sound farfetched and I hope you're sitting down but bear with me- some people are actually more than one race. Some people are POC and white. We call this being biracial. Or in grade school, being an "Oreo". A mutt if they really want to dehumanize you

But while my relatives weren't targeted for their skin color as they were white, many people were. Black Germans and other POC did exist, were murdered and traumatized, and have passed down that generational trauma. Just as other persecuted populations even if it was much less it was no less a part of the genocide and ethnic cleansing.

[stromuprisahat]

Ivans loss: "soldiers aren't human beings" & "all grisha are soldiers" is probably what the author thinks. I still remember when RoW came out and someone asked Leigh Bardugo a very heated question about Fjerdans and she gave a strange justification (link below). She replied, no to making the reference (let's just respect that answer and let's say Fjerdans arent' what the question said they are - and I don't even want to type it out because it's like kicking a beehive and no good will come from it) Let's focus the issue of grisha = soldier = fair game Leigh justifies Matthias and Fjerda's actions by saying: @ 1:23 "Grisha are soldiers. they are weapons. they are ppl who are fighting back" But....SoC had Matthias and Fjerdans going after non-soldiers. They were quite literally hunting civilians, farmers, etc. in all the lands. "Pursuing rogue Grisha in other lands...liberating Grisha captives with the sole purpose of clapping them back in chains and sending them back to fjerda for trial and execution..." next page captive speaking "We are not criminals...we are ordinary people - farmers, teachers. Not me Nina thought grimly. I'm a soldier. ...Did Leigh truly forget about the 15 innocent souls who were chained in the ship? 15 souls who were there just for being grisha? Does she not re-read her works at all????? x.com/hellcatdynes/status/1584699468536221697

That woman! (derogatory)

(Ivan post)

tw: I'm not gonna hold back in this reply as much as I usually manage. It might get vulgar and harsh.

I've seen this particular pile of shit while it was fresh and gods! I can't even begin to explain how sick it makes me. No wonder so many of her fans are a bunch of ignorant idiots.

Let's start with the icky bit- the whole quote:

... people have drawn parallels between Matthias and the drüskelle and the SS, and I don't think that's completely accurate. The Jews, who were put to their death in WWII were innocent. They were civilians! Their crime was being Jewish. Grisha are soldiers. They are weapons. They are people, who are fighting back, so though the drüskelle are hateful and carry a lot of prejudice with them, it is not the same as them going after innocent civilians. And I need to make that clear, because I would never write a Nazi/Jewish romance.

Honey, that's exactly what you did!

I won't shy away from that passage, because it pisses me off immensely.

... people have drawn parallels between Matthias and the drüskelle and the SS, and I don't think that's completely accurate.

So, here we go with this one- I'm entirely sure their uniforms and Brum's accomplishments have nothing in common with fucking Nazis. If you're colour-blind, or US-American, so you don't grow up with photos of that particular chunk of history in your fucking town, because those people in nice uniforms used to burn corpses of their victims just behind the walls. The crematorium is still standing btw. Daily visited by dozens of tourists.

Seriously- fuck respecting what she said! I possess reading comprehension! These atrocities happened around HERE! It's not just an ugly story for me! I grew up in town once used as Jewish ghetto, concentration camp and Gestapo prison, so yeah, I might be overly sensitive about how you choose to dress you genocidal murder club!

The Jews, who were put to their death in WWII were innocent. They were civilians! Their crime was being Jewish. Grisha are soldiers. They are weapons.

As you mentioned:

... The drüskelle had existed for hundreds of years, but under Brum’s leadership, their force had doubled in size and become infinitely more deadly. He had changed their training, developed new techniques for rooting out Grisha in Fjerda, infiltrated Ravka’s borders, and begun pursuing rogue Grisha in other lands, even hunting down slaving ships, “liberating” Grisha captives with the sole purpose of clapping them back in chains and sending them to Fjerda for trial and execution. ...

Six of Crows- Chapter 14

If I wanted to be extremely kind, I could assume this is just Ravkan propaganda- it's what Nina had been taught-, but later we see her experience:

“You’ll be tried for espionage and crimes against the people.” “We are not criminals,” said a Fabrikator in halting Fjerdan from his place on the floor. He’d been there the longest and was too weak to rise. “We are ordinary people—farmers, teachers.” Not me, Nina thought grimly. I’m a soldier. “You’ll have a trial,” said the drüskelle. “You’ll be treated more fairly than your kind deserve.”

Six of Crows- Chapter 14

The wording's rather obvious- it's not about herding up enemy soldiers, but hunting down another species, another race, another kind. That's exactly the type of reasoning Nazis used- Jews were something different, inferior. Dehumanization is a significant part of their ideology.

*takes several deep breaths, because that Cola I've just drank is about to make a re-appearance*

I'll point out another part- already in one of the links in this post, but:

Until a drüskelle had accomplished a mission on his own and been granted officer status, he was required to remain clean-shaven. ... “Good work is right,” one said in Fjerdan. “Fifteen Grisha to deliver to the Ice Court!” “If this doesn’t earn us our teeth—” “You know it will.” “Good, I’m sick of shaving every morning.” “I’m going to grow a beard down to my navel.”

Six of Crows- Chapter 14

Capturing people to have them slaughtered is a rite of passage for drüskelle. It's an accomplishment worth marking. Something to look forward to and boast about.

Grisha are soldiers. They are weapons.

What about non-combatant members of Second Army? Healers, "untrained" Materialki, Grisha working for nobles? Those are weapons too?!

Like- we've already established nobody cares about the free-range Grisha (unless it's drüskelle in need of promotion), but even Second Army includes those, who aren't the first line of defence! Who won't be used to be attacked.

They are people, who are fighting back, so though the drüskelle are hateful and carry a lot of prejudice with them, it is not the same as them going after innocent civilians.

I'll make it even more obvious- would you say rape doesn't count as such, when its victim learnt self-defense before it happened?!

Nice opinion, Leigh! Great message for the poor young vulnerable girls! Very empowering!

And this is one of those days I'm sorry they don't organize full-experience trips to places like my ex-hometown, because I'd gladly invite that woman, so I can accompany her visit with loud reading of specific quotes from her work.

[mdhwrites]

Why TOH really doesn't want a theme of discrimination.

Every demon in the show is depicted as evil, dumb or as good... because they don't want to be a part of demon culture.

That's the thesis and it's not an over exaggeration. In the main cast, the only demon of the DEMON REALM is Hooty who is treated as slow, less intelligent than the other members of the cast, and as a joke by the writers as he never elevates himself above being simply comic relief. Association with him seems to be the earliest sign that Lilith is meant to be seen as a joke and her relationship with Hooty ostracizes her from the rest of the cast. Makes her appear weird because she's the only one who can like the bird tube.

Otherwise, they're all antagonists. Most of them are just one note villains for that matter. In S1, every demon with a real speaking role is a villain. The monster hunters, Warden Wrath, Tibbles, the basilisk, the publisher for King and even Boscha if her third eye denotes demonic heritage. Anyone who we see at least as neutral are pretty much just background characters. The ones from the prison in the first episode are really the only ones who get a moment of heroism.

Now you might say: What about Bat Queen? She's the richest person on the Isles and she... Isn't a demon. She's a palisman. Made by, or at least for, a god with the insinuation they give. Bare minimum: Not for any demon known to the Isles. So she doesn't count.

There ARE witch antagonists in S1 thankfully. They're Matt, who goes on to obviously be a good person at heart, Amity who... Duh and Lilith who is also redeemed. None of this happens to any of the demons though even if ostensibly this is their world since the entire dimension is named after demons.

Which, as a note, also is part of why saying TOH is anti-colonial means ignoring an entire race.

Even KING, who should have been the demon representative in the main cast, was then retconned not to be one. Worse yet, only once that retcon began did the show start treating him with any real respect. As a demon... He was just a dumb comic relief character as far as the show is concerned.

So when we FINALLY get a reoccurring demon... It's Kikimora. That should be all I need to say there.

Now the final argument: Vee. Vee is a good person, right? She's not a villain or antagonist, just a good person. And you would be right. The framing on Vee is the problem. As the ONE genuinely just good demon, we have to evaluate how she is different. She is different... Because she rejected the Demon Realm. Her parallels with Luz are even supposed to make it clear that she is better at being a human THAN LUZ. Which has the awful implication, if we want to say TOH has anti-discrimination theme, that the only good demon, is a domesticated demon. One who wants to be a human.

That's. Fucking. Awful.

And just to cover my bases: Yes, discrimination is more than a race thing but the concept of discrimination on race is actually pretty much the only one ever brought up. The fact that no one gives a shit about ethnicity or sexuality or gender actually hurts the theme because you have to project those things onto the show instead. And any allegory to discrimination is explicitly done through races. Fantasy races but that still frames it as a racial issue so its theme on anti-discrimination is going to struggle to branch out beyond racial lines because it effectively ignores that any other form of discrimination might even EXIST.

And for the finale!... I don't think any of this is on purpose by the writers. Yes, they bring discrimination into the show but just like how real life conflicts will often ignore the complexities of all the groups present, such as us referring to all Native Americans as one whole group rather than their separate tribes and histories, the show effectively forgets about the demons. They're just there for flavor because if literally all of the characters of the demon realm were elves, it wouldn't feel like it fits the name at all. It adds spice to a scene and adventure if you have demons of all sorts and sizes.

But the witches are the conventionally attractive characters who are easy to latch onto and so they are the main cast. Everything that looks other becomes a target for villainy because of that juxtaposition. Unfortunately, none of this helps any sort theme of inclusivity. That we are supposed to look past the outer shell and see the person within, regardless, race, gender, sexuality, etc. like that.

Instead, TOH tells a very basic fantasy story and in doing so, falls into the fact that a lot of classic fantasy was written by racist white dudes and the fact that the term demon is charged due to LOTS of religions that paint them out as wholly evil. Without actually interrogating these concepts, it can be easy to fall into them.

So yeah, I think this is a theme people need to stop trying to apply to TOH.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[calyssmarviss]

idk i think its less outrage bc its slow but bc of how its done. repetitive storylines, new ones that lead nowhere and that this probably was planned as a series finale. i understand the frustration of most.

Look I’m just starting to get really annoyed with all the posts i see that are like “wow it didn’t happen in this season finale like it should have i have been Baited and Betrayed and Stabbed and also it totally means it won’t ever happen because there was only this moment.”

Okay going in order here: well maybe they’re worth being repeated because clearly Buck and Eddie didn’t learn all the lessons they needed to learn from their previous relationships. Come on look at them asking everyone around for advice, they’re clueless, about many different things, not just each other. (And what if i wanted to see them on an awful awful double date the last time and didn’t get it?)

And we just don’t know that any storyline is “going nowhere”??? Seriously one of the things i like about 911 is how they bring back stuff most shows would forget about and I’m continuously baffled by the people who can’t even recognize how well it’s doing on that front (and on many others). Or just assume malice from people they don’t know and are under understandable constraints when it comes to explaining their decisions (you think KR is gonna spoil her show in interview just to reassure anxious fans? Really?)

The fact is that there IS going to be another season. And idk, I’m not an expert in the industry but seems to me like there was never any real danger of the show getting entirely cancelled. Literally they announced it was going to ABC in the same breath. And i really don’t think this would have been the finale if it was going to be the end of it and they knew it.

Basically those people are getting mad at things that didn’t happen, things they don’t know the outcome of and motivations they ascribe to creators while ignoring the text and the history of the show and by doing that they take out all of the enjoyment they could get from it and raining on other people’s parade.

I’m not even saying “there are other characters/the show ain’t just buddie”. It’s the main reason I’m here too. I get it. But there’s so much there already? (It’s A Thing, whether it’s platonic or romantic or sexual or official or canon, none of that happening or not won’t make it A Thing that we can see on our screens and discuss and write and read about) And there’ll be much more I hope, and I hope it’s not rushed and that it gets even more layered and convoluted. Because that’s what sets buddie aside from the show’s other ships. It’s the uncertainty, the guessing work, the beautiful metaphors and parallels (that are so loud they’re more text than subtext at this point). And how you have to use the rest of the show as a key to read it, like it’s the x in an equation. The one big unknown.

I don’t know it’s just exciting to me, much more that any “established relationship” narrative. I mean sure I’d love to see them as an official couple or whatever, maybe for a season? That’d be a big win. And i’d probably keel over from too much feelings anyway from the most basic domestic scenes because I’m that invested now rip. But to me really it’s the drama on the way that’s the most interesting.

[majorbaby]

Bearing in mind that my ideal version of MASH is a show that is critical of systems of power:

Mulcahy stays the exact same. He remains polite, kind, tolerant and "jocular". I'm not critical of him possessing these individual personality traits, or even the fact that those traits happen to be possessed by a Catholic priest. And in this "ideal version of MASH" it's important to me that he also remains a Catholic priest.

What I would like to see changed is how he's framed. I would like to see "Love thy neighbour or I'll punch your lights out!" not as ironic coming from Mulcahy, but as fitting coming from him because that phrase could be the slogan for the Catholic Church. I'm obviously not the first person to say this but there is a well-documented history of violent organization presenting themselves as being loving, nurturing and really just wanting you to think of the children/the future/the voiceless etc. I don't actually think the Catholic Church needs additional assistance from a primetime television show to sanitize its image because the general reception of the Mulcahy character is indication enough that it's doing just fine on its own.

Another specific example: I would like this scene from Letters, where Mulcahy genuinely provides heartfelt comfort and guidance to a spiralling Hawkeye play out the exact same way. Hawkeye comes to Mulcahy cognizant of the fact that he's "just a cog in the war machine". Mulcahy tries to placate him by telling him he "saves lives". We know from War of Nerves that he sees a parallel between that work and the work he does "saving souls". MASH does intentionally frame him as being a medical-adjacent colleague in "best care anywhere" more than once, Hawkeye's asked him to assist in surgery, and Mulcahy does a tracheotomy in Mulcahy's War.

There's even a direct parallel to the thing Hawkeye is agonizing over in Letters, "I fix people up so they can go out and get killed. Or kill other people.". In Identity Crisis Mulcahy does the exactly this but without the subsequent moral dilemma. Hawkeye struggles to see himself as a good guy. Mulcahy does not. And in my opinion, he shouldn't, though that should be challenged at some point by the narrative.

The criticism I'm making is of MASH for refusing to tackle organized religion as a system of power. It's practically a hard limit for this show and I think that's worthy of critique. If you're asking audiences to question misogyny, nationalism, racism, militarism (with varying degress of success) and not only ignoring the role of Christianity in upholding those belief systems, but casting a Christian leader solely in a positive light, then that's a pretty serious rhetorical weakness.

That weakness becomes laughable when audiences are expected to root for Mulcahy to achieve a higher rank in the military. On MASH? Someone had to be asleep at the wheel for a show to forget itself like this.

But to be clear I don't have a problem with the fact that he seeks advancement in a patriarchal structure. That's perfectly in character. What's a Catholic priest to do but that?

If the various members of army brass we see on the show never question their faith in the organization they belong to and I'm asserting that there's a parallel between that and Mulcahy, then it's right that he's never shown to question his affiliation with the Church. But it's wrong that MASH never does - and though I do happen to object to that on moral grounds, this post is about my practical objection. If MASH was a show about how great the military is and how righteous it was for a foreign entity to assert its political and moral belief systems in Korea and elsewhere, then this objection wouldn't hold.

p.s. I don't think there's a single instance of me doing Mulcahy meta where I haven't included this disclaimer but here it is again: If Mulcahy is your blorbo, I'm happy for you. I am not saying anyone is a bad or immoral person for liking him or being interested in him, even if you're solely interested in him exactly as he's represented on the show.

In YOURR ideal version of MASH, does Father Mulcahy lose faith? Is he critiqued? Cast as a villain? A fool? What are your thoughts

[system-of-a-feather]

how can you tell the difference between co-front/co-con and a temporary(?) fusion? mostly just curious

-💥🎮

Hmm like a lot of dissociative experiences, its kind of hard to put into words, but one of the "flags" so to say that makes them distinct is often a sense of separation and occasionally addressing / it feeling more natural to talk about both parts involved in third person despite it "definitely being you".

Like I'll use the example of the recent one that incited some of this talk, but Lucille and I were in the car (ignore my symptomatic ass forgetting we aren't literally two different people in a car) we were sitting in the car with our fiance listening to an organ performance of Bach Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor and Fugue in G Minor and for those that don't know, Lucille is a part that is a mega pretentious classical music and somewhat music history nerd who really loves the piano; I'm a huge instrumental (leaning late romantic era, soundtrack music, and brass) nerd who really loves the organ

When we are co-front, which we were vaguely before we temporarily fused, there is a distinct feeling of "me and him", I'm right here and this is my line of thoughts and he is right there and there are his line of thoughts. We function and exist in parallel to eachother and my sense of self remains "here" and he is "there". I can clearly identify that this thought is obviously mine because of course it is, and I can hear he thought / comments as him because "hes right there". This is to the point where we actually have three way conversations with our fiance from time to time because we are both just here. Co-con is similar but just one part has the front and the other is "back there" rather than "right there sitting with me". This might be different for some since we actively and regularly co-front especially around our fiance, and Lucille and I are both some of the best connected parts in our system + also charted to fuse formally at some point when the time is right

However, when we opened our mouth to start a ramble / info dump on how Bach is absolutely amazing and rolling down on a ramble about Bach and Baroque music, we had to pause for a moment because as we started the ramble, we had lost track of who was speaking and whose opinion this was which was largely distinct from blurriness as whoever WAS speaking still felt like a whole and specific defined alter and there was very little of that confusing dissonant dissociative feel in compared to blurriness which often feels like a fog, feeling a bit lost / confused, and increased dissociation.

We took a second to pause and sort it out - since we like to keep track of that and were like "Well this is obviously coming from Lucille because no one else has this much knowledge on the history of Bach and Baroque music other than him plus I am talking in his dialect and partially his accent; but also >I< definitely am still speaking and Riku definitely doesn't disagree and... hmm, odd I guess I'm both right now" which is a result of the fact that I absolutely could not pull apart which was more prominent and both part's "wavelengths" melded together well and comfortably that whatever standard I was operating at was comfortably functioning as a single identity.

At that moment of time, we were neither just Lucille or Riku, but we were some weird state of "yes". It stuck around for the remainder or the point we wanted to make across and then like 10 minutes later before we ended up phasing back apart to Lucille and Riku respectively.

I'm not sure if that makes sense cause describing anything dissociative always is difficult with how much it feels kinda metaphysical but its really the lack of seperation between entities and often "Ah did I just talk about both parts in third person while talking about myself in first person huh, go figure - ANYWAYS About Bach..."

Hope that answered somewhat?

-Riku

[themadamespod]

The Great White Gripe

A lot has been said about the “social commentary” within The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

“Since when is Marvel a bunch of SJWs? I don’t need this shit.”

“All this race stuff feels SUPER forced.”

“Oh here we go Marvel tryin to be all woke to get the libs on board.”

If you personally know anyone who spews this brand of ignorance, we’re sorry. 

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: there is no social commentary on TFATWS. Showrunner Malcolm Spellman and director Kari Skogland simply show the reality of life in America. It’s not their fault that so many (white) people (men) don’t like looking in the mirror.

And some people claim they have no problem with film and television addressing politics and social change.

“Just keep it out of my comic book movies. It doesn’t belong there.”

They could not be anymore wrong, even if Chandler Bing himself was lecturing them. 

If you asked 100 people to name the top ten movies of all time, you’d get 100 different lists. But one thing we can all agree on is that film has power. It has the power to move us, to divide us, to unite us. Entertainment can lead to the kind of discourse that prompts action and positive change.

And that’s why The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the conversations it’s sparking are so important.

One World, One Reality

“Marvel has always been and always will be a reflection of the world right outside our window.” - Stan Lee

There are two takeaways from that statement:

One: Stan Lee didn’t say that in the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s. He said it in 2017.

Two: Our window, not your window, is a subtle but important distinction, particularly as it relates to TFATWS. The Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau, live by a simple creed: “One world, One people.” The core message of the show is that white Americans and Black Americans experience the world very differently, but there’s still only one world, one reality. 

It’s just a matter of people opening their eyes and seeing it.

TFATWS is an extension of Marvel’s early support of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, Stan Lee created the X-Men as an allegory for the ongoing struggles of the African-American community. Though he didn’t explicitly base Professor X and Magneto on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, there are ideological similarities.

Five years later, following the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy, Stan wrote the following:

“Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. It’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race—to despise an entire nation—to vilify an entire religion. Sooner or later, we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. Sooner or later, if a man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance.”

In 2021, Stan’s words still resonate. Racism in the United States is as virulent and damaging as it’s ever been. Black Americans are facing deadly policing, Jim Crow 2.0 voting laws, mass incarceration, and countless other roadblocks to mobility that most white people have never encountered.

Through the journeys of Sam and Sarah Wilson, Lemar Hoskins, and the heartbreaking Isaiah Bradley, TFATWS shows the unvarnished truth of what Ira Glass might call Black American Life. And through John Walker, the writers nail home the message that’s really making certain people squirm:

White men are the greatest threat not just to Black Americans, but all Americans, because TFATWS is as much an indictment of toxic masculinity as it is of bigotry. 

As aggressive racism has spread like wildfire since 2016, so has hostile sexism towards women of all colors. John Walker is the embodiment of the hyper aggression that the Proud Boys applaud. The clearest example of this comes when Walker dares to clap the shoulder of Ayo, one of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje.

Her swift and, ahem, pointed response had women the world over screaming like they’d just won the lottery. 

One could also argue that Walker’s dogged pursuit of Karli and displaced peoples supporting the Flag Smasher cause mirrors the Trump administration’s war on immigrants. 

There are plenty of parallels to draw. The point is, none of them are forced or manufactured or exaggerated. And whether we’re talking about a fictional road in Latvia or a real street in Minnesota, white Americans need to stop avoiding conversations that make them uncomfortable.

The Politics of Comics 

In 1938, Americans were still reeling from the Great Depression. Enter Superman, the everyman hero, who made his comic debut while the nation was facing widespread unemployment, rampant poverty, and blatant corruption at every level of government.

Superman could have faced off against any number of supernatural villains. But Siegel and Shuster went a different route, setting a precedent for comic books that has prevailed to this day:

They got political. 

Throughout Superman’s earliest adventures, he fought against evil politicians, apathetic bureaucrats, aggressive police officers, greedy businessmen, and even a Washington lobbyist. 

Then in 1941, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby introduced Captain America just in time to fight the nazis and free the world from fascism. A couple decades later, Kirby and Stan Lee would tell the tale of the aforementioned Erik Lehnsherr, who survived the horrors of Auschwitz. These comics endured because their passion and nuance transcended entertainment. So what was the secret sauce?

Like Siegel and Shuster, Simon, Kirby, and Stan Lee were Jewish. Representation matters, folks. 

Later on, the X-Men weren’t the only conduit through which Marvel supported Civil Rights. In 1966, on the heels of the “March Against Fear” from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby unveiled Black Panther. When African-Americans were fighting harder than ever, Black children could suddenly read a comic book about T’Challa, the noble warrior king of a highly advanced African nation. 

Marvel has never been shy about critiquing foreign policy either. Tony Stark and Iron Man debuted in 1968 as the conflict in Vietnam was escalating. And let’s not forget, Tony made his MCU debut in a film that is a clear indictment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We could do this all day, but you get the idea. 

Comic books have always reflected the politics of our times, and so has the MCU. Fanboys can’t start crying now just because they’re on the wrong side of history. And when they do, we defer to the great Jon Bernthal when asked about alt-righters appropriating the Punisher symbol:

“Fuck them.”

Life Imitates Art

In 1986, American men felt the need for speed. After Top Gun was released, applications to U.S. aviation forces increased by a staggering 500%. 

Two years later, Errol Morris exposed police corruption in his film The Thin Blue Line. The documentary prompted a new investigation that eventually exonerated death row inmate Randall Adams for the murder of a police officer.

That same year, the Polish government ceased all executions after leaders were swayed to do so by A Short Film about Killing.

Following the release of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine in 1999, Kmart bowed to public pressure and stopped selling handgun ammunition. 

And 5 years ago, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif changed the law on honor killings in response to the critically-acclaimed film A Girl in the River. 

Like we said earlier, film has the power to spur social change. Even if the effects aren’t always so direct and immediate, television and movies have always contributed to the process in America. 

Seeing the Ricardos sharing a bed allowed some Americans to start relaxing their prudish ways. 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude empowered women as they fought for reproductive rights.

The Jeffersons and Good Times facilitated calmer discussions about race relations.

And The Ellen Show led to greater representation of queer people on screen and greater acceptance of queer people in society. Though Ellen herself has become a problematic figure in the last year, that legacy still remains.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is hardly the first show of its kind. And given the impact film has on society, we believe Hollywood has a moral obligation to produce content that exposes society’s ills and fosters productive debate. 

Stan Lee would be very proud of the team behind TFATWS for bringing the stark reality of American life into people’s living rooms. The next time you see someone bitching about it, remind them what Stan himself said just a few years ago: 

“Those stories have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or color of their skin. The only things we don't have room for are hatred, intolerance, and bigotry.”

[general-du-vallon]

I find it really bizarre how there are multiple story-lines in the BBC Musketeres about slavery where the slavers are treated sympathetically. By which I don't mean that all slavers should be inhuman, because people who were part of the slave-trade were human and were like us (I'm white), we have to see ourselves in them, I think it's really important that we see ourselves in them and see ourselves as part of that history. So having Bonnaire who is charming, likeable, interesting, entertaining character who I like and then am horrified at myself for liking, that's great, that does something interesting with the narrative of 'slave traders are all evil and souless' and reminds us that, no, slavers are us, we can still easily perpetuate those sorts of systems.

(racism and slave-trade content warnings, as you'd imagine)

This is long, so basically it'll be - Bonnaire and the season one episode, Pierre Pepin and the season two episode, and then a little bit on Bonnaire's return in season three.

I haven't rewatched for this random splurge of thoughts, but I think the Bonnaire episode in season one is an okay arc. I could probably say something about how I think it's not necessarily bad, but definitely worth interogating the ways the writers give the majority of the story and character beats about slavery to the mixed-race Porthos character. But really what I think needs interogating is two things.

First, the way the episode tries to balance this heavy subject with Athos's history, which is more important to the series-long arc. It ends up (accidentally?) drawing uncomfortable parallels.

There isn't really a good way to compare or contrast a white man's guilt and grief over his (white) wife who was executed (by him). There's never a graceful way to push aside generational trauma from the ongoing slave-trade, or a black man's grief over discovering a man he looked up to is a slaver. Especially not when you're trying to juggle staging that grief and trauma with the white characters' trauma and grief, and most especially when it's the white stuff that turns out to be the main narrative drive of the series and the rest just gets put aside not to be brought up again. It's just bad. There's a lot more to say and think about, but that's a starting point.

Secondly, Paul Munier. Paul fucking Munier. Guys! He's part of the slave-trade too! framing him as an honest merchant is fucked up. He's not the good guy. We can't go 'okay so Bonnaire is bad, but the things he has got through the slave trade, those belong to Paul Munier, who bought them, and is honest and good'. The slave-trade was a triangle - you go to Africa and you kidnap and enslave hundreds of human beings, you take them on ships to America and plantations, you force them to produce sugar-cane and rum (rum is what Bonnaire is drinking on that wagon, when he's telling Porthos dreamy stories). Sugar and rum, those are like, bywords for 'slave-trade'. And then you sell those comoddities and you buy whatever the fuck you want to sell to fuckers like Paul Munier and bring it back to France, and then you go to Africa again. Paul Munier is part of the slave trade. He might not buy and sell human beings, but he supports and props up Bonnaire, and he benefits from the slave-trade.

He might be a good guy, I dunno. I odn't think it's a black and white issue of he's a merchant therefore he's the bad guy. But I think it's worth interogating and thinking about who gets to be innocent in this story.

I know Bonnaire comes back in series three but I'm ignoring that for this second. The other narrative around slavery I think about is actually the one in season two, where the king and d'Artagnan are kidnapped by slavers. Sigh. What are we going to do about this one, huh? there is a lot. I'm gonna put aside the whole 'white slaves' thing because I don't know what to do with that. It took me a few times watching this show to realise 'oh, right, yeah, Milady is a slaver'. Between series one and series two, she made money by selling humans. I know she's moraly ambiguous but I think that gets brushed aside and reframed very quickly. I don't think any of these characters are really framed as slavers. I forget their names, I think Stephen something? The brother who gets gutted by Rochefort in the palace. Yeah, he's a slaver too.

Other than the writers quickly forgetting that these characters are committing attrocities (it's not THE slave trade, so it is different, which I guess might be where the white slavers thing comes in, which is still, no, I still don't know what to do with that). I think the main issue with this narrative arc is what you'd expect the issue to be - the black character. Pierre Pepin.

Where do we begin with that? That was just a lot of bullshit. Pierrre Pepin is a black man in shackles,which is always a questionable choice when you're thinking what to put on TV to be honest. Especially when you then go about killing the him, and wow do you ever want to have second thoughts about having him die for the white royal. That's just not good. I don't like that he's against the king's systematic opession based on class and race, then he does a little turnaround when he meets the king. I guess the 'becomes a royalist when he sees that the white dude is nice' is necessary for the 'willing to die for his king' thing. I'm gonna go with a big nope for all of this.

There's a slave-narrative in each of the three seasons; there's Bonnaire, then there's Pierre Pepin's story, and then Bonnaire returns. He might not be a slaver anymore in season three, but the episode deals with Porthos's reaction to him, so it becomes that - the damage he did is not erased by him being quirky and funny. Again, the very real generational trauma that the slave-trade still inflicts is pushed aside for another character's past and current grief. I know Santiago Cabrera is Chilean and is brown, I'm not saying he should be pushes aside either. Just noting that in each episode Porthos's grief is set up in competition to another character's grief, and it's interesting I think that it's one of the other's backstories in each case. I don't have a conclusion about that, I'm just observing I guess. Anyway, each season has these slave-narratives, I think it'd be interesting to pull these out more and think about the ways the slave-trade is referenced and written about in the series, and why it's done in these ways.

I said it was bizzare how these narratives treat the characters who are perpetuating and benefiting from the slave trade, as well as the characters who are explicitly slavers. I also think it's definitley a choice to shove in multiple storylines about white people, in these narratives. Again, I know the Santiago Cabrera isn't white, but whatever Aramis's friend in that episode is called, is.There is the scene in that episode where Constance (a white woman) has a go at Porthos for the way he stitches Bonnaire, and Bonnaire is largely treated sympathetically in that episode. The characters on the periphery of the slave-trade are barely acknowledged as such, and characters like Milady and Stephen Mautrim (name is off the top of my head I'm not sure) are pretty much absolved of that, and I think we mostly just forget that part of Milady's story. And Pierre Pepin. God, I still don't really know where to start with his story.

I think it's worth thinking about these narratives and interogating this, because the slave-trade was a real historical event and a real trauma that still has impact today. The way we write about and consume stories about it is important. It's also important to remember that Porthos's mother was written as a freed woman because Alexandre Dumas's grandmother was a freed woman. It's a very real and very close history that's being used for these narratives, and it's heavy, you know? You've got to give it space to be heavy. It's a heavy part of this fandom, too, because it's not just something that's in the show, it's something that's in our fandom spaces. The racism and white-supremacy that makes these narratives what they are is part of our fandom.

so... those are my random thoughts on that .

[horizon-verizon]

As I said and agreed, this is a feudal monarchy. While GRRM says it is an absolute monarchy, the truth is Westeros has traits of both a feudal and absolute monarchy, so it reads as either the in-between stage or a hybrid. Which explains pretty much the character of the monarchy in Westeros where the king's word IS the end while lords still have and retain vassals in their own right.

I also said that this feudal monarchy was being headed by a dragon-riding dynasty that was getting more and more powerful with each generation.

You:

I didn't say that Rhaenyra doesn't and/or shouldn't have a claim. Rhaenyra’s gender obviously shouldn't matter, and she does have a claim, but so does Aegon. Rhaenyra’s claim is based on the king decreasing it, while Aegon’s claim is based on several millennia of precedence*.

I* also did not say Aegon the Elder didn't have a theoretical claim.

I argue against the idea that he had more "legitimate" claim than Rhaenyra, especially as you imply and OP directly states that Viserys "broke" "laws" including the Widow's Law, which I already argued he wasn't breaking any laws.

Meanwhile, viserys chose Rhaenyra. He is the head. Anyone who tries to upend his plans are actually the one who chose to disobey another central feudal principle.

If you argue that, you'd have to face the truth that:

most Westerosi lords already do [GRRM's quote & the instances in AWoIaF] which is twist or break from custom or past precedents for their own advantage

there were many woman who were named heir or became the leader of their respective houses [look at AWoIaF!!!] this is a male preference primogeniture society, NOT an agnatic nor male-exclusive primogeniture one!!

these aren't laws that are the kind that are enforceable by a higher power than the king or the "people"; the only "laws" are those Rhaenys, Jaehaerys made and any declaration and monarch makes. This is rather "customs" and "rules of feudal conduct and war"

let's talk about legitimization as a parallel to Rhaenyra not being the "legal" heir (despite Viserys naming her) Corlys Velaryon has two bastard boys legitimized through Rhaenyra's word as the monarch...some people would argue that Rhaenyra was never truly the Queen bc she lost or bc Aegon was coronated before she had her own....so by their logic, or by just their admission, the Velaryons are therefore not a "legitimate house" even into the current timeline bc Alyn Velaryon's legitimacy is a sham, but that would be stupid, wouldn't it?!!!! -> what does all this tell us? Corlys was within his right to name his bastard sons as his heirs after a Queen's declaration even over his own trueborn granddaughters bc he was the head and this is the reason why more supporters came out for Rhaenyra than those for Aegon (many say that Rhaenyra "stole" Driftmark form these girls forgetting or ignoring that they are not a part of the Velaryon house AND Corlys, as the head, willfully never thought of them as his heirs!!!); as i said, once again, there are no codified, inflexible laws against bastards or women inheriting that have been tweaked or ignored or otherwise ignored in Westeros!!!! As GRRM confirms!

therefore, Viserys was well within his right AS THE HEAD OF HIS OWN HOUSE to name his daughter his heir

In Westeros, a child has claim either/both from them being named or/and being eldest, as once again, they twist and don't follow their own customs all the time. Let's not pretend they don't. I already gave examples and refer to specific cases in the two reblogs. Aegon's claim was never "decreased", as while boys are preferred, by both Jaehaerys's Widow's Law AND the history of Targ succession which I have already detailed as being a special case (which the wiki and F&B both themselves tell AND show), we have had girls ascend/named as heirs even by just contingency when most (but even then, not all) nonTargs wouldn't choose so. The only way one would think Aegon's claim was "decreased" so that Rhaenyra's would "increase" (which are not actually great words to describe strengthening a political, lineal claim) was that if you believed his claim was automatically "stronger" than Rhaenyra's. This is your implication and what you want to get across. Let's not deny that.

Apparently, because Aegon is male and the male Westerosi lords want men to rule and decided things for communities and houses and overall society, then Aegon the Elder should rule.

As I already gave details and an explanation for in my two reblogs, what are those precedents made of? How are precedents made at all? Precedents are made stronger or weaker by choices and actions, and they are not final laws whatsoever. Which is the whole point! They are more starting places that could become something more solid and enduring if there are certain decisions made. Really, they are treated as such by Westerosi nonTarg and Westerosi Targ peoples alike.

The precedent for Targ male primogeniture was made after Jaehaerys made his series of choices that lead to the GC of 101, however, when has precedence ever stopped him from marrying Alysanne? Or releasing the Maegor supporters who would later create a mutiny at the Wall, when the most expedient and suggestively preferred and "precedental" decision was to execute the two Maegor's men: Olyver Bracken, Raymund Mallery, Jon Tollett, and Symond Crayne.

Why is it that Jaehaerys can create his own precedents or strengthen new ones, but Viserys cannot? And let's not say because Jaehaerys created peace and Viserys didn't: a) those same Maegor men would go on to create a mutiny that killed Alaric Stark's brother so that Alaric never truly cared for Jaehaerys b) the GC led to Viserys I being king anyway, which lead to Rhaenyra being heir despite the fact that Rhaenys would/should have been AND the GC and Jae passing Rhaenys over the first time after Aemon died were all him making decisions despite opportunity because he sincerely believed that men should rule before and over women for its own sake. I have a post HERE explaining the Targ assimilation into Andal customs of from Aenys to Alicent and the resulting Targ-Andal paradigm.

As for Rhaenys and Visenys, the situations ARE different. Why not ask ourselves why?

It's not because of any "natural" or 100% "inevitability" of men ruling and women losing power--it's because of actions and decisions made by Aenys, Maegor, and Jaehaerys I. Which I go into in the linked post about Targ assimilation. At the same time, these 2 queens show us that while specifically Targaryen custom has the eldest boy become the leader of the house, he also is obligated to marry his eldest female relative, which in this case was Visenya his older sister.

AND when we go back to notes about the Valyrians and their dragonriders and their conquest, we see two things:

female, as well and male dragonriders were sent to conquered regions to act as those outposts' leaders and maintain control of the Freehold (which definitely included the Targs)

Jaenaera Belaerys--who traveled alone on her dragon Terrax to inspect and find out just how large Sothoryos was. Was gone for 2 years or so, was able to come back with no known social consequences, including some sort of loss of any position she may have had. Or any sort of usurpation. Of course, all we know about her is that she rode her dragon Terrace and maybe that's all the maesters could access. But with knowing women generally participate and lead in state rule and warfare, we can conclude or at least rightfully assume that Jaehaera has a story that almost no Andal-descended woman who is not a Targ can share.

This suggests that, yes, Valyrian customs are far less restrictive and wary of female leadership or autonomy than Andal ones are. Targs are Valyrians.

Why would the eldest son be obligated to marry his eldest female relative in order to be considered as rightly performing his duties or even be able to inherit at all? The strongest conclusions are these: to combine claims/lineages/descendants (if Visenys has Aegon's kids and he fathers hers, there is less competition for resources and claims later on) AND/OR the "purity" of their connection to their dragons remains as strong as they want it to be. To retain that power for Targs, which means Targ power/power, in general, is dependent on female participation in politics and lineage, which is practically one and the same here. And/or that women can and have led in their own right, that the path to autonomous leadership is much smoother than it is for Andal-descended women.

Let's get back to my point about choices and Targ men setting precedents. Funny how, despite the Targ men I listed as having dragons AND Valyrian precedent for female leaders, or at least comparatively more autonomous and powerful women, they chose to go the other way to keep their own foothold. Viserys made a choice that was as personal-political as they did. No "laws" were broken, no customs were broken as much as any other Targ or Andal-descent Westerosi did themselves.

(I remember Jaehaerys threatening Rogar with Vermithor ater Rogar's betrayal and attempt to install Aerea...and later on, Jaehaerys reprimands his older sister's act of insulting Franklyn Farman for insulting her first and threatening him with Dreamfyre...strange.)

So again, the only reason to support Aegon as much as some people do, the REAL reason, is because the guy is male.

As for Hill's Alive...

You say, "Yes, they have biases, but so does everyone, including you and me. So what? You seem to be biased toward team black, and that's fine. I'm biased toward team green* and that's also fine."

Here is a post I recently wrote about HA. It is there how I and others show how and where they lied and created misconceptions.

I specifically stated how they had biases that were misogynistic, antiSemitic, Zionist, classist, etc. These are not biases that are as innocuous or less meaningful as those biases one may have against a person because we are jealous of them or because they said some hurtful words at some point. These are dehumanizing, human-right-violating biases, and straight-up bigotry. Dehumanizing ideas themselves, because they are dehumanizing also never, ever speak the truth. Because at their core, they do not speak the truth about human experiences and psychology at face value.

"Dehumanizing"...."de-" + "human". To "de-human" is also to delude, to make up excuses, and twist reality and truth to one's own ends and particularly through abuse and supremacy on a wide sociopolitical scale that affects and comes from interpersonal interactions repeated over and over, that begins AND ends intimately.

This is why HA's views should be taken with a grain of salt at all times if one wishes to engage or learn anything from them. In fact, I recommend people generally watch them to just witness how an argument can be made and think about the veracity of how and what a person can argue. To think of HA as an exercise in creative thinking skills rather than a truthful source of knowledge.

Finally, the greens of the Dance are patently worse people than those in the black faction. And no, I do not think GoT nor HotD or reliable sources to study ASoIaF themes, lore, and characters for how the writers bungled them all up. I and others already wrote several times how, but here is one by ozymalek concerning HotD, F&B, and the Dance:

It's hard to deal with it as a reader, let alone as a showrunner who's trying to adapt a story in which not everything is set in stone. They incorrectly assumed that, because they are constantly forced to question what is happening in the story, the bias is with the underlying idea that there was a correct side. As such, they assumed that all the inconsistencies result from maesters not choosing to view it that way [...] So they decided that they have to balance the scales. Because Greens are poorly developed, they added more characterization for them that contradicts their book personas (abused child bride meow meow Alicent who is clueless about the plans that in the books she herself set in motion, for example) while simultaneously taking the characterization AWAY from team Black members.

All the Laws Viserys Violated by Making Rhaenyra His Heir

Hi hi! I'm in the midst of writing a post about Otto's motivations throughout HotD and the portion about why Otto was so sure Alicent's sons would end up as heir when he pushed her to marry Viserys got wayyy too long so I'm just going to write it here.

I cannot emphasize enough how crazy it was that Viserys kept Rhaenyra as his heir. He has literally no law or precedent to back him up; every single possible precedent actually works against him. Full disclaimer, I genuinely think Rhae would make a good queen and support her over Aegon, but I don't think Viserys made her heir for the right reasons and I think because of the following he was setting her up for failure.

First, Westerosi laws of inheritance say that a woman cannot inherit if she has a trueborn brother. This has always been the case. Remember that as of right now Dorne is NOT a part of the Seven Kingdoms, so the Seven Kingdoms unanimous in its institution of male-based primogeniture. There is literally no region under Viserys's domain where a woman is allowed to inherit if she has any trueborn brothers. You'll never find any instances of a woman being made heir when she has surviving trueborn brothers. When we see women in power, like Jeyne Arryn or even Sansa Stark, it's always because they either have no brothers or their brother is occupied with another title.

Second, the Great Council of 101 set the precedent that even if a woman is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, she should be passed over for a male. Rhaenys was Jaehaerys's heir according to Westerosi laws of inheritance as the only child of his previous heir, so she was even backed by the actual law and precedent. And the threat of war was dangerous enough that it forced the literal King of Westeros to concede matters of his personal inheritance and violate precedent just to pass over a woman. That's how sexist they are!!! They literally broke the law so that they could be MORE sexist!!

Third, Widow's Law specifically stipulates that it is not meant to be used to allow a woman to inherit over her trueborn brother. I know a lot of people think this law can actually be used to support Rhaenyra, but I think this ignores the context of the time. Remember, even though Alysanne wrote the law, Jaehaerys is the one who implemented it and is the only one who had the final say in its wording. And, as mentioned above, Jaehaerys straight up does not have the power to allow women to inherit, even when the law is backing him up. He's also a super misogynist and has proven unwilling to listen to Alysanne on feminist matters. So I'm not sure why people think he'd have the desire or the power to instate a law that says a daughter from a first marriage gets to inherit over a son from a second marriage. The lords would never allow something like that, because most of them use and discard their wives for the sole purpose of gaining male heirs and I guarantee there would be a moral panic about women getting too much power the same way there eventually was with Rhaenys and Rhaenyra. And not just the lords, but Jaehaerys would never allow something like that: They're all grade A misogynists, remember? That's why Widow's Law specifically placates the lords by assuring them that their precious eldest son can still inherit before even introducing the new law. Because Jaehaerys knew he wouldn't be supported if he said that women could inherit when they have trueborn brothers, so he made sure everyone knew he wasn't trying to do that.

So Viserys has 0 laws and precedents backing his decision, and 3 laws and precedents that his decision outright violates. And he keeps Rhaenyra as his heir anyways, out of guilt to Aemma. This is why I think Otto was genuinely flabbergasted by Viserys's decision; because he demonstrates remarkable awareness of the misogyny in Westeros and is fully aware that this WILL incite rebellion. He says it himself: It doesn't matter to the lords of Westeros how good or kind Rhaenyra is. They've demonstrated, time and time again, that they will not allow a woman to inherit a title, including the Iron Throne, if there are ANY trueborn male relatives available--AND that they have the power to force the King to let them decide his inheritance!

TLDR: Viserys really did Rhaenyra dirty. He made and kept her his heir out of guilt about Aemma, not out of love for Rhaenyra. And he did this knowing that it violated every single precedent or law relating to inheritance out there, and knowing that previous kings weren't able to uphold their female heirs, even when they had a stronger claim than Rhaenyra would have, because the lords threatened to start a war over it. And that's not even getting into how he completely failed to teach her about politics and did nothing to prepare her to become Queen.

This is also part of why people say it's not just about Rhaenyra's bastards. I fully agree that having them weakened her claim even further, but what you need to understand is that Rhaenyra was doomed from the start. She was doomed by the misogynistic laws, and by the misogynistic precedent, and by the misogynistic lords who never tried to hide that they'd start a war if a woman inherited the throne. And Viserys put that burden on her anyways, and put her and her children's lives in genuine danger, all so he could feel better about his decision to butcher his wife.

[deans-haunted-baby]

Curious. What do you mean by Dust till Dawn going against it's Characters? I know I have my own feelings, or confusion, with how they left Kate's story.

From Dusk Till Dawn effectively character assassinated every single character in the very last episode including Kate Fuller. No one is acting like themselves in that series finale it's like some deranged fanfic writer came aboard and hijacked the show while no one was looking. If you thought 15x18 & 15x19 of Supernatural were bad and believe me they really are; those episodes are minorly salvageable against the slaughterhouse that Dusk 3x10 was. It utterly contradicts and ignores everything the show put forward in all 3 seasons. I will never watch that episode again.

I'll first explain what that piece of shit did to the show's lead protagonists, the Gecko brothers. Regardless of how you or anyone else feels about Supernatural's series finale; that show was a saint to Sam and Dean's storyline beginning to end compared to how From Dusk Till Dawn definitively butchered Richie and Seth. I'm sad saying this because Zane Holtz and DJ Controna are outstanding as these characters. I freaking love their chemistry man, it's a great rival to J2! They're the badass dark clones of the Winchesters.  Their arc starts out fascinatingly complex because they went from cold-blooded criminals/bad guys and meanwhile during their escape over the Mexican border with this hostage family the audience is told pretty quick by Professor Aiden Tanner that the Geckos are destined to become these foresworn warriors The Mayan Hero Twins in an ancient prophecy (based on real Mesoamerican lore) who battle the Underworld. So right away the show is telling us ahead where Seth and Richie are suppose to end up in their journey and when you introduce a storyline this big I expect a satisfying payoff.

At the end of season 1, Richie Gecko is *SPOILER ALERT* transformed into a culebra (snake-vampire) while Seth Gecko remains human symbolizing their night and day Hero Twin counterparts from the legend. And they're separated in the first half of season 2 where both try to navigate this new supernatural world they've stumbled on individually. What they find, no different than the Winchesters, is that neither can function properly without the other making their destiny all the more valid. That season is practically constructed like their swan song to the criminal lifestyle since the brothers are meant to become more than crooks; and since Richie's a vampire they can't ever go back to basics. Their adopted father aka uncle Eddie actually says the line "this is my swan song" in 2x07 to Seth and Richie in reference to their final heist together which is not a coincidence. That's the writers telling us that the Gecko Brothers' role in the show is going to shift from anti-heroes to heroes very soon. Eddie and Kate Fuller's fates in S2 act as the primary catalysts for this transition taking shape in the finale.

Going into season 3 it's business as usual for the boys until the prophecy of the twins officially rips a hole in the damn universe via demon queen Amaru. Who's now possessing Kate. Throughout that season Seth and Richie embark on a journey of heroism; find themselves battling monsters, actually saving civilians and dealing with their own personal demons (guilt and remorse over past sins). That year is presented as their redemption arc and final phase into their new role. No one ever tells them about their destiny (despite most of the other characters knowing) but we as the audience are already aware as we watch the brothers in action. The best episode is without a doubt 3x06 the crown jewel of From Dusk Till Dawn because it's about overcoming the darkness inside. And who best represents that than Richie; the show's most important central character whom began the series as a deadly clairvoyant criminal into the tortured vampire hero struggling with his own humanity. Now I won't spoil the whole episode for anyone who hasn't seen it or the show in general but it's an incredible moment of character development for both the Gecko brothers. Not only does it cement their powerful bond it's the episode that defines who these two are once and for all. The ones who lead the battle between good and evil; keep the balance of light and darkness. One day I plan to do an entire analysis of that episode because it's so fucking brilliant and shot so incredibly eerie at the same time 😁

You want to know what 3x10 does to these characters? It shits all over their entire storyline and pisses away THREE FUCKING SEASONS of character development. Just flushes it all down the toilet rendering everything they've ever done up to that point completely pointless! Their destiny which is the WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW is suddenly dropped last minute and the Geckos hit reset on their former criminal escapades; dragging Kate along with them. I hate that finale with the fire of a thousand suns for what it does to Richie and Seth 😡

Moving on to Carlos Madrigal. He is the best villain character in the history of show villains hands down. I can actually say that without blinking. Wilmer Valderama is phenomenal, he steals the show as Carlos. He's is so freaking awesome, evil and badass! I just want to keep seeing this man tear things apart while being the sexy asshole he is 😈For all intents and purposes I don't want to spoil his whole storyline on the show for those following me in case they're interested. But what I will say is 3x10 destroys this character; so don't watch it if you want to keep the memory of who he was alive. I'm actually depressed over what was done to him as much as I feel sorry for Wilmer having to perform that shitty script. It's laughable in a very bad way. Gotta hand it to the writers and showrunners of FDTD they certainly knew how to humiliate their best characters in this series. Carlos basically goes from charismatic yet lethal Hannibal Lecter to a very captain obvious Gandolf caricature. Yah you heard that right, it's really fucking sad.

Next we have Freddie Gonzalez; the audience's avatar into the series. This character is connected to everyone on the show for a reason because of the crucial part he plays in this universe. The "Peacekeeper" destined to police the line between the supernatural world from the human world. In the beginning he's a Texas deputy on a quest to avenge the murder of his father figure/partner Earl McGraw via the Gecko Brothers. But once he steps in that territory of monsters there's no going back. And FDTD repeatedly tells him and the audience this in the first 2 seasons. But then 3x10 pulls the ultimate fuckery by giving him the most cliched, nonsensical hallmark ending effectively cancelling out his entire purpose in the series. He instantly forgets that he ever cared about Kate, watching her bleed out on the ground, then leaves the Geckos high and dry rushing his family (who isn't injured) to the hospital. And he stays there while the battle continues 😣

Kate and Scott Fuller OMG words cannot describe my anger over what was done to them so I'll make it fast. I'll begin with Kate the bright light and heart of the series. Her arc in the first two seasons is excellent. It's emotionally driven because she begins as an ordinary girl in broken yet seemingly-happy family to a young woman finding her way around the supernatural world maintaining her faith and moral compos while trying to help her brother after he's *SPOILER ALERT* been turned into a vampire; paralleling the Geckos's situation. Scott being only a 16 year old kid, like Richie, struggles immensely after his transformation; searching for meaning as a cursed individual and coping with his duality. He was already different to begin with so being a vampire adds some interesting layers to his character.

Btw Kate plays a vital role in Richie and Seth's lives, though in my opinion is more strongly connected to Richie. The show even goes as far as developing the early glimpses of a romantic arc between Kate and Richie (seeing as they kiss twice) with angst at the end of season 2 that is never resolved. You want to know why it wasn't? Not only does season 3 mute Kate's voice and agency but 3x10 ruins her character and demolishes her whole arc with Richie (who spent all of season 3 trying to save her) at the last second due to fan pressure of those who shipped her with Seth. They don't exchange one word nor barely look at one another it's like seasons 1&2 never happened. This is the biggest fuck you to fans of these characters I've ever witnessed in a series and they did my boys Adam and Michael so dirty in Supernatural. Poor Scott whom the show enjoyed kicking around all season barely gets a thing to do in that series finale either than listening to his sister and Seth gab about prom lol. Yah you heard me I'm not making this shit up I swear. Then he gets abandoned by Kate while she goes off to be a bank robber with the character assassinated versions of Seth and Richie. How extraordinary 😖

Santanico Pandemonium is really the only character in the series who manages to get out unscathed. HOWEVER her arc is handled very poorly beginning to end. They set up an arc between her and Seth that also goes absolutely nowhere. Give her zero closure with Richie whom she sired, dated and used in S2. And randomly throw her in a scene with Kate that makes no fucking sense after these two had nothing to do with one another all series. On top of that Santanico is barely in season 3 so by the time the show wraps her arc feels incomplete.

Other characters go missing that no one notices, the new bad guy whom they've set up at the end is just left hanging. And Richie Gecko, you know the show’s other lead, is horribly sidelined after 3x06 to make way for the Seth Gecko solo show. When I say FDTD series finale is bad I mean it's really fucking terrible and blasphemous.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

[isitgintimeyet]

Just A Friend

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I’m the only one awake, the sun is shining and I’m enjoying my coffee in peace and quiet. Bliss!

Thank you for the continuing support for this story. it’s lovely reading (and re-reading) all the comments.

Hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for the beta.

AO3

Previous Chapter

Chapter 3: From Relationship To Release

You know, I’m a great believer in relationships. Relationships come in all shapes and sizes — take my relationship with Geillis, for example.

I met Geillis on my first day of postgraduate training at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. I was spending three months in orthopaedic surgery and she was just finishing her training as a theatre nurse. We somehow kept bumping into each other at social gatherings and found we had many things in common — a childish sense of humour, an intolerance of pomposity and snobbishness, and a love of cheesy rom-com movies.

From there, our friendship snowballed, and for many years now, I’ve called her my best friend. Even the arrival of a fiancé and her forthcoming nuptials haven’t lessened our relationship in any way. Our careers have developed in parallel too. So when a vacancy came up for a senior theatre sister at the Children’s hospital, I didn’t hesitate to recommend her for the post. We work well together. For all her joking around and flippant comments she is damn good at her job. And I love her.

I don’t think I love many people. I’m very fond of a lot of people, mainly my friends. But love? No. And certainly not the romantic, live-our-life-together type of love.

I see how it can work. I look at Robbie’s parents, for example. The way they are there for each other, supporting through all the worries with their son, their comforting touches and reassuring glances.They are a solid unit and I admire that.

I also see the way that Geillis’ face lights up when she talks about her fiancé, Dougal, and the way he watches her when we are all together in the pub. And I think it’s great, I really do.

But it’s not something that I’m seeking out for myself. I don’t think I’m cut out for that type of relationship. I don’t think there is someone out there, my soulmate, to spend the rest of my life with. And I definitely don’t think that I need someone else to complete me, make me whole.

That doesn’t mean that I’m a hermit. Far from it, in fact. I do date and enjoy it, but try to steer clear of any where-is-this-relationship-going type discussions.

It may well be to do with my childhood. I’ll admit, I’ve not had the most normal upbringing and that could have coloured my view of happily-ever-after love.

I’ve never been part of a conventional family unit. Well, I mean, I was for the first four years of my life —until my parents died in a car accident. And, at that age, how much can you remember? I do have some vague memories — rough tweed fabric against my cheek as my father’s strong arms lift me up, the smell of ‘Miss Dior’ perfume as my mother’s soft hands caress my cheek, the sound of laughter as we dance around the living room to Michael Jackson. But these are only fleeting recollections, ephemeral, gone in an instant.

All my real childhood memories are centred around one man — my uncle, Lambert Beauchamp. He, unhesitatingly, took me in when my parents died and became my guardian, my parent, my rock. He and I were a team, and I miss him every single day.

He was a confirmed bachelor, and I don’t mean that in a euphemistic way. He lived his life by his own rules and if he had been gay, he would have seen no reason to hide it. No, he had no need for romantic entanglements, no complicated relationships, no messy sexual encounters. He had two loves in his life — me and his work. He was a professor at the University, teaching archaeology and could, quite happily, get lost for hours in the bowels of the archives, studying ancient Somarian drinking vessels.

Growing up he was my role model, my yardstick against which to measure boys.

And over time, I've come to realise that I've always found myself attracted to the type of men which have certain ‘Lambert-esque’ qualities. Which leads me, I suppose, to Frank.

Just like my uncle, he’s a professor at the university. In history — more recent than Lamb’s studies only three hundred years ago, not three thousand.  He’s single minded about his research, like my uncle, and he cares deeply about me, which makes me feel bad because I don’t feel the same way. Of course, I care about him, just not enough for a serious relationship that’s going somewhere.

All of this is a long winded way of saying what I’ve actually known for a while now... I need to break up with Frank.

*************

I’m just contemplating whether to brave the canteen or grab a sandwich from the hospital shop, when there’s a knock at my office door and a hand appears brandishing a couple of distinctive Gregg’s paper bags. This hand is closely followed by the rest of Geillis, who plonks herself down on one of my visitor chairs. A wonderful aroma of freshly baked goods wafts across the desk. My stomach rumbles in anticipation.

“Steak bake or sausage roll?” she asks as she places both bags on my desk, although she knows my preference.

“Ooh, how did you know I was just thinking about lunch?” I pick up one of the bags, the oozing gravy on its surface being a clear giveaway.

“We’ve been friends fer long enough,” Geillis smiles. “I ken what ye’re thinking. In fact, ye’ve something on yer mind right now. No’ a work thing. C’mon, spill.”

I swear, it’s uncanny. In the Middle Ages Geillis would undoubtedly have been tried as a witch. Her powers of deduction are that good.

I say nothing for a moment and focus on my lunch, blowing ineffectually on the hot meat filling.

“Weel? I’m waiting and ye ken I’m no’ a patient woman, Claire. This is tae do wi’ Frank, is it no’? Are ye planning on dumping him?”

See what I mean? Witchcraft.

“You make it sound so harsh. But I can’t carry on with Frank, he’s investing more into this… this—“

“Ye can say the word, Claire. Relationship… R… E…—“

“I know, I know. But I have to do something. I know Frank wants more than I want  to give in this ‘relationship’.” I  enunciate clearly just to make the point to Geillis. I’m not afraid of the word… I can say it.

“Anyway,” I add casually as I dab at the pastry crumbs with my finger. “I thought you’d be pleased. I know you’ve never liked him.”

Geillis tuts. “‘Tis no’ a matter of like. We jes’ havena got anything in common. He’s awfa serious and ye dampen yer personality down when ye’re with him. I’ve seen ye, ye canna deny it.”

I try to interject, but Geillis ignores my sounds of protest and carries on talking. “But it’s no’ jes’ Frank. Ye do this all the time, Claire. Whenever anyone tries tae get serious, ye run. What is wrong wi’ wanting a relationship anyway?”

“I have my work, I have my friends. I date, I go out with men, I have a good, if sporadic, sex life… and a trusty dual speed vibrator. What’s wrong with me wanting my life the way I want it?”

Geillis crams the end of her sausage roll into her mouth and chews vigorously for a minute. I pass her a paper serviette for her greasy hands. She gathers up the flaky pastry crumbs that have settled on her chest, wraps them in the serviette and pops it neatly in the bin.

“Ok, I get it. I’ll back off. But all I’m saying is dinna close yerself off tae the possibility of a real relationship, aye?”

Knowing she's gone as far as she can with this topic, she gets up and heads for the door. “Nae rest fer the wicked. Oh, and Claire, jes’ one thing…”

She pauses dramatically. “Dinna forget… ye’ve gravy on yer chin.”

And with that she disappears, leaving me with a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach caused by more than the calorie ridden pasty.

I am just settling down to dictate some patient letters when Frank texts to suggest dinner at my favourite Italian restaurant. This isn’t good. It’s a lovely restaurant, the kind of restaurant where special occasions are celebrated— birthdays, anniversaries, declarations…

So I have to lie… no, not lie, fib. I text back pleading a heavy day in theatre — aching feet, headache and so on.

His concerned response makes me feel bad. No need for fibbing, I do feel pretty shitty now. However, it also makes me more resolved to do what I have to do. I can’t drag this out, causing him more and more hurt. So, I invite him to my flat this evening instead.

*******

I have a final glance in the mirror in my bedroom. I do actually look a bit worn out. I haven’t really put any makeup on, just a touch of mascara and a slick of lipstick, which I have already managed to chew off.

My hair is, as per usual, a bit wild and untamed. I have a bathroom shelf full of products promising smooth and manageable curls, but have yet to find one that actually delivers on their promises. I tuck my hair behind my ears, pinch my cheeks to try to look a little less pale and head to the front door.

Frank is as punctual as ever. Unlike other things in my life, he’s always delivering on his promises. Which makes me feel even worse. I have nothing to accuse him of, no unacceptable behaviour— apart from wanting more than I’m prepared to give. That old cliché, “it’s not you, it’s me”, really is appropriate here. I’m going to try not to actually say those words though. He deserves more than that.

And so I take a deep breath and open the door. He stands there expectantly with two bottles of wine, one red and one white, in his hands.

“I wasn’t sure what we would be eating, so I got both just in case,” he volunteers as he walks in and leans close to me for a kiss.

I give him my cheek and make a fuss of taking the bottles from him to deflect my lack of affection.

He follows me into the lounge. I’m sure he notices that I make no offer to pour the wine. I set the wine on the coffee table and perch on the end of the settee.

Frank takes my hands. “Claire, darling, are you ok? Has it been a rough day?”

I shake my head. “It’s not been the best. Frank… I…”

I can’t even look at him now. I take a deep breath and plunge in. “Frank, I… the thing is… I don’t know how… I think we should stop seeing each other.” The words tumble out of my mouth like a deluge.

I finally look up as Frank releases my hands and walks over to the window. He stands still, his back to me, as if just taking in the view. Then he turns to face me, staring intently at me, scrutinising my face as if looking for a glimmer of hope. The silence is unbearable.

“Frank, it’s not you—“ I try to fill the void, by resorting to stale old clichés after all.

“Spare me that platitude.” He snaps at me. “We’re not fifteen. This was… is… serious to me, Claire.”

Frank now moves to sit next to me. His hand rests on my thigh, his fingers lightly drawing circles on my jeans. I watch for a moment. Am I supposed to move it? Should I remind him he no longer can touch me like this?

His voice softens.  “I lo—“

“No, please, Frank. Don’t say it. Please don’t. You are such a nice man. You don’t deserve this.” Gently, I lift his hand and  place it on his leg.

“Then don’t do it. Tell me, Claire, what do I have to do? What changes do I have to make for us to move forward? I’ll do it, tell me. We can make this work, I know.”

What do I say now? Anything I say will only hurt him more. All I can do is apologise and try to explain.

“I am sorry, really. It’s just, well, you want more than I can give. You think about a future—“

“And what’s wrong with that? That’s what most people want, Claire. Planning for a future together— a home, a family… our family.” Frank’s getting angry now, raising his voice.

“Please, I’m trying to explain. You want a future life together and I can’t give you that. I’m sorry that I’m hurting you.”

“Is there someone else? Is that what this is all about?”

I’ve been trying to remain composed, to give Frank the explanation he deserves. But this question annoys me beyond belief, as if I have to be one half of a couple.

“I can’t believe you asked that. No, it’s not about another man. I can’t be what you want me to be and that’s it.”

He stands up now, right in front of me. His hands are down by his sides, so tightly clenched into fists that his knuckles are white against the slight tan of his skin. For a fleeting nanosecond, I wonder if he is going to hit me. But, of course not, he’s just trying to gain control of himself.

“That’s it, then.” The words are spat out with venom.

“You know I’m sorry.”

He shrugs dismissively. “Of course. Well, goodbye.”

He makes for the door.

“What about the wine?” I indicate the two bottles, still on the table. It’s a pointless trivial comment, I know, but for some reason I don’t want him to think I expect to keep them.

Frank doesn’t even look over his shoulder. “Consider them a parting gift.”

And with that, he's gone.

I remain sitting motionless, processing what I’ve just done. It’s not easy hearing those words, but neither is it easy to have to say them. So many emotions are coursing through my body — sorrow, guilt, regret, self-reproach, worry. And in the midst of this maelstrom, there is one thing I can clearly recognise — a glimmering spark of relief.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

a primary walks into a bar...

jennifer x deacon, 12 monkeys. also on ao3.

the first fic i drafted for these two, just a bit of fun set immediately post-canon. jennifer POV. 

(i’ve decided to embrace imperfections instead of holding onto my stories for these two until i feel better acquainted with them. if my later fics are more in character, then at least i’ll have written more fics, which is a net positive.)

“I don’t want to forget the past.” She tried to press meaning into every syllable, tried to gift him their history in code, if only it were possible. “I want to keep the past.”

He nodded, still leaned in close, like he actually cared about what she had to say. Excellent customer service. Five stars, above and beyond.

“But I’m not here to remember it, either. I don’t need a bar, or a drink, for that.” Jennifer grinned at him, the unbalanced scales of her smile a contrast to the sharp edges of his. “I just wish I could do it over again.”

“Don’t we all.” He glanced at the door when the bell above it rang. A new customer, somebody else to focus on, to cater to. He was good at this, Jennifer thought, the way she had every night she visited. It suited him, this destiny, the one he was always meant to have.

Just sucked that hers was meant to be so separate from his.

“But I guess until somebody invents time travel, we’re all stuck with the lives we’ve got, huh?” Deacon asked, and Jennifer’s eyes snapped to his, searching.

What was a Primary, once Time wasn’t broken anymore?

Jennifer could still see it, see it all: how things fit together, how they should run. But now things ran as they should. Parallel tracks, a train she didn’t have to fall in front of. Time didn’t need her, to hold itself together or to make sense.

Nobody needed her, now that the world was saved.

When Time rewound and she waited on that beach for Cole, salt in the air and her lungs, sun making it stick to her skin...most of her was just grateful she could finally rest. Take a breath on the beach. Close her eyes against the sun. Feel what Time was like when it didn’t need her so much.

She was free.

Freedom was lonely. 

People who couldn’t see Time’s motions, those people were leading singular ordinary lives. Though she could visit Cassie and Cole in their happy after, it wasn’t her life to share.

And the small part of Jennifer that missed Deacon, a man who was now a boy who didn’t know her, again--she could live with that part. She could console that part the way she consoled her lonely Daughters when they needed it. This mood will pass, you are better off as you are, everything is as it should be.

So she waited. 

She lived her life.

Jennifer Goines--genius CEO girlboss--had better things to do than spend decades wishing for a reunion with one guy.

She monitored his budding business because she had time to spare, Jennifer told herself. Not because she wanted to see him. Certainly not because she needed to. That cat dying of curiosity was an awfully convenient explanation anyway.

But the need was there. Ignoring it didn’t lessen it--made it worse, in fact. A new voice in her head, one that didn’t sound like her at all, but also not like a Primary calling out across time. 

Just a voice inside, saying, go to him. Saying, it doesn’t matter if he can’t see it, if he doesn’t know you now. 

Go, and there you’ll find home.

************************************

“Forget or remember?”

Jennifer blinked. Time kept on ticking. 

“What?”

It was Deacon asking, and she’d heard him, but her mind had been elsewhere before he spoke. Other than taking her order when she sat down at the bar, he hadn’t spoken to her all night.

Not like she expected him to; not like she was there at Brothers Deacon waiting for long heart-to-hearts with a guy who didn’t know her.

We saved the world together, she thought whenever he looked her way. Sometimes she yelled it internally, raising a voice only she could hear. We saved them all, together, you were there! And now you don’t even know my name.

“Are you drinking to forget, or to remember?” Deacon tried again, more slowly. “I like to ask. I always wonder.”

It was a slow Tuesday evening, which might explain his stab at conversation. Maybe he was curious because she’d come in every night that week--staking her claim as a new regular. An irregular regular, she thought with a snort. 

The other days, he’d left her alone, letting her people-watch and laugh at her own jokes. But now, he noticed her, turning her world around just like he did the first time. 

He was the only one who ever had, who saw her as a person-not-Primary and deemed her worthy of notice. In another life, Jennifer reminded herself, tugging her focus back to this one. 

“Do people drink to remember?” She considered that concept. Not one she’d thought about before, but it sounded plausible. Like the first time she saw a unicorn and thought, I believe it. If that’s not real it should be. Then, of course, it was. Good times.

Deacon offered her an easy grin, relaxed against the bar like they had all the time in the world for a philosophical discussion. There was an intimacy to it that Jennifer wanted to believe came from experience--that some piece of Deacon was linked to some piece of her, no matter what Time had to say about it. 

“Sure they do. Haven’t you ever missed somebody?” 

“Yes.” You, she told him with her eyes. His were mirrors reflecting back; she couldn’t tell if the reflection was one-way. Wrong room for an interrogation. Even worse for ballet. 

She had taken ballet classes as a little girl--Mother’s idea, of course. The funhouse mirrors never blinked, always staring, staring with their watchful eyes. Jennifer switched to tap.

“Well, I can tell you, as a proprietor of this fine establishment, lots of people find it a little bit easier...a little less painful...to lubricate the process. You want to forget the past, you get blind drunk until you can barely stumble home from here. You want to remember it, you nurse rounds slowly; you savor.”

Deacon grinned at her again, that slice of a smile she could feel down to her toes. “I keep myself entertained when it’s not busy, trying to guess which customers are which. Most people are easy, but you--I’m still trying to figure it out.”

She laughed. “Easy is definitely not a word that’s often applied to me.”

All the words that had been still lived inside her like brands, burning hot and painful even then. Murderer. Crazy. Fool. Once upon a time he gave her better ones, ones that sparkled. Sorry. Purpose. Take it.

Deacon didn’t know that, though. She could keep his words in her pockets like gifts but he was not the giver. Jennifer shook her head, cleared it of the past-future. Never was, in this reality.

“Wanna give me a hint?” Theodore of the Brothers Deacon asked, shifting closer so his elbows were resting on the clean bar.

Call it wishful thinking--wouldn’t be the first time, she remembered a pair of otter eyes and a head full of lies--but it almost felt flirtatious, the way he was looking at her and waiting to see what she said.

The tragedy of time was that when they were walking parallel lines, he just kept dying--and now that the world was saved, her line was thirty years too late. Didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun, Jennifer decided. If Deacon had a thing for older women, who was she to argue?

So she curled her fingers into her palms, roots into the earth grounding her where she sat, and told the truth. Wrapped her lips around the words like Jennifer would wrap herself around Deacon again, if she could go back. Time is a snake that only moves forward; no going back, not anymore.

“I don’t want to forget the past.” She tried to press meaning into every syllable, tried to gift him their history in code, if only it were possible. “I want to keep the past.”

He nodded, still leaned in close, like he actually cared about what she had to say. Excellent customer service. Five stars, above and beyond.

“But I’m not here to remember it, either. I don’t need a bar, or a drink, for that.” Jennifer grinned at him, the unbalanced scales of her smile a contrast to the sharp edges of his. “I just wish I could do it over again.”

“Don’t we all.” He glanced at the door when the bell above it rang. A new customer, somebody else to focus on, to cater to. He was good at this, Jennifer thought, the way she had every night she visited. It suited him, this destiny, the one he was always meant to have.

Just sucked that hers was meant to be so separate from his.

“But I guess until somebody invents time travel, we’re all stuck with the lives we’ve got, huh?” Deacon asked, and Jennifer’s eyes snapped to his, searching.

Too good to be true, too easy to hope. Somewhere in there, she wanted to see the man she used to believe in, the one she believed loved her a little.

A little was everything, compared to what she’d had before.

So Jennifer knew better than to believe her lying hopeful heart, coming here to drink and pass the hours and cross her fingers in case today was the day time unfurled again and they’d have to team back up to fix it.

Cole and Cassie were out of the pool, they got their happy future and it was where Time needed them to stay...so if anybody was gonna be called to new adventures, it might as well be her. And if anything else was going to be asked of her, there was no one she would trust by her side more than Deacon.

Excuses, really. It’d been thirty years, and Time was still ticking along, no hiccups. 

And while those two had landed a little bit outside of Time, just enough to remember what happened, most people only seemed to have room for one reality in their heads. Nothing felt more lonely than being Primary in a world where Jones and Hannah didn’t know her...except maybe being Primary in this bar, missing Deacon while he was three feet away.

“Yep,” she told him with a hollow laugh. It was just a coincidence, his comment. She could find needles anywhere with a big enough magnet. What did that prove to the haystack? “I guess we’re all stuck.”

He was already shifting his weight in the direction of the guy who came through the door, ready to move on to other business, but Deacon paused long enough to aim that smile at her a final time.

“How about the next round’s on me.” Well, now. He’d certainly never done that before, offered to pay for her beer.

First time for everything, she thought, wondering what had gotten into him that made the day different from other days. Frequent drinker program nobody told her about? Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to complain. 

Deacon passed the drink to her before crossing to the other side of the bar, tossing his last words over his shoulder--she could barely hear them above the music that filled the space. In every reality, he was still stuck in the 80s.

“Let me know if you need me for anything else, ma’am.”

A part of her bristled at the end of that sentence, annoyed by the way strangers treated her these days with extra years sketched on her face. Everybody likes a good chicken, until it clucks for itself. 

She couldn’t take it personally coming from him, though, Jennifer decided. After all, Deacon called her ma’am when she was his own age, when he barely knew her yet.

Wait.

Something about his use of the word, the glint in his eyes, the ease of his handing her a pint. It tripped that fucking hope again, and she couldn’t help it, her eyes followed him as he worked down the other end of the bar.

Taking folded bills from the new guy, pouring him a shot, then another. Polishing a glass while New Guy knocked them back, nodding when he held up a finger.

Deacon served the only other person sitting in front of him, and Jennifer wondered how long it would take for him to head back in her direction. Would she be able to see it, if there was something in his eyes? Was there any difference in the way he carried himself, now that he wasn’t carrying a lifetime of scars? 

Her head was a magic eight ball brimming with questions, like always. Shake it, you get answers. Or ask again later, seventeen times in a row ‘til you want to smash it against the wall and make the truth come out.

From her vantage point on the stool she couldn’t make guesses about his eyes, and he moved like always--coiled energy, potential for danger. Indoors in winter, nobody but Deacon could list his own scars.

New Guy was talking to him about a football game, and Deacon was making engaged listening noises, though it was obvious he didn’t really care.

She should have known better, of course, Jennifer scolded herself later. Time wasted looking for hints, subtle traces. Of all the things Theodore Deacon is-was-will-forever-be, subtle never made it onto the list.

His customer was a quick drunk--looking to forget, she thought with a twitch of her lips--and he required the barest show of interest. Deacon’s volume grew alongside his, their discussion more spirited, and her eyes were starting to glaze over. 

But Jennifer was still facing their way, and in the end it didn’t matter that she wasn’t actively listening. When it came to Deacon, she was pretty sure she could hear him in a hurricane. 

She could hear him even when he was silent. He was the hurricane.

After he slid New Guy another shot, Deacon glanced Jennifer’s way. His carelessly friendly expression faded, replaced by an unblinking intensity.

The bar wasn’t packed, but it held noise and people enough to entertain her on a slow night. She shouldn’t have been able to sense the room closing in, a narrowing tunnel and a ringing in her ears. 

Among the noise and the oblivious customers, Deacon was staring at her like they were the only two people left on Earth, and Jennifer felt the kind of shiver she hadn’t in thirty years, because nobody looked at her that way anymore. 

Nobody else ever had, swallowing hard across a table like his words were bees that would sting them both if they escaped. Jennifer wasn’t allergic to bees; she still wondered what they might have spelled out in the sky if he’d let them fly.

Sometimes after Time took what it was owed, it gave a little something back. She’d assumed that gift was reserved for Cole alone, but maybe Time had generosity left for its favorite cog in the wheel. Maybe it took pity on her fall from Primary grace to ordinary human living on a barstool. 

The reason didn’t really matter, did it? Not when the horse was there, to keep its mouth closed and unexamined?

Sometimes, Jennifer remembered as Deacon’s eyes stayed on hers, Time understood that it owed you, too. 

She’d already set her drink down, knew her mouth was gaping a little, didn’t care if she looked like a moron. Deacon tipped back his own beer before he smiled at her again, and she let the shiver repeat, run through her. 

Maybe hope wasn’t dead, a man on his knees in a crowd filled with blades. Maybe hope had been hibernating.

Deacon pointed at her beer, raised his eyebrows like he was asking if she wanted another, and she nodded, answering whatever question might’ve been buried beneath that one.

He took his time getting to her with it, dusting off a shelf and straightening a handful of vodka bottles along the way.

“Here you go,” he said when he arrived, the click of his tongue a punctuation mark and a memory.

Deacon set the fresh beer down in front of her, leaned against the back wall of his bar, and winked.

[mikrokosmos]

“Beethoven Sucks at Music”

A Response from a Classical Geek

So this video by the ever insightful 12tone channel came up in my YouTube recs, and I knew from the clickbait title I had to respond. To be fair to him, the argument is much more legit than the title would give off, but there are still some points that I want to comment on

“Can you name a Beethoven tune?”

He starts off saying most people can maybe hum a few melodies, but probably don’t know most of Beethoven’s work. Bee’s one of my favorite composers, and I have listened through all his major works. But sure, there are many classical fans who either haven’t listen to much of Ludwig, or don’t even like what they have heard so they listen to others. However, the general public? Well how much of the general public can name a Van Gogh other than Starry Night? How many know the name of the painter of The Scream? If you showed a random person on the street a set of Renaissance paintings, could they tell which artist painted which? What about impressionist paintings? Or have they read anything by Flaubert or Ibsen or Woolf? I’m not trying to gatekeep or be a snob [I couldn’t name the Renaissance painters, and I haven’t read any of those three], but rather to point out that “greatness” in art doesn’t have to equate with popularity. And Beethoven is definitely more popular than most classical ‘greats’.

The Canon

This is a pretty big insight that more people should reflect on. Why is Beethoven programed so much? Because he sells, and he sells because of people who like his music, but also people who want to be the people who like his music because Beethoven is a mark of cultural capital. Doesn’t mean they don’t “really” enjoy it, but that there could be an subconscious [or maybe deliberate/weaponized] desire to show others “I appreciate fine art”. Again, not trying to gatekeep, but think of the difference between...I don’t know, a random teenager who comes across Beethoven online and falls in love with the power of the scherzo from the 9th and wants to hear more, and someone like Ben Shapiro playing a Beethoven violin sonata after making a podcast about how Rap isn’t real music or that today’s music is “worse” than the Western greats. You see what I’m getting at? There is unfortunately a vocal minority of classical fans that want to use the music as fodder for their reactionary arguments.

Next, he does a great job covering the history of “the canon” and the cultural factors that created it.

We say Beethoven is good because of German-centric nationalism

Partly true. It’s especially funny to look at what composers of the 19th and early 20th century were thinking and saying about Beethoven and the Germans. Both the French and the Russians were annoyed by the German superiority being pushed in the music world and wanted to make their own cultural standards for ‘greatness’. And famously, both Debussy and Ravel were sick of Beethoven and were “anti-Wagnerian” in their aesthetics, and most of the “classics” of the Modern era were reacting to and against Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner. Of course it doesn’t mean that Beethoven’s music isn’t great, rather that German nationalism and also ethnic pride coming from the German immigrants of 19th century America has a lot of cultural dominance. Ask a French person who the greatest composers are and they’re likely to say Couperin before Bach, Berlioz before Beethoven.

He then points out that, while the Canon is a cultural agreement, it is kept fixed and fossilized.

Focusing on Beethoven keeps music students from focusing on what they care about

You don’t have to love Beethoven. But if he’s saying that schools should only focus on what is ‘culturally relevant’, then are we throwing Shakespeare out of the curriculum? I don’t live in the same culture and time as him, but I still find Macbeth compelling, and Julius Caesar, and Othello...they are still great stories, and forget the idea of ‘high art’ because they’re full of lowbrow death and murder plots, sex jokes, fart jokes, and have a lot of badass moments [the witches of Macbeth, the ghosts of Hamlet, the assassination of Caesar, the sword fights and taunts of Romeo and Juliet, etc.]. I don’t live in Beethoven’s time either, but the Eroica pounds in my heart. I don’t think that the old classics should be the only thing we look at, but I don’t think we should only look at contemporary popular culture either. And frankly the best academic courses and professors are those who examine both with a similar eye. We always draw cultural parallels across art through time.

Who gets left out of the Canon?

This is a legit thing to look at. Lately there has been a greater shift at performing and looking into the music of otherwise ‘marginalized groups’. Though it may be too little too late, especially when the zeitgeist of today is knowing that there are so many stories and perspectives that are ignored or shut out from a canon. How often do you see the distinction of “women composers” instead of mentioning people by name? The same happens with “black composers”, or composers from non-European or non-”Western” countries. It’s important and overall a better thing for our culture to highlight these people, but there is still the connotation of them as a footnote to the “real” canon that doesn’t need a modifier [I mean, how often do you hear someone call Beethoven a great German composer, instead of just “great composer”? Lili Boulanger is a great composer who is almost always called a great woman composer…]

I also agree that there is the issue with the idea of teaching only what’s “important” for understanding a class, especially with art since it is cultural but usually it is taught like a forward thinking narrative. The major influencers are mentioned while great artists who can’t serve the narrative are left out. An interesting example would be Schopenhauer and his philosophic influence on classical music for his time, even though his major ideas are from Hindu and Buddhist theology filtered through 19th century German philosophy.

The Invisible Hand of the Canon

Also a great point. Why do we assume that the music of black composers isn’t “good enough”? Or “women composers”? Or “Turkish composers”, “Mexican composers”, “Filipino composers”, etc.? Where are these standards coming from? Let’s bring up two other greats, Mozart and Debussy. Who is better? Really, it falls down to opinion, because the music aesthetics of the two are so different, that you cannot make a real judgment without admitting that you’re assuming one set of standards over the other. Now, the music of Boulanger is much closer to Debussy than Mozart, so why would we judge her against Mozart to determine if she deserves to be sanctified into the Canon?

And I hate to be a gatekeeper, but I love out-snobbing the snobs, so when someone takes the conservative position of the Canon’s greatness, I wonder are they able to listen to a piece by Schoenberg and explain its relation to the German romantic tradition, regardless of if they enjoy it or not? Because I have seen ignorant defenders of Beethoven and Mozart call his work “random noise that a cat could play” and I want to know if they actually engage with the music beyond listening to 30 seconds and getting a rage wedgie

Does Beethoven suck?

He admits no, it was just clickbait. But his attitude or proposed attitude toward Beethoven is much more honest. The ‘greatness’ of his work is the experience you get from listening to it. Or, you can respect his art without really caring about it or listening to it much. But yeah, the more we acknowledge the artifice of the Canon, the easier it is for us to look at more music with a more critical eye, and I think that’s much more engagement than passively agreeing with the assumption of greatness for cultural capital. No, Mr. Shapiro, you don’t look smart or impressive for talking about Mozart instead of Lamar at a cocktail party. And if you do, it’s because you’re trying to impress stick-in-your-ass dull rich people who have no taste.

The End :D

[whateverthedragonswant]

You know what’s sad? I’m sorry, I just have a little bit of the feels rn. This hit me hard, like a semi full of a large shipment of bricks followed by a convoy of semis full of large shipments of bricks. 

Last night, I caught up on the latest episode of one of the other shows I’ve been watching for years, The Walking Dead. I loved it! It not only gave us back story for Daryl, a part of him that we had never seen before, but it also dealt with a romantic relationship for him and it delves into the Caryl relationship (another one of my OTP’s). Immediately, I noticed the parallels, the mirroring, the interesting way they presented this information -- all of it.

But the best part (outside of the episode) was on the Talking Dead. I know the Caryl fandom has been acknowledged by certain cast members (I think I’ve seen on here how Norman has liked several posts on IG of Caryl fanart), it’s been discussed in previous episodes of the Talking Dead over the years (YNB is the queen of the Caryl kingdom, I said what I said), and the show is very aware that it’s one of the biggest ships for that ‘verse. Melissa, Lynn, Nicole, and Chris all acknowledged after this episode that the Caryl fandom is full of “passionate people”, Chris asked a question about it, Melissa answered the question of what she thinks of Daryl and Leah, Nicole straight up answered why there was so much mirroring & so many parallels in the episode, Chris and Melissa both acknowledged there were indeed mirrors and parallels, and basically did not shy away or ignore any part of it.

The sad part comes in I guess where after November 5th 2020, I’ve...well, I’ve been in SPN land now for a few months, and I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised that they discussed Caryl in this latest TWD episode, that they had Melissa and Lynn present together, that Nicole who wrote the episode didn’t dodge the question about the episode’s intent, that Chris actually asked the question and didn’t try to veer away from it. I mean I literally sat there and kept expecting them to downplay it, change the topic, ignore it altogether, make fun of the fans, amp up the Daryl x Leah, be like “Caryl...who’s she?”, or avoid talking about the show altogether and then it hit me: Holy. Shit. This is The Walking Dead and not SPN! Why do I keep expecting the worst? Oh right, I am now so conditioned to expect the bullshit even though before November 2020 I had seen TWD and TD so many times before, had seen YNB and CH discussing Caryl, all of it. My perspective had completely changed and it was almost like waiting to have my hand slapped again.

And how fucked up is that? 

Tbf, 1) I have not been that deep in TWD fandom so I don’t know the history of this ship and its sailing all that well, it’s just something I’ve always loved the idea of since the early seasons & 2) two different shows, two different casts, two different sets of writers, two different networks, one is over and one is not, one has an aftershow and one did not. These are two different relationships, two different dynamics, etc. But seriously, how messed up is it that had Carol confessed to Daryl (or vice versa) in the same way that Castiel confessed to Dean, how much do you want to bet that it’s not something Daryl (or Carol) would just ignore, forget about it, and go eat some pie instead? That Norman or Melissa would never not speak about again, even if it happened on the show? Even if say Daryl (or Carol) somehow didn’t return those feelings? That actors wouldn’t be given a mandate on not talking about it or acknowledging it at all for the future at cons or panels? That fan questions about the topic wouldn’t immediately get shoved into the trash pile? That fans wouldn’t immediately be shamed for asking or told they’re delusional 24/7 because they shipped it or the show had it happen but then yanked it away and acted like it never happened? I mean, holy crap...

I just cannot believe how messed up it is (the SPN/Destiel side of it I mean). I’m very happy for the Caryl fandom right now because even if the latest episode ended on a tough note, you can bet from all of that paralleling and mirroring, something is coming down the line and their relationship will heal (they will Caryl peeps, I promise). I’m also very happy that this show does not treat the Caryl shippers they way that SPN/that godforsaken network has treated the Destiel fandom for years really, but especially these last few months. 

Because I just cannot fathom how SPN/C*W thinks it’s okay to do this crap to your loyal viewers/fans/following after 15 years, after they pay large sums of their hard-earned $ to interact with your cast and support your show, and then to feel like this (genuine surprise and shock) when you see how a possible (endgame) ship is treated when discussed outside of the show it’s on, how it should always be treated regardless of sexual orientation/gender/race/religion/culture. And not have my hand smacked and told to go back into my corner, and endure the gaslighting, the baiting, and the general vitriol and abuse dished out by the trolls the show has enabled and emboldened... So this is what it’s like. This is what being in the light is like, got it.

*me with Caryl & TWD rn*

tldr; if there are NDA’s in effect right now, you better believe I will pay that $283 to have Misha sing like a canary the day they are up & then I will bill the C*W with interest

[natsubeatsrock]

Anime Recommendations Based on Fairy Tail's Big Four Ships

I've been meaning to do this for a long time. (I feel like I'm saying that a lot, nowadays...)

The Big Four ships of Fairy Tail are ubiquitous among fans. It's hard to find too many people that don't like even one of them. If you're a fan of Fairy Tail, chances are that you like all of them to some degree. It would make sense to find shows that have dynamics similar to the ships we love. Who better than I to make a list like that?

Someone that actually likes the Big Four ships, for a start.

Anyone who's followed me over the years knows I was never going to write that kind of list. Originally, I was only going to deal with shows that handled the dynamics in ways I personally thought better. However, I put it on the back burner for a few months. And a few months became a few years.

Now that I'm actually setting out to try to write this, I've decided that I would make a bit of a compromise. Two recommendations for each ship. Both play with the dynamic in some way. One plays with it in a manner closer to the ship it's compared to and is what I would recommend to true fans of the ship. The other is a much looser parallel and does things I'd imagine people who didn't like the ship would like. Hopefully, you'll find some show that you like regardless of your feelings about the ships.

Nalu (Positive Recommendation): Twin Star Exorcists

This wasn't as tough a decision for me to make as one might expect given my history with the ship. When Rokuro and Benio have something of a chance encounter, they don't get off on the right foot. However, they realize they have more in common with each other than they'd like to admit. They go from outright hating each other to loving each other throughout 50 episodes. Of course, it helps that the fate of the world is dependent on them getting married and having a kid together. When I think of the best things about Nalu, I think about the relationship between Rokuro and Benio.

Nalu (Negative Recommendation): Snow White with the Red Hair

Shirayuki, the character the title describes, is an herbalist. The show focuses on her journey to becoming recognized as a court herbalist and her growing romantic relationship with Prince Zen Wisteria. As the show progresses, they each end up encouraging each other towards reaching their own ambitions. I could see the argument made that this is a better parallel for Nalu than the show I recommended. But, as someone who's made a name ragging on the ship, I think I'm in a good position to make this call.

Gruvia (Positive Recommendation): Momokuri

The heck is a Clannad? The show starts with a confession of love and a couple starting to date. That would be the end of most romances, but the fun only starts there. It turns out that the guy is not entirely confident with himself and is not sure how to properly handle a relationship with a girl older than him. The girl, on the other hand, has been borderline stalking him before their relationship started and still struggles to stop following him. I hope it doesn't come off as an insult to say that I kept thinking about Gruvia watching this show. This is one of the fluffier shows I've seen.

Gruvia (Negative Recommendation): Golden Time

Stop me if this sounds familiar. There's a girl who's been really in love with a guy for years, to the point some would call it unhealthy or obsessive. Unfortunately, the guy's not into her and all but shatters her heart with the declaration that he's found someone else he likes and can only see them as friends. But in swoops someone else who has been watching everything go down and sympathizes with her. How will their romance go? On a completely unrelated note, it's weird to see Golden Time and think that this was both written and animated during Fairy Tail's serialization. Almost as if writing Toradora gave the author psychic powers.

Jerza (Positive Recommendation): Romeo x Juliet

If you're going into this with the expectation of a straight adaptation of William Shakespeare's famous play about star-crossed lovers, you will be disappointed. However, Studio Gonzo took the story and turned it into an interesting fantasy and romance series. This show gets my nod on account of playing up both the romance and inter-family conflict of the original play. Jerza represents people on opposite sides of a conflict trying their best to work together against an enemy they're slowly but surely realizing they share. Be forewarned, though. This is still an adaptation of Romeo x Juliet.

Jerza (Negative Recommendation): Our love has always been 10 cm. apart

Hear me out on this one. Jellal and Erza's relationship involves a desire ultimately to be together despite the things pulling them away from each other, namely themselves. But... does it need to involve the whole "I can't accept that I may or may not be responsible for deaths and human atrocities" plotline running through Jerza? The characters in this show have a similar internal struggle, as the title describes. They just happen to be students in different clubs struggling with how they'll handle their passions before and after graduation, along with their potential romance. Before you watch this, it might be a good idea to be introduced to the characters via the movie “I've always liked you”.

Gajevy (Positive Recommendation): Ookami-san and her Seven Companions

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away- wait, wrong story. Ookami is known as one of the more intimidating people in their school and is the main muscle of one of the school's influential clubs, Otogi Bank. The club's newest member is on the frailer side but proves himself to be both competent and reliable in a pinch. He's been in love with her since the start of the show, but she's pretty slow to accept her own feelings for him.  This one may be a fun pick for people who liked seeing how Gajevy played out. Especially given, that the ship roles are somewhat gender-swapped.

Gajevy (Negative Recommendation): Chivalry of a Failed Knight

Part of me says that I could have put any romances involving a tsundere in this spot. After all, Gajevy's about falling in love despite bad first impressions. Though, my reason for picking this story deals with a rather interesting complaint about the ship: Levy's descent into the background as the series continues. In this story, the characters get together and prove themselves to be competent fighters. Of course, this means more for Ikki Kurogane, the main character, starting from the bottom to become the strongest fighter the school has. However, you never forget that Stella Vermillion is also strong in her own right. Though I'd caution against this if you're not a fan of fan service.

Bonus: Tsuredure Children

As a fun bonus recommendation, I'm throwing in Tsuredure Children. I often worry that fans here care more about the romances in the series than anything else happening. Tsuredure Children provides a fun solution to this problem: make it about nothing but romances. This anime follows a handful of romances at a high school, following different personalities, tropes, and levels of success. There are probably some parallels to these ships, but that's what the other recommendations were for.

And that's all I've got. See you!

What are you still doing on this post?

You saw the title. I did everything I said I was going to do. I even threw in another recommendation. There was no other reason to continue this except for satisfying your own curiosity.

How much more are you expecting of me? I'm only human.

Well, since you're here, it won't hurt to reward your curiosity. Here are two more recommendations, for Zervis. Thankfully, neither deal with the whole “Is this pedophilia?” thing because I never want to talk about that again.

Zervis (Positive Recommendation): Real Girl

If you've seen my end of year favorites, you'll know that I've enjoyed this show. If you'll ignore the laughter of those who've seen this show, I chose this for one important reason. This show plays with the idea of having someone who sees value in you that others don't can be life-changing in a positive way. I have to assume that, were Zeref and Mavis allowed to be happy, that would be the end goal of their relationship. By the way, their relationship comes as a shock to those watching it go down.

Zervis (Negative Recommendation): Hyouka

This shows also takes the idea of a life-changing relationship but plays with the guy's special talents to both solve and create problems for the series. I don't know how much of this pick is a "recommendation for people who don't like how Zervis played out" and a “I can’t think of another series I’ve seen to fit what this ship could have been if it didn’t involve people who could kill each other” pick.

But for real this time, see you!