#liz's meta

[thegeminisage]

star trek: the motion picture rewrite

star trek the motion picture was bad so i'm fixing it. here's how

problem #1: everybody got interesting setups and nobody got any payoffs.

problem #2: ilia and decker were just not that interesting (sorry ilia and decker) and they either needed to be more interesting or have less screen time or both.

problem #3: it took more than half the film for the enterprise to even leave earth. this seems like poor pacing, which the overall film also suffers from.

problem #4: those damn 20-minute cgi scenery sequences. enough is enough.

sorry in advance but this post won't make much sense if you haven't seen the first star trek movie, "star trek: the motion picture." i don't have the time or patience to re-explain the entire plot! the novelization also ties into this but i do explain some of that.

MAIN PLOT

it wasn't a GREAT plot but i'm keeping it mostly the same, except a few changes:

the enterprise leaves much earlier in the film. all the interpersonal drama can happen ON THE WAY to v'ger and it would make very little difference to the main script and series of events, but the reminds that they're only x hours away from interception would help keep things tense and moving along. also, it would get spock in here earlier. we went a LONG time without seeing him.

the engines can still fail at the outset and get fixed by spock, but it's kind of weird that he shows up out of nowhere. i would change this to kirk leaving him messages - and spock finally answering at the exact right moment (more on this in spock's section)

less of those long cgi sequences, obviously. the enterprise deserves all the fanfare in the world but we do have other stuff to do. maybe we can learn a little about v'ger through the ilia-probe in bits and pieces before we get there rather than learning all at once at the end - the book sort of did that and it was better. but i think we just need to cut them to allow time for a LITTLE more interpersonal drama - the balance of interpersonal stuff to plot stuff was WAY off, even after you consider how the tos episodes are somtimes

i don't think decker should fuck the probe.

the book and movie seem to disagree on whether the ilia-probe really "is" ilia or a very convincing copy. i think we would do better to leave it open, as scifi so often is, because both answers feel slightly wrong to me

kirk just taking the ship at the end and going "ok thattaway" was heartwarming but lacks any semblance of logic. rather than beaming down to debrief, though - in case they don't let him go back up - i'd like to see him doing a power move where the required personnel for his debrief come to HIM. and THEN when the dust clears he can go "thattaway"

CHARACTER ARC: KIRK

there's a lot more on this in the book than the movie, but kirk begins this story three years post his five year journey. in the movie he's framed as "washed up" but the book sometimes implies he's "damaged." starfleet offered him the promotion to admiral to keep him out of space because his was the first ship to come back relatively intact after a five-year and they're using him as a poster boy for their pro-space propaganda. (kirk wholly disagrees with "intact"; he lost a total of 94 crew members over those five years and objects strongly to his new legendary fame.) it's worth noting that bones begged him NOT to take the promotion and he and some other officers actually RESIGNED over it.

also, for the first year back on earth, starfleet totally just SENT HIM A WOMAN? to like keep him distracted and "happy." he got honeypotted into not going back out into space. how many planets have tried to trap people by making them happy? how many times has kirk refused to stay in such a place because it leaves him nothing to strive for? and then, irony of horrific ironies, he was trapped on earth. he doesn't realize this woman was basically sent to pacify him until the very beginning of the film/book. anyway, this woman's name is lori, she's gonna matter just a little bit later. after she left, kirk got pushed into a desk job he was utterly fucking miserable in. he notes that it was the only time he ever ignored bones's advice and he suffered greatly for it.

when the "intruder" (v'ger, obvs) is revealed to be approaching earth (via brain implants? stupid, let's just switch to everyone seeing it on TV), kirk, for totally normal reasons, jumps at the chance to take the enterprise away from decker ostensibly because he's got more experience but also because (the book gets into this) he feels like he's been jerked around on a string for the last three years by the admirals (specifically he names nogura to give us a face but they were all in on it) and also that he's totally dead inside. he has to guilt trip bordering on BLACKMAIL nogura into letting him back aboard (ie bringing up the fact that he placated kirk with a woman and sweet promises instead of like...actually caring about his PTSD). we're keeping that part because it's sexy and fun.

the question the movie seems to be asking is, "is jim kirk too old and feeble to captain the enterprise again?" i would like to posit instead we go with "is jim kirk too DAMAGED to captain the enterprise again?" they really put him through the wringer in season 3 in particular and that total nervous breakdown from the romulan espionage episode was supposed to have been REAL before they changed it, so i'm sticking it in that three year timeskip instead. in the book, jim fucks up several times - can't figure out his seatbelt, gets lost, and notably fails to be able to save his former honeypot lori and his new vulcan first officer (off-brand spock) during a transport malfunction - they get rearranged horrifically and then die right in front of him. rather than frame this as jim being old and out of practice i'd like to frame it around the totally untreated PTSD of space and his five-year finally catching up to him.

the book ALSO gets into how jim feels more at home in space, how being away from it gives him physical symptoms almost like withdrawal, and how he felt he has been brought back from the dead and out of a miserable, meaningless life when stepping aboard for the first time. IMPORTANT FOR LATER.

at the same time though i think we might greatly benefit from mixed feelings - perhaps JIM HIMSELF has wondered if he was too damaged to get back out there - if, after everything, part of him wasn't a little hesitant to go back out into the unknown and risk putting himself through the kind of hell he got put through in some of those later tos episodes. maybe he wanted the captaincy to prove it to himself, yes, but also it was something he was determined to do (even though part of him was a little worried about doing it) because he thought he was the only one that COULD. there's a hidden element in this film of facing one's fears to benefit emotionally, so it would be important to squeeze something like this in, even if it's only in hints or light implications.

the ultimate answer to jim's question of course is that he ISN'T too damaged to be back out in space, especially not if spock and bones and the others are out there with him. but to get into that we have to move to...

CHARACTER ARC: DECKER AND ILIA

i'm putting these 2 together because (sorry) i don't care very much. side characters in trek are always supposed to just highlight the main characters anyway, right? again, i'm so sorry. anyway so. in the movie and especially the book, ilia is pretty constantly sexualized - deltan females and their pheromones or whatever - and she has very little personality. decker is mostly just mad (justifiably) that kirk stole his job after 18 months of prep and sad that ilia got zapped, but we feel neither of these things very strongly. the movie doesn't even MENTION decker's father killing himself in space* which is a huge waste of potential when you consider the name of the game re: kirk's arc, at least in the book, is PTSD.

*matt decker, will decker's father, is the captain from doomsday machine (consider this a spoiler warning): when a giant machine showed up and engaged in battle with his ship, the constellation, he evacuated his crew to a nearby planet and stayed behind, planning to go down with the ship. unfortunately the machine was a planet-eater, and ate the planet his crew was on, so his crew all died while he listened to them beg him for help, and he later tried to suicide bomb the machine with the enterprise and then later one of its shuttles, which tragically ended in his mostly-pointless death. kirk did at least use the idea to suicide bomb the machine with the damaged constellation and have himself beamed out just in time though, and he had the record made that matt decker died in the line of duty, omitting some of his shadier actions so as not to stain his memory or whatever.

ANYWAY, i think the only way to make decker and ilia interesting is to foil them with kirk and spock. decker is who kirk was before his five-year: smart, capable, ready to take on anything and chomping at the bit to get out there and bite off as much as he can chew and then some. also, he's emotionally distant from women because of his status as captain/his need to not be tied down so he can explore space.

ILIA on the other hand is more like spock - she has limited telepathic abilities, she is othered and sometimes sexualized by the people around her because of her VULCAN BIOLOGY sorry because of her race, and she has a passion for learning and pursuits of intellect. and also a semi-formal telepathic link with decker - they had met before, and were preparing to bond (the way a vulcan might), and then decker more or less got cold feet and left her at the altar because his own passion for being in space left him unable to commit. but she WENT AFTER HIM (important for later) and wound up as the enterprise navigator.

for decker, instead of showing kirk up once near the beginning, apologizing, and gradually learning to get along with him, i think i'd like him to be showing kirk up a lot - being subtly snide when kirk can't work his seatbelt, for example. this film has no real antagonist aside from an incomprehensible alien entity, but we could bring a little humanity to it by having decker justifiably resent not only being confronted with ilia again but also having his captaincy snatched away from him after EIGHTEEN. MONTHS. of prep. that's some serious bullshit.

but, while decker IS younger and more familiar with the enterprise's redesign, while he's had more recent space hours and suffers from none of kirk's PTSD, what he lacks is experience - this was the whole basis of kirk taking the fucking ship to begin with, and the movie as it is kind of totally invalidates that plot point. to that end, near the end of the film when they're in v'ger, i would make a bigger deal out of kirk knowing better than to perform the scan - because that's what got the klingons killed (when v'ger interpreted their scan as hostile). decker, shaken, realizes his own hasty decision would have resulted in all of them dying horrifically, and rather than kirk grudgingly respecting decker first, we get it the other way around - decker grudgingly respecting kirk, and kirk returning that respect after decker stops being an asshole. this does the job of helping the AUDIENCE respect kirk after spending so much time wondering if he was indeed too washed up and damaged to do the job, and it helps to begin to warm us up to decker too.

also, it would be fun to have decker overhear bones arguing with kirk or spock or even talking to chapel or something, to know that kirk was thought too washed up EVEN BY THE ADMIRALS (who decker does respect bc he doesn't know better yet), and then for decker to realize later kirk got jerked around - and maybe realize, once he begins to see kirk as a person instead of an obstacle, that something like that might be in his own future even if he succeeds in almost every possible way, as kirk had. we might even use this to get into decker's dad basically killing himself after losing his crew - it can go other ways than right for captains. it can also go so, so, so wrong. (this would require some exposition, though, since we can't expect everyone to have both seen the episode and remember the details.)

another moment that wasn't used to its full potential is when decker basically has to honeypot the ilia probe - this is extremely difficult on him emotionally, and kirk knows all about the perils of emotionally difficult honeypot missions (sorry that i'm linking to this twice). i think decker realizing kirk has done this same kind of thing like a zillion times and that's part of what led to his breakdown gives him respect not just for KIRK but for the position of captain itself - he would have no choice but to do this to protect 500 lives, if it were him. you don't get to tap out when you're captain. and this is good for kirk too, because in sympathizing with decker (and the horrific situation of having to honeypot the image of his dead lover) he can learn to sympathize with himself, and forgive himself for being at less than his best during his own worst moments - some of them during the five-year, some of them after, when he felt weak and without purpose. it also gives him the job of connecting the audience to decker - through him, through thinking of decker as a younger version of him, we can forgive decker for being an asshole earlier and sympathize with his pain. and he becomes someone we root for.

as for ilia - i think she should have gotten to yell at decker rather than passively act like he wasn't even there and hide her pain. her pain at being left behind and betrayed and having to find her own way could mirror spock's (more on this in a sec) but it could also mirror v'ger and its abandonment issues, even though she was abandoned by a boyfriend and not god. there's only so much you can do with truly misogynistic writing but she could've been likable!! her sitch and spock's are the same and she gets to complain while he refuses! even one iota of a personality would have helped so much.

ALSO, on that point, at least one conversation between her and spock would have done a lot to make her more interesting too, because then she would be adjacent to him. spock, too, left his home planet to chase after a space captain he was in um a relationship with, and that bit of kinship ("your answers are not here") could lead to a bonding moment - i think spock would respect what she's doing and that would lend her a lot of credit in the eyes of the audience. much like v'ger, much like spock, ilia has left her home to find out who she is, and part of that answer lies within emotion, within the people she loves: in this case, decker. i would also, if we HAVE to fridge her (DO WE?? more on this in the ending section), choose to have her take a blow meant for decker - her last act being one of love, because the film IS ultimately about love's importance, even in spite of all the pain it also causes (see: decker in his grief).

which leads us to...

CHARACTER ARC: BONES

we have to have a brief interlude here for bones. unfortunately, bones in this movie is little more than an extremely loveable afterthought. while fixing his ENTIRE deal is out of the scope of this tumblr post, what i WOULD do is give him more screentime by having both his AND spock's lives upended by the same event: kirk, the Main Character(tm), choosing to take the admiral stripes and "abandon" them.

i think theres enough evidence in tos to argue the case that bones places a lot of importance on jim and spock's lives - he claims to hate space, but he never resigns, and he finds meaning in taking care of them, even if (to my own interpretation), he can sometimes feel like a third wheel to their legendary "friendship" (so legendary that it's historically important both in-universe and in real life). when kirk agrees to "retire" and let starfleet make him their poster boy because he has PTSD and burnout, bones CANONICALLY objects to what starfleet is trying to do to him so strongly that he literally resigns. again, kirk notes in the book that "retiring" is the only time he ever ignored bones's advice and he came regret it deeply. so kirk needs bones back - in the book, he says outright he needs bones back because he, gaslit, cannot trust himself to be making solid calls emotionally, and he wants bones to call him out if he steps out of line.

for fun, i think bones should be a little more pissed about being "drafted" and like genuinely grumpy rather than fond and gruff - at least, until kirk apologizes. he tells bones all about being yanked around by the admirals and being honeypotted and how much he regretted not listening to his advice...and the gaslighting, not bones's medical expertise, is why kirk feels he needs bones now - why all of earth needs him, because this is a mission to save the entire planet. i think bones LOVES to be needed and especially by jim and/or spock, and he of course has a natural desire to caretake, so after the apology he could soften up to "gruff." he found meaning in what he was doing on earth, but he finds meaning in this too, and kirk telling him that of COURSE he can leave if he wants solidifies his decision to stay, even at the end of the film when the immediate threat has passed. put simply: he loves kirk and spock, and, like them, he wants the three of them to stay together, even though they previously broke his heart.

i think also that once spock comes aboard this gives bones a second job, which is to poke holes in spock's outward unemotional demeanor, which he genuinely is doing from a place of love (since it was bones who said the release of emotions is healthy). instead of standing around and being a lovable and nostalgic set piece, this would give him an actual purpose and an arc, even if his arc (healing spock via negging, healing jim via not gaslighting people) is holding up the other characters.

and speaking of spock...

CHARACTER ARC: SPOCK

post five-year, spock goes back to vulcan to undergo the kolinahr, a ritual meant to purge all remaining emotion from vulcans. he does this because he detests his human half and the many weaknesses and challenges it brings him etc etc but i also would like it if he does this because kirk retires - he has no logical, ready-made excuse to be around kirk and bones anymore, and just like kirk, he truly felt at home on the enterprise, where people valued him for his skill and what he could do rather than what he was (or wasn't). (this sentiment from spock is semi-canonical - it's in william shatner's tarsus iv novel, collision course.) kirk and bones are both an important part of his support system and it is crumbling without any way to save it - of COURSE he chooses not to feel emotion rather than face that pain. every human being ever has wished at some point or another they could numb themselves rather than hurt, and spock is half human, too. (that said, i would also not complain if kohlinahr was spock's way to escape the trauma of what the five-year did to HIM, making him feel emotions differently than what he believed was acceptable, changing him fundamentally as a person, and kirk only agreed to resign because space wasn't worth it without spock aka because he got dumped, but this is a minor detail.)

while on vulcan, kirk, equally adrift, sends him messages (this does admittedly make more sense if kirk only resigned because spock did) - but spock is potentially kind of mad at him (if kirk resigned first) and also trying not to feel anything, so he ignores those and goes out into the desert to get rid of all his gross icky feelings. when the masters read his mind and see that jim accidentally contacted him telepathically (which...girl WHAT was that all about did they bond fr during amok time) and that "his answer is not here," he reads or listens to all the messages at once (maybe including the deleted one spock prime had from aos...ouch), gets emotional (or resists, but it's a near thing), and realizes that if he can't purge kirk from his mind he has to at least find out why. the last message can be about the intruder (v'ger) and their fucked up engines, spock can feel reluctant concern and race to the rescue.

spock is initially very very cold to his old shipmates because he is trying to hold onto his logic and not allow the emotion back in his mind, but absolutely nobody is having this. like in the movie, kirk and bones drag him away to the lounge to interrogate him (he should admit to feeling kirk telepathically here just as he did in the book - i don't know that i'd go into the whole bond business in this movie because that's just writing fanfiction and is also a lot of exposition but i would never deny fanfic writers their fodder).

later, after talking with ilia, who did a brave thing (in spock's eyes, anyway, because he is terrified of what HE'S doing) by chasing down her man to give him an earful, spock is troubled, which prompts bones to start going IS THAT AN EMOTION I SEE MR SPOCK? (and make him more troubled). i think spock grieves ilia's death in his own way because of how much like him she is, or was. all of this culminates in his choice to attempt to mind-meld with v'ger, in the end - if he isn't a human and isn't a vulcan, WHAT is he? if he can't live with the emotion and he can't purge it, what is he supposed to do? if he dies in the mindmeld so be it, but at least he will have been useful - iirc, i think it was roddenberry or leonard nimoy who said that was always a primary motivation of his.

of course, AFTER the mindmeld, he does indeed realize that logic is pointless without emotion, and that he's been adrift not BECAUSE of his emotions but because of his refusal to deal with them and his refusal to feel. so spock, too, will decide to stay at the end of the film.

side bar on the scene where spock cries for v'ger: it's kind of dumb because v'ger is so unknowable. i think spock crying could be a bigger deal - maybe with happiness, as he holds jim's hand, or maybe when he thinks they're all gonna die (kirk says when he sees spock crying "it's not for us" but like what if it was though). i'd prefer him to cry after he finishes laughing post mindmeld of course but either instance could work.

and finally...

THE ENDING

i don't mind the ending in its plot - that v'ger really was just looking for its creator, as a child looks for its parent - but i really want the question of whether or not the probe IS ILIA to remain open. if you make an exact copy of a person that truly believes it is the original, is it? if it's indistinguishable from who ilia used to be even to itself, is it ilia? i like leaving this open because i DON'T like fridging her, but i also think it stretches believability to have this machine magically extract a consciousness and put it in a robot when we had a whole episode of s1 revolve around this exact same plot twist (is chapel's now-android fiance really still her fiance just because he thinks he is?)

it should be spock's idea to have a human join with v'ger - it was the joining with humans that ultimately led to HIS feeling emotions he was unable to ignore, which ultimately led to his understanding and acceptance of emotion and its value in general. spock would see the ilia probe as still being ilia, but in distress, as he was when he came aboard the enterprise, as v'ger is now. and he knows what fixed him (holding jim's hand lol sorry i mean accepting his emotions) and what would fix her.

and then of course decker does join with her - volunteers, insists even. i think he takes the chance on optimism and hope - something kirk lost along the way due to various traumas - but also because this film is about the importance of love, and he can't bear to live without his, even in facsimile. it's partially a sacrifice too though - decker's life and body as he knows it in exchange for the earth's safety - because that's what kirk would have done, what he HAS done. he did learn from kirk after all.

and kirk learns from him too - decker, who by now will know about the awful years the brass put kirk through prior to the start of the film, would tell kirk to give 'em hell, like it's something that can actually be done, because at his heart he's an optimist, and that's something kirk sorely needs emotionally at this low point in his life. a very gen-z-saving0the-millennials moment. (apologies to both gen z and millennials.)

so after the dust has settled, kirk, who has just saved earth, can basically ask for anything he wants, and what he wants is not to get sent out to pasture again. so that leads into him refusing to leave the ship and letting the admirals and everyone else who wants to debrief him come to HIM instead of him going down - he finally has back what he needed, which was simply control and agency over his own life, and his loved ones - since spock and bones decided to stay aboard. i would have liked some challenging action moment prior to the ending with the ilia-probe and decker included, a moment to highlight that kirk has still got it (kind of like his badass moment in the deadly years where he saves the ship in .2 seconds once they cure his dementia). but insisting that they see v'ger directly and not deal with its probe is okay too.

FINALLY, after we've established that kirk is In Control again and not just like, stealing a starship, we can do his scene where he begins a new five-year mission, and when directing sulu, says, "out there - thattaway."

THEMES

HOPEFULLY this ties together the various themes and foils in everybody's arc - the main ones being the importance of dealing with emotions, even painful ones, the importance of love, and the question "who am i?" - the theme of seeking answers

kirk wants to know who he is - is he still a starship captain who braved the unknown and returned alive? he tried to numb himself (or rather starfleet tried to numb him) after his five-year mission with a woman and a desk job and it didn't help - he had to risk getting back out there to do himself any good at all.

spock asks if he is a vulcan or a human, and seeks to answer the question by purging emotion, but must answer it by accepting the emotion instead - and he learns this from v'ger, who is asking the same question and cannot answer it without emotion anymore than spock could. spock is and always will be both vulcan AND human and no amount of resistance on his part can change that.

bones feels adrift without loved ones to take care of - who is HE if kirk won't even listen to his advice not to "retire" - and of course he is someone who takes care of others. which is a little sad because it's not a deeper arc, but it sort of rhymes with his whole deal in tos and there ARE five other movies. there's also a little bit in there about being willing to try again after your heart's been broken, which is also something kirk and spock are struggling with, to have the trio's arc rhyming with each other.

decker asking who he is - is he a real captain or a psycho case like his dad and kirk, is he someone who could have been ilia's husband - and ilia wondering if she is someone who could have been his wife, and later the PROBE wondering if it's truly ilia or not. MORE questions that have to be answered by overcoming fear of emotional pain - decker takes the chance and joins with her to answer both his own question, and the probe's - and, of course, v'ger's.

THIS CONCLUDES. my movie rewrite. i am so glad to have gotten it off my chest, which is the main reason i wrote it, but i don't think it's terribly popular...so if you actually read this whole thing you're a rock star. okay BYE!!!

[wantonlywindswept]

so all of the fic where the GAR and Coruscant Guard don't get along because the GAR thinks Coruscant is a cushy gig and the Guard are in Literal Hell are 

so fucking chefkiss

like it is a trope i will DEVOUR, i will unhinge my jaw and swallow that shit whole

but 

what about an inverse?

what about a Guard that's the protecting soldier meme except real?

troopers on leave on Coruscant finally feel like they can relax from the war because they know the Guard has their back, and everyone knows that if you need a hand or an ear or a hug you can ask any Guard* and they are always the most patient helpful big brother types ever, they will listen and they will help and they will protecc

(*sole exception: fox**, who shoulders all of the pain and rage and condenses it into a tiny supernova of fury in his chest that he shoves down into a locked box of emotions, and one day he'll die

**except also very much including fox, who rages and rails and might throttle you for being an idiot but he'll also absolutely gut any aggressive natborn that even breathes in your direction)

so they still might think that Coruscant's a cakewalk compared to the frontlines but they're glad that they have brothers protecting the homefront too, they're glad that at least SOME of them can stay gentle and kind and at peace

of course then palpatine and the sith and all the corruption in the senate are exposed

(because TCW canon is for COWARDS and people who like being SAD)

and the GAR realizes all the shit that the Corries went through, all the ostracization and threats and abuse and pain

and it just

made them kind

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

saraqael recognizing metatrash

We know Michael and Uriel know the Metatron as well (Gabriel's trial, for instance) but Saraqael and Crowley are the only ones who seem to recognize him before being told who he is. Crowley's all "last time I saw you, you were a big giant floating head, mind" bc that's his character but Saraqael's reaction is very "oh dear God help usss".

(idk if it means anything but Saraqael doesn't appear to react to the Metatron until after he says he brought coffee)

And then Saraqael just continues to look uncomfortable / like they are praying (and maybe the fact Michael is mostly blocking them from the Metatron's view makes their reactions more candid?) till Aziraphale recognizes the Metatron following Crowley's line and the "ooooohhhh" from everyone else.

When Michael says "Get him out of here!" we get another close up and its very "oh GOD" and then "yoouuuuu fucked up":

So I mean on a base level this is probably supposed to help us realize the Metatron is more than he appears but also is it meant to hint at Saraqael's history? We know Saraqael worked on the Horsehead Nebula with Crowley, so is their reaction connected to something the Metatron did to Crowley?

But also maybe Michael and Uriel don't recognize the Metatron for similar reasons to the whole bees thing in Heaven / not recognizing Crowley when they walk past him -- they just assume the Metatron never leaves Heavan because they've only ever seen him there. (but then under my tinfoil hat that still makes me go ok so then has the metatron come to earth before for something big and Saraqael was connected to the situation in a way the other two archangels weren't?)

[mswyrr]

danvers, confused and bothered by navarro saying that she prays, because for danvers prayer was begging and pleading as a child for help that never came. but navarro says that, for her, it's not asking, it's "listening." and yet we see how much listening hurts. because there are no easy answers to what navarro knows and hears. watching annie k midwife was a beautiful moment of listening, being in a moment so real and different than the job she came to do as a cop. but it hurts so much in retrospect? and she listened to the woman she served with as she died and it made her believe there's a god - but not in a comforting way. there's a lonely god, like all of us are lonely. it hurts. she listens to the ghost of danvers' little boy and all she gets for that is danvers refusing to hear it. the story doesn't believe that just knowing the truth will do anything so simple and kind as set you free, nor does navarro. and yet she seeks the truth. she listens.

and the way that danvers is constantly using her white noise machine and tracks on her earbuds to avoid listening. block her ears. drown the truth out. how she refuses to think about the poisoned water, the stillbirths, the mining corporation that is what she really works for at the end of the day. loving and wanting to connect with her daughter but pushing her away so cruelly because she will not listen. her daughter needs to be heard, but danvers can't stand what she'd hear. and yet she feels compelled, at the same time, to look into things, to take risks seeking the truth even while she's afraid of seeking it. she actually did read annie k's case file, but she pretended that she didn't. she blocked it out.

listening is definitely better than not - it's being alive and present. but it hurts like hell too. there aren't any simple answers. i'm really intrigued to see how all of these threads--plot and themes--come together in the finale.

[athinginmotion]

i think my fascination with Taylor Swift comes from the fact I love Old Hollywood and her stardom in many ways reminds me a lot of that of Liz Taylor (for example) who I’m also obsessed with. Like it’s actually quite an apt comparison the more I think about it. Both of them were the children of upper middle-class helicopter parents heavily invested in their careers. They were both child stars whose fame was bound up with a studio system— Liz had MGM and Louis B. Mayer; Taylor had Big Machine and Scott Borchetta. Both were precocious and determined. Both came up in culturally conservative milieus (for Liz, postwar, post-Hayes code Hollywood; for Taylor, the Nashville country scene and more generally early 2000s celebrity culture.) Both developed (or had foisted upon them) public images that reflected different yet inextricably linked aspects of femininity— for Liz, the femme fatale, for Taylor, the demure blonde-ringleted all American good girl— which they simultaneously encouraged, balked at and struggled to reconcile with their complicated personalities. Both were diehard romantics who attracted lots of attention and criticism for their marriages/relationships. Both of their talents were often questioned and both of them had a bit of an inferiority complex about their lack of formal education and/or not being taken seriously by critics/the public/their industry peers. Both simultaneously courted fame obsessively and found it a gilded cage. Both became immensely powerful in their industries (Liz breaking records for her Cleopatra salary, for example) and were industry change-makers who were also sometimes myopic and self-serving in the changes they effected. I could go on!!

[andreal831]

If you don’t mind, can you make a post ranking all of the mothers in TVDU (e.g. Esther, Lily, Hayley, Caroline, Liz, etc)?

Ranking of TVDU Mothers, Worst to Best:

16. Dahlia

While Dahlia is not Freya's biological mother, she raised her. She was the only maternal figure Freya had over a thousand years. It goes without saying why Dahlia is dead last. While she is an excellent villain with a complex backstory, it doesn't change the fact that she was awful to Freya. So much so that Freya tried to take her own life, causing her to lose her baby. Dahlia had no love for Freya, only seeing her as a tool for power. She was ready to discard Freya as soon as a more powerful, easier to manipulate option came along. Dahlia never viewed herself as Freya's mother, which explains why she put no effort into being a good one.

15. Kelly Donovan

It's honestly surprising how good of a guy Matt is considering he had Kelly as his only role model. Kelly abandoned her kids when they are both in high school to chase after a man, forcing Matt to work nearly full time to afford to live and take care of Vicki who had a known drug problem. She only ever showed back up when she needed something and wound up causing havoc in her children's lives. While we can feel sympathy for Kelly losing her daughter the way she did, Kelly then continues to abandon her son, forcing Matt to deal with the loss on his own. Matt throughout the series is seen struggling much more than his friends due to his financial insecurity and his very warranted emotional attachment issues. Every other male character is given slack for having mommy-issues, but Kelly really did a number on Matt and he is given no sympathy by anyone. Not even the other parents on the show who could have stepped up and helped.

We also can't forget her SAing her son's best friend, Tyler.

14. Greta Sienna

We don't know much of how Greta was before Klaus killed her husband, but Greta allowed her hate and need of vengeance to consume her, shifting her focus away from her children, Roman and Antoinette. While she did care for them, risking Klaus' wrath to protect them, she then largely abandons them to lead her cult. Greta attempts to influence her children with her ideals, however, when Antoinette does not follow her beliefs, their relationship seemed to suffer. Roman also spent 50 years desiccating before Greta saves him. When they are reunited she uses him to get close to Hope, putting him in danger of angering the Mikaelsons. She then drags Antoinette into the conflict by manipulating both her daughter and Elijah with lies. Greta repeatedly put her own anger and hatred over her children, and it almost cost them their lives.

13. Lily Salvatore

We are told that Lily cares for her sons, and we even get glimpse of it throughout the show. But like Greta, Lily largely abandons them for her cult. She gets some credit for attempting to take her sons and run, but then quickly loses them for letting her son take the blame for the missing money and be beaten by his father. Lily then fakes her own death, forcing her sons to mourn her, all the while leaving them behind to face the abuse she was aware of from their father. While she is a ripper and potentially worried about harming her children, the fact that she didn't hunt down Giuseppe and kill him puts her pretty low in the ranking. Damon and Stefan would have been better off being orphaned at that point. But we see her getting control of herself enough to form her new family, never once going back for her children.

Even when she is released from the prison world, she prioritizes her new family over her sons. While I have sympathy for Lily for what she likely went through with her husband, it doesn't redeem her as a mother. Stefan does attempt to repair their relationship, but it is in a large part due to his forgiveness and less of an effort on her part. She is a better mother to her heretics, but even then, prioritizes Julian over their needs until the very end. She gets a couple of points for sacrificing herself to protect her heretics, who she viewed as her children more than her own sons, however, it does little to help her rank as a mother.

12. Isobel Flemming

Isobel does get some credit for knowing she wasn't ready to have a child since she was only a teenager, hoping Elena would have a better life with the Gilberts. But her caring more about her ancestor, Katherine Pierce, than her own daughter puts her pretty far down on the list. It seems that a lot of her actions against Elena are either from being compelled by Klaus or just fearing him, however, nearly all of her actions throughout the show seem to be putting her own daughter in harms way.

While Isobel clearly never wanted children and does not appear to be very maternal, she at least had the compassion for Elena to tell John to get Elena away from the Salvatores. While, as an audience, we may love the supernatural relationships, as a mother, Isobel did not want Elena to be invovled in the dangerous, supernatural world.

11. Katherine Pierce

Katherine was forced to give away her daughter and that clearly stuck with her. We see glimpses of the mother Katherine could have been had her life been different, but that unfortunately wasn't the mother Nadia had. Katherine did attempt to search for her missing daughter when Nadia was still a child, which is more than a lot of these mothers do, however, when given a second chance with Nadia, Katherine struggles to bond her.

Like everyone, Katherine has some valid reasons for her actions, but it doesn't fix how she treated her daughter. Much of their relationship seems to be Katherine using Nadia, prioritizing Stefan over her own daughter. She gets some credit for being by Nadia's side at the very end, however, it's a little too late.

10. Esther

This is a complex one because on one hand, Esther tried to murder her children multiple times. But on the other, she truly did lover her children in the classic toxic, Mikaelson way.

Esther only has her children thanks to her sister, Dahlia, and a bargain they made forcing her to give up her first born child. Esther is clearly devastated by this deal when she realizes just what it cost her, effecting her relationship with each of her children later.

Like Lily, Esther should have done more for her children to protect them in an abusive household. However, unlike Lily, Esther never leaves them. She does attempt to shield them from Mikael's abuse, often putting him to sleep or lying to Mikael to protect her children from her mistakes. Even after Klaus murders her, she still shows him forgiveness. Yes, she is attempting to kill him at that point, but I can't fully blame her.

At least the next time when Esther comes back, she attempts to give them another option rather than just death. While her actions are questionable, she does it out of love, which is more than a lot of the mothers on this list can say. At the end she sacrifices her life for her children. Similar to Katherine, it is too late, but it is clear she has a complex relationship with all of her children. They all show a fondness for her at points, signifying that there is mutual love there. Her sacrifice at the end at least allowed her children to attempt to remember her fondly.

9. Abby Bennett

At least when Abby abandoned her daughter, she left her in good hands. It is clear Abby loved Bonnie, but for whatever reason decided she couldn't raise her. However, watching her prioritize her adoptive son over Bonnie was devastating. Bonnie didn't deserve that.

She gets some credit for showing up a few times when she was needed, however, the fact that she didn't even know Bonnie died shows just how out of touch she is with her own daughter. Abby's motivations are unclear as to why she couldn't be more present in Bonnie's life. They hint at it a few times, but the fact that Abby didn't even bother to show up for Bonnie when Grams died or when she lost her father speaks volumes.

8. Liz Forbes

Liz and Caroline have a complicated relationship. Liz ends up raising Caroline on her own after husband abandons them. However, Liz's focus on her career tends to put a strain on their relationship. It only gets worse when Liz finds out Caroline is a vampire. Liz takes a lot of time, but eventually comes around to it and accepts Caroline, even saying she is proud of her. Liz standing up for Caroline against Bill was such a great moment for them.

Liz has the benefit of living longer than a lot of the mothers which allows her and Caroline to repair their relationship and even develop a close bond.

But she loses massive points for ignoring the twenty-something year old man hanging around her daughter and then later befriending him. Yes, she didn't know what Damon did to Caroline, but still. I need her to be a little more invovled in Caroline's life and recognize what she was going through. She is a cop after all.

7. Carol Lockwood

Carol is yet another example in the series of a mother allowing their child to face abuse at the hands of their father. Like the other examples, we can't dismiss how difficult it can be for a woman and her child to escape abusive men, especially when they are well connected like Mayor Lockwood was. Carol seemed to be a better mother after the death of her husband. Although her elitism likely contributed to much of Tyler's bad behavior in the early seasons.

Carol gets massive points for never turning on her son even when she finds out he is a werewolf. While Carol doesn't appear to be an overly affectionate mother, she did everything in her power to protect her son with no hesitation. She was definitely in over her head trying to protect the town from the supernatural, it was still clear that her son was her priority. Her last words were trying to protect Tyler.

6. Pearl

The worst thing Pearl did to her daughter was befriending Katherine Pierce which led to them being separated for a century, leaving Anna alone. We don't know much about their long lives, but it is clear Anna and Pearl had a close bond and clearly loved each other very much.

5. Jenna Sommers

Again, Jenna is not biologically a mother, but she does become Jeremy and Elena's legal guardians after their parents die. Jenna is still so young when she takes on this responsibility, balancing school on top of managing two children mourning their parents. Jenna is far from a perfect parent, often letting her emotions cloud her parenting, however, she has a closer bond with her children than most of the parents on this list. She allows them to be messy and imperfect, but makes sure they still feel loved and safe. In her last moments, she spends them trying to protect Elena.

She gets massive points for finding Damon hanging around her teenage niece weird. But does lose some for not actually doing anything about it. Jenna likely would have been even better had they trusted her with the truth. A lot of her struggles was her attempting to make sense of what was happening with only half of the information.

4. Caroline Forbes

Caroline clearly loves her daughters and would do anything for them. If we were only looking at TVD, then she would be right up at the top. But we can't ignore Legacies. While the writers do a better job of implying Caroline is invovled in the twins lives, there are just too many moments that it didn't make sense for her not to be present. She essentially, like so many of the TVDU moms, abandons her daughters due to writing.

I haven't seen Legacies, but even I know that Lizzie dies and becomes a heretic and Caroline doesn't come back for an entire season. While I believe the excuse is that Caroline is seeking a way to end the merge, the twins are still years away from the merge and her daughters needed her. Especially with how neglected they felt with Alaric prioritizing Hope. It's a shame the writers ruined Caroline as a mother because she was clearly dedicated to them when they were little.

3. Freya Mikaelson

While Freya wasn't Hope's mother, she essentially becomes a surrogate parent to her when the rest of the family is forced to separate. Freya is willing to do anything for family and oddly enough that does lose her some points. At times she does allow her determination to keep her family together to put Hope in questionable positions. But it always comes from a place of love. She is also one of the few family members that stays connected with Hope after she loses her family. Freya would do anything for Hope and she proves it by being willing to turn into a vampire and take the Hollow to save her. Even though Freya is a late arrival to the Mikaelson family, she winds up having one of the closest bonds with Hope out of any of them.

She and Keelin also have a child later, so honorable mention to Keelin because, even with zero evidence, I just know Keelin would be such a great mom.

2. Sheila Bennett

We don't know much about Sheila as a mother to Abby, but she took on that role for Bonnie and excelled. Sheila was one of the few adults who was actively invovled. She would do anything for Bonnie, even watching over her from the otherside. Anytime Bonnie needed her, she was there. They had such a special bond and Grams died far too soon. Grams knew just how kind and selfless Bonnie was and attempted to protect her from herself multiple times. But Grams wasn't much different, performing the complex spell, knowing it would likely take all of her energy. If Grams had lived, I just know she wouldn't have allows Bonnie to be taken advantage of the way she often was throughout the series. Sheila Bennett was a force to be reckoned with and no one was allowed to hurt her granddaughter.

Again, extra points for warning Damon to stay away from Bonnie, but she could have held that same energy for Stefan. We needed more mothers protecting their teenagers from being preyed upon by these 100+ year old men.

1. Hayley Marshall

There's no question who the best mother, no best parent, in TVDU is. From the moment Hayley decides to keep Hope, she does everything in her power to make the best life she possible can for Hope. Not only does she protect Hope's physical safety, but she also protects her emotionally and mentally, something that is missing from a lot of the other parents. Hayley will do whatever it takes to protect Hope, even if it is not a popular decision.

She was at a large disadvantage since many of the threats to her child were leagues more powerful than she was, but she never backed down. The amount of enemies she faced off with, knowing she likely didn't stand a chance, all in the name of protecting Hope. She was ready from the beginning to die for Hope and inevitably did.

There is also something to say about the bond they have throughout the show. Hope clearly feels safe and loved by Hayley, even when her life is in complete chaos. I don't think a mother-daughter bond comes close to the trust and love Hayley and Hope have for each other (besides Grams and Bonnie). Hayley had to be killed off in TO, because there is no way Hope would have been able to go through what she did in Legacies if Hayley was around. Hayley got one phone call from Alaric and dropped everything, traveling halfway across the country to bring Hope home. She disciplines Hope, but also talks to her, making sure she understands the deeper reasons for why Hope was acting out. There is nothing Hope could do that would make Hayley hesitate for a second to love and protect her.

I just know if Hayley had heard about a 150 year old vampire (Roman) hanging around her daughter, she would have immediately gotten invovled. She had gone down that path and wasn't about to let Hope get dragged down it as well.

Honorable Mentions:

Jo Laughlin - If Jo had been given the chance, she would have been a great mother. She was a very maternal person and loved the twins so much. Unfortunately it's hard to judge since Kai took that chance away from her. Valerie Tulle - Valerie is another one that I am just assuming she would have done a great job if given the chance to have her child. While she did a lot of questionable things, at the end of the day she was a compassionate person who would have done anything to protect her child. Miranda Gilbert - Miranda seemed like an overall good parent, seeming supportive and compassionate to Elena when she was having issues with Matt. I honestly don't remember how much she knew about the supernatural world or the vampire hunting her husband's family was into, so potentially problematic if they were dragging their family into the supernatural world. However, we don't know much about Elena's mother, but we do know how much she loved her. Hayley's Mother - Again, we don't know much about Hayley's mother, except for the fact that she agreed to her daughter's arranged marriage when she was an infant and that she sacrificed her life to protect Hayley. From what we are told, it seemed like Hayley's parents were on the right side of the war, but it is hard to say. Nadia Petrova - We assume Nadia had a child so she is in the honorable mentions as a mother, but we have zero information on what she was like as a mother. Kai's Mother - I'm just going to assume she was awful. We know Kai grew up not being allowed to touch others, and being isolated. We don't know anything about his mother, so it could be that she had no control over her own life, but considering she is never mentioned, it doesn't seem that her kids have fond memories of her. Tatia - People often forget that Tatia had a child, but she did. We know she took her child and ran to protect them after her husband died in battle, but not much else. There is no mention of what happened to her child after she died. However, she was a mother so she gets an honorable mention.

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

I saw a threat about Liz and her (potentially abusive) parenting on here and it inspired this thought in me but I didn't want to make the threat too long so I am making my own separate post.

It was told to us on that Liz would bring guy after guy to the apartment when Jess was growing up and they were almost always terrible, Liz has been married about 4 times iirc and one of her husbands died. Do you think it is possible that the reason she was bringing these guys home all the time was not just for herself to not be alone but also for Jess? Because since her mom died when she was a child and she knows what it's like to grow up with only one parent who is the opposite gender of her, she didn't want that for her son so after Jimmy left she set out to give him a father figure no matter what? Maybe she even put out flyers and made a "father audition" like that woman on Pelíšky? In that movie the guys who saw the flyer and turned up there were also terrible and in the end she married her neighbor with anger issues but she thought it was better than nothing because she was just so set on the idea that a boy needs a father. Maybe Liz was the same way? Maybe she genuinely thought she was doing the right thing but unintentionally caused Jess more harm then good, which is a common theme with everyone's parenting on this show (Mrs Kim, Emily, Lorelai...)?

[emma-ofnormandy]

As Ive sat and stewed for a few days, it has become apparent that my biggest heartburn is not that William will not be in future seasons, though that for sure is a heartbreaking piece for me, but the fact that the writers are already intending to introduce another romance to the show so quickly after William’s departure.

Please, bear with me as I get this out, but I feel like in doing this, it goes against four seasons of character development for Eliza.

I can whole heartedly get behind that Eliza could not find it in herself to compromise in any way for William so they could find middle ground to move forward in order to make a relationship work. Without a doubt I can rationalize that theory and support it. Hell, in her place, I may feel the same way. What I cannot get behind is the fact that Eliza would so quickly fall into another relationship and be able to make the compromises she couldn't make for William, for another man.

Eliza Scarlet is not Phryne Fisher or Veronica Speedwell- a women who enjoys men for what they are and has the ability to take a relationship with them casually. She is a modern woman, yes, but not THAT modern. She is, if anything, quite innocent in some aspects. From what we have seen, she has no experience with men and becomes extremely flustered when any sort of attention is given to her, especially when it’s from a man she has some sort of attraction to.

She does not give herself over easily, I would even argue she’s overly guarded out of fear for losing her independence, and if she could not let the wall around her heart down completely for a man we knew she loved, how are we supposed to believe she’ll do it for someone she has not known for a considerable time and trusts explicitly.

I cannot see how whatever romantic endeavors that writers are planning will pan out rationally and I think it does Eliza a disservice by changing all that she is to accommodate this new man when she couldn’t even bring herself to accommodate one she’d known most of her l

And before I get the “maybe this new man doesn’t expect her to comprise” I’m going to say that it’s not a relationship I have any interest in supporting and I don’t think would be enjoyable to watch because to me that isn’t a relationship. It’s one person holding all the cards and the other just being a carpet to be stepped on.

If we are going to move forward with Eliza’s story, I want to see it being Eliza as we’ve seen her the last four seasons- independent, her own agency, her own mind, her friendships and working relationships, and above all else, sticking to her guns that she does not want to lose what she has for a man. Any man.

[butchjess]

thinks about liz and jess and jess almost grimacing when liz kisses his cheek and jess saying “because THAT’S what family does!” and liz calling him and telling him about the car after luke tells her he stole it and the implication that she and luke are the only ones who had his number in s4 bc he regularly gave it to them and jess saying “i don’t like any of the guys, but she’s gonna do what she’s gonna do.” and “she doesn’t care what we think. she really doesn’t care what i think, i’ve got 19 years of proof to back me up.” and then thinks about jimmy and jess and them sitting together nodding their heads to bowie and jess watching him run away and jess seeing all the books on his shelf and jess begging him to let him stay, “just tell her i’m a dog,” and “you have nothing? i have nothing!” and “i don’t need you to raise me, i’m 18, i’m already raised!” and then my brain blows up inside my own head and i disintegrate into dust. it’s all about family it’s about never ever knowing love ever or not having it in a way you can understand it’s about love that’s complicated and not even good for u! and then becoming better anyway because he wasn’t a lost cause he wasn’t his blood he didn’t have to be like them and

[thekingofwinterblog]

Thoughts on some future post canon scenario for the Soul Eater anime?

If i were to write a followup to the Anime, i would focus on 2 overarching conflicts, and use them as backdrops for the main cast's further development.

Those two conflicts would be the age old conflcit between death's side and the witches, and how recent developments would naturally lead to escalation, while the other conflict i would gice focus is the rise of a new kishin, one who's madness was not fear, as we have explored that as far as it can go.

The witches are the secondary conflict of soul eater, but we are never given focus on it as two sides, just individual witches like medusa and her sisters.

You can easily change that however, and use the fact the two sides did not make peace in the anime for a sequel story.

Especially because something has changed. Something that would lohically be the next step in escalation.

The death of Kishin Asura proved that not only could the great old ones be defeated... It also showed how. By hitting them with an embodiment of their opposite.

That completely changes the ballgame when the next shinigami rises to take his father's place, because following the death of asura, the witches under mabaa would probably be very, very interested in doing to him, what Maka did to Asura.

I would have them try to turn this concept into an art, using magical science and understanding into discovering the exact in-universe mechanics behind this, and how to sinplify the process... Or maybe even use it as the basis for successfully taking control over a great old one that witches through both the anime and manga kept trying to do with Asura.

Excalibur has always been a true joke character... But imagine his power under the control of an antagonistic witch.

That would be both terrifying... And also keeping in theme with what Asura said at the end.

Even if Maka defeated him, some new, great evil would arise. A second, an heir, a successor, whatever, someone would rise to fill his void.

That was a risk Maka understood and accepted as she crushed Asura. She just did not care, because she refused to live her life in fear. If it did, she would handle it when the day came.

It also would ahow that Shinigami wasnt exagerating when he described the conflict between witches and his side as one of eternal esxalation.

Of course, this new stage of an age old conflict, and the potential rise of a new great Kishin would mainly be there to serve as the backdrop for our main cast. I would also very distinctly be taking this story in a more romantic development for all of them, exporing the fact that as the series ended, any followup would certainly have them be young adults.

Obviously kid's story would be about actually having taken his father's place, and actually having to continue his father's conflicts... As well as how Patty and Liz would fit into it. Has he considered the fact that just like his father he would outlive every single one of his friends and comrades? How would he react to that? We know how his father reacted to fear... He ripped it out and made Asura. But Kid is a new shinigami, that will have to find his own way.

As for the sisters, what do they want? Are they content to live as Kid's guns until the day they die? And if so, will that be as friends, or do they want aomething more out of it?

Tsubaki and Black star would be very similar to the manga journey, but with the cqveat that Black Star in this universe did not kill Mizune... Im not exactly sure how i would have his overall journey change as a result, but i feel that this moment was a truly decisive one in his development, so having him take a different route should have consequences.

As for Tsubaki, i'll be real, out of all the weapons she is by far the one that NEEDED to take her relationship with her weapon to the next level if you want her to actually develop as a character, but she just doesnt have many other routes to take... And it's not as if her wanting to take the next step with Black Star is a bad next step for her.

And finally we have Maka, Soul and Crona.

Now there are two sides of these i would explore. The romance, and the non romance.

The non-romance part is exploring their family lives. Medusa isn't dead for one, so that is something that needs to be adressed, but it's hardly the only one.

Soul and Maka both have families they love, but have run away from for various reasons, and in different ways. With Maka i would have her and Crona talk about it, and have Maka begin to come to terms with the fact that her mother abandoned her... Leading to them tracking her down. Wheter or she comes back home with them or not, the main focus would be closure.

Maka and her mother reaffirming their love for each other, while also not sweeping the very real faults of mrs albarn and how she handled her divorce under the rug. Maybe with maka having the realisation that she simply does not understand her mother, or that her mother simply is not capable or doing what she did, and taking another leap of faith like she did after Crona betrayed her.

As for Soul I would absolutely have him having to interact with his family(after he becomes a death scythe) again, but exploring their issues from a different angle, namely that for all his feelings of inaduqasies, his family never really regarded him as lesser in any way, and quite on the contrary, are really proud of him for becoming a death scythe.

Having to confront the fact that everything you saw wrong with the world is a bitter pill to swallow... But absolutely great for a character arc. It's mundane, but also a great window into Soul's character.

Now with that in mind, i would also use Soul's development for something else.

Namely having his newfound courage to confront things he doesnt like or feel confident aboyt head on lead to conflict, as he now is willing to confront a reality staring him in the face head on.

That conflict being Maka and Crona.

Now it's pretty clear in both the Manga and the anime that soul does have feelings for Maka, with his genderbent self(which represents his ideal idea for a partner) in particular looking very similar to a maka who let her hair grow long...

But that is not the case for Maka, who's ideal partner is a spindly beanpole, with short hair, with an andragonous looking boy that could easily be labled as either gender.

Now while the main cast took this ideal sense to play up what they see as no changes, what this "Ideal" partner represents is actually pretty obvious.

Namely how Crona looked before leaving the school, and by extension going through puberty.

In regards to how i would use this for this sequen to the anime, i would have Soul having to confront the fact the girl he likes in love with someone else... One of his own friends, who the anime seems to suggest moved in with him and maka after the Kishin's defeat.

One who, lets be frank, returns ALL of Maka's feelings.

There is SO much much juicy potential for great character developments and moments especially within the context that there is a very real war going on around all of them, where Maka and Soul need to be at their very best.

Not to mention that this would probably be one topic that would bring out genuine passion in the introverted Crona, who's development with Maka being the most important thing In Crona's life, having the reality that Crona is not the only person who loves Maka could be a very real wakeup that leads to further development.

And of course there is Maka in the middle of it all, where you cpuld handle it from several different angles. She could be the sane man, who is trying to keep their team focused on the mission, who is completely blindsided that Crona and Maka choose NOW of all times to have this discussion... Or you could have her be completely blindsided by the fact that Soul has feelings for her, and chooses to bare them to her before a romantic relationship with Crona(who she likes) has actually taken hold.

There are a lot of ways to handle it, and the aftermath, and subsequent reconnection as the partners have to come to terms with it, and decide where they fo from here. Its rife for great drama, and rooted in the respective character flaws and developments... As opposed to Manga Maka's sudden and out of nowhere fear she is inaduquate compared to soul.

Good character development and drama is built on what is already there, not inventing things whole cloth.

As for the next Kishin, wheter they be an existing character twisted to the path like Crona, or an entierly new character, i would probably play up the fact that the Witches wants to control them, while Death's faction wants to exterminate them... But in the end, it's a friendship from either, or both sides that in the end convinces the Kishin to do what neither Asura or Manga Crona did.

Give up on the power of their own free will, in favor of their bonds with other people, rather than embrace a lonely existence as the strongest thing alive.

Im not sure if i would completely end the conflict between witches and Death like the manga did, but i would definitly lay the groundworks for some kind of lasting peace at the end of season 2, where the two sides are just... TIRED of endless war, back and forths, retalitions and counterstrikes.

I think an uncertain future, but still one where the protagonists choose to give this peace between them a try, similar to the end of the original anime after Asura's defeat, would probably work best.

[ange-la-ange-ootd]

Screaming at how much I love the silhouette of Liz Lisa’s set-up dresses.

sailor collar set-up - Liz Lisa tights - Snag Tights boots - Unif eyelet ring beret - Listen Flavor choker - Creepyyeha star ring - Holley Tea Time AP style “brand whore” ring - Star Glazed Delights

[ID: A black and white girly kei coordinate paired with yamikawaii accessories. The main piece is a black and white plaid “dress” combination of a sailor style top with matching black plaid ruffled shorts. The top has long sleeves, a ruffled sailor collar, and a black bow with buttons along the front. These items are paired with off-white tights, black ankle boots, a punk style black beret with eyelets and rings, and a black heart ring choker with spikes. The other accessories include a white star ring, an enamel bow ring, and a grey mini backpack with a pink fox plush keychain.]

[thegeminisage]

ok, now that i've watched all of tos (none of the movies yet...) i am going to do the top ten worst and best episodes, according to Me. they are as follows:

WORST EPISODES

10. the savage curtain - idk who thought putting abe lincoln in a cage match with the vulcan version of ghandi against like, ghengis khan and space hitler would be a good idea. but it wasn't. i did like seeing the vulcan father of logic though like "im gonna go sacrifice myself for peace" ok king

9. i, mudd - all of the mudd episodes are bad. he's not charming at all whatsoever. however, this one is better than the other one because uhura gets to pretend to sell out kirk and they're SOOO cute about it. her little giggle when he PICKS HER UP BY HER SHOULDERS and tells her how proud he is. PLEEEEASE

8. charlie x - the entire premise of this episode is that the bad guy is just autistic. and then they make him live on a planet without people because he can't adjust to normal life ???

7. shore leave - obvious racism of this episode aside, the faux-irish jig that played while kirk was being menaced by his extremely unfunny old bully nearly drove me over the edge. we DO love a good mccoy death fakeout tho

6. a piece of the action - if i had any interest in gangster films before this it's all gone now. that being said. i loved when kirk drove the little car. he was so bad at it. he was so happy.

5. mudd's women - like he's literally just selling women?? and the plot twist is that secretly they're ugly?????

4. who mourns for adonias - this is just "what if ALIENS build the pyramids bro" except for the 1960s. nail in the coffin for this one was kirk proudly declaring they didn't needs gods - because they already had the One God, thank you very much!

3. the paradise syndrome - WHY WOULD YOU HAVE NATIVE AMERICANS MISTAKE KIRK FOR GOD. WHY. like i know why but Why. i think the very worst part of this episode was that it had an amnesia plot that would have FUCKED if you had simply removed the people. if there hadn't been people in this it would've been in my top 10 episodes. i think this broke me.

2. the omega glory - this is the same as the last episode except there's no amnesia, and also the "native americans" are white cosplayers who worship the american flag and mistake kirk for god because he can recite the pledge of allegiance yes really. if i had a nickel for every time this happened i'd only have two nickels etc etc at least kirk didn't knock anybody up in this one ig

1. patterns of force - why would you make your two jewish leads wear swastikas and then literally be whipped by nazis. i know he's such a bad person but not even william shatner deserves that. number one worst episode everyone says it's omega glory but it's this one

BEST EPISODES

10. plato's stepchildren - this episode is hard to rank because like it's both good and bad. the torture scenes were genuinely upsetting, especially the ones at the end w/ spock & nurse chapel, because they weren't just violence being inflicted on tied up guys, but they were SUPPOSED to be upsetting, like it was literally the point. and also this episode bears the distinction of THEEE kirk & uhura kiss. literally historic.

9. the trouble with tribbles - i feel like everyone's heard of this but it really is as good as everyone says. sometimes 1960s humor doesn't translate to 2020s humor but it was genuinely hysterical start to finish. also, the distinct trilling sound was so imprinted in my brain i recognized it in the 2009 movie where i had never registered it before.

8. the naked time - aside from the KING SHIT george takei pulled with the fencing this episode also contains the "i am in control of my emotions [sobbing]" moment and kirk & spock LITERALLY having a slapfight. this episode has everything. an absolute masterpiece

7. the empath - i feel like this paired with "the world is hollow and i have touched the sky" really made me a Bones Understander. i feel a little bad about that bc everyone says the characterizations in s3, or actually that the season as a whole, is kinda shaky? but i watched without knowing that and i feel like i Get It now. also, this was the only score i went and relistened to on spotify

6. tholian web - the spock & mccoy episode ever. there's so many things to say about this from the death fakeout to kirk's little space suit but what TRULY got me was the instant and totally nonverbal agreement to lie straight to kirk's face to both preserve personal dignity and troll the shit out of him (while chekov and sulu are like also silently laughing as they listen in no less). what this episode made me realize was that it's a good thing they argue all the time and make kirk play referee because if they were on the same side kirk wouldn't stand a chance. like he'd be finished.

5. the city on the edge of forever - ok, so, this episode made me feel like i was having a mental break. the time travel. spock's little hat. when he watches kirk kiss edith and then goes back into their room to pretend he didn't see anything. mccoy and kirk basically hugging at the end when edith bites it.

4. requiem for methuselah - the first time i watched this i was kinda like :/ because how does kirk fall in love with a woman in FOUR HOURS? that aside the ending scene blew my tits clean off. i paced around my house for like 30 minutes going "what the FUCK was that" because i couldn't simply lie down and sleep after seeing it. rewatching the episode with uh. new context made me like it a little better. but even if it had been garbage the last scene shook me so thoroughly it would still need to be on this list. i'm getting wound up just thinking about it. number one most shocking tos moment.

3. the dagger of the mind - look, i understand that this episode was technically just run-of-the-mill stuff as far as everybody else is concerned but they put james t kirk in a little brainwashing machine. and the machine was shaped like a chair. and it gives people amnesia sometimes. i don't know how i'm expected to behave normally

2. this side of paradise - this is the episode where a flower jizzes on spock and gives him feelings. and look: it's really funny, and there's a lot to love about it. but the ending where kirk hurls verbal abuse at spock for a solid 92 seconds WITHOUT STOPPING followed by: spock beating the shit out of him until he gets his logic back. i have rewatched this perhaps 1,000 times at minimum. what the fuck were they doing

1. conscience of the king - this episode got me into this mess. i don't think i can elaborate further without significant self-incrimination. let's just say what happened was i thought "oh i'll just watch this one tos episode for context for the fanfiction" and one month later i'm writing fic about [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT

ok, that's my list. i thought about doing honorable mentions for episodes that had scenes i liked even though the overall episode didn't make it into my top 10. but then i realized that would mean recapping basically the entire series and this post is already too long. i do have to give the pon farr episode a shoutout though because even though so much of it was offputting there was literally a titty window in kirk's shirt. like, it's the pon farr episode. ok NOW i'm done

[frazzledsoul]

So back when I was on the Gilmore Girls subreddit there was a lot of discussion about Liz Danes. A lot of people agreed that she fucked up Jess pretty badly by neglecting him and possibly enabling him to be abused by others, but some people claimed that her only flaw was that she couldn't hold down a job and smoked too much pot. The majority opinion seemed to be that the character that eventually showed up was ret-conned and was not the same character that was talked about in the early seasons and that the Liz we see is sunny, optimistic, and a generally likable person.

I do not agree with this. I think Liz comes off even worse once we get to know her, but that a family drama/rom com is perhaps not the best vehicle for that kind of character....or maybe it is, because it becomes apparent almost immediately how easily she is able to bulldoze over Luke's plans and intentions and manipulate him into doing what she wants. She also has no qualms in openly discussing her bad behavior: there seems to be no guilt, no shame, no repentance, no real attempts to make amends. She's going to do what she's going to do and everyone else is going to let her.

Before Liz actually shows up, all we know is that she shipped off Jess to Luke because she couldn't deal with him anymore and won't let him come home for Christmas: when Rory comes to visit him, he's hanging out in the park all day and not going to school. Apparently Liz is not exactly on top of his whereabouts, if she even bothered to re-register him in school (she probably didn't). The arrangement to move back to Stars Hollow is something that Jess initiates and appears to have little to do with her. Everything else is clued in by Jess's behavior: his inability to communicate or trust anyone, the secrets he keeps, his barely repressed anger, his lack of understanding (or respect for) the normal social patterns of a romantic relationship because nothing normal was ever modeled for him. The argument is that once we actually meet Liz, she is a far better person than she was implied to be and is not the same character.

The problem I have with all of that is that despite the fact that Liz is clean and sober, has a more reliable partner, and appears to be semi-employed the stuff she does and says just makes her out to be....even worse? She hasn't contacted Luke in months despite the fact that her son was living with him and left town, she immediately shows up and makes a beeline for the pot (even though she claims she has no use for it), it's made clear that she can't hold down a job and that Luke actively fears her husbands/boyfriends, and she....takes responsibility for nothing? Jess's problems have nothing to do with her, he's just an angry kid she can't control who won't forgive her long enough to come to her latest wedding and she takes no accountability for the reasons that he's angry. Nice.

It gets worse. She says her wedding to TJ is the first one she's attended where she's sober. She later says she's never made dinner for anyone, ever (how did this kid eat?) She doesn't attend Jess's open house and is never seen commenting on how he's improved himself, although Luke makes the effort to show up and introduce Jess to April. When she gets pregnant again, she openly admits to binge drinking while she was pregnant and seems to regard abstaining from this the second time as something of a trivial matter. Then we move on to the post ASP years, where she invites Luke to dinner despite not knowing how to turn on her oven and tries to pawn her newborn daughter off on him twice in the middle of his workday, which definitely leads one to wonder how Jess made it to adolescence given that she's doing this when she's past forty and supposedly sober and mature. Then in the AYITL years Jess and Luke are running around trying to disentangle her from a cult.

I think we can definitively say this woman's problems are a lot more complex than smoking too much pot.

The thing is that I understand this. I have a relative just like this. His son was sent to live with my family when I was young to help get him through high school and this effort failed, and he had some rough years before he got his life back together. It took my relative years and years to get better, and even at this point he's never taken responsibility for anything that he's done, the relationships he wrecked, the terrible examples he set for his kids, the damage done to everyone else in my family. Like Liz, he bowls everyone over with his affability and charm, and we mostly take him on his own terms. He can get better, but there won't be any accountability for what happened before, and we know not to expect it from him.

I think Jess's ability to forgive his mother is perhaps a storyline that's beyond ASP's capabilities, and it would have been difficult to pull off once Milo was no longer available in the way he was in the show's early years. Maybe it would have interfered with her desire to use Liz as a sounding board and a support system for Luke outside of Lorelai (but then again, if she hadn't messed up that relationship so much it wouldn't have mattered as much). Still, it's an interesting issue. How do you forgive someone who is incapable of saying they're sorry, partly because they don't even remember the bad things they've done? It's kind of something I'm still wrestling with IRL, and I don't know how to answer the question myself.

[mswyrr]

After a season of Navarro returning, again and again, to the way that she is afraid that everyone (even god) is alone, the intimacy of her and Danvers' final scenes is such an example of letting someone inside (and getting inside someone else) to the point where, for a moment, you're not alone. Neither of you are alone.

On a show that depicted how far away from each other--and alone--people can be, even while having sex, the intimacy of it just stunning. It's the emotional climax of the story (along with Navarro accepting the gift of her name from her mother and not fearing that intimacy anymore either). They love each other. Deeply. And they're not alone. Whatever you see that meaning, it's true.

[randomheapsofnonsense]

OK just one more thing about Saraqael

It's not just that Crowley states he doesn't remember Saraqael...

immediately after describing how to infiltrate heaven...

while he is in the act of infiltrating heaven in his super secret spy turtleneck...

and with Saraqel also wearing a super secret spy turtleneck. 🕵‍♂️ 👀

It's not just Wikipedia's Saraqael article saying that there is an archangel and a fallen angel in the book of Enoch with names so similar that they get mixed up sometimes.

It's also the gag about Gabriel forgetting Saraqael's name, despite being one of only half a dozen close colleagues.

It's also Saraqael being a significant archangel who doesn't seem to exist in series 1.

It's also the way Saraqael says "Hello CROWLEY! I didn't expect to ever see you again", which sounded to me like a coded "I know you as a demon", despite the clarification afterwards.

Liz Carr is great and she deserves to get a cool spy-in-heaven plot, so as tenuous as my suspicions are, I'm hopeful that there is more to Saraqael than meets the eye ☺️

[andreal831]

Thoughts on Damon and Liz’s friendship?

If you've read my previous posts on Damon, it's probably not surprising that I am not a fan of this friendship.

Every Damon friendship to me felt so forced in order to make the audience forgive Damon for the things he's done. Damon spent Season 1 assaulting Caroline, but then Liz and Damon become friends so Caroline just has to get over it. Liz may not have known exactly what Damon did, but she still saw a 24 year old Damon hanging around her 17 year old daughter. She is a sheriff, her job is to catch criminals, yet she doesn't notice her daughter being abused.

Liz and Damon's friendship never even made sense to me. What did they have in common? Their Season 1 and 2 friendship was all built on lies and manipulation. Damon was the reason Liz shot Jeremy. He was the reason Caroline was abused. Liz hates vampires and Damon even admits that many of her unsolved cases were victims of Damon. How did Liz just look past everything Damon's done?

Damon's friendships are all questionable. He seems to make friends with people who have every reason to hate him, and did hate him initially. But because of his "charm" they forgive all the pain he has caused them. Again, it's just easy writing to make the audience forgive Damon. After all, if his victims aren't mad, why should we be? But he never actually does anything to earn their forgiveness or even friendship.

Damon is really the only one benefiting from his and Liz's friendship. And honestly all it did was make it even creepier for Damon to constantly be seeking out teenagers romantically. If he was mature enough to be friends with adults like Alaric and Liz, he definitely shouldn't be sleeping with minors.

Thanks for the ask!