#states are bad actors

[silviakundera]

Underrated aspect of A Journey to Love is how the ensemble's perspective is being widened & complicated by their experiences. Intro talks about a war that just ended between An and Wu. An are assholes, going around kicking everyone's ass for $$

First the spy squad from Wu country just want to complete 1 stupid doomed mission, in order to clear their sworn brothers' names who fell in the final battle. No real agenda or deep thoughts besides this personal obligation and Employee Following Orders. Avengers assemble! Our FL Ren Ruyi is on the run and was a Scarlet Guard spy member from enemy country An who are holding the Wu emperor hostage... but the Wu spy chief ML does only a spot of mild torture and basically tolerates this secret because (a) he's determined to retire and (b) she is retired (c) her identity doesn't match any know big enemy of his spy org and the state. But he doesn't want her around.

... record scratch: He compromises. Ok. I do want her around. I won't get attached but ok, she's helpful. I'll even trust her to mentor the princess as we travel to rescue the Wu emperor.

She is only a tutor, though! Won't get her involved in his country's buisness.

Yet then she joins a battle and risks her life to save a bunch of theirs. Ok, ML widens his POV again. She can be their partner!

Everyone loves the mysterious friendly & feral assassin.

Then the squad finds out her identity and tries to kill her. His defense of her inclusion in the group has expanded: (a) her identity doesn't match any known enemy of his spy org and the Wu state, (b) she saved our lives, and crucially (c) she Isn't Born in An Country [isn't truly An] + (d) she was working at the command of her superiors just like we do, a cog in the war machine, and also only killed shitty members of our spy org we don't like

Ok. Now she's on the team. ML & FL are dating now and all the kids ship it. There is 1 (one) Scarlet Guard enemy county spy they accept and support.

But at the same time, she's begun to care about them in return. And we're really IN IT now.

Let's mentor the princess and throw shade on the Wu emperor, considering how our actions matter & how powerful people affect the average person. Caring for the citizens of Wu. They deserve better than their ruling class.

Being generally supportive & respectful of Ren Ruyi's love for the fallen An empress and RR's quest to avenge her.

The Wu delegation willing to (tentatively) ally with RR's former disciple, a marquis of An.

An marquis revealed to have gone against orders to respectfully bury the bodies of their Wu soldier friends, because in his view all loyal soliders deserve it.

The Wu delegation digging up the bodies of their dead friends, to give them a final send off, and mastering their grief to wrench it back from turning into hatred of the An people - focusing their rage and hate on selish & war hungry leaders, not the soliders and generals ordered to fight.

The focus of their resentment now turned to the right direction, expands their thinking & their plotting to have a consideratiom for all the residents of An and Wu, a care for humankind. An citizens are no longer the automatic enemy. ML tells the emperor of Wu to go fuck himself, directly to his face.

Caring about injustice done to some Scarlet Guards and wanting to save active !! "innocent" Scarlet Guard lives. (So far from the starting point! No background check to validate that X, Y, Z don't apply to these people. No rejection of the ML by the delegation or threats for daring to care about a random Scarlet Guard's life or death.) I sure hope the An emperor pays big for being bad at his job, but we gotta be careful about how we deal with him and not mess up An for the nice jewelry makers & brothel workers who live there.

"Having compassion doesn't mean irresolute."

[awesomecooperlove]

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[wanderinghedgehog]

Every Javert actor ever collectively decided that they did not see this line.

[todayisafridaynight]

they could not have chosen ANY MORE different games to make this point

[bi-chimneyy]

I think we all need to go back and relearn what canon means

[dykebeckett]

can you people be normal about red states for five minutes please

[allthebestcowboyshavedaddyissues]

"SMG is the only one acting well in this scene" Angel is completely disoriented after months of not being himself and she stabs him within a minute of 'gaining consciousness'

[fideidefenswhore]

occasionaly i like to treat tudor castings like a pick and mix when i'm making edits, and while tobg was an overall dismal example, they really slayed with kristin scott thomas, natalie portman, and david morrissey. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

another day another "applying the concept 'disposability' to 'someone withdraws from a personal relationship, & that wasn't signed off on by the other'" kill me

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday #davidpaymer #actor #moritzbenayoun #startrekpicard #mapsandlegends #nightofthecreeps #stateandmain #getshorty #theamericanpresident #ingoodcompany #carpool #oceansthirteen #dragmetohell #HorseGirl #Briarpatch #BadTherapy #dave #TheMarvelousMrsMaisel #minx

[awesomecooperlove]

OBAMA OPENLY ENCOURAGES ILLEGALS TO VOTE

💩👿💩

[verycharismaticdragon]

Aiyah, and we were doing so well up to now 😒 (some hualian stan is telling ppl to k theyselves in the notes of the guy yuri poll)

[amaditalks]

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A post shared by Amy Albertson 💖 תפארת (@theamyalbertson)

I defy anyone to explain to me how spray painting slogans on the walls and the books of the library and breaking glass and making this facility unusable and unsafe did anything whatsoever, a single damned thing for a single Palestinian life.

What you do has to actually match the things you claim to want. Otherwise it’s just wasted time, wasted energy, wasted resources AND LIES.

The lying has got to stop.

[filthyjanuary]

i'm so sick of my fellow iranians being cringe as fuck on social media and simping for the state of israel out of some insane the enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality like i know this is crazy but you can hate the iranian government without deciding to go full monarchist and act like israelis are liberators of literally anything or anyone

like i'm sorry if the best you can envision for iran is trading one authoritarian for the son of the previous authoritarian (who was literally overthrown bc he was an authoritarian puppet of the united states) solely bc of his name then you hate the iranian people more than i can image

[wimbledon2008]

ok but dick saying he served by heroes isnt us propaganda. they actually did save people and the jews, just for ur knowledge.

[callixton]

hmm i think another thing i like abt kencen is chess should be played on a smaller stage. now i am an intimate staging truther for almost every play so i may be biased but that doesn't make it less true for chess. like i get the appeal of the big sets bc of the way they travel thru location and our initial reaction upon literally visualizing chess on a stage, but i think it makes it so easy for characters to get swallowed and for the stage to feel very empty. which may work like. conceptually but i think in practice it just limits the actor's effect. & i know that you can argue that chess is a show that needs to get by partially on spectacle bc of the quality of the book but i disagree just choose a good book. or make up for it w staging and strong character choices. it's not like it has a shallow plot bc it really doesn't it just doesn't have a well resolved one. which is actually another argument for it to be in an intimate space bc it will make the audience feel more personally invested in the characters rather than the story and will care what happens to them even if they leave with questions (does this distinction make sense?). i'm also not saying that chess Couldn't be done well on a big stage i just think most of the time it isn't