#she's so fascinating because she essentially has a failed redemption arc

[fist-of-vengeance]

after making that post about redemption arcs i read another really good post about the difference between unforgivable characters and irredeemable characters and uh oh post cancelled I'm thinking about daisy tonner again

[meg-noel-art]

Why do you believe that Catra never got over her what you called "obsessive and selfish love" for Adora? Because I didn't see that.

-gestures vaguely to all of the show-

Okay, you know what, let’s get into this. Because I’m honestly tired of it all. First let’s start with this: In popular media, is there a common theme of erotic subtext between rivals? Uh, yeah. Hell yeah. Tension between two people looking to one up each other that can be read as romantic or sexual? Oh absolutely. So, let’s, for the sake of argument assume that was the type of dynamic that Noelle and Co. were going for all along, as they’ve stated. Because they weren’t the first to play with this dynamic and they won’t the last.

So again, tension and subtext between rivals that escalates into passion or eventually real love? Yes.

On the other hand: betrayal, emotional manipulation, physical maiming and injury and outright seeking the utter demise and failure of you ‘rival’ because they made you sad by making a better choice than you did? That doesn’t equate to love.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s approach Catra’s motivations as all based around this deep love she has for Adora, which I will argue through this post is more of as passionate and selfish obsession than actual love. (And honestly, that’s a super cool character motivation, but pretending that it’s an epic love story is gross and I hate it.)

So, let’s return to Season 1

One of the first real battles we see Catra and Adora in takes place at the end of the season. This comes after ‘The Promise’ wherein Adora tries again to get Catra to come with her, but Catra doubles down on her desire to spite Adora for hurting her and leaving her, by being as nasty as she possibly can and putting Adora in just as much emotional pain. Here, she not only fights Adora, but cuts her down to her deepest insecurities. Catra knows Adora and she knows how desperately she wants to be a hero. It’s an aspect of Adora that Catra has always disliked because it made her feel lesser. In order to fully cripple her rival here, Catra tugs at the strings she knows will hurt the most.

“You will fail them (you failed me)”, “You’re friends will hate you (Just like I do)” “You will never be the hero you want to be (I will be the reason you can’t)”. If you want to talk about subtext in this scene, Catra’s unhealthy and obsessive desire to be the only thing Adora needs/wants/thinks about is literally all over the place. If you want to argue that she’s saying all of this because she’s hurting, then it’s literally the cruelest possible way she could say it. And the show doesn’t bother selling us on the fact that Catra is in pain here, it just hammers home the idea of how badly she wants Adora to fail so she can feel that pain too.

In no universe, would I call that treatment of someone love.

Next up, this moment in Season 2:

I remember everyone losing their minds over this scene, and again, arguing a sexual tension between rivals, then yes, that makes sense. But in the context of this entire episode and the ones leading up to this point? This statement from Catra is disgusting. And it gets worse.

In the next scene, we see Catra literally planning to use Adora as her own personal weapon (an aspect I find personally icky when considering the struggle Adora has with destiny/her own autonomy at the end of Season 4 being use by Light Hope as a weapon. Catra literally has the same idea.)

And moreso than that, Catra won’t just use her as a weapon. She will use Adora to cut down anyone else who has ever cared about her or shown her affection. It’s a new level of jealousy/possession that is touched on even moreso as the series goes on. But what’s crazy to me is that it seems to have developed from Season 1. In the Battle of Bright Moon, Adora could only fail them. Now, however much later this is, Catra wants her to hurt them too. Adora will hurt, her friends will hurt. Everyone will hurt like Catra does. Because she’s possessive of Adora’s affection. It makes her feel like she has meaning. Which is an entire other can of worms about Catra’s motivations and character, but we’re gonna move ahead to season 3.

This is a fascinating moment to me. At this point, Catra has essentially flunked out of the Horde, but she’s NEVER been more determined to prove herself to Hordak, to SW, to Adora, to everyone. But here, Scorpia points out how truly happy she is when Adora isn’t even in the damn picture anymore. The poisonous environment of the Horde is gone, Catra is claiming respect for her abilities and personality. Adora has nothing to do with it and she’s happy.

And then:

Look, I am remise to sound like a total asshole, but the entire show is pointing this out for me through even it’s dialogue. Catra’s pain and hate and obsession returns when Adora mentions that their shared abuser Shadow Weaver has chosen her yet again. Suddenly, nothing matters. None of Scorpia’s kind words, or the achievments she made in the Waste. All that matters, is beating Adora. Hurting her. Being better and more loved than her.

Honesty, at this point I’m losing the thread of ‘love’ entirely. Now it just feels like a total mission for vengeance.  But, once again, okay, let’s argue she’s really just angry and wants Adora’s love back. So what does she do to get it?

She opens the Portal to hurt Adora. As Adora screams don’t, begs her not to, tells her what it will do to their world, Catra does it anyway. Because Adora must hurt. She broke Catra’s heart and Catra must break it back. That’s how love works, I guess.

Once again, if the show was working on selling me on Catra’s motivations being sympathetic and fueled by love all along. It is failing.

Now, let’s talk about the Portal world that it takes them into. What everyone called their “perfect universe”.

So we have this moment, where Adora gets to the heart of the issue and asks Catra about her real pain. Catra avoids it, once again. Yes, of course she’s wanted this, they both always have. I suppose at this moment you could argue her true motivations come through, but it also just emboldens my point that Catra is not growing. She’s not gaining any character development. If she did just always want Adora by her side, this scene shows us that Adora has moved past these Horde induced childhood dreams they have. She has seen a bigger world and a bigger issue and Catra is still holding onto the hope that they will keep this promise to always have each others backs.

Which, is an ironic thing to hold onto considering Catra was the first to break this promise, by not going with Adora when the time was right. And yet she believes Adora is the one who owes her the apology. Now, this would be great set up for an arc about Catra coming to terms with the fact that she is the problem and Season 4 seemed ready to set that up but then... didn’t.

This line in particular has always stuck with me because it broke their relationship entirely for me. At this point, Catra could apologize all she wanted in a possible redemption arc, but the damage was done. She admitted a pain so deep that it would change her and Adora’s relationship forever. Her hurt ran so deep that she would rather die, see everything end, than see Adora find happiness outside of her.

I could stop this post here and honestly, my point would have been made. But we’ve got more to go.

I was so excited after the moment. After an entire season of snapping under the weight of her own choices. It is the image of Scorpia, who loved her unconditionally, who tells Catra that she is the problem and she always has been.

At this point, I was ready. Catra had hit rock bottom, there was nowhere to go but up. She would approach her pain and figure out who she wanted to be as a person. She would team up with the Rebellion because she knew it was the right thing to do, she would atone for her mistakes. By the end maybe she would go on her own adventure to find herself?

And.... No?

She doesn’t.

Season 5 rolls around and suddenly she is right back where she started, scrambling up the ladder for power and respect. It sure doesn’t work for Horde Prime, putting her in real danger. She even gets a few moments to connect with Glimmer (maybe apologize for the Portal...no... oh okay.) 

In fact, she saves Glimmer! But.... why does she do it? Certainly not for Glimmer’s sake, a character who has been stated by the crew to be literally her narrative foil, her other half. But...

Like...? At this point I don’t even know what the show is going for anymore, it’s a fucking mess. You could even argue that up to this point, Catra HAS been manipulating Glimmer to trust her so that she could in turn save Adora. Which is all kinds of fucked up, as we see in the conversation with the BFS squad that Glimmer WANTS to save Catra, and trusts her.

And then this memory that incited Catra’s desire to save Adora was:

I could have just answered with this screenshot and saved myself an hour. You wanna argue love? Fine. 

Then Catra has NEVER let go of her frankly concerning obsession with Adora’s attention and affection and that is no more clear that this memory where she also physically assaults her and steps on her, and Adora goes crawling after her trying to comfort her.

Oh? Are you, Catra? Well that’s cool. You are allowed to be sorry. But that doesn’t mean Adora owes you literally anything at this point. No one is ever obligated to accept any apology no matter how heartfelt it might be.

At the end of the day, this love story their trying to sell me on is so twisted I can hardly stand to watch the final season. Because it’s never worked out!! Adora immediatedly forgives every moment I’ve listed in this post and more. Catra never apologizes to someone who deserved it most, Scorpia. 

And more than that, Catra never grows into who she should have become as a character. She is stuffed into an OTP the show wanted from the beginning but failed for 5 seasons to make convincing or compelling.

Also Adora has such a huge heart she deserves someone who would treat her better than Catra could. Catra can’t. Catra can’t even treat herself right.

Like... Yeah. I don’t even know what to say anymore. Hope this answered your question. 

Obsessive, possessive....Gross. I’m tired. C/A won at the end of the day I guess, but at what cost?

[wexhappyxfew]

i literally choked on my pizza when i saw your writing and analyzing questions post, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!! first of all, what sort of process do you go through when creating characters? what kind of things do you take into consideration when creating them? i’m fascinated because creating characters is far from easy, especially when you’re creating someone like agent mortem! i’m always interested to know what the writer’s thought process was when creating a new character!

okay, so secondly, i wouldn’t say i’m having trouble with keeping all my planning organised and ‘precise’ in a way, but it’s really not easy 😅 i was wondering what kind of processes you go through when planning, whether you have like a specific structure or a set of steps to follow, or if you just kind of roll with it? at the moment when i plan it’s okay and it makes sense, but it’s literally just 4 or 5 pages of really chunky paragraphs which makes it really difficult to pick out the events again when i come to needing the plan to help me. i don’t really know if you do anything different, but if there is any way you know of that i could keep it more organised and easy to follow, that would be great :)

i’ll keep the last ones a little shorter because this ask is already looking veryyy long — what have you enjoyed writing about natia, what struggles have you faced and what have you learned? and basically the same with agent mortem if that’s possible :) i have asked a LOT of questions in this, so don’t feel like you have to answer them all because it will probably take quite a while 😅 anyway, thank you for putting up with my endless questions, and i hope you have a good day <33

ROSE AH HELLO MY FRIEND!!!! <333 sorry ive just gotten to this omg! it’s been sitting here for a little while but i’ve just had so much going on right now and wanted to make sure when i answered that my *full attention* was put on this! (because i’ve been very excited to answer this ESPECIALLY as i see agent mortem questions poking up on here and that just makes me even more hype!!! :D enjoy! <3

Ooooo this is a cool question! I’ve been asked it before but I feel with different characters and such, it always seems to fluctuate for me at least? In the sense, it’s almost never the same process for me in the developmental stages of a character haha! Sometimes I get characteristics first hand, or sometimes a certain scene pops up that just makes the character click and I can build from there, or sometimes, it’s just a last name or a first name that I work with and suddenly have an idea for!

For example, since we’re on the general topic of Landslide, I’ll talk about some things I did when creating specifically Natia. The “Natia” who is currently portrayed in the fic, was not always really like that. Natia initially was not a SOE Agent/Polish Resistance Fighter and instead a Dutch Resistance Member who would meet with Easy in Episode 4. I always sort of knew Natia, in whatever form she was, would meet Easy in Episode 4, but I wasn’t sure how, so the building in the first 17 chapters was the toughest part to come.

I did heavily feel the Polish were underrepresented in terms of the situation of the war along with everything that happened in the Warsaw Uprising and so I felt it was important to see if I could do something with that and that’s really where Natia came into play!

Natia means “hope” essentially and something I really like doing with her character is to parallel or juxtapose different ideas together, to continue on this sort of theme of her being a quite ominous and ambiguous character — you get the general sense of what her morals are, but in certain points it’s questionable. Morally-ambiguous characters have always been fascinating to me, especially female morally-ambiguous characters and so creating Natia in that respect I felt would be interesting to see what I could do!

Something major that I’ve slowly began to take into consideration with characters more and more, is the sort of general theme I want to be present with them — what’s that goal i that they are moving towards in the end and what’s the them surrounding it? For Natia it’s a multitude of things; family, revenge, being silenced, numb, grief, mentor vs protégé, lone wolf etc….the list could truly go on! And with these basic sort of ideas and themes, I can then move on from there and expand.

Why did she want REVENGE? Because the enemy killed her FAMILY, which is extremely important to her, and she wants to feel some sort of REDEMPTION for them.

Why was she BEING SILENCED? Because of the *past* conflict of the HARMFUL MENTOR VS SILENCED PROTÉGÉ situation that occurred between Agent Mortem and herself, where she allowed herself to be silenced by someone who abused the SUDDEN POWER he never had before in his life, ultimately leading to her continued issues of TRUST that she would meet throughout.

Why is she NUMB? Because at a fairly young age she experienced heavy and intense GRIEF that struck unforgivably at a time where it seemed things were safe. To rip something from a character, especially the main character, like FAMILY which is extremely important, you pull at the heart strings and it makes that character move forward on a quest for that in a way, ultimately by the end of the fic. (Basically you up they are least get a semblance of that lost thing, found again by the end)

Why is she a LONE WOLF? Because of the MENTOR VS PROTÉGÉ situation yet again, where she was taught to rely strictly on herself and no one else and so when TRUST and COMPANIONSHIP and TEAMWORK were introduced to her character, she didn’t know how to cope because she had been so desensitized to the ways of Agent Mortem that working back in the morals of family and friends was a challenge in its own respect.

It’s sort of a like a ripple effect if you think about it and that’s what helps me eventually move forward and develop the character arc I want to take place. She’s this way because of this — sort of like cause and effect. It’s really helped me out with major scenes or plot holes that have risen throughout the fic!

AGREED! Writing in general is not an easy feat and now including mind you ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, you’re literally, essentially, creating human beings from scratch and giving them characteristics, a backstory, trauma if you wish, friends and family, people they love, people they hate, morals, standards EVERYTHING! ITS INSANE! AH AND AGENT MORTEM! I’m so very glad that you brought him up, because his creation definitely stemmed directly from the want to experiment with the relationship of failed mentor vs protégé, entirely. I wanted a foil to Natia that was not directly with her all the time. Mortem plays such a MASSIVE role in her story and yet any interactions between the two are either from her mind or from memories and that’s just such a fun way to play around with their dynamic! (I just finished the creation of his backstory and character arc I want him to take and it’s only made me even more excited for what’s to ultimately come for him as well as Natia!)

A song that HEAVILY represents their dynamic is Ghost by Marvin Brooks (2WEI) and I’ll explain why. Even though Mortem is not always inherently *with* Natia, he still is a huge factor of her life, and still heavily controlling many aspects of her life such as recurring memories, reactions, and how she is also conditioned to react to certain things as well. He is essentially a “ghost” who is “haunting” Natia and I feel that’s an interesting take on their connection because they’re two people who clearly had a power struggle and a difference of opinions of multiple things and that just makes it so incredibly interesting to write!

song:

OOOOOO good question!!! So many people have such different ways of approaching story writing and planning and drafting and writing and editing and it’s honestly amazing!! I will say, I’m not an excessive planner or even a real great planner with writing, I never really have, and even as I’ve developed my writing and learned that “it’s okay to slow down”, or “it’s okay to take time for different portions to provide a deeper focus”, I still have not been someone to plan out every bit of my writing.

Reason being is I enjoy seeing where I can take the story in that time and place. Maybe if I’m doing a quick little writing segment and suddenly this idea just appears and hits me, I work it into the fic and it takes it a whole new direction and I end up not being super upset about it because it just…it works! And of course, this is not how other people operate and I have every respect for people who plan and have every detail laid out and figured out and just….completely and utterly planned to the dot. Lile kudos to people who genuinely get the planning all cleaned up before even writing, truly.

I just finalized Agent Mortem’s backstory and where I want his character arc to go and I’ve had him as a character since August of last year LOL! But ya know sometimes, I sit and I think back and go, maybe I wasn’t ready at that time to develop him completely yet because I, the writer, didn’t understand him enough to and I had to write more of him to be able to get a grasp of who he was and his character (and just about everything else!) and that’s okay!!! :)

Going with this idea I just stated above — the 4 or 5 pages of info — KEEP IT MY FRIEND!!! I swear, half the reason ideas even come to me is simply because I just write a big info dump that has all my little ideas somewhere inside and will ALWAYS be there. I recommend maybe taking a day though - away from focusing on writing or editing - and just picking that apart. (That’s what I did the other day and it helped me out MAJORLY! and it was worth it in the end!) Maybe keep the original 4-5 pages and then copy and paste the same thing in another doc so you always have the original!

And then just go through and split ideas apart! If you start reading and see it moving into another realm of headspace of ideas, just press enter and separate the two — you didn’t delete it, it’s still there and still intact! It’s just easier to look at now because instead of two, jumbled and completely different ideas, you now have two paragraphs and portions of text that relate to their own respective idea. It definitely makes it an easier pill to swallow when trying to get yourself organized!!

This really helped me when I was in my beginning stages of figuring out Landslide ESPECIALLY the first 17ish chapter where Natia was not in contact with Easy yet. I’ve explained it before but those chapters are there because we are seeing her final days with the resistance in Warsaw and how she ultimately ends up with Easy PLUS we see who she is as a character by herself and how she is not merely an extension off of Easy, but her own character, her own person. She has her own story and her own morals and ways of going about her life that don’t even relate to Easy. Their paths just happened to cross!! :)

By getting those first 17ish chapters planned, not extreme planning though I will admit, half the scenes were very much thought up on the spot for example like Natia driving to Munich in disguise or the introduction of Zdzich — two very important scenes that show us something about Natia. (1) She’s willing to go to extreme lengths for the people she loves to ensure that in the end they are safe, even if it means sacrificing herself and (2) she has trouble realizing that there are people out there that genuinely care for her, a connection to her ultimate, unruly and upsetting past. And the best part about it is THESE WEREN’T EVEN PLANNED! So sometimes, just let the story take the reigns and your mind and just guide you through it. Sometimes it is for the best :)

If you have your basic ideas and concepts and themes for how you want your fic to eventually go, the scenes for me most of the time just appear I guess when they should. Sometimes even in the times I'm not writing, I sit theorizing and questioning and thinking and developing ideas in my mind and it's a real good exercise, so when you get back to writing, you already know where you want the fic leading in the end!

MAN I LOVE THIS QUESTION. Anytime I can provide some meta or give some insight to Natia who is just one of the best characters I’ve gotten the pleasure of working with, I’ll gladly answer!

The thing I enjoy writing about Natia the most I feel, and I’ll probably always say this, is her complexity — as a writer, her character orders a healthy challenge for me that I gladly have accepted! You don’t know everything about her as a reader and as you read each chapter, that’s how you slowly uncover and discover what she hid about herself to protect herself. There’s so many different aspects of her that I could discuss truly!! (There has been so many parts that I’ve scrapped because I read through and just think “Man this doesn’t seem like Natia!”. She’s tricky sometimes to stake down exactly how she would react because of her past and her trauma and how long she’s been in war, but I just LOVE it!)

Many different aspects of her character though, come from her past and that’s what makes her interesting. I’ve really enjoyed working with the ideology of “Chekov’s Gun”, a writing device that can be used, with how I will mentioned something and it almost might seem out of the blue, yet later it all just makes sense?! When the flashback is revealed or a small portion of her past is finally allowing *light* in. It's a device I've used with Natia that has just really helped to develop her story at the pace I want it to be revealed! :D

For example, the OCEAN is mentioned many times. I make constant reference to the WAVES, the RECESSION of them from time to time, the comparison of the OCEAN both ABOVE and BELOW surface — all of that sorta stuff! For her character, it seems a bit out of place. She’s COLD. She’s NUMB. She’s BROKEN. What does an open body of water consuming at least 70% of the Earth have to do with an OC based in Warsaw, Poland?

This is where the importance of her PAST will play it’s role, as it has a major INFLUENCE on her and her CHARACTER and her MORALS. One of the main reasons the OCEAN is inherently connected to Natia is because of her PAST and one of those main reasons is AGENT MORTEM and her TRAINING, especially WATER training. I can’t comment further on this though as readers have only touched the tip of the iceberg for the use of the OCEAN and it’s IMPORTANCE so far in this fic! (Ask me again about it once this fic is finished up for the most part, unless….by Part 4 readers understand why!)

Natia just remains a character who constantly is developing and changing inside my head - where I want her path to ultimately end up leading by the end of the fic, where I want both her mental head space vs emotional head space should be and etc. So many portions of this fic are dealt specifically on her internal monologue and how she calculates and problem solves from that portion of her sort of *engagement* within the conflict. There never seems to be a dull moment when writing her!

Another thing I really have enjoyed about writing Natia is her clashing personality traits that make her interesting to write in both different scenarios and reactions. She's stubborn yet humble. She's numb and cold but internally extremely caring and giving and filled with these bottled up emotions. She's mentally strong yet she's been through so much and let the war take so much. She never complains about what she's doing, but she's lost nearly everyone she loves. She's a fighter in this war and refuses to back down from a battle she know she can wage, but the second she is pulled from the aspect of war, things crash and burn around her. Just even these few combating sort of things, really show her character and what, through writing, has slowly developed! They always lay around in the back of my mind and it's one of the main things I remind myself when I write Natia all the tme.

I think one of the most important things I've learned from both writing and creating a character like Natia is that (1) it's okay to ask for help, about anything, literally anything. You don't have to confine everything to yourself and build up this immense pressure to do what you must to continue moving forward. It's okay to have people there to help you and support you. (2) It's okay to be strong alone and even if you seem to be the only one on the current path you're are on, it does not mean you are wrong. it can still lead to the right destination in the end!

Oooo okay! AGENT MORTEM!! I am totally down to chat about some things I've loved to write with him with and some challenges I've discovered, but as far as what I've learned from him, I will be holding off and could answer that when the entire fic is both completed and then updated on platforms....just because ;) don't want to give away any spoilers haha! <3

Something I've enjoyed about writing and crafting Agent Mortem is letting him remain as mysterious and secretive as he is for so long. Initially, I can't even begin to recall what his character would be like even a year ago, but seeing where he has developed now, I'm really happy with where he is. He's mysterious, he's shadowed, he seems like a figure in the background, a past mentor who is half deranged and lost his mind with a background with so substance. It makes for such a fascinating way to begin to reveal his past! (something I've began to insert into part 4 of Landslide and man I'm just so HYPE!)

I feel I'm excited simply because he's finally getting the time and moment he deserves to finally explain and show himself as to what has occurred. There's so many fractured and disconnected parts of what is currently going on with Natia and her connection to both Agent Mortem and then Death is tossed in the mix and it seems this big complicated mess of 'how' Agent Mortem got to be this way, 'why' he does a thing such as this, just different and varying aspects such as that. it makes for those big final reveals to all be even more worth it!

He has been quite the challenge though I will admit. There's so many perspectives he could quite possibly be viewed from and his *character* + morals/values could be pulled in a various amount of ways as well. Making sure he accurately comes across the way I want him to both appear and come across to the reader and to myself has definitely been tricky. He's not as easy as suspected, you know, not just a 'dude who had a bad day and went insane in the end', there's a whole multitude of levels and reasons and a deep, heavy and traumatizing background starting from his birth really (which is a whole other story). Managing and balancing that all in one has definitely been something I've had to keep on top of and monitor but I feel has really been worth the challenge in the end. Because at the end of the day, I'm someone looking to constantly challenge myself.

And a good challenge, whether it be writing or academics or a workout, is healthy and GOOD! That's what Landslide in a whole has really shown me, to challenge yourself daily to see where you can push yourself and your imagination and creativity, just to see where you can even go!! it's exciting and refreshing!

Thank you so much for this wonderful ask Rose! I appreciate it more than ANYTHING as you well know, and I know it's taken me *quite* some time to answer, but I've been working on it for weeks now and finally got it out because it was ready! I really wanted to take my time with it and develop it to its full potential in the end and I feel I have (without giving away any spoilers haha!) As always, please know if you have any further questions regarding Natia Filipska, Agent Mortem, Death (along with other characters of Landslide), writing, the process (my own included), tips for writing/planning, or just anything else in general, I will always be happy to help in anyway I can! You're always welcome, anyone always is!!! <3333 Thank you again, I had so much fun doing this more than anything! :D

[irinapaleolog]

The Rise of Skywalker Does a Terrible Disservice to the Women of Star Wars

Besides Reylo, one of the great marketing tools of the Star Wars sequel trilogy was its emphasis on girl power, as well its subversion of class dynamics. The films showed that women -- even poor, destitute women with no connections to powerful men -- could play the same role in the franchise as every cocky flyboy or adopted son of a moisture farmer. Unfortunately, and despite the press tour assurances from the cast and crew that Rey and her gal pals are here to lead a new generation of fans into the new world of gender equality, The Rise of Skywalker makes sure that none of the women of the franchise gets to live happily ever after nor establish any lasting romantic connection.

Instead, Episode IX leans heavily into the tired trope of the "strong female character" that has to resign from silly notions like love and family to live up to her full potential. Adding insult to injury, the film removes all agency from the women, and instead thrusts them onto a straight-and-narrow path of contrived choices foisted upon them by male characters or by the Force -- which, in J.J. Abrams' movie, acts not as the power that propels life in the universe, but like the mean Catherine de Bourgh of Pride and Prejudice.

Let's start with Leia Organa, whose call for help in The Last Jedi was ignored by the entire galaxy. However, Lando Calrissian, who has been hanging around on Pasaana doing who knows what, just has to say the word for an entire legacy fleet to appear out of nowhere. Then there's the handling of her Jedi training, which she gave up because she felt the Force might corrupt her unborn son -- a narrative choice that comes out of left field but that mirrors the real-world dilemma of women giving up promotions for fear that their careers might get in the way of parenting.

But we could argue that Leia's arc in Episode IX is clunky because Abrams had limited footage of the late Carrie Fisher. But what about the characters portrayed by living actresses?

There's Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who had a major role in The Last Jedi with an interesting arc of her own. Unfortunately, a vocal segment of Star Warsfans loathed the character and harassed the actress until she left social media. Things looked brighter when Abrams announced Tran would rejoin the cast in The Rise of Skywalker and that her role would be even better. She was billed as a general, an essential part of the Resistance; Tran went on a press tour and talked about the great feminine energy of the set. The comes The Rise of Skywalker, where Rose appears three times, speaks four lines, and is sidelined to the "really important job" of tech support, with her connection with Finn never addressed. In The Rise of Skywalker, Rose doesn't get romance, connections, friendship, a job, or a story of her own -- something that should please the most toxic fans.

Then there's Jannah, played by Naomi Ackie, another "strong female character." The twist this time is that, like Finn, she's a former Stormtrooper who mutinied and defied an order to kill a bunch of villagers. For a few seconds, her story is hopeful and fascinating, and teases the line from the trailer that "good people will fight if we lead them," that free will and the power of the individual are concepts that exist in Abrams' Star Wars.

How foolish of the audience to hold such hope. Jannah and Finn explain theyweren't the ones who decided to spare the innocent villagers; it was a feeling. The Force takes care of silly dramatic concepts like agency, choice and heroism. Jannah is not a good person because of her actions, but because the Force willedher to be one. The only funny thing about this depressing predeterministic twist is that it also works as an apt metaphor for the actions of the characters in The Rise of Skywalker, who do things not because they make sense, but because the script -- the Force -- says so. To add another nail to the coffin, The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary hints at Lando being Jannah's father, yet another woman of Star Wars whose story doesn't matter unless she's related to a legacy male character.

Moving on, Keri Russell plays Zorii Bliss, a spice runner from Kijimi who essentially wears Leia's slave outfit, only with thermal underwear. Zorii's only purpose in the story is to provide a tragic background for Poe Dameron, as well as a potential love interest. She's also a glorified MacGuffin holder (twice!), and one of the many characters that Abrams fake-kills to ignite an emotional response from the viewer in a desperate effort to make Poe sympathetic. Zorii's role could have easily been filled by Rose, who was an actual tech whiz with a questionable past and a potential massive beef against Poe. After all, he's directly responsible for her sister's death.

Let's move on to Rey (Daisy Ridley), who is retconned from being a resilient orphan scavenger strong in the Force... to receiving her powers from a male bloodline. Now, to be perfectly clear, there's nothing wrong with overly dramatic space operas where everyone is related to a royal family, but this "reveal" goes against the premise of The Force Awakens and the heart of The Last Jedi, which proposes that anyone can be a hero.

There were no hints at all about this "twist" -- not in the movies, in the animated series or in the ancillary material, which makes it feel like a last-minute decision designed to appease those fans who accused Rey of being an overpowered Mary Sue, overlooking one of the most common Mary Sue tropes: their tendency to be secretly related to important canon characters.

Another Mary Sue trope exploited in The Rise of Skywalker, but that wasn't even touched in the previous two movies, is the female character sacrificing herself for the greater good, only to be saved at the last minute by a man, which is exactly what happens here. This double-whammy of "being powerful because of grandad" and "getting to live because of a man" is particularly egregious, and caters to no one, because of what happens right after Ben Solo sacrifices himself. We'll get to that in a moment.

Then there's the Force vision scene. Rey already had a trippy Force vision in The Last Jedi, a deep dive into an array of feminine symbology that she wasn't afraid to confront, from which she emerged heartbroken but stronger. In The Rise of Skywalker, this moment is undercut and shows Rey terrified of the darker, sexier, powerful version of herself, which is a hard pill to swallow. Rey explicitly says that she has nightmare visions where she and Kylo Ren are the evil Empress and Emperor of the Galaxy, linking the fulfillment of her desires to the galaxy's apocalypse. In Episode IX, romantic love is a flaw that the "strong female character" should overcome, but sex is pure evil.

Her visceral rejection of her dark side is also a 180 turn on her chill acceptance of her darkness in The Last Jedi. In the real world, women are taught from a young age to hide their negative feelings, to smile and live to be pleasant to everyone, to not be loud or angry or intense. That mentality only makes things easier for everyone in the world who is not a woman, and runs contrary to the quickly angered but enthusiastic scavenger of the previous two movies. However, by the end of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey has transformed into this Cool Girl version of Ideal Femininity/Strong Woman Character.

Ben Solo's death right after his redemption and first kiss should have been treated like a tragedy at least by Rey, and at least for one minute... but she does not react at all. The camera cuts from Ben's clothes folding as he disappears to Rey's neutral expression as she flies back to the Resistance. His death, and any emotional reaction that it might have caused in the protagonist, is not mentioned at all, which is baffling, to say the least. After a brief reunion with Finn and Poe, Rey immediately regresses on-screen to a lonely child on a desert planet, sliding down a Tatooine sand dune and negating her evolution for the last two movies, just so Abrams could throw in a homage to himself.

For the sake of argument, let's take Rey's reveal of her villainous ancestry at face value, and let's imagine that Disney had prepared this reveal from The Force Awakens: Her ending is still insulting, because it forces her to pay for the actions of her grandfather, despite having suffered as much as anyone from his evil ways. Palpatine's murderous pursuit of his son's family was what caused Rey to grow up heartbroken and abandoned on Jakku.

Rey longed for family and love her entire life; she jumped at the opportunity to establish a real connection with Han Solo, Maz Kanata, Finn, Leia, Luke and Kylo Ren, and in The Rise of Skywalker she looks longingly at the Pasaana children, clearly wanting a family of her own. Rey marveled at the green of Takodana in The Force Awakens and at the water of Ahch-To in The Last Jedi. Just like Anakin, she hated the desert. So why does the plot force her to go back to Tatooine to take on the Skywalker name, a planet where none of the Skywalkers, Organas or Solos were born; that Anakin and Luke longed to escape; where Shmi Skywalker was enslaved twice and then killed; and where Leia became Jabba's sex doll? Wouldn't it make more sense for her to head to verdant, watery Naboo, where both Palpatine and Padmé came from, the place where the latter wanted to raise her Skywalker twins?

But, no, Rey doesn't get to live where she would be logically happier, or where it makes sense; she goes where the fan service is stronger, and the twin suns of Tatooine were unparalleled -- until now. When an old woman asks Rey her family name, she answers "Skywalker," which doesn't hold up to close examination. Luke Skywalker refused to train her, Leia's name was Organa, Ben and Han were Solos, and she's standing on the Lars' buried homestead. And although it makes sense that she would lie about her true ancestry, denying the Palpatine name still reeks of burying her darker side, which worked really well for the Jedi Order.

Compare this ending of a lonely girl on a barren planet lying to strangers about her family name to the ending of The Return of the Jedi, where Luke, Han, and Leia are surrounded by life and celebration, and everyone is radiant with love and living family. Or compare it to the ending of The Last Jedi, where a Force-sensitive boy is looking up at shooting star. Or even the final scene of Revenge of the Sith, which takes place in the same spot after the fall of the Republic, the death of Padmé and the rise of Darth Vader -- but at least in that little spot there's love, family, life and hope.

Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant.

[pynkhues]

I just have ask, cause I need to just voice this.. (BTW I do love the show no worry) Am I the only one who thought it was such a stupid reason that the new FBI decided that the fake money was made by women was because they used fuckin' NAIL POLISH?!! I legit sat dumfounded, I mean... wtf? What, men can't think to add nail polish to their fake money?

Haha, I get why you don’t like it, anon. As a functional plot device it’s a little hammy, but I appreciate it as a thematic plot device so much that I actually like it a lot overall. 

This show doesn’t really have a lot of recurring objects like many shows do, but when they are introduced, they usually serve as a means of underlining the gendering of spaces, crime and life, which is a theme this show is about as obsessed with as I am. I talked pretty extensively about the gendering of spaces and how the show uses them in this post (man, I should update this with the delicious new spaces in s3, because they continue all of these trends in such interesting ways!), and briefly touched on the gendering of objects too (namely Rio’s golden gun, and the dubby), but it really does extend well beyond that.

So let’s break that down a little!

(Under a cut to save your dashes!)

Functional vs Thematic Plot Devices

Plot devices take a hundred different shapes and forms throughout a story, and of course, always serve to drive narrative forwards, tell the audience something about a character, or drive home a narrative theme. Plot devices aren’t always physical – in many cases they can be a trope, expectation, lie, red herring, among many other things, but for the sake of this post I want to talk about physical plot devices.

So basically, I want to talk about the way this show uses objects.

It might not seem like it on the surface, but this is a show that uses objects as plot devices a lot. Sometimes these are obvious – the money for instance, the Boland Motors car Turner drudges from the lake back in s1, the dubby (and ho, boy, I have a lot to say about that last one, but I’ll come back to that), the guns, Lucy’s phone, etc etc etc.

While these are, of course, essentially props, this is a show that typically lends a lot of weight to them, and in particular, it lends a lot of weight to feminine-coded objects that would in other shows frequently be dismissed as inconsequential.

A pearl necklace, an old lady’s porcelain figurines, a smear of lipstick on a pen cap, a child’s blanket, a new engagement ring, a pregnancy test, vials of botox, and nail polish, among many other things, become objects of narrative and thematic importance.

When it comes to these sorts of physical plot devices, I generally separate them into two categories: functional and thematic.

Functional plot devices are ultimately what they sound like. They serve an often purely functional purpose in the story. Things like the Boland Motors car that the girls took to Canada, dumped, and then was drudged up by Turner. It was used as a means of re-directing Turner’s attention on Beth, while also revealing to Dean that Beth had been the person who’d robbed him back in 1.03. More recently too, the hockey jersey that Ruby stole was a means of ultimately giving us a fun heist as the girls scrambled to get the money to pay for Beth’s life, as well as getting us to the pawn shop where Ruby would see the pen that Sara had stolen.

Functional plot devices – at their most basic – move plot forwards, bridge the gaps between characters and accelerate the action and drama of a story.

Thematic plot devices on the other hand serve a different purpose, and are often less bogged down, I find at least, in perfect logic. While they need to do what a functional plot device does, they also carry the extra weight of underpinning character arcs and often punctuating the key themes of the story. The sled in Citizen Kane is a really good example of this – as a functional plot device it’s just a specific sled and a sort of silly thing for a multimillionaire to want when he can buy as many sleds as he wants, but as a thematic one, we lean that it’s the key thing in his life connecting him back to his childhood, his innocence and his humanity, and comes to represent the central loss of the film.

Similarly, Harry’s lightning bolt scar in the Harry Potter series serves as a functional plot device to tell us and Harry when Voldemort is near, but it actually evades logic to eschew a greater purpose – which is reiterate the theme of motherly love and protection in the story.

Sharp Objects

Good Girls uses objects this way a lot and frequently shifts them between the two purposes, and it has done that since the very beginning. Using toy guns on the very first Fine & Frugal robbery for instance, was a silly plot point used ultimately to get them into the situation with Boomer at the end, but it also thematically represented the naivety of the girls in the robbery, and Annie and Beth’s powerlessness overall, but especially in the scene with Boomer (something immediately juxtaposed with Beth hitting him with the bourbon bottle). It also works effectively as a means of showing how far Beth would come across the first season as she held a real gun at the end of it, and the further slip of her moral character and what she’s capable of across season 2 and 3.

Sometimes they seem to appear as purely functional too, but evolve into thematic ones – meaning they are enriched with weight and purpose as they transition in their design.

A good example of that is Boomer’s cell phone in 2.03 which was purely functional – serving as a means of tricking the girls into believing they were disposing of Boomer’s body, not Jeff’s, before it was pivoted in the last scene to be used on a thematic and character level. By Annie listening to Marion’s voicemails through it, it served to re-link Annie to her own humanity, and underpin her arc with Marion that would ultimately lead to betrayal, redemption, grief and guilt.

The Dubby: a quick aside

The best example though, at least to me, is, of course, the dubby. The dubby does a lot of heavy lifting on virtually every story level, and I could honestly wax lyrical about it until the end of time.

On a functional plot level, it’s there to ultimately get Beth shirking Rio’s instructions and throwing her weight against him in their partnership. It forces her to confront the fact that she views herself and Rio as equals, when the reality is – in situations like that – they’re not. It also gets us to confrontations between Beth with Dean, Rio and Ruby, as well as Annie and Ben (I told you it did a lot of heavy lifting!), served as the means to which Noah and Annie met (boo), revealed Rio’s hand emotionally, and forced Beth to face on a textual level (as opposed to subtextual level) her changing relationship with her home, with her role as a mother, and ultimately her children.

On a thematic level, it explores all that and more! Not only is it deeply, deeply symbolic of a loss of innocence (a baby blanket in a drug den!) – something that’s reiterated by the girls almost being raped in that house – but Rio’s desire, for whatever reason, to give it back to her (something actually reiterated in 2.08 when he tries to handle the baby hitmen for her) – a really, really interesting beat for a character that seems to revel in her moral decline. Rio has, I think, always wanted her to be both. Again, something that is the clearest we’ve ever seen in this episode – he wants her to own up to what she is (a drug dealer) during their fight, while simultaneously trying to restore her to a seemingly frivolous comfort as a mother. It’s complicated! And I love it!

It’s also a highly feminised object that is weaponised against Beth twice. Firstly, by Jane as a means of guilting Beth (she lost it in the drug den), then criminally (by the, y’know, criminals), and then Beth actually weaponises it herself against the woman in the craft store in a female hierarchical sense which is totally fascinating to me and feels very true of Beth as reiterating the sort of alpha woman she is.

I could keep talking about this, but let’s move on, haha.

Claws

It’s not just about character arcs though.

Thematic plot devices are also often used as symbolic touchstones to re-emphasise the key themes of the show overall, and it’s in this sense that the nail polish operates – to me – really effectively. The writers aren’t saying that nail polish is only used by women, they’re saying that it’s a feminine-coded object deemed frivolous or silly by a patriarchal society (which it is, even when men wear it), and that women can use that dismissal as a weapon.

In other words, the key through line of the show.

The girls have operated with this sensibility since the show began, acting within underestimated, feminine-coded spaces and using them, basically in a way that messes with people’s expectations. It doesn’t always work in their favour, but that’s not a bad thing, and I don’t think that that’s the story this show is trying to tell. Rather I think it’s simply trying to say that these things are active, and can be powerful and used in interesting ways. They’re not passive or frivolous as history has told us.

They’ve frequently actually tried to use female-coded objects in crime before too – namely Marion’s figurines, the secret shopping scheme, the botox – all of which failed in unique ways (all of which too were briefly entertained but ultimately rejected by Rio, and it’s interesting that a key transition in Beth and Rio’s relationship occurred around Boland Motors – a masculinised space that Beth feminised on her takeover of it – I spoke about that quite a bit in the gendered spaces post I linked to above!)

The nail polish though has been the first true, pure success of a weaponised, feminine-coded object in the crime storylines, and it’s not an accident that that has coincided with the launch of the girls’ operation and their pure success without Rio. Being able to use it to make the money has been key to representing their feminisation of the crime world and the crime space on a thematic level, and I’d argue represents a ‘full circle’ moment with the success of their returns-for-cash scheme working with Rio originally (again, a feminine-coded operation).

Like I said in my gendered spaces post – Beth, Ruby and Annie are at their strongest and smartest when they’re utilising the familiar, feminine-coded world and weaponizing it, as opposed to copying Rio’s highly masculine-coded world (one of the clearest examples of this ever on the show was this season actually when Beth realised she couldn’t intimidate Gil like Rio, but could blackball him in PTA mom mode). The nail polish is actually a key symbol of that too, and the fact that it’s identified by a female FBI agent is about reiterating the same themes. Phoebe has a chance to take down the girls and close in on them because she doesn’t underestimate that world like Turner did and Rio’s still prone to doing.

The nail polish in that sense formed not only a functional plot device (with making the money in the first place), a thematic one (the underestimation of feminine-coded objects by men), but a bridging device that makes Phoebe a real enemy to the girls. It also serves as a great narrative underscore as Phoebe removes that nail polish from circulation, not only indicating that Phoebe operates in that space as well as Beth, Ruby and Annie, because she’s a part of that world in a way Turner wasn’t, but forming a terrific narrative parallel where as Beth loses further control of her operation, she also loses control of a key ingredient which gained her that operation in the first place.

So yes! Less function, more theme, but I don’t know.

I’m pretty into it, haha.

[gerses]

“I saw your future” - Misunderstanding and projection in The Last Jedi

I want to write about something I’ve been thinking about for a while now: the way this movie is ultimately about misunderstanding between characters in general, and specifically about the mutual projection between Rey and Kylo Ren.

To give a brief summary:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi repeats the theme of misunderstandings several times. We have Poe and Holdo whose clash is caused by both failing to communicate properly and misjudging each other's character - Poe doesn't trust Holdo's leadership and Holdo sees Poe as nothing more than hot headed pilot. Finn and Rose, too, have a rocky start stemming from Rose's misunderstanding of Finn's actions - only gradually she comes to realize he isn't the coward she took him for. There's also DJ, who the heroes assume to be a decent guy, only for this to backfire when he betrays them. And of course Snoke meets his end when he fails to understand the changes in his apprentice.

That the theme is central is very obvious, but it’s what goes on between Rey and Kylo that is really interesting, because not only is that where the theme gets examined more deeply, I also believe this is where many differences between how viewers have interpreted the story come from. You see, in this aspect TLJ is a tricky movie - it fools the viewer into choosing one flawed perspective and buying into it.

What does an abandoned little girl see in a boy whose master turned against him? What does a man terrified of his own weakness see in a scavenger possessing great power? Only what they want to see.

I’m putting the rest under a cut because this got a bit long. For the record, I'm fairly critical of TLJ as a movie, but I believe this particular aspect of it has been misunderstood and ignored. English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes.

After The Force Awakens, Rey sees Kylo Ren as nothing more than a monster. When he shows up, she lashes at him, calling him just that. But when Kylo shows her his perspective - how he was betrayed by his master Luke - Rey's opinion changes. She attacks Luke. And although we see Luke's version of thing's which is different, Rey has begun to believe now that Kylo can be redeemed and she takes a great risk to go meet him.

Why? Because in TLJ, the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is not just about misunderstanding - it's also about mutual projection.

Rey is an orphan, who has waited patiently for years for her family to return, refusing to give up, continuing to hope and trust that they care for her and will come for her. This abandonment that she has not yet faced, defines her. Finding her parent's is her greatest wish, accepting that they left her is her greatest fear. So it's not surprising that when she sees that vision of young Ben Solo, betrayed by the uncle her trusted, that she is very emotionally affected by this. It connects straight to her own trauma of abandonment. She attacks Luke which such fury, it is almost like subconsciously it's not him that she is angry at, but rather, it is the repressed anger towards her parents that comes out. Rey easily believes Kylo's version of the story - that he is the victim, Luke and his parent's let him down - because all those things are true FOR HER. Rey is the victim, left alone in a merciless planet to fend for herself. Her parent's did betray her trust. And so, she starts to project her own experiences onto Kylo, believing that they are not so different deep inside. And if they are not so different, then Kylo, too, must be desperate to find a family, a place to belong to. If Rey just gives it to him - offering friendship, forgiveness, telling him he can still come back, he still has a family - then Kylo will surely accept and return to the Light.

But meanwhile, Kylo too has come to believe there is a special connection between the two of them, and that deep inside he and Rey are not so different. And just like Rey's, his assumptions of who she is and what she desires are a projection. Kylo Ren is obsessed with power. His own weakness, vulnerability, is his greatest fear, and his greatest desire is to eliminate this weakness, to metaphorically murder Ben Solo and the past that keeps him from fully embracing the Dark Side. Kylo does not seek to return to his past, his family, but to move away. What Kylo knows of Rey is essentially that she is seemingly a nobody, a lowly scavenger, abandoned by her family, yet exceptionally gifted in the force. It is inevitable, given his own issues, that Kylo then assumes that naturally Rey must hate her family and must wish to kill her attachment to them that is hurting her and holding her back. Another defining trait of Kylo Ren is his obsession with legacy and status, the way he idolizes Darth Vader and seeks to emulate him, the way his own bloodline and it's specialness has defined him. So it is also inevitable then, that he would assume that the Rey must be equally fixated in these things and therefore, the idea of her parents being "nobodies" would disturb her. If only Kylo gives Rey a way out - encourages her to kill her past, to accept the reality about her parents, if he gives her the opportunity to escape, to become special like him, something more than a daughter to be sold  for drinking money, that Rey would of course accept, turn to the Dark Side and rule the galaxy together side by side with Kylo.

There is a very fascinating little that sums up this dynamic, their mutual fantasies of each other's that are so far from reality. I'm talking about the scene in the elevator just after Kylo catches Rey. Here is their dialogue:

REY: You don't have to do this. I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart. Ben, when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You'll turn. I'll help you. I saw it.

KYLO REN: I saw something too. Because of what I saw I know when the moment comes you'll be the one to turn. You'll stand with me. Right?

This is interesting scene. We know force users are sometimes capable of seeing (or at least sensing) the future. But nothing we've seen has indicated that this would be truly the case here. Rather, it seems that both of them are making assumptions of whatever they sensed - or believe they sensed, for this an important distinction here. But we see in this moment, that both are convinced they are right.

Then, they step in front of Snoke, and although it seems for a moment that Kylo has lied to Rey, lured her into a trap, he turns his lightsaber against his master instead. They then fight the guards side by side. For a moment, it seems like they are on the same side. But this is an illusion. And in the next moment, the illusion comes crashing down.

Rey tells Kylo to order the First Order to stop attacking the Resistance. But instead, Kylo tells him: "It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels, let it all die." And now Rey starts to understand. That Kylo Ren is not the man she believed he was. Kylo wants her to rule the galaxy with him. It was never about family, finding a place to belong - to her yes, but not to him. Kylo Ren did not kill Snoke to destroy the Supreme Leader, but to become the Supreme Leader. In true Sith manner, the apprentice kills the master and takes their place. Kylo no longer needs Snoke, and ironically, it seems that his connection with Rey and the illusions it was build on, helped him  become more confident in his convictions. Look at Kylo's reaction when Rey rejects her.

It is not merely disappointment or hate. It is first confusion, then angry frustration. He offers his hand expecting Rey to take it. "No, no, you're still holding on, let go!" The he tries to use the truth (?) about Rey's parent's to turn her. I think it's important to note here that Rey doesn't speak much - it is Kylo who talks about her parents, and there is no reason to believe he has any real info about them. He merely states Rey's worst fears to manipulate her - or at least, what he believes her worst fears are. He believes that it will hurt Rey to know her parents are "nothing" and she "has no place in this story" - and that then offering her a chance to become something ("But not to me") will make her change her mind. Rey cries, but I don't think there is any reason to believe that she cares about her parents being "filthy junk traders". We're never given any hint that Rey wants to be "special" - that is Kylo's obsession, him projecting his own issues with his legacy onto her. She simply cries because she knows her family is probably dead and may never have cared about her to begin with. And because she has already found a place to belong to and people to care about, she rejects Kylo. The last shot of them together has Rey closing the door of the Falcon - and cutting the connection between them.

Kylo Ren never sought Rey out for his salvation, and Rey never sought him for power and chance to run away from her past. And yet, many people who watched the movie, seem to have been mislead the same way as the characters were. Especially Kylo's character arc is often seen as path towards light, when it seems to me clear that this was merely what Rey and the viewer are first lead to believe. I see no real evidence that TLJ takes Kylo closer to redemption - quite the opposite, he clearly takes an important step towards growth as a villain (not that he couldn’t been redeemed later - it just doesn’t happen here). In the last minutes, when he assumes the title of the Supreme Leader, orders the Millennium Falcon (with Rey inside) to be shot down and confronts Luke, we see Kylo Ren as more confident than ever before. Here, he finally seems like a true Sith, not a boy playing dress up.

Similarly, some viewers seem to take Kylo's interpretation of Rey as truth. I've seen many people arguing that the talk about "nobodies" and  having a place in the story seem to go against Rey's character, but like I explained, this is Kylo speaking.

It is also Kylo speaking when he talks about letting the past die, a line that some have taken to be some kind of core message of the movie. That supposedly, Rian Johnson wanted to send the message that the past - the previous movies, the nostalgia - should die. But again, this is a line by the villain and the movie makes it pretty clear in the end that Kylo is wrong. Because killing the past didn't work. Like Snoke says, murdering Han Solo made Kylo weaker. As Obi-Wan once said to Vader: "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine." The memory of Han and the guilt will haunt Kylo forever.

This is also important for Luke's characterization, because it is here that we see Luke overcome his own guilt and sense of responsibility towards Kylo. When Kylo kills Snoke and still rejects Rey's offer, he does it all out of his own choice. There is nobody manipulating him now. Until that moment, he has been able to blame Luke, blame his parents, blame Snoke. Now, he is the one in charge of First Order, nobody is ordering him around, Rey has offered to help him, Leia still loves him, he could return at any time - and he doesn't. Luke was a loving uncle and a good master to Ben Solo for the boy's entire life. Yes, he failed Ben, one time, for a split second. But Luke didn't make Ben slaughter his students and run away and join the Dark Side. He - and Han and Leia - are not the one's to blame. Ben Solo made his own choices, and he is the only one who can save himself. This is not Luke Skywalker as some horrible monster or pathetic failure, this is a man who lived a long life dedicated to the good and made one mistake, then ended up punishing himself for it for years. Far from iconoclastic anti-nostalgia lesson, the true message of this movie is one of accepting and confronting the past (Rey and her parent's, Luke and Kylo).

I think these are all my thoughts about the subject - this ended up being longer than I wished... But yes, this is what TLJ, in all of it's flaws and other issues, is ultimately about to me. This is what I personally believe Rian Johnson set out to achieve with his movie.

[windschildfanfictionwriter]

The Post War Draco Arguement

It seems like everyone is weighing in on the idea of Draco Malfoy’s post book arc that apparently makes him a ‘good person’ because he ‘grew up’ and no longer tried to murder people or delight in their torture/death. 

Yeah. No. 

Harry, Ron and Hermione literally saved Draco’s life in the room of requirements and not even an hour later Draco is telling Death Eaters he is one of them in order to try to spare his own life. 

Draco didn’t become good. He just realized that he would go to jail and be punished for his misdeeds if he didn’t put on some good boy pants. He’s not pretending to be good, he is a coward who is too afraid to be the bad person that he was. 

There is nothing in the books, in all seven books, to suggest otherwise. There are moments when he is terrified, traumatized, unbearably scared of the negative consequences he has wreaked upon himself, but there was no point where he felt compassion for others or regret. There was no moment where he went to Ron and was like... hey bro, you know how I poisoned you? You know, almost murdering you? Like, I’m totes sorry about that. I regret not only trying to murder Albus Dumbledore, but all the terrible side accidents that happened because of it. That must have been really painful and horrible for you, choking and suffocating and all that. 

Hey, Katie Bell, you know that horrible curse I put on you? Yeah, my bad. Knocked you out for your last season of Quidditch and nearly murdered you too, and destroyed all semblance of joy for your graduating year, but uh... totally wasn’t aiming for you? 

Nope, no remorse or regret, just gonna cry like a little fucking bitch in the bathroom about MY problems. Totally points to redemption. You betcha. 

The fact that people treated Ron like he was being immature for holding a grudge against him? Made me fucking livid. 

No, no, no, we don’t forgive people for trying to murder us. That’s just not healthy. “Forgiveness is not for the perpetrator, it is for the victim.” Some people will say. “So that they themselves can move passed the past and live a healthier life.” Sorry, but there’s a hard pass on that. 

Things that can be forgiven with time? 

A bully. 

If Draco had only bullied them, then sure. You’re both adults now. Maybe they’ll never be friends, but some hurtful words and such can be forgiven. 

But Draco Malfoy demonstrated time again to go passed simple bullying. He’s demonstrated pleasure at the thought of someone else’s death, has shown that he himself would want to be the cause of it, he attempted to murder Dumbledore- in the process nearly killing two students, and showed no remorse what so ever for either events. For either person. 

Only for himself. 

Draco Malfoy is a coward. He should have gone to jail for attempted murder, assault, endangerment, AND for being a Death Eater. Say all you want about him being a ‘child.’ He was well passed childhood. He was a teenager who was one year away from being an adult in the eyes of the wizarding world. Young enough to be forgiven for mistakes (because everybody makes them) but not young enough to be forgiven for attempted murder. 

And before anyone comes up with any weak ass arguments about him having his parents held as hostages... are you out of your god damn mind? Draco was thrilled to be made a Death Eater. He practically glowed with the joy of it on the train ride. Your little head cannon is just that. An imaginary thing that doesn’t exist. No one was a hostage. 

No. Voldemort gave Draco a job he couldn’t possibly handle and sat back to watch the shit show unfold. Daddy was in jail and Mummy was off and making deals with Snape and her sister so they were no where near being held hostage by the dark lord. 

It was only when Draco realized how outclassed he was, how much of an idiot he was for thinking that he could do this, that his fear of not being able to complete the task (not the task itself, mind you) overwhelmed him and made him realize that his life was truly in danger.  

One of the failings of the books, I always thought, was allowing Draco Malfoy to (essentially) get away with everything. His family remained alive. He was safe. Free to get married and have kids, apparently. It was only the disdain of the the wizarding world he had to deal with and that seems to have been all but forgotten by the time the epilogue rolled around. 

While people like Tonks and Lupin, Sirius and Cedric, Fred and Colin and many more died... this motherfucker got to live. 

Its quite sickening. 

And then good people like Ron are just expected to shake his hand and let things just... be? Fuck that. Draco Malfoy deserved to be poisoned and cursed and dropped off the Astronomy Tower with the entirety of Hogwarts applauding his death before heading off to the Great Hall for tea. 

The trope of Draco Malfoy being ‘misunderstood’ is as unjustifiable as the one that states Ron Weasley is a bad friend. These tropes are born out of a problem with culture. The idea that the ‘bad boy’ no matter how terrible he is, no matter abusive or sickening his behavior can always be justified by a shitty passed or other excuses (Draco). On the other hand the idea that a genuinely good person who stands beside the hero is unforgivable for having moments of weakness, of being human, and who is not perfect is also apart of society. The sidekick who has one bad trait is considered to be unworthy while a bad guy is considered misunderstood for having one line in one book that wasn’t absolutely bad. 

Romance Novels are filled with Draco Malfoys. They glorify his type. My best friend (who adores the trash) went on an on about an assassin who kidnapped this woman against her will (but for her own good, apparently). This assassin forces her to stay on this island with him. Yet he is misunderstood. He was horribly abused as a child and had these malicious terrible things done so despite the fact that he is holding her against her will, he is the good guy. 

Another book summary from my bestie? This guy ignores this girls safe word and goes too far. Repeatedly. But no, its not his fault! Because he was raised this way. He’s a good guy. Really. 

Again and again and again she tells me about these romance novels and it truly sickens me. That woman are so into this concept. That the guy who is abusive and horrible and mentally fucked up is more desirable and interesting than the well rounded, genuinely good people in the world. 

She has never, not once, described a healthy relationship in the hundreds and hundreds of books she’s read. Its all equally sickening. 

Which is why people find Severus Snape to be good. It’s why people prefer the Draco Malfoy’s to the sweet Ronald Weasley’s. They have a fascination with the mentally fucked up. They find a thrill with unraveling the reasoning behind it and for trying to draw out the good in all that fucked up-ness. 

The Romance Genre is the highest grossing Genre in all of literature. More than Sci-Fi or fantasty or Young Adult. This Genre, primarily bought by woman, is filled to the brim with abusive, terrible behavior that is glorified and giggled over. 

Because its popular. 

Because it sells. 

That is why Draco Malfoy is popular even though he has no right to be. It is vicious and ugly and sickening, but true, none the less. People like abusive assholes and they’ll fall over themselves to give them excuses. 

#Anti-Draco #HarryPotter #DracoMalfoy #Bully 

[ah-maa-zing]

The Longbow Hunters (Arrow 7.02)

I’d like to start off this review by stating the freaking obvious: I love Felicity Smoak. 

I mean, I’ve always loved her, even when the writing has failed her, and even when I haven’t loved her choices or her actions. But when she’s written with the kind of agency she deserves, the determination, the drive and the steely-eyed focus as she has been in ‘The Longbow Hunters’, well, nothing could be better. 

Two episodes in, and I’m really enjoying Beth and her team’s style. The show is as dark as ever, but there’s an intensity - particularly in the prison scenes - that feels like the characters’ actions have real stakes that won’t randomly disappear into the ether because “reasons”. Many (most?) of the complaints about 6B were that characters were contorted, pretzel-like, into unrecognisable caricatures of themselves - previously decent characters turning into assholes overnight. And yes, while in some cases it may feel like a bit of a stretch to develop a speedy redemption, I can certainly appreciate the new writing team’s attempts to course correct as quickly as humanly possible. 

One of the things that appears to be gone for good is “Team Arrow”, in whatever iteration it has taken over the years. Which makes sense, given that the Arrow part of the equation is off the grid for now. Still, it’s somewhat unsettling as a viewer (especially seeing it from Felicity’s perspective) to come into a new status quo where there are new rules and restrictions, and where Felicity no longer has free rein over information and intelligence gathering, which has typically been her domain. Even if she weren’t already desperate for personal reasons, I’d expect her to be feeling pretty unempowered by the whole set-up. 

Curtis doesn’t seem to be having that same problem, and if I can just get on my soap box for a second (I really hope I don’t spend the entire season complaining about him) - what exactly is his role on the show anymore? There are already, in my view, far too many ‘regular’ characters at the moment and it does at times feel a little crowded. But of all of these characters, for me Curtis is the one that seems to have no unique utility at all. There are better vigilantes than him, and there are better hackers than him. So far all I see as his purpose is continuously whinging about how hard his life is (when he’s the one who’s suffered the least), and for other characters to crack “grab your balls” jokes (which, while funny, aren’t exactly essential). Like I say, I hope I don’t keep repeating myself on this point as the season goes on, so if Curtis could just take a job in a neighbouring city or disappear into a hole or whatever, that’d be grand (sadly I think the opposite is probably going to be the case). 

Anyway...I really enjoyed the conflict between Felicity and Diggle, which feels both warranted but also really sad. I said last week that all the characters barring Oliver, Felicity and William have found a way to move forward with their lives over the last five months, and none more so than John, who has a new sense of order and purpose within ARGUS. Setting aside that brief insanity of last season, this has always been his MO -- finding a place for himself within an established structure, be that the Army or Team Arrow or ARGUS, and do his job really, really well. 

All that to say that I do understand where he’s coming from on the Diaz front. He’s got the ARGUS Deputy Director on his back, which again is a realistic situation (a black ops organisation as regimented as ARGUS would never allow the Director’s husband to run amok with its resources), and he feels the need to maintain order and colour within the lines, if you will, so that he and his family don’t face the blowback. I get it. 

That said, I’m still incredibly disappointed in him, which I think is partly the point and is definitely a great source of angst. His explanation to Felicity about not wanting to sacrifice his family makes sense, but at the same time, Felicity and Oliver are (or were) also his family, and her point about the last six years actually meaning something to her is such a gut-wrenching moment. I think this is the point that Felicity realises she’s all alone in this. It’s not that John doesn’t love Oliver or that the others won’t help (though “whatever you need” seems to have its limitations), but the way she sees it - Oliver just doesn’t matter as much to them as to her. So he went to prison to sacrifice himself for them - so what? None of them are willing to go the extra mile to save him like he would them. As for John, when he was in prison, and Lyla went to Oliver for help in breaking him out, he didn’t even hesitate. Against all odds he went in and broke his brother out, and while that might not be possible in this case, Felicity must still feel the sting at the lack of reciprocity from John. 

Which is why I enjoyed her being at odds with John on this, even if they came to an understanding by the end of it, and which is also why I loved her move at the end of the episode. Going to Samanda Watson, not to break Oliver out but to fulfil the terms of his imprisonment, is such a baller move, and I am really looking forward to them working together. 

I’m excited about Felicity’s arc in the upcoming episodes, especially while Oliver’s in prison and she’s essentially on her own. If the trajectory continues the way it has been, I think we’re in for a ride. 

Speaking of prison, Oliver is finding his footing a little bit now, though how long that lasts remains to be seen. This storyline continues to excite me because it is so unlike anything we’ve seen before and the possibilities are endless. Oliver ‘found another way’ this time (I’m glad he didn’t kill Yorke. I know he’s an asshole but I kind of liked him), but will he be able to do so again? At a certain point, the net will tighten and there won’t be any more loopholes to find. And that’ll be an interesting place for Oliver to be. 

I still think Stan the Fan is a Diaz plant; he’s too shifty by half. But I am temporarily enjoying the dynamic between him and Oliver, esp. because it gives Oliver a chance to roll his eyes and be the straight man to someone else’s banter - a role that Oliver has always excelled at. I loved that he fashioned a makeshift slingshot from a broken pencil (of course he did), and it reminded me of him making a bow and arrows out of curtain rods in ‘Corto Maltese’. Oh Oliver, you are such a McGyver. 

Like Felicity, Oliver’s entire focus now is getting Diaz off the board in order to protect his family. The fact that they are on parallel paths towards the same goal frames their individual storylines incredibly well, and makes anything else in between almost superfluous. 

I don’t know quite what to make of the Dinah Double Act™, and I’m not sure I entirely buy both of their seemingly easy acceptance of each other. Why Dinah feels the need to protect Laurel from Diaz is beyond me - surely they would be using her as bait if anything? - especially since, from what I can tell, Diaz doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to hunt her down. Still, I can buy that Laurel feels something towards Quentin and his death at Diaz’s hands, and I can live with that fuelling her motivation to live the way Quentin would want her to. I also think that this episode allows all of the women who appear in it to maintain their own agency and motivations, however complex (or unearned), and that can only be a good thing. It’s no surprise, given this episode was written and directed by women, but it does feel a long time coming. 

I do think that the fight against Silencer was pretty effective - man, that is an interesting power. In fact, all of the Longbow Hunters seem to be pretty formidable in their own right. Kodiak, the guy with the shield, broke John’s assault rifle IN. HALF. Goddamn, it’s about time we had some menacing villains. The Longbow Hunters present a significant threat to no-longer-Team-Arrow, and it doesn’t pass me by that the only way Silencer was defeated was by Laurel and Dinah sonic-crying her together. Methinks no-longer-Team-Arrow may need to re-form again in some way soon enough. 

I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface here on many of these plot points, but there is so much going on (in a way that it all seems to hold together) that it’s fascinating to see how it will all come together. Especially given the apparently bleak future our characters have in store for them. 

To which -- Future William. I find it hard to believe that Oliver and Felicity would just abandon William, unless “leave” is a euphemism for something more sinister, which it appears might be the case. Otherwise, why would Felicity install a tracker in the hozen (called it!) and set the coordinates to Lian Yu? Furthermore, did she set those coordinates in 2018 when she gave him the hozen the first time? Did she want him to go to Lian Yu in some interim time before the 20 years? What on earth did she expect him to find there? And why was Oliver’s bow buried in a box? Who buried it? What did that note say? Why did Roy burn it up? Why are they heading back to Star City? Why did Roy and Thea break up (or what happened that he ran to Lian Yu to forget about it?)? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. Isn’t that exciting? So many things we have yet to learn, so many mysteries, big and small. I’ve missed this. 

I continue to enjoy Future William and Old Man Roy’s dynamic; William is such a passive-aggressive asshole and it’s hilarious. I find it interesting also that he states he doesn’t even know how to use a bow and arrow, but he is a tech genius. Guess we know which parent he takes after. One question I have is whether the future we are seeing is ‘fixed’ or immutable, or whether whatever has happened in the interim 20 years can be undone or redone in a way. I still wonder whether William is the “new Green Arrow”, back to correct whatever went wrong in the intervening years that caused Oliver and Felicity to disappear from his life. The framing shot of him holding the bow hints towards that, but given that he claims he doesn’t know how to use it suggests that either he’s trained by Roy in upcoming episodes, or the wielder of the bow is someone else. Intrigue. Also intriguing is the question of when in time William is abandoned by his parents; if we expect to see young William in the present-day timeline (as I hope we will), then when exactly is it that their paths diverge? Time will tell. 

“My wife taught me a thing or two” - HIS. WIFE. TAUGHT. HIM. A. THING. OR. TWO. Ask me when the day will come when I stop reacting like a crazy person to every mention of Felicity as his wife and Oliver as her husband. Answer: NEVER. THAT DAY WILL NEVER COME. Bless.

“What’s an Overwatch?” made me laugh. Especially since Oliver doesn’t bother answering. 

“My wife and son were attacked. I’d do anything to protect them.” - a) I love the intensity of the way he says that, and b) isn’t it great that he then uses Yorke’s love for his wife and son against him? 

Speaking of, Oliver stabbing himself and pinning it on Yorke is THE most Oliver thing he’s ever done. LMAO. I definitely laughed at him overplaying the “you stabbed me! HE STABBED ME!!!” dramatic writhing. Even Brick looked amused. 

“There’s only one Green Arrow, and he’s in prison” - you tell ‘em, Felicity. 

The dialogue feels a lot tighter this season, and as I’ve mentioned before, characters’ motivations make much more sense. Long may it all continue. 

Okay, but I really do enjoy snarky Laurel. I’d rather that than a fully redeemed member of Team Arrow. I think she plays better as a (semi-)villain.

I miss Felicity’s pink hair. Sob. 

Diaz’s flamethrower gun was cool, but John giving him a well-deserved beatdown was cooler. 

All this ARGUS focus makes me miss Lyla. Bring her back, show. 

Felicity needs some actual friends like, right now. GIVE HER SOME FRIENDS WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT HER MORE THAN THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR STUPID JOBS. 

Nice thrown in mention about William being gay. 

Also, does Old Man Roy just wear his Arsenal suit all day and night? Doesn’t that get...itchy? And smelly? And uncomfortable? And unnecessary? Oh Roy! 

Felicity is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more forgiving than I would have been. I’d have told everyone to fuck off and firebombed the place as I walked out (not so much on that last part, but ya know). 

I’m glad the show knows that Quentin wasn’t really Laurel’s father, even if they can’t seem to make that distinction in interviews. 

Honestly, Beth is just about the best thing that could have happened to this show right now. Imagine this team two years ago?!

Felicity and Oliver are each other’s ride or die, and I cannot wait for their reunion. 

[takaraphoenix]

I believe you didn't talk about your opinion of Riverdale's season 2 yet. (You know, in it's entirety and not just of some scenes.) But now I'm left curious. What do you think of the rest of the season? And since you wanted to find out on your own: Did you manage to correctly identify the Black Hood before it was confirmed in the show?

Oooh. Oh, sorry. I just always post the excitement when something, ya know, exciting happens. Still unsure about lengthy ramblings that seem too off-topic from the blog. (Yes, I am still pretending this blog has a theme. Let me. xD)

Oh dear, how do I put all the things into words and in order?

To sum it up briefly as an intro: I’m disappointed.

Now, more in detail.

Starting with the things I liked. Which are significantly less than the things I disliked, hence the overall verdict.

Toni is an amazing character and I love her addition to the show. I just hope she will get her own plotline next season, because this season she was only there to either further Jughead’s plot or Cheryl’s. I’m also very eager to see Toni’s and Cheryl’s relationship unfold, because boy do I ship it hard.

I really enjoyed FP and Alice Cooper’s development this season, much to my own surprise. Alice came out being one of my most hated characters first season, but I actually liked her semi-redemption arc and... I... somehow now ship her and FP? I am very disturbed by that, to be honest.

And... with that, we kind of reached the end of the things I enjoyed this season? Which, yeah, sad.

I didn’t like a single one of the main characters’ plotlines this season.

Archie and how his relationship with his father slowly came apart over the course of the season - despite it being semi-mended in the end, this whole arch seemed unnecessarily forced and in contrast to their portrayal in the first season.

Archie and starting his own fucking gang. TWICE.

Seriously. He gives Jughead shit for being a serpent, but then he goes ahead and starts his own gang. And the fucking names. Red Circle. Dark Circle. Wow. Such creativity, much awe.

Archie running after Hiram Lodge all season long was just... intensely disturbing to watch. He just allowed himself to be sucked in deeper and deeper.

So did Veronica and with her it annoyed me even more. First season Veronica seemed so much like the girl who was against her criminal father. And now she just... doubled down on the crime hard. And I genuinely don’t know what she was expecting? Because the girl acted like what happened was somehow a surprise or something in the end, when she turned against him again. Like. What... What did she think would happen...?

Then there was Betty’s plot.

I liked that she confided in Archie and her friends about the Black Hood and didn’t just do a solo gig. But her trying to get her brother and them just immediately accepting the creep into the family without so much as a fucking background check first.

And Jughead literally went from the sweet nerd with a blog to the fucking king of the gang. Like. Good lords, slow it down some. It seemed so incredibly rushed just how fast he came to accept the serpents as his family and the school as his home. I think that his “becoming a serpent and becoming king of the serpents” plot should have been stretched out over two seasons.

Cheryl’s plot was... so over the top too. Conversion camp? Her mom trying to murder grandma? And... her characterization was all over the place too. One second she is the Queen with the power-moves cutting her mom’s oxygen, the next she is the crying girl in the corner, weak and helpless. I mean, I get that with everything that happened last and this season to her, she wouldn’t be fully stable, but it really felt more like convenient writing. “Mh, we need more tension, so how about Cheryl is utterly helpless and defenseless in the next scene?” turning into “Oh but we could use a badass move, how about she just attacks the serial killer with her bow and arrows and without being the least bit intimidated?”.

Also Cheryl and Rose now living alone in the mansion... Honestly, instead of making her sick grandma her guardian, I think auntie Alice should have stepped up.

The relationship between Cheryl and Betty is really fascinating and I would genuinely enjoy seeing more of it. Like, having Cheryl move in with them, she can have Polly’s room. She would be forced to live a more down-to-Earth life.

The whole evil twin of her dad thing was really unnecessary. I mean. Seriously. It added absolutely nothing to the plot.

Just, overall, there was way too much going on this season for my taste.

And not just too much as in too many plotlines, also just... too dark, too deep, too heavy.

This show is indeed taking the Desperate Housewives route, but it hits it harder than I expected.

That is to say, the first season offers a genuinely intriguing, vaguely over-dramatic mystery that happens and that brings an unlikely band of protagonists together to solve it. Following seasons will so desperately try to top it that the dramatic event is completely blown out of proportions and loses absolutely all grasp on reality.

And that’s what happened this season.

We get a serial killer. And the mafia. And a psycho imposter brother. And an evil twin. And a conversion camp. And a gang war. And a serial rapist. And a drug problem.

That’s just too many “and”s.

First season worked perfectly. It had that one mystery that they had to solve and then some sub-plots around it. That mystery was one murder.

Now, to your other question regarding the Black Hood: HONESTLY HALF THE TIME I FORGET THAT HE IS A CHARACTER ON THIS SHOW.

Hal is so bland and so unimportant. When he made his first appearance this season, I legit went “OH right Alice has a husband! Ooops!”.

I figured it out at one point, but then they went misdirection with that second, or third, I lost count, Black Hood and I grew doubtful because why the fuck.

Last season, with daddy Blossom, it took me really long to figure it out. But when it was revealed, it was a thing that made sense. They set the mystery up so you had to work to figure it out, but it made sense plotwise.

This one? They purposefully wrote it so it doesn’t make sense.

There is no legit motive. They retconned some “Oh by the way his dad was a murderer but he pinned it on someone else and momma brainwashed him and Betty’s words in the last season finale were a trigger to turn him into a serial killer” so hard that it’s just pathetic.

And how he conveniently managed to stop killing when he got it pinned on someone else. That was literally only plot-convenience to make the viewer believe they got the right guy, because Hal had no logical motivation to stop killing. It was never about hiding his crimes? He literally wrote letters and made phone-calls and flaunted it in everybody’s face, why would he find a scapegoat and then stop killing? That’s just... bullshit. He should have, logically speaking, gone after like Hiram Lodge or some other scumbag criminal.

Nothing about that shit could have been guessed.

I mean, I did guess that Hal would be the son of the murderer. Or the one surviving child from the murder. But then they put the janitor in and killed that.

Last season’s mystery came natural. This one was forced in every way of the word.

That just completely took the fun out of it for me.

Well, that and the sheer amount of cruelty and brutality this season. There was no fun this season. Last season still had its lighthearted moments. This one didn’t.

It’s not just taking a bad Desperate Housewives route, that route is crossing streets with the bad Teen Wolf route of going grittier and darker and removing all color and fun from something that used to have color and fun and then somehow expecting that to be good. It is not. It never will be.

Either make something gritty and dark from the get-go so it attracts the right crowd of people, or make something that has jokes and lightheartedness in it and embrace that. But don’t attempt a genre-change like that. It’s a failure.

The musical episode was really out of place for me too. It didn’t fit to the tone of this season at all. Fun musical stuff could have gone with last season. Not to mention the musical could have been Kevin’s plotline. But... Kevin kind of didn’t get a plotline at all. He got one episode of musical thrown his way and that vague shit about him fucking in the woods and that was, essentially, it.

I am also not a hundred percent sure; did Betty and Jughead actually fuck or just make out...? I usually look away when they start undressing on screen and only look up again when the scene is over. I fail to see any reason for sex scenes at all, period, in literally any show, but especially so in a show about supposed teenagers? It’s just... weird for me. But if they did, fuck you show. I want asexual Jughead. Also, this ship has zero chemistry.

And can someone maybe get Betty a therapist now? Last season with her turning into psycho Betty with the fucking wig was already Really Disturbing, but she doubled down on that hard this season? And? Is she supposed to have some form of... personality disorder? Is that intentional? Either way, she helped cover up a murder this season and got psychologically tortured by her father who is a serial killer, so yeah please get her professional help.

So, yeah. That’s it.

I found this season too forced, too dark and too brutal and if the show doubles down on those elements with the same rate that it did from season 1 to season 2, then season 3 is going to be DCEU levels of dark and gritty.

I really hope they will slow down and that they will start remembering that you don’t have to rush from one traumatic, brutal event to the next murder to the next attempted rape and so on, but that you can... pause in between and put something more light in, to even things out. How do writers keep forgetting that...?

[qqueenofhades]

I was (?) a Lyatt shipper who loved Flynn since S1 bc I love a good bad boy. I've been sympathetic to him since the 70s (ha!) when we found out about his wife and kid being murdered. So I found your blog and was loving all the Flynn stuff but I wasn't into Garcy. Thought "ew"--isn't he more like cool young uncle material for her? Fast forward to today and I have read every Garcy ff you have written and have fallen completely into the trash can. I know you prob hear this a lot lately...(1)

(2) but I wanted to thank you so much for writing The Tangled Web of Fate. What a masterpiece! You make the storyline in the same tone as canon somehow. You really have Flynn’s emotions and voice down pat. So good. Makes me believe in Garcy. In fact, makes me want Jessica and Logan to figure out their crap and that way everyone can be happy bc at this point I don’t want Jessica to be unhappy or go away either. Anyway, I went from Garcy sounds gross to GIVE ME MORE. So thanks?

(3) sorry. I feel panicked that we are running out of time (unoriginal pun) and might only get 5 more episodes and Flynn won’t get the full character development and happy ending he deserves. If it were up to you, would you give him a redemption arc and a happy ending or would you keep him as garbage boss? Also, dude is a full head taller than the industrial fridge in the bunker and they need to find a couch he can be comfy in. He looks like a giant living in a tiny house. My poor baby.

Ahaha. This delights me to no end, ngl. My powers are groooowing. And you have given me a lot to talk about here, so thanks. :)

Honestly, the people insisting on reading Garcy as familial/platonic/theorizing that Flynn is somehow Lucy’s son/they’re otherwise related are… very confusing to me? To say the least. Though to be totally frank, it’s often clearly by people who have an agenda in discrediting Garcy as a viable alternative to Lyatt (which they… probably don’t need to do, I mean for better or worse, the writers have made their preference/narrative direction clear. Alas). I obviously have no problem with people shipping whatever they want in whatever way they do, but… yeah, Garcy’s vibe ain’t platonic or familial (and if for some wild reason they DID end up Magically Related, like Flynn was somehow Lucy’s long-lost brother from an alternate universe or whatever, I wouldn’t stop shipping it, or even writing smut for it. I’d be like, “well writers, you got yourself into this with this far-fetched and illogical forced plot twist that does not fit with anything that has been written or acted beforehand, so I’m going to just go for Time Traveling Flowers in the Attic. Ooops?”) I’ve had plenty of posts with the way Flynn looks at/acts around Lucy (just saying, if my uncle looked at me like that, I would make sure never to be alone with him at family events) and the way she’s started to look back at him. And Goran Visnjic has straight up said that Flynn is “infatuated” with Lucy and we’ve had a lot of teasing about “does Flynn have a thing for Lucy” re: 2x06 that makes me wonder if we’re going to get some kind of more explicit confirmation of the way he feels about her. Goran has also encouraged us to read between the lines, so people can want it to be just a friendship (because they prefer another romantic partner for Lucy, and again, that’s fine, whatever) but he’s consciously acting it as a pretty romantic fascination. So yes. We aren’t just making that up.

Also, just saying, we KNOW who Flynn’s mom is, she’s a named and identified character, she appeared in an episode, Rittenhouse was originally sending Rufus, Lucy, and Assassin Goon to kill her in 1x15 with the aim of erasing Flynn from history. So “Flynn is Lucy’s son” is just… did you guys not notice Maria Thompkins? Who was awesome and I love her? Besides, if Flynn was Lucy’s son, she wouldn’t NEED time travel to meet him, and we know the journal is connected to new time tech (traveling on your own timeline). He couldn’t be anything less than her grandson and that would still be ludicrously complicated, as it would require Lucy to have Maria at some point while traveling in the past, then… straight up abandon her, then go back to her own timeline, then wait for Flynn to grow up, then travel back to meet him…. etc. It’s a mess. We know Flynn’s parents’ names (Asher Flynn and Maria Thompkins); hell, we know more about his family than we do about Wyatt’s. Why is no one theorizing that Wyatt is secretly Flynn and Lucy’s son? (I kid, I kid. But still. It makes about as much sense, if not more, which is to say it doesn’t.)

Anyway yes, I always felt like that was a pretty transparent attempt to make Garcy a non-romantic option in order to remove it as a shipper threat, but that doesn’t mean people can’t ship it as a friendship/brotp. I’m just saying, however, that it has been (at least certainly on Flynn/Goran’s end) played as a romantic thing, even if latent and unspoken and complicated. (Also, he went really quickly for the “honey…” and “what my wife failed to mention” lines in 1x11 and 2x04, so even if Flynn won’t admit it, he instinctively sees Lucy in some way as his wife.) So yes. Making them related would be a COMPLETELY illogical stretch, but… if they did that, yeah, I’d probably still ship it. (Shrug emoji.) Because I would recognize that the council had made a decision, but given as it was a stupid-ass decision, would elect to ignore it. (Insert Nick Fury gif here.)

Next, I am obviously glad that you are enjoying my fic and it has converted you to one of us. I started writing the Wyatt/Jessica stuff before she arrived back on the show and am rather pleased with how nicely it fits. Wyatt in canon needs a serious reality check, which I am hoping he gets. I obviously forgave Flynn for being a total fuckup and hurting everyone, I am absolutely willing to do the same for Wyatt, but he needs to have the “well shit I’ve been a selfish ass and am going to substantively make up for it” moment first. I hope the big finale moment is him finally owning up to his dickish behavior and putting everyone else first and otherwise reversing course. Because yeah. I’m judging.

Lastly, I WORRY ALL THE TIME ABOUT US GETTING CANCELLED AFTER THIS SEASON BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A TRAVESTY. A TRAVESTY. The short season has always hurt us narratively, though of course it’s great to get it, but then to cut it off there with no more space at all… god. It gives me the shudders just to think about. And one of the reasons is yes, give me my full redeemed-antihero Garcia Flynn redemption arc. Goran has talked a lot about how we’re seeing more of his real nature this season, and just yes. We saw throughout season 1 that Flynn hated to do a lot of what he was doing, but he did it anyway in the larger purpose of bringing down Rittenhouse (and nobody has yet acknowledged that he was right all along about them…we need more conversations/authentic character moments, guys, NOT SOAPY RELATIONSHIP DRAMA. JUST SAYING). He never really WANTED to be a garbage disaster, but he loved his wife and daughter more, and he was dedicated to taking Rittenhouse down to the point that he thought he couldn’t return to them even if he did save them. So no, he was not a character who was just out there burning shit down for the fun of it (though he does enjoy it in some ways, because… he’s a disaster). But Flynn’s character file in canon has him fighting in a lot of small-scale liberation wars (Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc) against occupying/oppressive regimes, and that’s basically what he’s doing with Rittenhouse. He is a good man with a very strong moral code, but also a very grey one. He has correctly identified the overall enemy and is dedicated to destroying them, but he won’t be the hero wringing his hands over it because “it’s not right” to use violence. Which the Time Team is leaning on themselves (they basically left Flynn in 1934 to be a hitman, so… no more judgey remarks about “he’s a killer” would be nice, guys. You know he is and you’re using that because you need it.)

So yes. Flynn doesn’t WANT to be a garbage disaster, so it would be cruel to keep him as one. He is sassy as hell, but he also seems happier working with the team than he ever really did alone (as Goran has also discussed). Again: MORE CONVERSATIONS!!! Did Flynn just see it as business in trying to take out the team before, since they were trying to stop him from taking down Rittenhouse, and now that they agree on who the threat is, he’s happy to work with them? Is Garcia “why do I even delegate” Flynn really trusting them (at least aside from Lucy, who he clearly does) to do what’s needed, or does he essentially think he still has to do it himself? DEVELOPMENT PLEASE!

I wanted Flynn to permanently join the team ever since 1x10 (as that episode threw me down the dumpster in SO many ways) so obviously, I want that to keep up. The 2x07 pic of him and Rufus clasping hands made me hella emotional (also: we still haven’t had a Flogan scene since Flynn arrived in 2x03 and Wyatt stormed out in a hissy fit…still judging for skipping the Messy Boys Trip in 2x05). I want him to be developed and integrated more into the team and made a part of them, because I’m a hopeless sucker for villain becomes weird family member and redeemed antihero and found family and enemies-to-lovers/enemies-to-friends. So yes. Please don’t screw it up, guys.

(Also yes. Yes, I noticed him being taller than the god damn fridge at the end of 2x05. He’s HUGE and it’s ridiculous.)

[counterspelling]

TLJ bitterness

I'm so incredibly disappointed that in an era of gritty reboots and dark retellings that Star Wars couldn't stay true to its roots of hope and fairy tales. They're kids movies. Lucas has talked about that so many times. He created them for kids and to be modern fairy tales. Bad things happen but the good guys always pull through eventually. The villains get names like Sidious and Maul and Savage and the heroes may lose a battle but they never lose hope, they never stop trying, and they pull together because they're stronger together.

Abrams kept the tone of people coming together and becoming stronger for it and found families, but he did it at the expense of the original trio and everything THEY'D accomplished and fought for together. I'll never let go of my bitterness that Han and Leia broke up. Nothing (not losing a child in a war, not losing one to the dark side, NOTHING) could break them up because they'd been through so much together and always came out the other side stronger for having endured it together. Letting them stay together wouldn't have changed a goddamn thing in the story except for being less ~realistic~~~~ but in a series where people fight with laser swords and the first trilogy ends with someone THROWING AWAY THAT SWORD and trusting his enemy to do the right thing, REALISM isn't high on my list of what I want to see.

Johnson took it even further and tried to go the dumbass moral ambiguity route. But what did TLJ accomplish? At the end of it, the characters are all in the exact same fucking place they were at the start. Kylo was irredeemable in TFA and he's irredeemable here. An exploration of ~can he be brought back to the light~, shockingly, accomplished nothing. Because we watched him slaughter a village full of innocents already. Because he was complicit in the deaths of millions of people. Because we watched him murder his own father. WHY did we need a two and a half hour story about his possible redemption? IT WENT NOWHERE. There’s a reason Vader only got “redeemed” in the last 15 minutes of ROTJ. Because nobody wants to see him live through it. He’s done too many terrible things. His return to the light side only counts because he died right after and Luke got a reunion with a man he’s always wanted to know, even if it only lasted two minutes. We can be happy that Luke got closure and still glad that Vader’s gone.

Rey got approximately 12 hours of jedi training and learned about the dark side. Maybe? I honestly could not fucking tell you what the fuck Rey’s story arc in this movie was supposed to be. She still believes in the Resistance and wants to be a jedi. Great. Except we knew that two years ago. Nothing that happened in this movie fucking matters. Luke secluded himself on a fucking island for years and now he's dead. Luke Skywalker dedicated his life to making the galaxy a safer and better place from the age of 19 and would never give up on it. Turning him into the grizzled mentor who lost all hope isn't just a shitty retelling of an extremely tired trope, it's dishonest to who he is at his core. Luke would give everything he has before letting the galaxy come to this point again. He would have given his own life to stop Snoke, he would certainly never have just give up in tiredness and hopelessness and waited for a pointless fucking death on an island. He would never give up on teaching or inspiring others or trying to rebuild and help people. Those are all traits intrinsic to who he is.

Star Wars needs conflict. It needs villains. The heroes need to struggle and overcome the odds. But doing all that while saying the characters beloved for the past 40 years have failed and are now unrecognizable shells of themselves is BAD STORYTELLING. Doing all that while Johnson indulges his own gross fascination with a mass murdering nazi white boy is bad storytelling. People shouldn’t walk out of a movie wondering what the point is. This entire movie could have been skipped and whatever 9 ends up would still be essentially unchanged because other than Luke’s death, nothing really happened.

[fist-of-vengeance]

thinking about how essentially every relationship john locke formed in the early seasons of lost has completely disintegrated by the time of his death.

of course there's his relationship with jack, which starts tense but manageable and culminates in jack pointing a gun at john's head and pulling the trigger. but even his smaller, less narratively prominent relationships either implode or drift apart. he bonds with walt in season one but then walt leaves the island, which is itself a severing of their bond since it was mainly based on being the only two people who wanted to stay. still, he goes and visits walt off the island so this is probably john's most successful relationship. I dont think i need to explain how he fucked up with boone, "the sacrifice that the island demanded." charlie viewed john as a mentor and claimed to trust him more than anyone on the island, but after the events of fire and water, that trust is destroyed and charlie despises him. at the same time we get john bonding with claire and having a pseudo-paternal dynamic with her, but their closeness basically drops off the face of the earth as he gets less and less involved with the other survivors.

his arc in the series is essentially a gradual distancing from everyone around him. it starts when he abandons hunting (providing for the others) in favor of trying to get the hatch open (it's extremely clear his primary motive isn't any survival applications but getting answers to the mystery). when they do open the hatch, he spends more and more time inside, underground, cut off from other people. he spends more and more time interacting with ben, a human mystery box that he's obsessed with cracking even if it gets him killed. he follows the proverbial white rabbit deeper down the hole and leaves his connection to humanity behind. the island and its mysteries become more important to john than anything or anyone else.

then in season three we get him claiming to go undercover with the others only to unceremoniously tell sawyer that he's actually going to join them. and it doesn't feel shocking, it feels inevitable. because john has spent the entire series becoming less and less connected with the people he arrived with. in that sense he actually makes a fascinating foil to juliet, who is introduced as one of the others and yet never really fits, she's increasingly sympathetic and kind in a way the rest of them aren't, her redemption arc feels so natural that she actually starts referring to her old people as "the others" like she's been one of the crash survivors from the beginning. her and john basically have inverse arcs, which is probably accidental but very neat.

in season five john tries to convince everyone to go back to the island, and fails spectacularly. and of course he does, because he was so consumed by obsession that he stopped maintaining his relationships, and in many cases actively alienated people (this is also basically what happened with helen) and now he can't wrap his head around why they're all so hostile to him. i am forever obsessed with the scene where he confronts kate and she brutally calls him out for wanting to return to the island because he doesn't love anyone. it actually struck me on rewatch how well the two of them got along in season one, and how badly their relationship has degraded by this point. john repeatedly casts aside interpersonal relationships in favor of his obsession with destiny, so when said destiny actually involves persuading the people he once shunned, he's at a loss. this is because john treats purpose as a supplement for connection, destiny as an alternative to love.

as an aside, this aspect of john's character kinda ties into my opinion that several lost characters can be read as allegorically neurdivergent under a certain lens. i know this was absolutely not intended, but as an adhd former gifted kid who struggles socially, there is something uncomfortably familiar about a character who allows their relationships to burn around them because of a single-minded obsession, especially as a result of being promised the fickle status of "special."

tl/dr: john locke is a doomed idiot and i love him

[scarffile0-blog]

Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Review

Marvel's The Punisher is going to be canceled. That's the harsh truth. Netflix and Marvel are almost certainly severing all ties after four years and a fruitful partnership that, by the time it is over, will have produced three seasons of both Daredevil and Jessica Jones (the third is expected to debut later this year), two seasons each of Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher, and a single season of the team-up series The Defenders.

The choice to end the partnership has little to do with the success or popularity of the comic book series and everything to do with the fact the shows are produced by Marvel Television and ABC Studios, both of which are part of Disney, and Disney is launching its own streaming service later this year. Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil have already received the ax; The Punisher and Jessica Jones will certainly be cut down after Netflix releases their respective seasons that were ordered prior to the decision to dissolve the partnership. To that end, does it matter if The Punisher's second season, which drops Friday, Jan. 18, is any good if it's essentially dead on arrival?

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To be frank about it: Not really. Whether or not the new season is good or bad has no effect on the show's future. It is what it is. But none of this will stop people from watching it, and it shouldn't. Despite being too long, the first season of The Punisher was a fascinating character study of Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) the husband and father rather than just an action series about the highly skilled killing machine known as the Punisher, a nickname bestowed upon Frank by others that he himself has never used. That alone garnered enough goodwill to warrant giving the second season a chance.

Regrettably but predictably, the 13-episode second season, which picks up a year after Frank smushed Billy Russo's (Ben Barnes) pretty face into a mirror and cut it to pieces after learning his former friend and brother in arms was responsible for the deaths of his wife and two children, suffers from the exact same problems that have plagued nearly all of Netflix's original programming: It's too long and doesn't have enough story to adequately fill 13 hours of television. The many pieces of the puzzle also don't start coming together until far too late in the game as a result, and by that point, it's rather hard to care.

Still, Frank remains a captivating character in Bernthal's strong and capable hands. At the start of the season, Frank, who has disappeared into the identity of Pete Castiglione, is on the road, moving from town to town and trying to run from the man he is. His attempts to ignore or reject that man is the underlying theme of the season, as is his inability to do so. As one character says, "The only way to win is to not play," and Frank can't or won't resist the challenge. He's looking for any excuse to let the Punisher out. Even after connecting with a small-town bartender (Alexa Davalos) and feeling comfortable enough to reveal his real name to her, he's still itching for a fight, still aching to pull the trigger on anyone he believes is deserving.

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So Frank hasn't changed at all after exacting his revenge last season -- not that anyone expected him to. And that is good news for Amy (Giorgia Whigham), a teen girl who is the target of highly trained mercenaries who want to kill her for the items she has in her possession. Compelled by what he describes as an "old-fashioned" need to protect Amy, Frank finds himself embroiled in a new mission that allows him to put to use his own special set of skills even if there is no reason for him to be involved except that it allows him to protect Amy where he failed to protect his own children. Unfortunately, we don't find out what Amy is mixed up in until nearly midway through the season, and although it's topical -- let's just say there is a wealthy, right-leaning couple who wants to control the White House -- it's not quite interesting enough to warrant the initial mystery surrounding it. (For what it's worth, it does result in a tense third hour that feels reminiscent of, but definitely not equal to, Banshee's incredible Season 3 episode "Tribal." Also, if you like violent action dramas, go watch Banshee if you haven't already.)

Even though there's a new villain this season, the violent alt-right Christian fundamentalist John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart), who may or may not be based in part on the comic book character the Mennonite but who is connected to the aforementioned wealthy couple, he's hardly worth mentioning; for all the similarities between the angry men, The Punisher is still defined by the central relationship between Frank and Billy Russo, and that is probably the way it should be.

Although their arc has its ups and downs, everything else pales in comparison to the story of Frank and Billy, the latter of whom's face is now scarred but in a sexy way. He has been in the hospital for the last year and is under the care of a psychotherapist (Supergirl's Floriana Lima) obsessed with fixing broken veterans. He has also taken to sporting a mask, much like his comic book counterpart, to conceal his face. But if you were hoping for a more accurate depiction of Jigsaw, who was horribly disfigured, I'm sorry to tell you that you're stuck with the still beautiful face of Ben Barnes. There are certainly worse things.

Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Sees Billy Russo Amassing an Army

This is important because Billy's identity is tied to his handsome good looks, as evidenced by all the references to how pretty he was in the first season. Billy's journey in Season 2 still revolves around what he looks like, but now it's about why he looks that way. After spending an extended period of time in a coma, he doesn't remember what happened to him. He has no idea Frank is the person who attacked him, and he also has no idea why he was attacked. He also doesn't know he was responsible for what happened to Frank's family. Hell, he doesn't even realize he and Frank aren't friends. It seems that Frank and Billy have swapped places in Season 2, with Billy looking for answers while processing the hurt that comes with knowing someone he once considered a brother betrayed him. This means that a great deal of Billy's arc this season involves him being confused and scared, which results in him lashing out and finding comfort in what he knows: being a soldier. And Billy was an excellent and merciless soldier.

The Punisher's second season takes its time setting up the inevitable Frank and Billy showdown, occasionally filling in the gaps by flirting with the idea of making some sort of statement about people like Lima's Dr. Krista Dumont, who tries to fix broken, violent men, but it never really succeeds. Where the show does make some headway is in its exploration of two different themes.

The series asks us to examine the intricacies of redemption and whether or not it's possible for someone who has done terrible things to be redeemed or considered good. Whether that person is Frank or Billy doesn't really matter. They're the same from an outsider's perspective. They've both done horrible things. They've both murdered people. They're both not good people. Isn't that the message Billy was trying to deliver to Frank at the end of Season 1? Does it matter that Frank "has a code," as Madani (Amber Rose Revah) notes at one point this season, or that he cares about and feels for people, as Curtis (Jason R. Moore) also points out? Does one life matter less than another? Does murder exist on a sliding scale? Additionally, does it change things if Billy can't remember the horrific things he has done? Can we punish someone or hold them accountable for their actions if they have no recollection of what they've done? Memory loss won't erase Billy's crimes or eliminate Frank's pain, but it's something the show wants us to consider before addressing its second major theme.

Throughout its second season, The Punisher asks if people can fundamentally change who they are. If given a choice or a chance, can they resist their natural impulses? Can they outrun their true selves? Frank Castle is who he is. Billy Russo is too. His traumatic brain injury doesn't change that. And The Punisher reminds us of that many times over the course of the season, just as it reminds us that Frank Castle is the Punisher.

So maybe people can't change. That doesn't mean they can't evolve into better versions of the people they already are. Of course, in order for that to happen, they have to want it to happen. The other option is that they can simply accept who they are, and if there's one thing that is clear from The Punisher, it's that most of the people who populate this bloody, dangerous world have no real interest in evolving. They can dress it up any way they like and call it whatever they want, but they all come to embrace who they are in their hearts in the end. This journey doesn't always make for good television -- there were multiple episodes this season that were an absolute slog to get through -- but it does encourage interesting debate. It also, at least in this case, leads to some pretty damn cool action sequences. And when a show is (unfortunately) as dead on arrival as The Punisher almost certainly is, maybe that's enough.

Season 2 of The Punisher premieres Friday, Jan. 18 on Netflix.

Source: http://www.tv.com/news/marvels-the-punisher-season-2-review-15472260130007412/