#there is a lot of nuance that has led to my obliviousness when it comes to the role i play

[xerospaced]

Things I must be more conscious of:

While I appreciate the other's requirements and my position as an option, I far too often overlook the significance of our connection on their part.

Because I am not simply an option. I am the only option. And that's not to say there can't or won't be another some day. But as it stands, there's me, and no intention to change that with any haste.

I'm ashamed to say that I underestimate my place, pretty much as a matter of fact. I see his circumstances and goals, and I see my perspective of that and the role I would like to play. But, in all honesty, I have been oblivious to his view as it pertains to me.

Yes, I know that there's potential. And I'm now aware that there is also a genuine desire to progress If possible. But I have failed (horribly) to recognise the more subtle aspects of what my ability to meet the needs of this partnership might entail.

Specifically, what my failing to rise to the occasion could mean for him. I am the only woman in his life. Have been for some time. And for years, the only one of any real significance. I am well aware of his low tolerance, his pickynesss, and how particular he is. And I've been conscious of the fact that meeting another woman with whom he might share so significant a connection would be no easy feat. I have also become more considerate of the trust he has placed in me and, despite his reserved nature, the increased openness he has consciously allowed to enter our relationship.

When I really pause to consider our current circumstances, it seems obvious that our relationship remaining undeveloped would be a considerable misfortune on more than just my own part.

He is not so expressive, so paying attention is a must. He is also conscious of not putting pressure on me. I can no longer fail to recognise the significance of my presence in his life. I have been rather reserved myself, in assuming my importance, but as a result, I have downplayed it tremendously.

As much as I don't want to lose this connection because I failed to do my part, he shouldn't have to lose this connection because I couldn't step up. Especially not when he's been willing and ready to support.

What we have is not easily found, something we're both conscious of. The foundation for a strong and healthy relationship has been formed. To say it would be a shame for it to never come to fruition would be a massive understatement.

Yes, I owe it to myself to step up and claim it. But I owe it to him too. And he deserves to receive that. So, I need to commit this understanding to memory and avoid slipping back into underestimation.

It is not only my heart on the line. Both deserve handling with care.

[olivesandwax]

I am nearly finished with Arise and feel the need to desperately sort out my feelings on the beloved Lord Dohalim because he is giving me a severe case of brainrot.

I am so in love with this character ;_; He is truly the most complete character in Arise... maybe in the Tales series? Out of the Tales games I have played, only Luke or Emil come close to Dohalim's amount of growth. I will be the first to admit that Arise is not perfect--great game overall, probably a mediocre Tales game against the other titles. I stuck around for so long because Alphen and Shionne are so dear to me. However, it's with certainty that I can say I will be replaying it for 50+ more hours solely due to Dohalim. 

Where do I even start?! Dohalim is best consumed if you consider him like a fine wine. Aside from his stunning design and introduction, he is fairly unremarkable and low key until quite late in the game where he receives a series of absolutely beautiful development. That he earns so much of his growth in the final portions is absolutely criminal! But honestly, I get it, because Dohalim makes the most sense in retrospect, looking backwards on his upbringing and through the lens of trauma. Glorious trauma.

This man is chock full of contradictions. He can spout off the wisest observations of ordinary things, but his outsider-looking-in philosophical approach causes him to appear callously inconsiderate for people's feelings in doing so. He has immeasurable musical talent and a thirst for knowledge... and yet he is a manchild who cannot even dress himself without assistance. He has an astonishing amount of empathy for the common man and woman, and yet makes the most oblivious comments about Dahnans, completely out of touch with the enslaved lives they have led. (The etiquette skit encapsulates this.) He maintained a peaceful realm for 7 years without systemic slavery, but only because hearing the cries of those same slaves would cause him to repeatedly relive the worst day of his life. That last one… what selfishness! When I say this man has flaws, he has them in droves.

And yet I find all those flaws and contradictions so enriching and real. Fantasy elements aside, Dohalim is one of the few Tales characters who actually feels like a real person with believable motivations and complexities. It’s incredible to me that I missed a lot of his nuance. The pain he carries from being forced into public service; the unforgiving critical eye he turns towards himself; the need for him to constantly raise the bar on any perceived successes; purposely blinding himself to the truth right under his rule; creating a fairytale realm just to hide from his past. That sort of self-loathing character hits just right every time lmao. So much responsibility and pressure crammed into a sweet boy who just wanted to play his violin... Literally tears me apart lol ;(

By the end of Arise, he is 100% a better person. He takes all of Rinwell’s, Law’s, and especially Kisara’s criticisms, LISTENS to them, and transforms into the individual he could only pretend to be at first. He truly finally gets it—what people need from a leader and how he can use his privileges to accomplish it. Honestly, Kisara’s frustration with Dohalim is completely understandable. She put all her chips on the table for Dohalim and he destroyed her worldview. But just like the player, she watches and guides him to the point where he finally can stand confidently on his own. The skit where she sadly reflects on all his accomplishes in Lenegis is one of my favorites. You can see the love she has for him as a lord and how much she still wants to remain in his life even if he’s outgrown her as a guide.

The point is, Dohalim’s transformation is some of the best stuff Tales has done recently, and I’m so sad I’m nearing the end of Arise ;_;

[space-city-traffic]

yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

[clefairymuke]

regrets | chapter ten

prev. chapter | next chapter

pairings: levi ackerman x reader / eren jaeger x reader

themes: enemies to lovers, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut

tw: violence / explicit sexual content

word count: 2135

You took a few steps on your own today. It was fleeting before you fell on your ass, but it was progress nonetheless. You were grateful to hear Hange's excited squeals, and Jean and Connie's brotherly encouragement, but it felt difficult to allow a smile to cross your face. Something was bothering you today.

When Jean dropped you off, you saw no sign of Levi despite the setting sun. You were alone with your thoughts for what felt like the first time in a while; six days felt so long to you for some reason, and the past month felt like at least a year. Something had been nagging at the back of your mind all day -- distracting you from your physical therapy, preventing you from laughing with your friends, allowing unneeded stress into your already overwhelmed mind.

That morning, on your way to meet Hange, you were hanging from Jean's arm as you limped through the growing grass. He was still making jokes about Levi, now calling him your boyfriend, but you entertained it. The two of you could barely get any words in between your howls of laughter, until a single pair of green eyes managed to ruin your mood completely. Eren was sat atop a wooden fence, Armin sitting crosslegged on one side of him while Mikasa stood on the other. You let your eyes dance freely over to him for a second, but that was an awful decision. He was already looking at you intently. He offered you a small smile, but you could see that his eyes were sad. You smiled back.

Even if you didn't want to be with Eren, it still hurt that he never came back to talk to you. As you stared at the ceiling above, you wondered if you were a bad person. Eren was a good guy, you thought, and you did lead him on to some extent. You wondered for a moment if you should've given it a chance, then shook your head at yourself. It would be completely unfair to him to pretend you felt something that you didn't; then again, the current situation wasn't fair to him either. You were perpetually trapped between a rock and a hard place.

You rubbed your eyes before running both hands through your hair, pulling just slightly. You found yourself, strangely enough, wishing that Levi was there. It was nice to have someone that you could talk endlessly to and yet still share long, comfortable silences. He was decent company. Your ears and face perked up as you heard the door start open, but it wasn't Levi.

"Hey, can we talk?" Eren stood timidly in the doorway awaiting your answer, his face drawn in like he was expecting a harsh "no." Blood rushed to your cheeks, and you sat up hurriedly. You were sure that your anxiety was prominent on your face.

"Yeah, of course," you answered calmly, attempting to regain your composure. Eren walked in and took a seat in Levi's chair, looking down. It reminded you of how he looked when you rejected him -- defeated, yet still attempting to maintain his pride. He opened his mouth many times before he actually began to speak, leaving you wondering if you should be the one to start this dreaded conversation.

"I'm sorry for leaving like that, and for not coming back. I --" he coughed like something was caught in his throat. "Um, sorry. This is a little bit awkward for me," he chuckled uncomfortably, shifting in his seat. "I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about it."

"Yeah, for sure," you gulped. Your vision flitted desperately around the room for anything to latch onto besides his sad green eyes. "I wanted to say I'm sorry, you know. I didn't know you felt that way; honestly, I didn't know if I felt that way, either. I liked things the way they were. I never meant to hurt you," you told him, your racing heart beginning to beat a smidgen more slowly. You tried your best to smile at him. It likely came off as more of a frown.

He nodded slowly, his eyes still brimming with melancholy and his face still tense as stone. "I liked things the way they were, too. I shouldn't have tried to take it further; I guess I just felt like we were going somewhere.  I shouldn't have left you here like that either. I just wish none of this would've ever happened," he admitted, rubbing between his glassy eyes with his right hand. "The time we spent together was always really nice, wasn't it?"

Your breath caught in your throat as you nodded. "It was." You could feel it coming before it came, a feeling of pure dread washing over you as he leaned closer toward you. You felt the smallest bit of curiosity join in, too.

"I miss you," he confessed quietly as his lips closed in on yours. When you allowed him to kiss you, you didn't expect it to be so passionate. His hand caressed your cheek so gently, and his lips slid past yours so softly. His other hand rested on your thigh, his thumb drawing circles. It all felt so -- wrong. When he pulled away, you knew without a doubt how you felt. Entertaining it would help nothing. You sighed internally, wondering how to let him down a second time.

"Eren, I don't know --" He shushed you, clearly misunderstanding your tone. He started to lean in again, and you swallowed. "Eren, I don't want this." He leaned away quickly, taking his hands away from your body to land defeatedly in his lap.

You saw a tinge of anger in his eyes before he cast them to the floor. You fidgeted awkwardly and wondered what to say next, but he beat you to it. "You're hard to read, you know. It seemed like you really wanted me -- before I said I wanted you, at least. Is that what did it? Did I move too fast?"

If there's anything you knew, it was to take an out when you had one. "Yeah, honestly. I'm not sure what would have happened if you hadn't. Regardless, though, I don't feel that way about you. I'm not sure if I would have, but honestly, probably not." It was the truth; you considered for a moment that he had you all figured out. Then again, how could he know more about you than you did? The two of you had messed around for what, a week and a half?

"Ouch." You watched his previously soft and sad face harden into anger. "I wish you wouldn't have led me on like this. I wouldn't have done anything with you if I didn't feel at least something small. You should be ashamed."

You drew in a quick breath, bordering on a gasp, as your mind raced to find a suitable reply. The hatred dripping from his voice left your mouth slightly agape, hundreds of words forming behind your tongue but never reaching past your lips. You felt small tears prick at your eyes; whether they were from sadness, anger, or shame was unknown to you.

"I think it may be time to go, Eren," you heard Levi speak from the door, two teacups in one hand and the pot in the other. How incriminating. You figured Levi thought nothing of it -- he rarely ever saw the same nuance behind certain gestures that others tended to notice, like a young, female soldier having nightly tea with her superior after being reprimanded for having sex with another scout while on duty. You hoped Eren was too angry to notice.

He wasn't. He looked up at you, eyes still full of anger but his mouth drawn up in disgust. He got up rather roughly, the chair rattling a bit as he stalked toward the door. "Thanks for the talk. Goodnight, Captain," he muttered as he left.

Levi strode in like nothing had happened, setting up the table and taking a seat, as he had done five times before. You stared at him, knowing your eyes were still widened. When he began to pour the tea, you struggled to hold in a laugh. He paused, looking over at you inquisitively. "Did I do something funny?" he asked, concerned. You watched the eyebrow lift. Always that eyebrow.

"Oh, Levi," you sighed. "You brought a tea set to my infirmary room when no one is typically here, and someone saw you. The fact that you showed up at all is incriminating."

Levi scoffed, continuing to pour the tea. "I thought something serious was happening. Not everyone has a mind like you and Jean. I doubt that it would be anyone's first thought." He set the pot down and looked back up at you. He rested his arms on either side of the cup, shaking his head.

"It was the first thought in Eren's. Didn't you see how angry he looked?" you questioned. Surely, you thought, he wasn't that oblivious.

"Sure it was. Eren's always angry. Plus, he was jealous," he said bluntly, finally taking a sip of his tea. Everything he did was so nonchalant.

It stung a little, being pulled back to your conversation with Eren. You hated how angry he was, but you figured nothing could be done. You nodded, sighing, and lifted your cup in response to him. "Yeah, he was pretty upset."

"He wasn't upset, he was pissed. He wasn't being very polite to you, and you looked like you were about to cry. How long had he been on like that?" One thing you had learned about Levi that you didn't know before is that he was incredibly curious.

"You showed up pretty much as soon as he got angry. Before that he was all sad and stuff. It took him a while to actually understand what I was trying to tell him," you told him, the tiniest bit embarrassed. Talking to Levi was easy, but not without its reservations.

"And you were trying to tell him . . .?"

"When I first got hurt, Eren came to see me. He started talking about how I meant a lot to him. I guess you could say it freaked me out. I told him I didn't feel the same way and basically broke things off," you began, one hand tugging at your hair. Levi listened intently.

"That's a valid reaction," he commented as he sipped his tea. "I would do the same."

Joke or otherwise, it drew a laugh out of you before you continued. "He stormed out, and I hadn't spoken to him since, until today. He showed up unannounced and told me he wanted to talk. I was a little embarrassed and anxious, but I didn't mind it. I didn't have any issues with him being here."

"Of course not."

"So we talked about it. I was trying to avoid hurting his feelings, but I think he completely misunderstood. I was trying to tell him that I don't feel that way about him. Instead of getting that and moving on, he goes the other route and tells me he misses me. Then he kissed me. I started to tell him that I didn't know if I was comfortable with that, but he just tried to kiss me again. He finally got it when I told him no, and that's when he got pissed off. That's when you showed up." You drank from your cup, waiting for Levi's response. It was unlikely, you thought, but maybe he had some advice.

He sat there for a moment, thinking. After a few long seconds, he set down his teacup and reached his hand out to you. The gesture was foreign, but not nearly as foreign as the feeling when his fingers brushed your knuckles and his palm came to rest on the back of your hand. None of the rest of his body moved, no leaning in or smirking lips. Just a single comforting touch. "Are you okay?" he asked as you stared conspicuously at his hand atop yours.

You nodded your head at him. "I'm fine. I just wasn't looking forward to that conversation. It didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped," you admitted, chewing the inside of your lip. "It was pretty upsetting when he spoke to me that way."

He pulled his hand away and went back to his tea, his eyes understanding. "It'll be fine. I don't think you were in the wrong, if that helps anything."

You weren't really listening, still staring down at your hand. The warmth from his hand was fading, but something else wasn't. It tingled all over, in every spot he had touched.

How strange.

[incarnateirony]

Representation, Authorial Diversity, and more.

“I’ll take some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.”

Been a while since most of you thought about that line, hasn’t it? And for some of you it somehow sends some primitive lizard brain gaydar into overdrive and you can’t really pinpoint why, can you? It makes no sense, that line alone, and how it stands -- but between all of the talk of both Bobo Berens and LGBT media history, including The Celluloid Closet/Vito Russo or the Vito Russo Test, this moment actually puts a pin in a shift within our show, its handling of content formerly completely overlooked by creatives, and the importance of diversifying our writing crews that we all press for.

It was the moment our show leaned, and frankly-- should have been the moment the straights panicked. In fact, some of them did, just before it aired, and then everyone has played at oblivious since.

Before seasons air, we get news on new authors being added to teams, or other workers. Pre-S9 was no different, with fandom finding a tweet from Bobo Berens, our first open-closet LGBT author. I mean, Out And Proud. A true king.

The association if this is the mention of the Bechdel Test, a step aside of Vito Russo.

Now let us begin.

Well first of all I’m just gonna let everyone get a giggle at how Bobo handled the straight male knee coil:

But anyway the response to his initial tweet was a merry go round of concern trolling in the area of “OH DEAR I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU PLEASE ALLOW US THE NORMAL ASSBAGS OF THE FANDOM TO TELL YOU AN AUTHOR HOW STRAIGHT THE CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR ARE” and I dunno, it’s comedy.

Whether or not Bobo was addressing SPN as a new project in particular -- and it, from a dark age of SPN I’ve covered the upheaval during -- this is important. Really, really important.

Let’s say that timeline does overlap Bobo’s, and he did implicitly believe it; he might have had to write them as Straight Guys; but his own deep-seated place in the LGBT community developed resonant text, he made change. Change enough that when his first script was put into motion, the showrunner took one look at it and, for the first time in recorded history, we had note of some sort of intent --

Misha went on to say “so that’s what we played there.”

Regardless of anyone’s misunderstanding about how the fandom riled themselves up prematurely and shot themselves in the foot by lighting a CW exec on fire in the middle of network level board/CEO rotation commotion, or whether or not it’s visible enough for anyone--

this, this moment, this content, created by this LGBT individual led to this first known forward motion of intentful creative subtext. People can hilariously try to argue semantics about it that summarily boil down to “I mean it could be metaphorical jilted lovers it could be this it could be jilted lover bros, it’s just a turn of phrase!” in a loop as they’ve done with this data for six years until it dies every time, but this was it. This was the moment.

There is a nuance in this sort of writing -- how easy would it be for Dean to come up and say, “I’ll take some beef jerky.” Dean’s the meat man, Dean loves meat! We’ve seen it in other, new, straight authors the first time they try to tick off the Dean checklist, but like many lessons, that extra line leading into that smile holds volumes of LGBT history unspoken.

I think several of us Old Gays(TM) have banged on about the necessity of reading the Celluloid Closet, because for as much as people think they’re chasing queer subtext around here, it’s like they have completely missed that there actually is like, a printed, accepted code of conduct on this shit, basically. That’s not exactly what it was released for, but if you’re LGBT and engaged in lit and over 40 like you’ve read and understand and know this.

I’m not going to sit here and over-needle that line; most of you felt it the second your eyes drifted over it; but the sum of it is -- why that, what charming secret comes with that smile, a dean we’ve never seen smoke either, how is this part of how Dean throws himself back before his ex buddy leaves more unseen, *why* is that the hook? These are ironically things that no lit crit study *beyond* excessive citation of Celluloid Closet will really capture. This is a form of queer coding -- not the villainous disaster type that queer coding actually *is*, but the subversive form as it’s begun to be casually addressed in the population with positive, resonant content by authors choked out by IP holders while trying to service an audience. Or sometimes, even starting to accidentally.

So you know, you can unironically double down on the simplicity of Dean implicitly probably being a smoker (a possible read of subtext!), and I think this is kinda where the bizarre split happened tbh, because dude bros double down subconsciously into each reading of this kind of coding-- Dean just smokes, or this or that, though it grows thinner by year. Not about why that line is tossed, and how, and does just set off some sort of TV pheremone we all swamp like a bee hive. None of these moments truly mean anything independently. But it is the perspective and voice the text begins to take. The difference between that and “Hey pal [chews on jerky before buying] marlboros and got any pie?” in one moment that knocked everybody around on their ass in the fray of it. And then it all just went gayer from there, as if framed by one sharp moment that set the rest of the tone.

Hopefully you’ve all read my giant post about the history of this all to remember what I mean by accidentally, but even Bobo posted on it before,

That’s all an aside to the general point but worth placing into the edge of the conversation here.

The simple fact is, an activist gay man joined the show, and possibly with ‘keep it straight’ notes wrote some stuff so resonant, due to his point of view in life and the world, that even the showrunner decided to further guide it in that direction. It blossomed a direction.

The direction was small and slow and meek at first, (well, in final product -- don’t get me started at how S10 looks if all the cut scenes were included) with subtext running as dull echoes in Colette (oh look he wrote that too), and maybe more obvious with classic heart songs -- but even this was more structured than “Misha inherited abandoned storyline they scrubbed the romance out of as best they could”, or “Sera Gamble is a dumbass” that just happened to feature great chemistry and some resonant elements, like Bobo mentioned, we all connected with. But to actually constructively choose to incorporate these, no matter how quietly, was... *new.*

And some called it queerbait and I’ve already given history lessons from other angles on why no, but also now why here, definitely, no.

By season 12 we gained Yockey, another LGBT man, another activist in his own way like Bobo, but his less in writing political stuff and more in writing LGBT specialist plays. And everybody loved him, and saw it, and Yockey gets a boat load of praise -- deserves a lot of it -- but sometiems I feel like Bobo gets trampled over without recognition of how he shifted the playing field, the calculated effort he started putting into mastering those accidental resonances into something new, and ultimately to guiding the new author crew, Yockey included, or Jeremy on this newest episode who thanked him.

The same man that picked up Wayward and connected Dreamhunter... back to his own work and moments. The insanity of yelling “HOW DARE YOU LESSEN DREAMHUNTER BY COMPARING IT TO DESTIEL!” when, dead ass, you’re looking at this author who has carefully incorporated work and, with an already resonant story, made another relationship familiar to us by making it similar. Because that’s how writing stories works! But either way, Bobo has been in here doggedly growing the breadth of the legitimacy of queer narrative in supernatural -- to the point that it HAS narrowly, quietly breached into text even if not “loud” or “visible” enough for some people -- and the point where the subtext is so wall to wall and flooding every piece of cinematography in shooting and not just set or lights but complete mise en scene -- a point where everybody OUTSIDE of fandom is just addressing this shit as what it clearly is --

...That’s something that came with bringing the scope of an LGBT male author into the show. Whether you like the volume he’s been allowed to take his work to or not is your own thing, but before yelling queerbait at any creatives, perhaps it’s time to play “sit down children, and learn to appreciate the activists who came before you and how they’re fighting for you right now”. You wanna yell at something, get organized, pelt the CW in a non-aggressive, non-light-on-fire way, do activism like the books Emily put together that are resultingly still on the current showrunner’s desk now 6 years later, but most of all, don’t take a shit all over content you would otherwise enjoy, at the expense of a man in the demographic you’re trying to represent, who has battled, LITERALLY, for both the women and the gays in this show. Wayward was his baby. This slow swing in S9 that turned into a loud din in S12? 

It wasn’t magic. It was a gay author. A gay author that has now climbed to be an Exec alongside dabb and the others and SURPRISE now suddenly everything’s so gay the whole goddamn world is seeing it. Literally SEEING IT, not just guys looking at each other with stories, but intentful, meritful choice in extremely bold cinematography choices that don’t require chasing a post-it on the wall, but instead are shot with care and devotion. Be that 12.19 Mixtape (OH DAT HIS) or 13.5′s Never Too Late (OH DAT YOCKEY. check what antis said to Dabb in his mentions after, even they saw it). Be that 14.18′s het drama PR promo (OH OOP DAT WAS HIS), be that 15.1-3′s entire tension and the openly addressed and so-called by media sources break up (OH DAT HIS), be that 15.7′s low key textuality (to which the new author thanked the elder for guidance, huh), or 8′s heavily shot domestic separation moment loudly filmed in the choicefully hollowed out and dimmed kitchen bereft of family -- this change? This had a moment. And you can find it.

I’ll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.

So this has been eating at me ever since this whole topic came into play. 

Anyway full circle them trying to ride Bobo to Keep It Straight probably wasn’t their smartest idea ever. We gays are contrarian by nature so tell me to do it again, motherfucker. And now here we are in Destiel Divorce Season 15 as heavily managed by Bobo.

Everyone got so fuckin dramatic when Yockey said he was leaving like, tolling the burial bells of Destiel and-- like??? hello? BOBO? JUST? GOT? PROMOTED? Like Yockey didn’t make that entire platform all by himself, and hell, he didn’t leave without laying out unironic empty space of it. Yo guys, Berens done been here a WHILE to the point he’s now *callbacking his own season 9-10 material wtih him and dabb*. Like. Lmao. Guys. Guys listen. Listen. Think.

Whatever your weird goalpost is I’m not promising anybody’s anything is about to get hit. Whatever clown nose expectations you all have enjoy those and honk those loud and proud but remember most of those are yours. But respect the fact that Berens has essentially cornerstoned an entire queer canon within Supernatural discussion, of which others are included in as they joined.

And yes, queer canon. Not the way fandom throws it around for weird kissing spots, but articles of discussion of queer narratives, of which we can literally draw a wealth of episodes from LGBT authors or their understudies and literally point and go “all of that right there, officer.” Whether it’s visible or textual or undodgeable or marketed enough or glittery enough or whatever for everyone’s very unstable definition of “canon” -- Berens has literally cornerstoned an entire architecture of queer canon within this legacy show.

[gaknar]

Review: The Claremont Crossovers

Geez, I haven’t written a review for this blog since my Secret Wars review from like 17 years ago. How can that be? Well, I guess I used to work on this blog a lot more often and now I’ve gotten way more into Super Nintendo games and BDSM. Like a lot of people. But now that I finally finished reading Inferno, it is time once again to bookend my experience with an overly wordy wall of text filled with the worst kind of oblivious meninist butt humor jokes and pretentious sounding run-on sentences that are trying to sound smart but are always improperly ended with prepositions of. And lots of ridiculous comic book panels.

These are only the silliest panels from this reading that I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Bookeeping. This review covers everything that I have read since X-Factor #1. This includes Uncanny X-Men #204-243, X-Factor #1-39, New Mutants #38-73, along with a smattering of annuals, Daredevil, Power Pack, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Excalibur, and X-Terminators comics that were all part of the Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, and Inferno crossovers. There were a lot of developments over the course of the 4 years these comics were published. Jean Grey was resurrected and the original members of the X-Men reformed under the moniker X-Factor.

Mr. Sinister formed his band of evil mutants, the Marauders, who would become the X-Men’s main antagonists, and their most devious act would include committing mutant genocide against the Morlocks in the New York City sewers while dealing critical wounds to main X-Men team members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, and Colossus during the fight.

Later, the X-Men were seemingly killed in a struggle with the mystical being known as the Adversary, but in reality they went into hiding in their new Australian outback base.

Illyana Rasputin lost control of the hell dimension Limbo which led to a demon invasion of Manhattan.

And finally, perhaps most prominently, Cyclops left his wife Madelyne Pryor and their son to get back together with Jean Grey, an act that led Madelyne to become corrupted with Pheoenix Force power and to turn into the Goblin Queen.

This era of X-Men comics contains the first major crossovers between the main X-Men comic book and its spinoffs. These events would become common as Marvel found ways to use its more strongly published works to carry the weaker ones, and the ploy still works apparently since here I am 30 years later reading 500 page omnibus collections just because there are 4 or 5 absolutely killer X-Men comic books in them. I love the X-Men so much that I’m willing to wade through the unending buildup to get the most out of the climaxes.

Seriously this artwork.

However, I find that this style of editing leads to a peculiar trend in pacing that can be tough to recover from in-between the major storylines. As Mutant Massacre leads into Fall of the Mutants, which then leads into Inferno, the characters are faced with consistently increasing stakes. With each passing story line, casualties grow and become more grave, and the consequences are more lasting. Mutant Massacre starts with the genocide of a mutant community, and several main characters are critically wounded as the X-Men face the worst defeat they’ve ever experienced. Then a year later in Fall of the Mutants, just as the team is starting to recover, the entire team of X-Men is killed during their battle against the Adversary. They would immediately be resurrected as a reward for sacrificing themselves to save the world, but it is still a defeat that claims the lives of every member of the team, if only for a moment. By the time we get to Inferno, the world is literally ending. Demons are raining from the sky and regular people are straight up getting slaughtered in the streets and elevators as the X-Men are more or less helpless to stop the destruction.

Inferno is an amazing storyline, if only for all the scenes of inanimate objects coming to life and straight up eviscerating common folk who are just minding their own business. Look at this shit!!! How did the comics code of conduct ever approve this. A mob of people just packed themselves into a demon FOOD PROCESSOR and every inch of them was liquefied except their bones. Chilling. (And let’s just forget about how the writers retconned all this blood orgy stuff in the Inferno Epilogue).

This all works in a capitalistic sense. Constantly raise the stakes and don’t let up for a second because if you do, the reader will take their eyes off the page and you will lose money. But the problem is, you can’t do this forever. And if you try, eventually you are going to write yourself into a corner where you’ve raised the stakes so many times, and you’ve re-manufactured the drama so often, people will stop caring. I call this the Dragon Ball effect.

How many times have these characters become gods at this point? Like three movies ago, the most recent movie was literally called “Battle of Gods.” I’m not even watching Super. Once your characters get so far away from humanistic stories people can relate to, you are no longer creating art. You’re manufacturing sensationalism. And it gets boring. These guys are starting to look like different flavors of freezie pops.

Maybe this is why the X-Men comics that come after this, the comics that make up the last leg of writer Chris Claremont’s 17 year run on the series, become so weird. Because perhaps there was no way to continue to raise the stakes any higher. After this point, we don’t get any more big crossovers until X-Tinction Agenda, but even that story is small and quaint when compared to what is presented here. Wolverine completely disappears from the series, all our other favorite characters disappear into the Seige Perilous to be transformed into completely different versions of themselves, and we get a lot of surreal stories that don’t have any sort of climax in the way that we’ve been conditioned to expect. The series becomes murky and ambiguous, without a solid narrative arc, and I think that’s why people regard the end of Chris Claremont’s writing on the series to be the weakest part of his run.

I can’t wait to read the X-Men comics that are coming up next. Because I didn’t know what in the FUCK was going on in these comics when I was a kid and I’m hoping they make more sense now.

Anyway, I’ll be the judge of all that, once I get there. (I may even indulge in the Infinity Gauntlet omnibus because, you know, there’s a couple X-Men involved in that). But regardless of what comes after this, I think it’s also true that the crossovers presented in this reading are generally regarded with less respect than Chris Claremont’s earlier work on the series, such as the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. This I don’t agree with. While the stories in this reading do range in quality, with Fall of the Mutants definitely being the weakest of the three big crossovers, and even though the Uncanny X-Men portion of Inferno isn’t even the central story of that crossover (the critical story elements take place in the far inferior issues of New Mutants and <ugh> X-Terminators written by Louise Simonson), Claremont’s writing is still much stronger, more layered, and more elegant than anything else that is presented in these collections. These crossovers may not be as timeless or original as the most famous X-Men stories, but the writing here is still really darn good and engaging (at least in Uncanny X-Men), and in my opinion, does not represent a decline in aptitude on the part of the writer. It’s clear that Claremont’s writing has continued to mature and become more nuanced, so much so that when you compare it to the first issues he wrote for the series, it seems like he’s a completely different writer.

KALIDASCOPICALLY. Again, these were just the silliest panels I could find after looking for about 25 seconds.

Personally, I love this period of X-Men comics. Under Claremont’s executive control, no plot thread gets dropped. No minor detail goes disregarded. Characters continue to grow and develop at such a natural pace, sometimes it feels like my own life is developing right alongside theirs. This adds depth to these readings and I can’t describe how it feels to be a part of them, and I think it’s this element that is missing from so many other comic books written by so many other comic book writers, including nearly every X-Men story written after Chris Claremont left the series.

Case in point, there are so many minor recurring characters that appear in these stories, like Franklin Richards. (I seriously tear up every time I see these panels). This little guy bounces around the Power Pack, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four like a ping pong ball. He’s a key character in the story line where Kitty Pryde finally recovers from the wounds she suffered during Mutant Massacre. And even though Kitty and Franklin have only met each other a few times, those meetings have meaning and they are remembered and called upon in the telling of the current story. All of the efforts made by the writers and editors to keep the narrative linked make these characters seem like real life people with weight and substance, rather than a thin layer of ink on a piece of paper. And it totally works.

Ugh, this review turned into another circle jerk about the writers of these comics, and especially about Chris Claremont. But what can I say. It’s because of the writers that we are here. Love or hate these comics, and I know Claremont’s wordy scripts are not everyone’s cup of tea, but these are the stories that make the X-Men what they are. It’s tough to be aware of these things when you’re in the middle of reading them, but I’m having the absolute best time writing this blog right now, and it is primarily because these are the comics that resonate with me the most. And when I’m finished with Claremont’s material and I’m slogging through some crap written by Chuck Austen, I bet I’m going to look back on these days with envy.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Episode Quality:

Exciting and full of strong fodder for discussion and debate; by the same token, potentially frustrating.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha directs comments to Wanda in Nigeria, but Wanda addresses her response to the team as a whole.

Female characters:

Wanda Maximoff.

Natasha Romanov.

Maria Stark.

Mrs Spencer.

Sharon Carter.

Mrs Zemo.

Aunt May.

Male characters:

James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve Rogers.

Sam Wilson.

Brock Rumlow.

Howard Stark.

Tony Stark.

T’Chaka.

Vision.

Thaddeus Ross.

James Rhodes.

Helmut Zemo.

T’Challa.

Everett Ross.

Peter Parker.

Clint Barton.

Scott Lang.

OTHER NOTES:

My immediate thought on the concept of the Avengers being directed by a United Nations panel is the Rwandan genocide; follow from that, any number of other major atrocities that have taken place while the rest of the world sat back umm-ing and aah-ing over whether or not they should intervene. Anyone who knows a speck of history should be very reticent about the idea of being shackled by such political whims.

Ross refers to the unknown locations of Thor and Bruce Banner as being like ‘misplacing a couple of megaton nukes’, as if they’re objects and not autonomous sentient beings who can go where they please without having to declare their intentions, and that should really be the first major red flag to everyone that this guy ain’t on the level.

Vision’s equation about causality is a false equivalence, and an irrelevant one anyway, since oversight doesn’t do anything to hamper his theory about strength inviting challenge. You’re not actually reducing your strength, you’re just making yourself less able to meet those challenges as they come. I feel like Vision should be a Hell of a lot smarter than this absence of logic (also, looking at the threats themselves in previous films, the only ones which can be considered ‘strength inviting challenge’ issues in which the actions of any Avenger characters have ‘bred catastrophe’ are the Iron Man films, and Age of Ultron, all of which are examples of Tony’s hubris coming back to bite him, specifically. The conflict of every other film stems from either 1) trouble predating Iron Man (most of it SHIELD/Hydra related), or 2) other-worldly overspill where Earth becomes the battleground for something uninvited (Asgardian and/or infinity stone bullshit). And even when Tony is the one creating his own demons, he usually doesn’t do so actively through his Iron Man tech or persona (Obadiah Stane’s villainy is what led to Iron Man’s creation, not the other way around; yes, Tony’s grandstanding did directly invite competition in Iron Man 2, but he didn’t make an adversary out of Ivan Vanko, that was his father’s legacy; and Tony’s particular cruelty may have incited Aldritch Killian, but that event predated the creation of Iron Man by nine years, so it’s not a response to that strength. Only Ultron was genuinely a catastrophic consequence of Tony’s (and Bruce’s) abuse of power, but hobbling the Avengers’ ability to operate does nothing to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, it just stymies their ability to halt the onslaught after it begins. You solve that one with legislation limiting what anyone can recklessly create and unleash (which includes Vision himself, incidentally)).

And see, Steve is right; the Sokovia Accords just shift the blame when things go wrong, functionally it makes the Avengers less accountable for their actions by allowing them to play the ‘just following orders’ game. And the point he makes about the panel still being run by people with agendas is exactly what I’m talking about in that first dot point; when decisions are being made on a political basis instead of according to need, you get atrocities, and any person working for the United Nations is a political agent by default. Sokovia is actually a great example of the kind of place that falls through the cracks on the political stage, as it was noted to be ‘nowhere special’, i.e. not politically valuable, and therefore unlikely to receive a swift response from powerful nations who have no vested interests in the good of the country.

Tony’s argument here is extremely personal and emotion-driven; it’s all his own guilt about Ultron and Sokovia and his decision to stop manufacturing weapons, etc, and none of that is relevant to the rest of the team’s situation or their choices. He’s also utterly oblivious to his own privilege here, in that it’s super easy for him to handwave the particulars of the Accords, because he’s a filthy-rich white American whose main ‘thing’ is new technologies, which are not being restricted at all by these Accords; he has the luxury of just signing on and hoping to negotiate amendments later (and also, of having the resources to be able to thwart anything he disagrees with and just do what he wants regardless if he decides he’s right). He’s not taking a moment to consider what the Accords really mean for those members of the team with powers they can’t just ‘put down’, who don’t have the kinds of options and opportunities he has, up to and including the bargaining power to have the Accords ‘fixed up’ later. I really do my best to see both sides of this situation because there IS merit in the idea of the Accords, but no one in favour of it makes a good argument for it and it’s really frustrating.

Who tells someone that a close beloved friend is dead in a fucking text message??? The real villain of this film.

It goes without saying but I’m gonna say it anyway: it’s very hypocritical of T’Challa to support the Accords while also donning his super-suit and taking matters in foreign countries into his own hands. All of the destruction that occurs in Romania after Bucky escapes from his apartment building is because of T’Challa’s involvement (because he was trying to commit a literal murder!), and that kinda gets glossed straight over here. 

Tony falls for Ross’ trick by referring to Wanda as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in the process of his efforts to justify her internment. It’s all really solid writing, really, vernacular choices that highlight the dehumanisation at the rotten core of the Accords and how good people can be suckered into it without realising until it’s too late (even when things like, say, denial of legal representation should definitely be red-flagging up the wazoo right now). But honestly, it’s such a wild leap from ‘Wanda can’t go on missions anymore’ to ‘we’re going to forcibly deny her the ability to go out in public’. Keep trying to tell yourself that’s not a fucked up situation, Tony. 

Steve Rogers holding down a fucking helicopter is just...peak Captain America and I’m so glad.

The part where Tony recruits an actual child who is not involved in this situation at all, spiriting him away to another continent to fight supersoldiers, that’s just...beyond, honestly. I hate this as an introduction for Spiderman because it’s so wildly irresponsible of Tony, it’s an unforgivable thing to do. He’s a kid. This has nothing to do with him. This is where Tony officially loses me in this movie. You can take your self-righteous attempts at justifying your actions and shove ‘em, buddy. You’re actively endangering a child.

We really don’t need Steve to kiss someone every Cap movie. We didn’t need him weirdly mackin’ on his recently-deceased ex-love’s niece. Seriously.

Spiderman’s particular brand of quipping while fighting really irritates me, also. It’s altogether a big no from me on the Spiderman front. 

Still love Ant-Man, though. He’s delightful. I also enjoy Hawkeye so much more here than I have in the Avengers films. 

C’mon, T’Challa. You can’t attack and attempt to kill a guy outright and then play the ‘you must be guilty because you ran away’ schtick. Do a brain about it.

See, everyone else knows why they’re there and what they’re fighting for, they know the stakes. Scott is the only one on Cap’s side who isn’t already part of the situation anyway, but he’s read in on why he’s being asked to get involved and he’s a grown adult person making an informed decision. Peter doesn’t have that, he’s there fighting because Tony said so, and that’s just fucked up. 

Heavy sigh. And here we go with the emotional Tony thing. Yeah, he just saw how his parents were killed by the Winter Soldier. That’s rough. It’s really rough. But he doesn’t just have an immediate emotional outburst, he has a sustained homicidal rage, which includes not only trying to kill Bucky, but also beating the Hell outta Steve, who, y’know, did not kill Tony’s parents. The fight scene lasts way too long and involves too much opportunity for cooler thought to prevail (both in problem-solving and in conversational moments), and someone whose emotions can send them reeling so completely out of control - even when they actively know they’ve been manipulated into it! Zemo literally just told you to your face that this was his plan! - someone with so little impulse control should never be given the power to make decisions for others or wield anything over them. This is all just a really, really great case for why Tony is ill-equipped to be an Avenger at all.

Watching Bucky digging the repulsor out of Iron Man’s chest with his metal hand is...so exciting. Rest in peace, awesome metal arm.

Zemo’s just a regular human, but he gets locked up under utterly inhumane circumstances. Again, the Accords involved a deal with a pretty insidious devil, and they didn’t actually have to prove that Steve’s position was the correct one to such a strong degree (we could have had a more nuanced conversation about the subject of accountability if the two sides were more evenly presented), but damn, the red flags, guys. It shouldn’t have taken Tony until he was horrified seeing his friends in the raft prison to finally clue in. 

Ok, so, I know I already played the ‘I’m pregnant’ card to explain away my meandering commentary for Ant-Man, but it’s still true and only getting more significant as time goes on, so I regret to announce that - despite having looked forward to disassembling this movie since I started on this Marvel adventure - we’re now only a day out from publication and I haven’t written anything yet. I know, the deadline isn’t exactly set in stone and I could just hold off publishing until I’m ready, but that’s a slippery slope and if I start telling myself to just ‘get to it when you get to it’, who the fuck knows when it’ll happen. This isn’t supposed to be stressful, so I’m just gonna ramble a bit and see what comes out. There’s a thing wriggling in my guts and I have a house to paint. I’m doing my best.

First things first: my stance re: Accords is that the best method of oversight is the one which emphasises accountability, rather than permission (with acknowledgment that this is a fictional universe with threats and powers which do not reflect the real world). The kinds of issues our Avenger characters get involved with are typically of the sort which has to be nipped in the bud right-quick before it becomes untenable, and also not infrequently, the types of problems which do not offer them bountiful evidence to present to a board for evaluation before they get the ok to counter it. Faffing about with diplomacy and bureaucratic carrying-on is a great way to, say, allow Hydra to launch the Insight helicarriers and wipe out all dissenters to their rule before you have the chance to stop them, or (if Zemo’s apparent plan with the Winter Soldiers had been his real plan after all), to be stuck mopping up the global damage as an elite death squad roams around destabilising governments. I’m not a supporter of the adage ‘it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission’ in the real world, but in a comic book universe, with the supervillains and the world domination and the plots which consistently include chronic time-sensitive action and little if any concrete evidence? The Sokovia Accords are woefully inadequate. By all means, the Avengers should be answerable to someone, and being required to submit reports justifying their actions (and face disciplinary measures or even criminal charges if they cannot explain themselves to a satisfactory degree) is a completely reasonable thing to convene a United Nations panel to oversee. Maybe Tony can hop down off his high horse and face actual consequences for the Ultron fiasco. That’s fine with me, and it’s a logical thing for the world to clamour for. Shifting responsibility to a panel of UN politicians who will then no doubt be reticent to send the Avengers into anything pre-emptively (or within any kind of useful time frame) for fear of backlash is a terrible solution, and even more so when you’re being pushed into it without any time to evaluate and amend the original document before it becomes law. 

(It’s worth noting that the person most likely to appreciate how easily the UN panel could be hijacked by political machinations not in the interest of the public good is Steve, owing to his personal role in uncovering and thwarting Hydra’s plans; Sam was roped into the Avenging world through that event, and thus it’s unsurprising that he would have the same concern chief in mind when refusing to sign. While Natasha does sign on to the Accords, she explicitly does not do so because she thinks the Accords are a good idea; she’s playing the political game and ‘reading the terrain’, as she says, and that’s consistent with her character. Tony being impulsive and dangerously emotion-driven is also unfortunately consistent, as is his self-righteousness about imposing his will on others to assuage his own guilt. Vision really has no excuse for being so bad at logicking his way to signing the Accords, but it’s no surprise to me that the most clear-headed staunch Accords supporter would be Rhodey, since following orders from others and unquestioning trust in your governing body is dead-on character for him as a career military man. I think he’s categorically wrong, yes, but I’m not mad at Rhodey for being a True Believer any more than I am at Natasha for being mercurial; both are in-character choices and ones which involve evaluative thought processes, and while ‘in-character’ may still be in play for Tony, evaluative thought processes are not, and that does make me mad. As I’ve noted before, he tends to work as a likable character despite his MANY flaws when he’s in his own movies, because acknowledging those foibles and working to fix them is a core part of his personal arcs in each Iron Man film; it was an essential quality missing in Age of Ultron, and one which made a monster of the character which I AM glad this movie is addressing with fallout; still, there’s a lack of tangible self-reflection and making amends from Tony in this movie, alongside some of his worst personal decisions, and I sincerely do not love him by the end of it.)

The good thing is, despite a few lazy elements - Vision! You tool! - and despite some very frustrating decisions, the central dilemma of the film is a strong and nuanced conversation-starter (and perhaps, argument-inducer). Even though the specific scenario and the people involved (Ross (both of them) and the floating Guantanamo, et al.) skews the narrative definitively against the Accords by the end, there is still fodder there for an intelligent debate about the merits of the concept if not the execution. And, most importantly, Steve’s position on the matter is the MCU’s Captain America to a T - a political story about the appreciable and essential difference between doing one’s duty to a concept, vs adherence to a moral code. Disobedience is a core part of Steve Rogers’ dilemmas - not that disobedience IS the dilemma for him, but that it is at odds with the patriotic good-ol’-boy image he is expected to inhabit from outside. Every Captain America film carries with it the idea that to do the highest good can mean rejecting everything that the people and institutions around you try to insist is right; refusing to play a role that has been prescribed to you; always making the choice for yourself, by your ethos, no matter how hard it is. Refusing to compromise when you see the compromise as an evil; planting yourself like a tree, and saying ‘No. You move’ (a great way of keeping Peggy’s influence alive and moving in the plot, by the way, and a key demonstration of how she and Steve met on the same wavelength. Lots of strong details in this movie, tbh). 

My primary complaint, however, is that this is also too much like an Avengers film; nearly all of the other major characters are there, and Tony especially gets a LOT of screen time, and since Cap and his films are my uncontested faves I am pretty salty about having to share the stage for his last outing. The tone and the subject matter are still totally on-brand, but the focus is split, and that’s particularly annoying for what it leaves behind. While Bucky is made central to the drive of the plot, Steve finally being reunited with him, bringing him in, getting the cathartic other side to what was so exquisitely set up in The Winter Soldier, it falls by the wayside a bit and comes off underdone. Sam is certainly there, being wonderful as always, but he doesn’t get a lot to actively influence, he’s mostly just That Other Guy, and it’s a real shame since he was a highlight among super-stiff competition in his introductory film. The touch of Peggy that shines through the film is poignant, but Sharon Carter gets the bad end of the stick with under-developed characterisation and a very ill-advised zero-chemistry attempt to stir a speck of romance in a story with no room for it, and altogether, the kinds of quiet character moments which added so much depth to The Winter Soldier are very much lacking here. We’ve got so many other characters on deck already, plus the introduction of two new major players (T’Challa has a solid, sombre presence which suits the film, and even his hypocrisy fits snugly into the plot so as not to be a barb against him, but as I’ve mentioned already, I am squarely against Peter Parker’s squeaky excessive comic-relief inclusion and the dire implications it has for Tony Stark’s moral compass), and we’re already spending so much time on beefing up Tony’s side of the Civil War. I don’t personally think the movie is bloated, overlong, or incoherent, but it definitely wanders close to all three and I wouldn’t be inclined to argue very strenuously with anyone who wanted to denounce it on any of those fronts. It has a lot going on, not quite too much for an ensemble movie, but more than it should as a story with a single character’s name in the title. I’m still mostly-satisfied by it, and consider it one of the stronger MCU films to date, but as a third Captain America, specifically? A bit of a let-down. 

[thewaywedo33]

Wynonna Earp 2X09 Thoughts and Faves

This week on Wynonna Earp, everything was super fine, there were no creepy dolls or paintings from right out of my nightmares, and all the girlfriends in Purgatory recognized what an amazing, special thing they have together, laying to rest their current conflict before anyone could do anything impulsive and ill-advised...J/K, this week was feelings hell.

Remember last week, when I went on and on about how sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons?  Well, this week we see that sometimes people also do the wrong thing for human reasons.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not interested in delving into what constitutes cheating, or what constitutes such an egregious line cross that a couple can’t come back from it. Ask a hundred people what their definition of cheating and their hard line is, and you’ll get a hundred different answers.  What I am interested in is how things come about, why people act the way they do, occasionally to their own detriment.  It was downright awful to watch Waverly kiss Rosita.  It was supposed to feel that way. Sometimes television reaches down into the depths of our hearts and gives it a tight squeeze. Sometimes that squeeze is joyful, sometimes it’s downright cruel, but it makes us feel.  Oh god, does it make us feel. When my heart breaks a bit for both sides of a pairing in a single moment, I know the writers have given me something human and so, so real.  

Part of the problem is, Waverly doesn’t know how to communicate her feelings well.  She tends to repress them, hide them beneath a wave and a smile, forcing herself to focus on how she should feel about something, rather than admitting how she truly does feel. Sometimes she reaches a boiling point and lashes out or does impulsive things. Note how in the opening scene she acts pretty casual about her fight with Nicole to Wynonna, when in reality she feels anything but casual about it.

(Random Important Gif is Important)

Instead of taking the time to cool off and then communicate with Nicole about how her actions made her feel and what they could do to recover from it, she let it fester and mix with her confusion and rage at the way her world is constantly shifting as aspects of her identity are ripped away.  

Don’t get me wrong, Nicole made an awful mistake last week, but during the first half of the episode Waverly was doing the thing that happens when someone you love hurts you, and everything starts to snowball in your head. In your frenzied anger, everything that person does is wrong and hurtful.  Nicole’s attentiveness and caring, things that Waverly actually craves, suddenly become controlling and overbearing.  So she runs from it.

And in the midst of her running and her swirling emotions, she makes an awful impulsive mistake born of confusion and despair.  But you know what my biggest takeaway from the moment was?  They didn’t wait for Waverly to find out Nicole’s life is in peril for the regret to come.  No, the regret was instant  She wasn’t off canoodling with Rosita, or grappling with some newly developed romantic feelings for her, only to find out tragic news, thus having some sort of panic-induced epiphany that she really does love Nicole. She knew it was wrong the second she pulled back, probably the second their lips touched.

Often times, in the midst of an awful spiral, it takes a flash point event to stop you in your tracks and make you ask yourself what the hell you’re doing, and realize this is not who you are and what you’re doing is definitely not what you want. The kiss was that moment for Waverly.  

I love that Rosita called bullshit on Waverly’s avoidance attempt at the end of the episode.  Because Waverly attempting to give Nicole space?  Yeah, classic avoidance. She tends to do it a lot.  Her name might as well be Welcome To Avoidance Earp.  Unless her anger forces something to the surface, or someone else takes the initiative to bring things up, she typically buries it.  It’s a big reason why Wynonna didn’t know what to ask forgiveness for in The Blade, and had such a poor understanding until recently just how terrible Waverly’s relationship with Willa was.  Sure, Wynonna can get wrapped up in her own stuff, and occasionally she’s a tad oblivious, but mostly, Waverly is just not good about communicating her feelings.  It’s a fascinating character flaw, and I hope we get to see growth from her in that department.

I think it’s also important to note that Champ was Waverly’s previous main romantic relationship. The dude has the emotional range of a potato.  We know they were on again, off again.  I don’t think it’s a big leap to assume whenever there was discord Waverly stayed away until she could bury whatever negative feelings she had.  Then they’d reunite, and she’d smile sweetly, as if everything was fine. Problem is, that’s not going to cut it with Nicole.  And it shouldn’t.  Nicole sees Waverly in a way Champ, and most other people for that matter, never could.  What they have deserves more.

It would be nice if we could make all our mistakes at opportune moments, when there’s all the time in the world to talk and work things out, but life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes our slip-ups come in the dawning moments of tragedy.  Sometimes they come just before life smacks us in the face and reminds us that everything could be gone in an instant, so you better figure your shit out.  Which is why it’s fitting that instead of Nicole opening the door to Waverly, she’s greeted by Hagatha Christie.  

My hope, once this current round of danger ends, is for Waverly and Nicole to have the open, honest, and messy heart to heart they need. The kind you have when you’re head over heels in love with someone.  I want Waverly to tell Nicole the truth about the kiss, she deserves that honesty.  Maybe Nicole needs some time apart to deal with it, maybe not.  And the truth is, Nicole needs to figure out how to communicate better with Waverly too.  Up until now she’s ceded all control in the relationship to Waverly, letting her set the pace and tone.  It was fair at the start, given the situation, but now they’re moving into the mature part of a relationship where both parties need to communicate clearly what their needs and desires are.

I might sound like a broken record, but Nicole and Waverly are going to come out of this stronger.  Look, Nicole has a brush with death to narrowly avoid, or maybe she actually dies for a little bit (it’s a Sci-Fi show, there’s a cure for that, my friends).  Either way, I truly love their relationship arc this season.  It’s been nuanced and three-dimensional; sweet and heartbreaking.  Take out the supernatural elements of the show, and it’s a story of two people who fell hard fast, and are now dealing with the difficulties of turning their fledgling relationship into a story of forever.  It’s hard, and they’re both going to mess up again, that’s life.  If there’s one thing I know for sure about love, it’s that keeping score of who’s right and wrong is a losing game.  All I care about is that they grow as individuals and as a couple.  The payoff potential is enormous, and you better believe I’ll throw my fists in the air and cheer when we get their first reciprocal I love you.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop beating that drum.  You know what else has been beating like a drum?  The repetition of angel references for Waverly. We get it show, it’s not random, ENOUGH. It could be the truth.  We’ve had several references to her dark edges and depths, but maybe it’s the flood light effect: everything outside the bright light area seems even darker in comparison.  It would make for an interesting development if Waverly’s human side is the one that harbors her darkness. But it’s also entirely possible the angel references are meant to show the stark contrast between how people sometimes perceive us versus reality.  Everyone sees Waverly as an angel, when in reality she believes she’s part demon.  And maybe she is.  Stay tuned.

Hey, you know who else keeps getting repetitious character traits mentioned?  This gal:

(Kat Barrell’s face is the only weapon of mass destruction I want to hear about these days)

Ms. pleat in her pants, boring cop, so naïve.  The comments have piled up all season long, there’s no way it’s random. Either there’s something in Nicole’s past that doesn’t jive with how people perceive her, or there’s something very not boring about her lineage.

How interesting that the location spell led Widow Mercedes to Nicole’s door.  I can’t decide what I think the most likely reason is.  Is Constance Clootie finally getting revenge on Waverly from beyond the grave for that time she smashed her son’s skull?  Sending death to her lovers door would certainly do the trick. I know the spell invoked Demon Clootie’s name and power, but it was Constance’s charred head on the map. Or maybe Nicole is not who we, or she, thinks she is.  Maybe there’s something about the house she lives in that’s connected to the curse, like how one of the seals was moved to Shorty’s.  So many possibilities, so few emotions left to process them.

Moving on to other parts of the episode.  I was pleasantly surprised by the maturity and character growth Wynonna displayed this episode.  She actually disclosed her plan to Doc and asked him for the ring, rather than divulging a half truth and just taking what she wants and/or needs.  Season One Wynonna probably doesn’t do that.

There were some damn harsh truths dropped between Wynonna and Doc in the Earp homestead, but I think the purge is ultimately a good thing.  It’s hard to fully have each other’s back when going into the fight of your life if you’re holding back resentments. They went for each other’s jugulars a bit, much like Waverly and Nicole, but unlike them, they were finally able to hear each other and come to an agreement that served to strengthen their bond.

It’s unfortunate that Wynonna’s plan won’t remotely work out the way she hopes it will, because it never does on a show like this. I’m glad she’s making an attempt to take control of the curse and dictate the terms, though. She’s been on a really nice progression all season long from merely acknowledging she’s good at being the heir, to taking ownership of the role. Never forget she’s the heir of this god damn curse, indeed.

The Revenant Rosita reveal was genius. In the season premiere I assumed she knew about Wynonna through Doc, but now we know she’s been well aware of every Earp heir through the years. While I do think she harbors some jealousy towards Wynonna concerning Doc, it’s so much more interesting that most of her trepidation stems from being a Revenant.  I’m glad Waverly is keeping her secret for now, and I hope Rosita has the opportunity to tell Wynonna the truth herself, and that Wynonna surprises her with acceptance.

Tucker Gardner, see you never.  I’m glad Widow Beth ate his MRA poster ass.  Everything about him was terrifying and all too real.

I love that Jeremy is playing the foil to Doc’s straight man. He has just the right mixture of naïveté, optimism, and intelligence to pull it off.  And for the love of god, could Dolls please show him how to properly load a magazine? Watching him fumble around with the bullets in the car was painful. I can see how he failed his firearms test three times.

Why oh WHY did this episode have to combine two things that freak me the f*ck out?  Creepy dolls (thank you to my older sister for torturing me with a picture of Chucky when I was a kid) and creepy paintings (thank you Ghostbusters II).  Maybe y’all can just stick with the red-eyed Revenants?  No?  Okay, cool.

Mattie! I loved the short amount of time we got with the blacksmith in Season One, so I was psyched to see her in the preview.  Nicole is going to be in a pretty bad physical way, and a white healing witch who’s supposed to be dead just happens to be at the hospital?  Huh.  Maybe it’s all connected to Nicole.  Crazy Conspiracy Alert(!): Constance had the spell send Widow Mercedes to Nicole knowing Mattie would have to come out of hiding to save her, because Constance herself needs Mattie’s magic to make her decapitated, pickled, ass whole again.  I can’t wait to be horribly wrong! Making terrible guesses is fun!

Petition for someone in Purgatory to have a spell that gives Mercedes her face back.  Dani Kind is far too great an asset to lose once her Widow form is defeated.  Also, I want to see Widow Mercedes and Bobo interact in the present time, because how freaking delicious would that be?

1X09/2X09 Parallels Galore. In 1X09 Waverly reels from having Shorty’s ripped away from her, tries to walk her way out of town to deal with/avoid her feelings on it, until Nicole threatens her with a good time (her taser), her temper then boils over at Nicole, but she later goes to the police department to make things right/physically launch herself at Nicole’s face.  It was also a heavy Doc and Wynonna interaction episode that ended with them burying Constance Clootie up to her neck.  In 2X09 Waverly is reeling from having her lineage ripped away from her, actually leaves town with Rosita, boils over at Nicole a lot, and ends the episode with the intention of going over to Nicole’s to make things right/physically launch herself at her face.  Doc and Wynonna have another heavy interaction episode and ultimately SHOOT A LIFE-SIZED DOLL IN THE FACE.

That’s all for now folks.  Let’s be good to our cast and show runner, ourselves, and each other okay?  Put your faith in love, and let’s see how everything shakes out come season end.  

I can’t wait for the final three episodes.