#tragically underused female characters

[squeakygeeky]

If you're expecting a last minute reprieve, you better forget it. Once they get you this far, there's no going back. You better get used to the idea. Nobody out there gives a damn about you.

[minthe-lover]

I am curious why Athena didn't play a larger role in LO. She's the goddess of wisdom and war, and her power almost matches Zeus and he considered her his right hand in terms of political strategy, so why not have her more talking to her father to out some sense on him like in the jury?

But no, for some reason Rachel like many female characters were putted aside and overshadowed. But Athena could play also a role guiding Persephone, and being her wise and smart could figure out what happened to her and demand justice for the assault Apollo did. Also where is her armor?? Her iconic helmet and spear and owl??

Uhhh- well the owl shows up like once, same with her helmet

And in the end like most of the female character are under used. I mean Christ the first scene we see Athena she didn't even speak, Athena is just tragically underused and it sucks.

[moonlightknightess]

Hello! By accident I saw your comment about Eren x Ymir Fritz! What are your opinions on it and on Founder Ymir's character in general? It seems the fandom underuses Founder Ymir so much, it's refreshing to see her getting some attention in AUs and HCs

Hi! Now that's an though question! Especially cuz I just realized they were a thing not too long ago 😂 just as I said before, it's kinda wild honestly, like not even I would have come up with such a pairing, and those are really bold words considering I'm shipping Eren with almost the entire AOT female cast here in this blog 🤣 It's interesting tho! I'm a big sucker for rare pairings after all, and truth be told the more I think about them the more I start to like it, especially how unique they are as a pair and all the implications behind it when you take in consideration their roles in the series And regarding Ymir... I can't say I got a lot to say about her as a character to be honest, maybe it was cuz she wasn't that prominent until the last arcs or how she never had that much time on camera, but up to this day I can't say I understood her character, I pity her for how tragic her story was and loved the closure she got right at the end with that "talk" between her and Mikasa, but other than that, not too much to say 😅 Gotta agree with you on the last part, I have never read a single AoT AU fic where she is featured at least as a minor character, every single fic I read where she appears is about the canonverse, I would actually love to see something about her in a modern au or at least in another au different from canon!

[filmmarvel]

2022 Marvel Ranking

I thought it would be fun to return to my roots and make a Marvel post again! This ranking is preference based by the way.

1. Moon Knight- I think Moon Knight was the best project of the year. It was interesting, fairly unique, Oscar Isaac was amazing (along with several other leads), and I’m a huge sucker for mythology. Honestly I’m a little rusty (It’s been a while since I watched this), but as far as I can recall, my biggest complaint about this show would be the visuals. The CGI really wasn’t so good, which always throws things off for me.

2. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever- Overall, I really liked this movie, and I feel that Ryan Coogler did the absolute best he could under the tragic circumstances. It was heartbreaking, and there were some incredible performances given. My only complaints were that some of the pacing was weird, there was a bit too much going on at times, and there were a few plot holes where the audience was left to just assume what happened.

3. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special- This was actually a lot of fun! It was really funny, Drax and Mantis make a great duo, and the inclusion of Kevin Bacon was delightful. It was really quite sweet, and I’ll take whatever content I can get where the Guardians are happy (it seems like they’re heading somewhere dark for the 3rd film).

4. Thor: Love and Thunder- I have 3 primary issues with this movie. First of all, Gorr the God Butcher was severely underused, secondly, the jokes overwhelmed the plot at times which was annoying (especially because they weren’t always that funny), and third, this movie accomplished very little. Basically all it did was catch us up with what was going on with a few characters. Other than that, this film served little purpose to the MCU at large (this wouldn’t be such a big issue if it were made better). It was also pretty cheesy, and just plain cringy at times. Overall a disappointment from Taika (who I love), but it’s been incredibly irritating to see the outpouring of hatred for Taika since this movie came out. I love Taika, just because he made one bad movie doesn’t automatically cancel out all the great movies and shows he’s made.

5. Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness- I was immensely looking forward to this movie, so it was overall the biggest disappointment. I found the ‘Raimi touch’ that everyone’s been praising to be overly campy and unoriginal. Plus, the dialogue was unbearable, and the whole movie kind of felt like an embarrassing rip-off. I cringed more watching this movie than any other this year, which was bizarre for a Dr. Strange movie. It didn’t feel true to his character at all. Why did I rank Thor, which was widely disliked, above this? Because despite it’s wild mediocrity, it wasn’t nearly as big a disappointment to me as this film was.

As I have become fairly disillusioned with Marvel over the past year or so, I haven’t seen everything that’s been released. Namely, I haven’t watched She-Hulk or Ms. Marvel, and at the moment, I have no intention to watch either, as I haven’t heard anything to convince me I’d find either worth my time (I’d consider Ms. Marvel but not She-Hulk). I also haven’t seen Werewolf by Night, but I’ve heard some great things about it, so I’ll definitely watch it (eventually). I’ve heard that Marvel intends to slow down, and focus on quality over quantity again in 2023, and I really hope this is true. It’s been especially disappointing to see many of the female-led projects get trampled by this recent trend in lower quality.

Also, would anyone like to see a post on visuals, colors, or characters for one of these Marvel projects? I really haven’t done much of anything on Marvel this year, I’ve got some stuff cooking but feel free to request anything!

[jockvillagersonly]

2020 Drama Round Up!

Jock’s Alphabetical Watched List

~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~

Ancient Detective

Rating: 🧣🧣🧣🧣🧣 5/5 cozy winter garments

Watch Status: done! ✅

The Good Stuff:

The MC is, objectively, the coziest man alive

MC said “simp rights” and honestly...good for him

I guessed the ~final twist~ really early, but it didn’t dampen my enjoyment of each individual case or the show as a whole!

Any Bad Stuff?

The last few episodes are like...oddly homophobic? With a queer-coded character presented in a somewhat grotesque stereotype? SAD!!

🌸 more reviews under the cut 🌸

Ever Night (S1)

Rating: 🌂🌂🌂🌂 4/5 inexplicably magic umbrellas

Watch Status: ...like 30% done

The Good Stuff:

Some of the BEST fight scenes I’ve seen

Lots of interesting world building!

My queen Meng Ziyi 👑

Any Bad Stuff?

God the MC’s hair is UGLY 😔 pour one out 😔

Guardian

Rating: 👬👬👬👬👬 5/5 gays

Watch Status: done! ✅

The Good Stuff:

It doesn’t get any gayer than this folks

Really this is some of the queerest media I’ve ever seen

Also the main and ensemble characters are all endearing and fun 🐍

All I know is have diarrhea and be hindrance

Any Bad Stuff?

The middle portion of this show DRAAAAGS

Also ZYL’s hair makeover is awful and someone needs to say it !!!!!

Legend of Fei

Rating: 🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰 5/5 dog safe chestnuts

Watch Status: still airing

The Good Stuff:

The pure yibotonin in this show could power a city or at least one depressed viewer (me)

Zhou Fei could and frankly should kick my ass

I love her your honor

Any Bad Stuff?

Has the odd effect of each plot arc feeling both way too long AND like you’ve been crammed way too full of information

Maiden Holmes

Rating: 🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️ 5/5 superior detection skills

Watch Status: one night and 15 episodes in

The Good Stuff:

The main pairing is so fucking cute guys. He loves her so much. He thinks she’s so smart 🥺

Includes one of the purest archetypes of a himbo on screen today 🤌

Crime solving! Hidden identities! Bisexual panics!

Any Bad Stuff?

One episode includes a pretty long assault scene / near r*pe of a main character - the scene is flashed back to throughout the episode, as well

Oh My General!

Ranking: 💪💪💪💪 4/5 beefy lady biceps

Watch Status: like 25% done because FUCK it’s long

The Good Stuff:

Literally EVERYONE in this show is bi. I have the screenshots to prove it. It’s glorious

call me old fashioned, but i was raised to serve my general. clean for her. cook for her and everything i do is for her. and if she cheats? that is on me! she caught me slipping and i will apologize and do better.

Any Bad Stuff?

My only complaint so far is the romance takes awhile to pick up? I’m pretty tired of the main love interest being rude to his objectively incredible wife >:(

S.C.I.

Ranking: 🐭🐭🐭 3/5 mouse archetypes

The Good Stuff:

The pacing is quick! Sometimes too quick? I got lost a lot @___@

Bai Yutong is simply TOO ripped

Any Bad Stuff?

Honestly this show is a bit of a poorly edited, problematic dumpster fire with not even a passing understanding of what psychology is

...but god if it isn’t fun to watch

Silent Criminal

Rating: 🥸🥸🥸🥸 4/5 conveniently disguised emperors

Watch Status: done! ✅

The Good Stuff:

They’re gay and in love your honor

Honestly the two leads really grew on me! I found myself wanting to rewatch their interactions

Not a whole lot of actual crime solving :(

Any Bad Stuff?

Yet another example of the tragic underutilization of female characters with potential 😔 justice for the ladies of this show

There is an assault scene (a character straddles a main character and forces a kiss while he protests). Easily skippable and not referenced again

Sword Dynasty

Rating: 🐛🐛🐛🐛 4/5 divine silkworms

Watch Status: just started (like 3 eps in)

The Good Stuff:

The fight scenes are very wuxia and very fun

Idk what the fuck is going on, but I’m pretty sure the emperor deserves to be stabbed, so go off I guess!

Any Bad Stuff?

Honestly I have barely begun this so ... idk yet!

Tale of the Nine Tailed

Rating: 🦊🦊🦊🦊 4/5 immortal foxes

Watch Status: mostly done

The Good Stuff:

Lee Yeon is very hot and that’s a fact

Nam Ji Ah (main female lead) is SO powerful and SO amazing and LITERALLY my queen

She stabs her fake mom when she’s , like , 5!

The communication b/w the leads??? Iconic

Any Bad Stuff?

This is just me, but I truly cared so little about the Imoogi. I just. Wanted an episodic monster of the week with all the same characters. Pls

The Lost Tomb Reboot

Rating: 👨‍🦰👨‍🦰👨‍🦰 3/5 bad mustache disguises

Watch Status: I stopped watch once [SPOILER] Wu Xie was cured, because I just ... don’t care about the mob politics? So for me that was where the show ended

The Good Stuff:

Zhu Yilong is like ... way too fucking pretty

Also the Wu Xie & Pangzi friendship is so FUN in this show!!!!

Everyone is 2 hot 2 handle

Any Bad Stuff?

Not nearly enough Iron Triangle hangouts >:(

Shockingly large amounts of white collar crime, shockingly few tombs

Every lady is CHRONICALLY underused and/or murdered. Yawn.

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty

Rating: 🎩🎩🎩🎩 4/4 detective hats

Watch Status: I’m always on / off with this show 😔 I’m like 2/3 done now

The Good Stuff:

Crimes !! Solving crimes !! Gay domesticity !! What more could you ask for

One of the best OT3 set ups in the business

Any Bad Stuff?

Silly hats

For folks with secondhand embarassment issues, the main lead can be ... hard

The Untamed

Rating: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰 5/5 soft bunny metaphors

Watch Status: Done! ✅

The Good Stuff:

Everyone in this show is so pretty I’m convinced it’s illegal

Like if this didn’t pass censorship it wouldn’t be because of the obvious gay longing but rather because it’s setting unrealistic expectations for beauty

Also: the gayest longing around. And murder!

Any Bad Stuff?

Nothing this show is perfect in every way

(Except like maybe don’t kill or write off all your women ... thoughts)

[movie-magic]

A Davy Jones Prequel Is The Best Way To Save Pirates of the Caribbean

A prequel digging into Davy Jones' tragic backstory can save the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and improve the existing films' flawed narrative.

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies have struggled creatively since Gore Verbinski’s departure in 2007, but a Davy Jones prequel could save the franchise from its curse of diminishing returns. Disney is keen to change direction with Margot Robbie’s female-led adventure, but ushering in a new roster of characters is a considerable gamble. It would be a mistake to ignore pre-established lore that could improve Verbinski’s trilogy about love and morality.

Davy Jones’ tragic romance with sea goddess Calypso was underused by the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, hindering emotional attachment to the characters. It was stated the lovers betrayed one another, both confined to separate forms of immortal torment. Jones carved out his heart to symbolically shed his emotions, yet each remained bound to the other, as evidenced by their matching musical lockets. Small but meaningful teases of their relationship set the stage for a confrontation that never satisfactorily materialized onscreen.

Their Pirates of the Caribbean backstory could be significantly improved with a prequel movie and offer insight into why Jones became such a monster. He is a memorable villain who took great pride in slaughtering his opponents, but it’s the softer moments that make Jones such a complex character, and there are lingering questions about the details of his curse that provide the opportunity to retrospectively enhance the second and third films’ story. How did Davy Jones turn into an octopus-like monster and why did Calypso abandon him?

The rules of Jones’ curse and reasons why Calypso never visited him at sea were never fully defined. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End revealed he initially honored his soul-ferrying duty, only to step on land after 10 years with Calypso nowhere to be found. Only then did he quit his role and turn on her in revenge. This paints Jones in a more sympathetic light while exposing Calypso as the original instigator of cruelty. His narrative arc could come full circle with a prequel, exploring their affair and how he felt manipulated into spending an eternity aboard the Dutchman, in turn gleefully forcing future sailors into joining his crew. This story would also better explain Calypso’s sudden exit from Pirates of the Caribbean, underscoring her flighty nature. Jones was racked with guilt over helping the Brethren Court trap Calypso, giving a prequel ample opportunity to explore his psyche as he questions the truth behind their love.

Flashbacks to Jones’ time with Calypso would surely be important, but the story needn’t dwell on his origin. The focus should remain on his physical and emotional transformation, lending the film a body horror aesthetic as he relinquishes his humanity. This would provide the perfect contrast to Will Turner’s story. At World’s End saw Will ultimately take Jones’ place as captain of the Flying Dutchman, and a prequel exploring what horrors this life entails could emphasize the tragedy of his and Elizabeth’s star-crossed romance. Disney’s attempts to replicate the Will and Elizabeth courtship in later films failed to resonate, but a Davy Jones movie sidesteps this issue by involving familiar characters already firmly rooted in the larger story. This would showcase the birth of a monster while delivering a cautionary tale of cutting oneself off from the world.

The tragedy of Davy Jones emphasizes Pirates of the Caribbean’s theme of how the choices people make impact the lives of their loved ones. Of course, a clear distinction would need to be drawn between victim and villain, illustrating the point of no return where Jones actively embraced evil. However, a prequel would avoid the obstacle of Margot Robbie's reboot being compared to beloved original characters, and instead deepen the suffering that connects existing heroes and villains.

- Screen Rant

[fonulyn]

I saw someone the other day here on good ol' tungle complain (before the show came out, mind you) that Claire wasn't going to be in the show enough and wasn't gonna play an integral role, and like. I can understand why that thought is upsetting, bc the girl is a badass and deserves more screentime for sure, but like not only did they end up being wrong (our girl kicked ass, played a huge role in the plot, and was just generally amazing) but they had like, blamed Leon a little bit for it? As tho it was his fault the writers don't give three shits about the female protagonists in the franchise (who, if I remember correctly, only one of which gets an actual entire game to herself? The rest, to my knowledge, are POV swapping games, which are fine but like. Come on Capcom)??? It was v weird and caused me to unfollow them bc they were already disappointed by the show, they blamed Leon, and they acted like, surprised? I don't know about you, but I'm never surprised by franchises like this when they put one of their main female characters on/in the promotional to garner attention and then she's actually only in it for five seconds. That's just misogyny (which I'm not excusing or saying is okay, obvs, but don't push blame onto the other main character, just bc he's the main character? Leon didn't choose to push Claire out of the spotlight, and honestly I don't even think he did. Like he got more screentime then her, yeah, but I think this is as close as we were gonna get to a fair split amount of time between the two, with capcom's history of "women? What women? Oh you mean convenient plot devices?"), so don't hate on people who love Leon, and don't hate on the character himself. Like what the what? As a Leon lover (he is my favorite, I love him sm), I am pissed that we never get to see Claire in anything, that we hardly ever saw Jill after RE3, and that all female protags are secondary to their male counterparts. It's bullshit, frankly, but taking it out on other fans and the other characters in the franchise is. Not good, and will just isolate you further from the fandom. Don't know if this is a hot take or not lol and I'm not trying to like be mean or start a fight with anyone, I just needed to rant about this bc it was bothering me and I figured you would kinda get where I was coming from? Also I love your rants, you are v knowledgeable lol

okay so... i saw some of that going around too. and it doesn't really make sense to me for multiple reasons. first of all, some people already decided that ID would suck even before it came out, they decided Claire would get no screen time and decided they'd ruin her character and... all of that before they'd seen more than the trailers? and I just don't get it, why not give it a chance before judging it?

i do understand that people want Claire to have a big role and want her to get the chance to shine. i want that, too! she absolutely deserves that! and I get being scared of what would become of it! i was nervous beforehand that they'd take the characters (both of them) into a direction that I'd find disappointing. when I pressed play on the first episode I was terrified as much as excited, because there was no way of knowing before seeing it.

but i do think it's important to press play and watch for yourself before condemning the entire thing.

and as for blaming Leon for Claire allegedly not having a large enough part in it? it... makes zero sense. it's not like they're living breathing people who have an actual say in what happens? :'D overall I find it weird how readily people jump to attack other characters to defend their own favorites. I don't understand this whole shooting down others to lift your own fave. there are ways to appreciate a character without hating on everyone else.

(that is not to say you're not allowed to hate on characters! of course you can hate characters! but like. you don't need to hate whoever you deem a "rival" just because. it's not a competition.)

and yeah, there is a long history of misleading promotion where a character is advertised as a main character and then sidelined to only appear for a bit. and it was a possibility. but it didn't happen, and I for one am happy about it. (what I am disappointed in, is that they made it seem like Leon and Claire would work together, while they did that for like two and a half minutes. but well. can't win them all)

(tangentially, they did something a bit similar to Chris in re8 too, the promotions relied super heavily on him but from what i understood (without having actually played the game, so correct me if i'm wrong!) he was a playable character for a very small portion of the game. so. they used him and his fanbase for promotion a little misleadingly. so yeah it is a real concern that could've happened)

like you said, Leon might've gotten more screentime if you only count the minutes. but Claire was an integral part of the story, she was fighting for the things she believes in, she got to be fierce (that headbutt is like the highlight of the movie :'D) and it wouldn't have been the same without her.

yeah it is bullshit how Capcom just threw Jill aside, and are tragically underusing a lot of their female characters. and I'm not trying to excuse that. but I do think they have a general problem with forgetting all of their characters except for Chris and Leon, who have gotten to be in most things (even tho to be fair they're not getting a fully consistent storyline either but. they do get screentime?). they create the most wonderful characters and then forget all about them, and it sucks.

but that's a problem with the people who make these movies and games. not the characters in said movies and games. so taking your own disappointment out on other characters and their fans is just... counter productive at best. it just leads to anger and resentment and the absolutely pointless fandom wars no one benefits from. i, for one, am too old for that bullshit.

so yeah, I get what you're coming from. it is so frustrating to see the unfounded hate. and tbh I've seen Leon get quite a bit of it. but that just comes with the territory I guess. he is popular, and some people react badly to it. which doesn't make sense to me, personally, but hey it is what it is.

I know it's easier said than done, but try to focus on the good! we got new content, Leon and Claire both got to be important parts in the story, they both kicked ass and looked amazing doing it! for the most part they both felt very in character, and I have high hopes we might get more in the form of season 2! :3

also, I'm glad you're enjoying my ramblings :'D I have a lot of thoughts but I usually get carried away rambling and I'm never sure how much sense i make, lol.

[neuxue]

Who are some of your favorite villains?

Oh man, that is a question, anon. This is not a comprehensive list, because if I started listing every morally corrupt character who owns my soul, we’d be here all night. I’ve also taken a somewhat flexible definition of villainy at times, because…it’s complicated.

Also, spoilers for uh…most of the things listed; I’ve tried to keep it vague where possible, but the nature of villainous arcs means sometimes that doesn’t work. I’ve listed the work before the commentary, so if you don’t want spoilers for the thing, skip that section.

In no particular order…

Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter (His Dark Materials): okay, so arguably they’re not villains, per se, but they each serve as antagonists at various points, they’re ambitious and proud beyond belief, and their morality is…well. Complicated. (Did I lose my mind at the ‘corruption and envy and lust for power. Cruelty and coldness. A vicious probing curiosity. Pure, poisonous toxic malice […] you are a cesspit of moral filth’ speech, from a corrupt angel to the one deceiving him? Abso-fucking-lutely. Also ‘I wanted you to come and join me. And I thought you would prefer a lie’). They’re also on this list because they were my Formative Villain Faves from the age of 7, which probably tells you something about who I was as a child and who I am as a person.

Nirai Kujen (Machineries of Empire). You really…could not write a villain more My Type if you tried. I’m not sure I could write a villain more My Type if I tried. Immortal, immoral mathematician who traded empathy for the ability to act on it, reconfigured a universe, and has lost most of his humanity but not his sense of beauty? I am but a simple woman. It helps that there is one hell of an enemies/allies/lovers dynamic going on between him and another character who is a different sort of my type, and it’s precisely my kind of Fucked Up Power Dynamics.

Moridin (Wheel of Time): ’Your logic destroyed you, didn’t it?’ I have a whole…thing about villains who see themselves as a kind of anti-Chosen One. I’ve written about it slightly more coherently elsewhere, but it comes down to a particular kind of despair and perception of inevitability, that they have no choice but to fight and that their role is always to lose, and that they will be cast and remembered as the monster, and so there is not reason not to be monstrous, but that doesn’t help with the self-hatred.

Semirhage (Wheel of Time): I could pick a lot of the Forsaken, and one or two other characters from WoT but I’ll stick to two here. Semirhage is all about pain without emotion, and I’m into it.

Malkar (Doctrine of Labyrinths): okay, he’s sort of in the category of scenery-chewing villain you love to hate, but I do love to hate him. And he causes so much delicious pain for the major characters; it’s almost like he’s running a charity service for those of us who like watching our favourite characters hurt.

Aaravos (The Dragon Prince): Listen. Listen. Trapped in a mirror, lost and alone and yet only letting that show in glimpses, possibly a Prometheus figure, graceful and beautiful and terrible, and that voice. Also the entire aesthetic. He is awful, and he is a delight, and he has that kind of cruelty that you can almost forget about - it’s as though he’s so into the villain aesthetic that you almost think it’s just an aesthetic, almost forget how capable he truly is of horrors, and so when he commits them it’s all the more thrilling.

Astrid & Athos Dane (Shades of Magic): The Dane twins deserved better. And by better I mean more screen time. They were criminally underused as villains and they had such potential. Vicious and cruel in a world where to be otherwise is to die, holding power by blood and pain, and chaining another …well, if not villain then certainly antagonist to their will, forcing him to serve the world he wants to save? Which brings us to…

Holland (Shades of Magic): Holland is…arguably not a villain but as an antagonist he is absolutely my type: powerful and ruthless and broken, and yet somehow still fighting; a character whose defining trait is his extraordinary will (and also self-hatred); a character who, literally in canon on the goddamn page, is told ‘no one suffers as beautifully as you’. (Plus he gets a redemption arc! That lets him remain complicated and doesn’t undermine his competence! And while it falls into redemption-equals-death, his death doesn’t come at the turning point in his arc the way it does for so many villains - he gets a whole road-trip first!)

Melisande Shahrizai (Kushiel): oh man. She’s such an interesting character, and the narrative does an excellent job of creating that link between her and Phedre - a really, really compelling and beautiful form of 'you know it’s a terrible idea but you can’t help yourself’. Also, she and Marisa Coulter should never be allowed to meet (by which I mean, I would read that fic). I’m also always here for a female villain who gets to be complicated, who has depth beyond just the typical 'femme fatale’ (though Melisande could certainly claim that title), and who is truly central to the story rather than there to look pretty.

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender): For all that I love Zuko, he doesn’t belong on this list, flexible as my definition of 'villain’ here is. Azula, on the other hand…sharp and vicious and a void of anger and fear inside, and if she has to feel that, then the world should too.

Zhao (Avatar: The Last Airbender): It’s at least 85% the voice, and the other 15% is the way he looks at Zuko (I know, I know, I’m sorry).

Rhaegar (A Song of Ice and Fire): Rhaegar’s villainy is…complicated, but he gets a spot here anyway. I have a niche subtype that can be defined as Sad Harpists (Rhaegar, Maglor, Deth, Morgon, Asmodean), so that’s part of it, as is the way he sets that aside out of what he perceives as necessity. But also most of his draw is how he’s this shadow hanging over the entire narrative and yet is himself a void in it; we see so little of him, know so little of him in truth, catch only glimpses and will never know what’s behind them, and every character sees him differently, and he has defined all their lives but we know almost nothing of his. I’m all about identity and choices, and the fact that his are so thoroughly obfuscated but have such a lasting impact on the entire world really does it for me.

Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade): Does she count as a villain? I suppose it depends entirely on whose point of view you’re watching from, which is kind of the point. Regardless, she is so much of what I want from a character, from an author who doesn’t do things halfway. Intelligent and ambitious and utterly ruthless, to both herself and the world she wants to burn down around her.

Delilah Briarwood (Critical Role Campaign 1): any character whose cry of agony and despair takes the form of 'I broke the world for us!’ is a character I’m going to like.

The Lone Power (Young Wizards): mostly because the traditional greeting, upon encountering them, is ’fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance’, and I am a simple woman. But also because they’re the Lucifer figure, in all senses - evil, perhaps, but mostly a necessary embodiment of entropy, one who must exist and must struggle and must always lose, beautiful and bright and terrible, and oh so proud.

Judas (Christian Mythology): He betrayed a guy with a kiss. What more do you want from me?

Rin (the Poppy War): By the end, she makes a very compelling case for herself as a Villain Protagonist and I, for one, am into it. Also, 'genocidal’ gets tossed around a lot when villains are discussed, often without cause, so uh…points to Rin for actually deserving it? (This book is strongly in the category of Not For Everyone, but if it’s your thing…weaponising gods.)

Loki (Marvel franchise & Norse Mythology): so, I have a complicated relationship with 'trickster’ figures and characters, in that I like the idea of them, but tend only to actually enjoy the ones who fall on the darker side of that line they all dance around. Loki, in pretty much all his incarnations, fits that mould.

Achilles (Greek Mythology): Is Achilles a villain? Depends who you ask. But he’s powerful and proud and doomed, and knows it. I just…heroes who go out in a blaze of glory are all well and good, but villains who step up to the flames of their own damnation?

Ruin (Mistborn): It’s funny; I really enjoy a lot of Sanderson’s stories, but by and large he tends not to write my type of villain (which I will forgive him because he gave me Kelsier). But Ruin…starts off like just another godlike semicorporeal villain with absurd power, as you do, and then gets significantly more interesting – and tragic – when you learn the full story. I have a thing for villains who chose their villainy out of necessity (with a side helping of hubris) and become that which they most hated or feared. The ones who look at a razor’s edge and think 'I can walk that’. Who look at power that will consume them and think 'I can control it’. It’s a very specific kind of… arrogant sacrifice, I suppose, and it never ends well and I’m into it every time.

[thecorteztwins]

what are some under used marvel female characters youd love to see in the rpc?

HMMMOkay, so I’m trying to think OBJECTIVELY here and not just rattle off the female characters that I personally like, and more “I’m surprised that there’s not more blogs for this character, whether or not I personally am a fan” ....because I missed the “you’d love to see in the RPC” bit because I’m dumb, and then I wrote this whole list without regards for that part. So this came out as less “female characters I personally want” (who would all be stupidly obscure and irrelevant anyway) and more “female characters I think the RPC should give some more love to, whether I personally am into them or not”:Definitely ALL the girls in the New Mutants and Generation X! I see a fair few blogs for Magik and Jubilee, but I really don’t see any for the others. I get why Magik is going to be more popular---she’s in more stuff, she’s currently much more relevant in the comics, and her backstory is so goddamn compelling---but that doesn’t mean the others shouldn’t have ANY blogs out there. Wolfsbane, Magma, Karma, and Moonstar are all extremely complex and compelling characters with their own struggles and triumphs too, and I think they deserve just as much love. Likewise, I get why Jubilee will naturally get more blogs than Husk, Monet, and Penance (depending if you count Penny as a separate character or not...) due to her being in more stuff, having bigger arcs, etc. But it still surprises there’s NO blogs around for those ladies! I know there was that Monet blog awhile ago, and @badmusesdoitwell had an Amara that’s now part of their multimuse, as well as a Rahne, but that’s still nowhere near enough love in the RPC for these Junior X-Ladies, in my opinion. Speaking of Generation X, I’m also a bit surprised no one has picked Cordelia Frost up, given that we’ve got plenty of background canon for her via Emma’s history yet Cordelia herself has LOTS of room to go nuts with headcanons, like it’s just the perfect opportunity! And I’m sure lots of Emma blogs, of which there are MANY, would love their little sister around for some family threads. Fuck, I would pick her up myself if I were more into Emma and the Frost family as a whole. She’s hardly the most relevant, recent, or even interesting character around, she’s done very little and shown up very briefly, but the fact she’s related to Emma Frost makes me think SOMEONE would have an interest in her.Madelyne Pryor, for sure. Like, I love Maddy, but it’s not just my favoritism talking here. I think she’s pretty decently well-known in the comics fandom, and she’s a tragic villain, which usually pulls people in big-time. She’s got a grudge against the good guys, and it’s actually more legitimate than most, which I’d think would also attract people, since a lot of villains fans like to blame the good guys no matter what and THEY’D ACTUALLY HAVE A GOOD ARGUMENT HERE? Plus she has very strong connections to other, more popular canons, with a ton of fodder for angst and drama threads, which people just LOVE. I have seen a few Maddy blogs pop up in the past, and I always get so excited, but they never seem to last very long :CDr. Moira MacTaggert deserves ALL the love and respect in the world/fandom! She’s been a staunch supporter of mutants since day one, she’s a total badass, she’s super smart, she calls Xavier out on his shit ALL THE TIME, she’s the survivor of an abusive husband, she had to make terrible choices about her son that no mother should ever have to and then live with the consequences of those choices, and SHE GOES AFTER A KELPIE WITH A GODDAMN MACHINE GUN! She’s been a part of the X-Men comics for such a long time, and is very significant in them, it really surprises me that I’ve never seen a blog for her besides just ONE and it was for the XMCU sexy American CIA agent Moira, who is NOT Moira in my book and NEVER WILL BE. Speaking of, Moira will ALWAYS be human to me, I think making her a mutant all along REALLY undermines a big part of her character as just an unyielding mutant ally. Though I think her being human, combined with being an older female who isn’t anyone’s love interest (unless she’s, gasp, getting in the way of CHERIK aka the ultimate fandom sin how dare she the harlot -.-), is probably WHY she’s so damn ignored -.-Frenzy hasn’t been in THE most recent stuff, but she’s still been relevant recent enough that I think one or two blogs around would have happened if she weren’t black. Yeah, I hate to be THIS person, but any black character who isn’t Storm doesn’t get love, for all that the RPC likes to yell about being diverse and progressive. Remember all the Captain America and Iron Man and Hulk and Quicksilver blogs that popped up after their movies? Yeah I saw like ONE T’challa blog after Black Panther came out. Then again, I’ve yet to see blogs for Pixie or Firestar either, who are white, and I feel like they both were fairly interesting and well-known in fandom? Same for the Academy X girls like Sofia Mantega, Mercury, and Wallflower. Luna Maximoff FOR SURE. It SHOCKS me I haven’t see more than a couple short-lived blogs around for her, just given her family connections. Now, I don’t think a character deserves love just because of who they’re related to---in fact it annoys me when a characters gets a ton of attention and it’s very obviously just for that---but Luna has SO MUCH going on? The problems between her parents, her mother being absent so much, her father exposing her to the Mists, dealing with her powers, being a child of two very different worlds and cultures, it just goes on and on. Luna has had to grow up so fast, she’s such a strange and stoic child as a result, and though her situation is very fantastical, having to be the mature one at an early age because all the adults in your life won’t be is something a lot of people have to cope with and I think would find relatable; I especially love how she lives in this world where there’s no bad guys, like neither Crystal nor Pietro were the villains in her situation, just hurting messed up people, which she also recognized in Magneto and maybe also even Maximus . And there’s so much that could be explored with her too that hasn’t been in canon yet---for instance, her choice to identify with her Inhuman heritage and why that is, and the journey of identifying with your heritage but also looking at the horrible things in their history, I think that’s a story that a LOT of people from MANY backgrounds can relate to. It surprises and frustrates me that both writers and fandom don’t really seem to care about her or remember she exists; one the only two blogs I ever saw for her seriously got someone asking them “why would you make such a weird OC” like SERIOUSLY! Luna needs more love, big time. Any female Avenger that’s not Wanda or Natasha. I don’t read Avengers, I’m just an X-Men fan, but I know they exist and they shouldn’t have to be in a movie to get love. Ditto for She-Hulk, I’m not a Hulk reader but I know she’s a prominent character who has been around a long time and has a very developed personality and stories of her own, yet I’ve only ever seen her on @getreadytosmash‘s multi. I’ve also never really read Alpha Flight, but its main ladies ---Snowbird, Aurora, Vindicator---all seem awesome in their own different ways. Alpha Flight isn’t very popular to begin with, of course, so I don’t expect them to have as many blogs as, say, major X-ladies, but I think one apiece or so would be very justified.KWANNON!! I actually get why we didn’t have any blogs for her BEFORE now, because we knew NOTHING about her, she was just a very tragic prop for Betsty’s body-swap plot and a way to give her insta-ninja-skills, but now she’s come back and has HER OWN NEW SERIES in which we’re finally learning who she is and her background, I hope to see a blog or two around for her eventually!Destiny aka Irene Adler. Like. Do I even need to explain WHY? I think people just don’t want to play an OLD woman, especially one whose primary/only ship is going to be with another woman.Maaaaybe Clea Strange? I don’t know shit about her, never read Dr. Strange, but like, people make blogs for Sigyn literally just because she’s Loki’s wife, and Clea at least seems to like...DO stuff? IDK, not sure on this on, but figured I’d make an honorable mention.Siryn, Boom Boom, and Dr. Cecilia Reyes are all X-Ladies that I really don’t know much about. Like I know basic things like their powers but I don’t know their story arcs and such. But as with Clea and the Avengers ladies and She-Hulk, I just have a HUNCH there’s a lot there getting ignored by fans.Silhouette Chord is a longtime member of The New Warriors, and, like Alpha Flight, New Warriors doesn’t really have a fanbase on Tumblr to speak of, so it’s not surprising to me she’s not got any love here. And even within the pages of her own comics, she’s generally pushed aside, underused, and underdeveloped compared to the other characters, generally more a prop for her boyfriend’s stories than anything else. But she DOES have a personality, a REALLY cool backstory, and she’s like...look, the RPC claims to love diversity and representation and all that, right? Silhouette is a mixed-race WOC (half Black, half Cambodian, and I have NEVER seen another Marvel character of Cambodian heritage who wasn’t connected to her) who is also very visibly physically disabled, her legs are completely paralyzed and she is never without her braces/crutches, yet she still fights PHYSICALLY (something very rare for physically disabled characters, they usually are more like Oracle or Prof X) and is depicted in a sexual relationship, and there’s never any kind of fuss or angst about it or anything treating her as delicate or less than or anything like that. She’s just completely adjusted to it in a way that’s very rare in media. And like I said, she’s not a flat character, I’m not saying she should be more popular just for ticking off the diversity boxes, she manages to be really intriguing to me despite how little focus the writers give her, and I think that she and the other New Warrior girls (Firestar and Namorita) have a lot to offer the RPC. But I have to give a special shoutout to Sil since she’s my fave, as the neglected ones alway are.Meggan Puceanu is probably most familiar to folks here as Kurt’s love interest in Age of X, but she’s been around since the 80s. She’s a longtime member of Excalibur, and she’s just...fascinating. She’s a Romanichal mutant (though often hinted to have magical/mystical heritage too, perhaps fairy like Pixie) who has empathic, elemental, and shapeshifting capabilities. However, her empathic and shapeshifting tend to overlap, so she changes her form (and her mind) according to the feelings, fears, and desires of others. So for instance, there’s this one time where a group of men are checking her out, and she feels that “They love me...I want...to love them in return!” and she morphs into this sexxed-up version of hersef on the spot. This isn’t played for kinkiness or laughs either; Meggan’s identity struggles are a HUGE part of her character. She has no idea who she is because her powers make her reflect and respond to the feelings of others around her, internally and externally. She doesn’t even know what she actually really LOOKS like because of this; her powers were present since birth, causing her to grow fur instantly as an infant due to it being winter. This caused her parents to keep her locked up in the camper trailer, where she was raised alone with the TV (she’s also illiterate, which causes her to feel dumb a lot) and as more and more people around her spread rumors about the monstrous child inside, she psychically absorbed those beliefs and her physical form changed to reflect them, making her more and more monstrous as she got older. She didn’t know she was a shapeshifter, she just really thought she was a hideous monster. And even when she found out the truth, she STILL didn’t know what she really looked like, as the beautiful form she took on (basically Pamela Anderson with elf ears) was to please her boyfriend Captain Britain (whom she is really unhealthily dependent on starting out because of her situation)Meggan is insecure, she doesn’t know who she is, she has to cling to a man in order to have anything because no one else has ever loved her, she easily becomes jealous of other women near him, she gets made fun of for being a bimbo and she often feels she is because she can’t read or understand “clever words” due to her isolated upbringing...and she gets through this! She develops! She becomes STRONGER and she becomes SECURE and she gains CONTROL of her powers and SHE KICKS ASS and she FORMS AN IDENTITY!  And then Meggan SACRIFICED HER LIFE to buy time for Captain Britain, Psylocke, and Rachel Summers to repair the tear in reality caused by House of M. She ends up lost between dimensions and TRAPPED IN HELL, where she uses her empathy to rally the lesser demons against THE LORDS OF HELL ITSELF and wages a war IN HELL for which her demon followers dub her “Gloriana” and she forms a sanctuary there called “Elysium” where souls can escape torment!  AND THEN SHE FINDS HER WAY HOME!THIS WOMAN KICKED ASS IN HELL AND WON!! Like she just goes through SUCH an arc, and I admit I have not read it myself yet, she’s on my list of characters to read EVERYTHING on and I’m still only familiar with her very insecure Excalibur days (which I love a lot, I just feel so much for Meggan and her struggles, I think she’s very much a reflection of a LOT of real-world issues, ranging from mental illnesses to just EXISTING as a woman) but I already have a ton of feelings about her and I think she’s more than prominent and accomplished enough to merit more attention in the RPC. And this is less of an “actually has reasons the RPC should love her” character, because really there’s no reason they should, she’s not prominent or relevant or or anything, but more an interesting “did you know”---did you know there was a “young female Wolverine clone” in the comics BEFORE Laura Kinney? Avery Connor! She pre-dates Laura by a year and has a VERY similar story, yet she never took off in popularity and very few people know her. You can read about her HERE on my Marvel blog. Again, would not say there’s actually any reason she’s earned love from the RPC like, say, Meggan or Luna, but I just thought I’d toss that in as a tidbit for the Logan family fans, as I know there are many.(Also, cheating because these are dudes, but: I’m not a Banshee fan but I am surprised I’ve never seen a blog for him, nor for Sunfire. Or for 616 Pyro. Or...)

[elenatria]

Do you think Loki is going to be in Thor 4 ? I know he's getting his own show but I like seeing the two together ! I also didn't understand if this movie is still about thor odinson or if is going to be about janethor and odinson is just going to be there. Who's the protagonist?

Well. Good question. Let me try to answer the second part first.

Initially I was kinda pissed. I hated Jane so so much in the previous films, what a generic boring Mary Sue she was and a disservice to Natalie’s awesomeness. Secondly I got pissed because heyyyy this is supposed to be a Thor film, not a female Thor film, I don’t care if it’s canon. Thirdly I know from hardcore Thor fans (yeah, the ones who have actually read the comics unlike myself) that female Thor is NOT the best Thor story line ever written... 

So basically I’m copy/pasting from my friend who has read the comics:

“It seems they couldn't think of a better way to empower a female character without demeaning and humiliating a beloved male character. 

Half of the story is just about her being able to lift the hammer, just because, and Jane being absurdly out of place. The other half of the story is just about character assassination of Thor, Odin sounding like a meninist, all Thor's friends and allies loving Jane!Thor without any valid reason and forgetting their loyalty to the true and original Thor, everyone just fawning over Jane!Thor though she has just stolen Thor's name and identity. Even Mjolnir is absurd. Suddenly all is better with Jane!Thor and all Thor's struggles, sacrifices and courage are discarded. 

Literally villains simply surrender to her because she is a woman. And Frigga is not mad at someone who is stealing her son's identity. She is angry because she couldn't steal it herself! 

I'm a woman of colour, I’m all for diversity and equality BUT I'm totally against replacing iconic, and beloved, characters. They are changed entirely so that writers can say their comics, books or movies are diverse. Why didn't they create an original character who represented women? Why didn't they take awesome and underused characters they already have like Sif or Brunhilde and give them their own comics? 

 Thor is  based on an actual god in Norse myth. And those of us who have read him since childhood love him, we have seen him grow, mature, love, learn, fight, sacrifice himself, cry, lose and win. When I heard them say there would be a Female Thor I just thought the Thor Odinson we know would suffer a change in his very own body, just like when he became FrogThor. And I was all for that. I remembered how Loki turned his body into one identical to Sif's in TDW and Thor took it in his stride. He even said he would kick Loki's ass in any form Loki gave him. Having a female body was not a problem for Thor. I would have loved that. But taking Thor's name, treating it as a mantle, replacing him...  SPOILERS!! Jane Foster is dead and gone now (cancer).”

Imho this is going to be a Jane!Thor film mostly. It’s quite obvious Natalie will be the protagonist but I don’t know if they’re gonna follow the comic’s tragic story line. I know Taika is an expert on tragicomedy (we saw that in “Boy”) so I’m quite sure he’s gonna combine seamlessly the tragic and funny elements of the film... unless the script is loosely based on the Mighty Thor comics just like Ragnarok was loosely based on Planet Hulk.

Plus you can tell it’s going to be primarily a funny film, right? I mean look at the logo.

It’s like the “Life of Brian” logo. (COMEDY!!1)

Or the “Conan the Barbarian” logo. (EPIC CHEESE!!1)

Maybe Thor remains overweight in the fourth installment, who knows, Taika always wanted to include a flashback scene of Thor as a chubby kid in Ragnarok.

So I hope Taika is going to take the piss at anything Marvel holds sacred even if he, as a person, is all for feminism and diversity. 

And now for my biggest concern: female Thor means there will be no room for Loki. 

Can I say that I’d hate a Thor/Jane reunion after they hilariously “dumped each other” in Ragnarok? Yeah I’d hate it if it’s all about them bickering about the way they split and who was responsible and then kissing and making up blah blah blah. How lame.

Also, Jane being the center of Thor’s attention (or Thor being reduced to a supporting character) would probably mean Loki has no place there. 

BUT... what’s giving me hope is that the Loki series will be released in spring 2021 and Thor: Love and Thunder will premiere in November 2021. It is so not a coincidence that those twin Marvel projects will arrive back to back. 

Tom says Loki is “still that guy (from ‘Avengers’). Seems there’s a lot of psychological evolution that is still yet to happen but it is one of the most exciting creative opportunities I’ve come across.”

Honestly, I don’t know what that means. Does Loki get to grow through his adventures in parallel universes and different timelines, with or without Thor? Does he miss Thor? Does he seek him out?

And if he does, which Thor does he meet? The Love and Thunder Thor, or a Thor from a parallel universe? According to the billboard behind him, he just traveled back to 1975.  Does he even care at this point?... 

I’m guessing Loki will make a tiny appearance in Love and Thunder. Not that I haven’t been disappointed by Marvel before, and it’s not like I didn’t trust the Russos blindly (just like I’m trusting Taika now) because of “The winter soldier” and “Civil war” only to be GLORIOUSLY disappointed by their mess of a story in “infinity war” and “Endgame”.

So... I want to believe yes. But after “Infinity war” and “Endgame” I’m not exactly holding my breath.

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Wizard Episodes 01-17

Where's Kaede? The magical show is about to begin.

The fourth installment in my "watch all of Kamen Rider" series is here! I'm two months and I still haven't given up, I'm not gonna lie I'm very surprised with myself. XD

As much as I was excited to start this new series, the bad taste Fourze has left into my mouth got me a little apprehensive. But, while Wizard isn't a perfect show, I was very pleased with this first third of it.

This is a show about hope and, much like its predecessor, the show isn't subtle about it. But somehow it works here, first because the dramas the MOTW victims go through feels more grounded and believable, and second because it's not just a bunch of teenagers going around dealing with stuff that to an adult's eye seems very dumb. It also helps that, for the most part, the characters here don't have a twisted notion of what Hope is, though there are some times where "hope" is mixed with "dream" and it feels a bit weird, but I think the two themes are correlated so it's not that big of a stretch.

If there's one thing I don't like about Wizard is the bad CGI. I understand that the effects aren't the best, after all, this show is heavily dependant on special effects because of all the magic spells so they can't use the best and most expensive CGI all the time, but I can't deny that they feel very wonky. I think if the engage sequences inside people's underworlds didn't exist or included actors in suits doing the monsters instead of large CGI creatures, they could afford better and more polished effects. Sadly that didn't happen so that's a letdown, at least the only instances where this bugs me is in the underworld scenes and during the Flame Dragon form attack so that's not that big of a deal.

Another thing I also don't like is the villains, the concept of the Phantoms is really good but the generals they lack a loooooot of personality. Phoenix is the hot-blooded villain and Medusa is the stereotypical female villain, in terms of design Phoenix is basically Ankh and Medusa is basically Mezool so it just shows they don't have a lot going on for them. Though the reveal that happened in episodes 14 and 15 made me interested so I didn't lose all hope in the antagonists just yet.

I'd like to come here and say that thankfully the other side of this coin has amazing characters that balance out the blandness of the villains, but sadly that's not the case. While Haruto is very cool, everyone else on his gang aside from Wajima isn't the greatest. And what's more sad about all of this is that each member of the gang has things that could make them great, but most of the time they're there being used as comic relief so when it's their time to shine is hard to take them seriously. Rinko could've been very interesting to see as a rookie female detective that has a strong sense of justice, but she's very underused and more often than not she's there playing a comedy role. Shunpei is naive and has a genuinely pure heart, and he would've been a great companion if the show didn't make him very extra and exaggerated making him look dumb rather than a kind kid too pure for this world. Koyomi should be the most interesting of them all since she's an empty shell powered up by mana, but we barely see her and her "introductory" arc was very rough in the edges with them making her seem like she is "jealous" of Haruto and has feelings for him. I wanna make clear that despite my problems I still like these characters, they had times where they shined a lot which made me like them, but they have those flaws and I can't overlook them. Of course, this is only the beginning of the season which means there's still more time so they have opportunities to grow so I'm very open-minded for them.

A character I don't have any hopes for is Kousuke, aka Beast, aka the mid-season Rider. As much as I appreciate that the dude didn't just appear out of nowhere during a fight, he still follows tradition and I don't like him, in fact, I hate this dude. I've seen him only once but I already hate him more than any of his predecessors. I don't wanna go for very long since he appeared only in one episode and the next arc will be more focused on him, I believe, so I'll have plenty of time to dish on him next week, but for now, let's just say I want to see choke him with his bottle of mayonnaise while engaging on his gross eating habits.

Talking about the man of the time, Wizard himself, Haruto is a bit weird, but in a good way. I appreciate that his "default mode" is a more serious one, it doesn't make him look off whenever the moment needs him to be more grounded/angry, but also gives openings for him to be playful and crack a few jokes here and there, I really like that in his personality. I feel like his backstory is a bit too much, but all main riders so far had some sort of tragic background that seemed way too heavy to be believable so I can't hold that against him.

Wizard is a rider I really like both in design and powers. Weird helmet shapes on his side forms aside, I really dig everything on his design. I never cosplayed on my life, but if I ever did a Kamen Rider cosplay it would probably be Wizard. The hand in the belt and the gun/sword, and the rings are way too big for my taste, but these need to be sold as toys so I think that's the reason why they're this big and I can get past that. I absolutely love the droids for this season and I love even more that they're called familiars if I had the money I'd buy ALL OF THEM. I love Wizard's elemental powers, but his "side rings" are weird and very situational, it seems weird to complain about that coming from a season with 40 EXTREMELY situational side powers, but c'mon, they have a spell that makes the user smell bad, what use does that have? Though I can't deny I'd love that sleep spell because my insomnia can be a bitch sometimes.

I'm a little thorn on the first power-up Wizard got, while I love its design in all of the three forms we've seen so far, and I love when the dragon parts merge with him in the Hurricane and Water Dragon styles, I hate how they came to be. Especially after seeing that Wiseman was the one that gave the stone for Flame Dragon and Water Dragon I expected this power-up to have a bigger thrown back to not make them as spammable as they are, and these things were supposed to be dangerous after all they use the power of Haruto's inner Phantom so, it's a bit of a letdown when you think about them under these lenses. They're still pretty cool though, I love them, aside of Flame Dragon form while doing the special attack, that head coming out of his chest is cursed and it doesn't deserve any love.

To mention a few episodes I really enjoyed I wanna highlight episodes 6 and 7 that had a very interesting plot centered around a con artist, I really liked the outcome of that one. I also loved episodes 8 and 9, as much as I think it's a bit forced I liked seeing Haruto's backstory and drawing a parallel with the victim of the week and what he was going through on its absurdity it felt very real and strong and I was all here for it. Episode 14 was kinda interesting, but it was more because of the reveal rather than the main story of that episode.

My favorite episodes were 12 and 13, as well as the Christmas episode. Both of these stories were very beautiful and emotional, I usually pause a lot to take screenshots and notes during the episodes but in these three episodes I had almost 0 pauses, I was really invested and felt very touched by these stories. 12 and 13 was Shunpei time to shine and it gave me a new appreciation for his character, it was also a great story about passing a legacy and keeping traditions alive, I also appreciate that the story ended on a very positive note despite of the Gate closing his business after everything that happened - that was a very good move on my eyes. And the Christmas episode was a real surprise to me, I usually don't care for the holidays' episodes but this episode was very beautiful, the thing with Santa appearing and giving a special spell that restores the destroyed gifts was a bit of a stretch, but I can't deny that I was very happy to see it happen just so that we could have a good ending so I'll give it a pass this time.

And that pretty much sums it all for now, I'm pretty hopeful *winkwink* for the next portion of Wizard even though I hate the new Rider so I'm excited to come back next week. What are your thoughts on Wizard? Let me know in the comments. I'll see you all the next time. o/

[squeakygeeky]

May you die alone and silent.

[mech-bull]

Station 19 3x01

[dewbond-blog]

Shallow Dive: Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly

This shallow dive is going to be a bit different because to discuss this movie the way I want to, I have to get into major spoilers of the film itself and overall plot points of the main Fate timeline. So before the cut, I’m going to list off the main points that people will probably want to know about the flick, then get into more spoiler stuff afterward.

This movie is absolutely amazing and Ufotable has done it again. Well worth the wait and is the payoff we needed.

Yes, this movie has a “sex scene” in it and it is done in a tasteful way that strikes a perfect compromise between adaptation and tribute to the original visual novel. I expect a bit more skin in the blue-ray release. I applaud the director for having the courage to acknowledge the O.G Fate visual novel.

Illya’s role in the route has been scaled back significantly so far. Obviously, the director wanted to have the entire focus be on Sakura and Shirou. I (and I’m a huge Illya fan) agree that this was probably the best way to go. I’ll have more to say on this once I’ve read the Heaven’s Feel route.

There is only one real action scene and while it is animated BEAUTIFULLY, it is a bit hard to follow sometimes.

This movie, along with Presage Flower is absolutely not for first time Fate Fans. I said that in the last review, but it goes double here. You need to have at least watched Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works to fully enjoy this film

Alright, after the cut let’s take a dive into the second movie of the Heaven’s Feel trilogy: Fate Stay Night Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly.

I once said that I believed that it was Illyasviel von Einzbern who was the “great tragic character” of the Fate Franchise. After watching this movie, however, I feel I might have to eat some crow on that. While Illya’s own history is rife with and loss tragedy, it is not the raw naked nerve that is the history and life of Sakura Matou.

Sakura may be the third heroine of the Fate route, but she has been a character that has been criminally underused in the greater Fate Universe. Simply put, before this movie she didn’t have much to make her stand apart from the other two heroines. Saber is pretty much the mascot of Fate with her iconic design and fighting abilities, while Rin Tohsaka has slipped into the shoes of Final Fantasy’s Cid and is the most recurring character, as well as being one of the best female heroines in anime. Sakura, however, doesn’t have much going for her aside from being the “quiet kouhai with big boobs”

Until this movie.

If you’ve watched Fate/Zero you have a gist of Sakura’s history: the little sister of Rin who was given to the Matou family to be raised as a magus, because the mage laws forbid any family from raising more than one magical heir. While her parents in Fate/Zero attempt to justify this by saying that it was to protect her, Lost Butterfly reveals that their giving of Sakura to the Matou family pretty much doomed their youngest daughter to eleven years of absolute hell.

Lost Butterfly may tell the story of the holy grail war spinning out of control because of the mysterious shadow, it is really about revealing the absolute horrors that have been put on Sakura. In the span of this two-hour movie, we learn that Sakura has been subjected to numerous magical tortures, physically and verbally abused by her grandfather and brother, and worst of all, subjected to the repeated raping and sexual assault by Shinji, who loathes Sakura for usurping his place as the Matou family heir.

All of this has, in turn, made Sakura become withdrawn and emotionally dependant on Shirou the first person who has ever treated her with kindness. What’s worse is that the arrival of the Holy grail war and the rampage of the mysterious shadow is beginning to unravel the final defenses of Sakura’s sanity. Combined with the holy grail war causing Rin, who is apparently indifferent to Sakura, and Shirou to work together and grow closer, this risks taking away the one thing that Sakura has left. By the time the credits roll and the final levee has broken, we see that Sakura has fully embraced her darkness and will be ready unleash a tide almighty rage upon anyone in her way. This entire movie can be seen as escalation after escalation into madness until finally there is nothing left but an unfiltered rage of a woman who has learned to treat the world the way it’s treated her: Pure Hatred.

Frankly, there is so much I want to talk about with this movie, because despite being excellently paced (aside from maybe being a bit too rushed at the start) there is just so much that happens, and all of it so different from the previous route Unlimited Blade Works. One of the best things about Fate Stay Night is that the three routes help fill in corners that would have otherwise been neglected in a single story. Feeding in the subtext and character development from other routes helps fill out the characters that play only supporting roles here. Most notable for this is Archer whose path in Heaven’s Feel differs wildly from his start turn in Blade Works.

Then there is Shirou who is probably at his strongest as both a character and a man in this film. While Blade Works served as a rebuttal to the very idea of Shirou’s Dream, Lost Butterfly shows what happens when the weight of real life comes into conflict with it. Seeing Shirou make the choice to put Sakura over his dream, to abandon his desire to be a hero of justice to protect her, and support her is deeply moving and made, even more, better when you feed in everything from Blade Works into his personality. While I still think Rin and Shirou make the strongest couple, his relationship with Sakura is done extremely well and hits all the right notes perfectly.

And there is so much more. The dream sequence (oh the fucking dream sequence), Gilgamesh, The fight with Assassin, Saber, Rider’s role, everything to do with Shinji. All of it could be posts on their own, and none of it feels forced or tacked on. Ufotable and the directors have pulled off an amazing feat here, juggling multiple balls and being able to handle it with the skill of a master. If there is any minor flaw, it is that Illya’s role is again, significantly reduced, but if that was the price to pay for everything else to work, then I pay it gladly, and I am HUGE Illya fanboy.

I could go on guys, but Fate Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel II. Lost Butterfly is not only one of the best anime films in the last five years, it’s one of the best FILMs I’ve seen in that time. It is a success story in every which way, and while not perfect (nothing is) it is solid final proof that Fate Stay Night is more than just a cash cow franchise that lives off waifu figurines. I absolutely cannot WAIT to watch it again and to see everything come to together in the final installment Spring Song, next year. If you are a Fate Fan, don’t miss this movie.

[cococassey]

Kdrama: Memories of the Alhambra

Rating: 9/10

Review (finale):

Guys guys why the outrage? Don't you think we all owe it to Hyun Bin to let him rest and take it easy on the last episode of the drama? Poor guy, alternative title of this drama should be 'The Hundred Ways to Torture Hyun Bin'. He seriously got thinner with each episode after that unforgettable badass performance as Jin Woo.

About that finale, I'm not as mad as people are over that sort of 'hopeful' open ending. Honestly a lot of drama writers are in love with that. I thought before, ok if she just explained 'the bug' why playing the game can get you killed in real life, then it's all good. We kind of passed that hurdle. But she last minute added this 'instance dungeon', the idea has its merits, but it was explained and executed poorly as there was not enough time.

So as the writer wants me to fill in the blanks on my own, I'm assuming that instance dungeon is a safe zone (Seju created) like 'Cafe Alcazaba' where you can survive free from attackers, but you're stuck in the game and frozen in time (Hello wreck it Ralph?). Maybe Jin Woo survived (as he is a living person) but was weakened after Emma deleted the bug off him, panicked and stumbled upon it, and got stuck there, escaping the reset? In my own happy ending Hee Ju will level up to be the new master to save Jin Woo, with allies genius brother Seju and funny techie Yang Ju, they'll get Jin Woo out in no time. And Hee Ju will keep him far far away from playing games for the rest of their lives lol.

But boy do I need more peace and closure for Jin Woo after all he went through. Please something more. For him and Hee Ju. Though that ending takes away nothing from the fact that there's simply nothing like Alhambra in dramaland yet, and I hope it starts a genre trend. It's mainly a scifi thriller with a futuristic theme, but at its heart it's still about very human things like love, family, and friendship kdramas excel at. There's a tragic tone throughout, but there's lightness and hope amidst it all.

The tale is how the camaraderie of four men with seemingly strong ties, was broken through jealousy, greediness, and pride. How both horrifyingly tragic and fitting is it that it's the son who put an end to his father's evil ways because of the professor's own plans? On the other side of the coin, when Jin Woo was at his lowest, there were also friendships that lasted over and beyond life itself. Director Park has to have the most thankless job ever (no wonder he's resigning) and an underrated role, love how his character hit that perfect blend of 'he thinks Jin Woo is crazy bonkers but he's still concerned as a friend'. Of course I may never recover from the tragic fate of ever loyal Secretary Jeong Hun who can seriously give Hee Ju a run for her money as true OTP of Jin Woo.

Speaking of the romance, I'm such a sucker for that 'Florence Nightingale' angle. When zombie Hyeong Seok started haunting him, Jin Woo was broken physically and his sanity hanging on a thread, he desperately latched on to Hee Ju as his light. Hee Ju, from feelings that started from gratitude and being in his debt, took care of him and never gave up on him until the end. I'm infatuated myself with him after this, how can I question Hee Ju's feelings lol.

Hee Ju's character was sorely underused. Even though she's emotional, she's so capable, nurturing, and the backbone not only of her family, but Jin Woo as well. He wouldn't have survived this long without her strength. Another big minus for me is the lack of more good female characters in the drama. The writer can only redeem herself if she writes about the adventures of awesome sister Min Ju sometime in the future.

Finally, Hyun Bin. The heart and soul of this show. Jin Woo is Memories of the Alhambra. Hyun Bin is back on top of dramaland, and he so deserves it. He never overacts and his performance is so understated, but I felt for him throughout his roller coaster ride, the slow descent from an arrogant CEO to someone who is questioning his own sanity, truly one for the books. He suffered and survived on his own, not wanting to include others in the cursed bug, tried to make a new 'normal' for himself and had the tenacious will to finish the game till the bitter end.

The ending left me with a melancholic feeling, but given the chance I'll watch it all over again. All those memories with Jin Woo and Hee Ju are worth all the anxiety it caused me. Not the best of wrap ups, but what do we know? Maybe one day it'll be raining, and you'll hear a familiar guitar song playing, and when you look up, you'll once again see that impish smirk, we already dearly miss. We'll wait for you, Jin Woo.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Dollhouse full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

96.15% (twenty-five of twenty-six).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

45.89%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twelve.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

Positive Content Status:

Very poor - this is exactly why we don’t just rely on passing the Bechdel and having a large number of female characters in the cast as ‘guarantees’ that we’re watching feminist content. If all those female characters exist to be punished, objectified, and abused by the story’s creator as an expression of his misogynistic rage, that is not a good thing (average rating of 2.76).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

They’re about the same, really. The one Bechdel fail was in the first season, but season two had less female character presence overall, but it was also more balanced insofar as it scored more episodes with 40% or more on the cast. Both scored equally badly on content quality, though my feeling is that perhaps season one’s sins were the worse of the two. On the other hand, season one had more guest female characters AND it used its supporting female cast more prominently, whereas season two was more male-heavy not just in numbers but in screen time and narrative attention. At the end of the day, I’m not sure it matters which you consider to be worse.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

See above. I cannot recommend this show for feminist content.

Overall Series Quality:

For a first-time viewer, there’s probably still solid potential for enjoyment, and at least some of the twists should be genuinely enjoyable. The majority of the cast is very excellent, and the idea of the show is compelling. However, the quality of the series as it turned out is negligible, full of flash and little substance, the bad apples in the cast spoil the batch while the good grapple with bad writing and the woeful underuse of their skills, and the whole thing remains far better as a thought than it is in execution. And then there’s the misogynistic rage thing. That’s a problem that really messes with the overall product, to put it lightly.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

For the record: I believe, sincerely and completely, that Joss Whedon hates women. Not that he doesn’t know how to relate to them or he misses ‘the old days’ or any other such placid disdain; I think he deeply and violently hates women, and I think the evidence is written all up and down his work - all of his work, but perhaps never more clearly than in this show. He can claim to be a feminist all he wants, he can put women at the forefront of his shows and talk big game about what he believes they’re capable of, but so long as the women in his stories continue to be mistreated at every turn, beaten, raped, and constantly belittled and devalued within the text, I will not be convinced that the man doesn’t resent the Hell out of women for existing - and particularly, for existing with potential for sexuality. The misogyny of the Whedonverse is rampant, unchecked, often participated in by his ‘heroes’ as much as his villains, and treated as largely incidental, rarely acknowledged and even then, gleefully delivered as ‘just the way things are’. Characters might shake their heads about how that’s unfortunate (and Whedon pats himself on the back for making such an insightful feminist statement), but the verbal denouncement doesn’t detract from the indulgent inclusion of that misogyny, the platform provided for it to roam uninhibited, and be showcased and vicariously enjoyed. For someone who claims to be a feminist, Whedon sure does seem to be fetishistically obsessed with making women suffer, and when I compare the content of his work to that of the other creators whose shows have appeared on this blog, the result is most unflattering. 

As easy as it would be to while away this post explicating the details of Whedon’s reprehensible worldview, however, I shall refrain; for one, it would be boring as Hell, it’s not a complicated reality and the truth really is in the pudding for all to see, you don’t need me for that, and for two: I already promised to at last talk about the characters and their arcs (such as they are), since that is one subject I often neglected in the posts on this show, and arguably the only subject upon which the show could hang any virtues. Naturally, we will begin at the beginning, with the much-maligned lead character: Echo. 

Eliza Dushku is not a terrible actor. But her range is pretty limited, she plays variations on the same archetype almost exclusively, and that’s a terrible fit for a show where the central caveat is supposed to be that she can take on any personality and be a complete and whole different person week by week. No one should ever expect to be able to float that idea with a lead who is so very obviously not up to the task, and while I don’t think she’s responsible for the failure of the show (all of its other flaws would have soundly sunk it even if Dushku was a crown jewel of talent), it certainly does not help that she’s easily the blandest and least compelling player in the whole sorry mess. It’s a cringe every time she utters some silly line about how powerful and badass she is, because there’s nothing convincing about it, and if the creative team really believed (and believed their audience would believe) that Echo is THAT great, they wouldn’t feel the need to have her showily declare it. When season two hits and Echo’s ‘character development’ fast-tracks to full sentience, she becomes even less dynamic: all of the things which could have provided legitimate engagement with the character’s struggle are skipped over, her process of self-actualisation (anyone who read my Farscape reviews knows my love for hard self-actualisation narratives), her navigation of her role as a developing entity in a world hostile to such things (touched on occasionally in season one, thrown to the wind in season two), anything to do with her cognitive evolution is scrapped in favour of ‘she just remembers it all now’, and there’s no arc to it. I invoked the concept of the Mary Sue in one episode post, and that is exactly the problem we end up with: a ‘perfect’ character who can do everything and anything and be ~the best~ at it, who is beloved and desired by all who meet her, except for her (mustache-twirling cliche villain) enemies, who fear her awesome powers. There is no personality in Echo, no conflict, no meaning. Wild as it may sound, you could actually remove her from the show completely and easily adapt the other characters (the ones who have personality, conflict, and meaning) to fill the space, and not only would it work, but the show would be infinitely the better for it. That’s the absolute opposite of what you want from a lead character.

The other BIG mistake in the casting for this show is Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard, who plays his part with all the verve and charisma of a piece of wood with eyes drawn on (ever watch Ed, Edd, and Eddy? Plank has more dynamic personality than our boy Ballard). I’m not sure how much of it is Penikett’s fault - it has been many years since I watched Battlestar Galactica, and while I don’t remember being particular impressed by him, I don’t remember being frustrated by his inability to walk in a straight line without making it look weird, either - but whether he’s handicapped by his own acting non-prowess or not, he’s certainly fighting a losing battle with an unfocused mess of a character, and if the writing couldn’t decide what Ballard’s deal was to start with, I’m not shocked that Penikett had a hard time conveying it. Is Ballard a morally righteous hero (on a show with no moral centre for him to relate to)? Is he flawed and secretly-dark, and if he is, who recognises that, is it deliberate? Is he losing control, or is that just supposed to be ‘normal person’ behaviour? Again, who notices, does he know? How much of his interiority is a white-knight cliche, and how much is supposed to be genuine, and is any of it supposed to be subversive? I honestly can’t tell, one episode from the next. In season one, he’s garbage at his job, and some characters mention it, but then Ballard himself appears to be under the impression that he’s fighting the good fight and the tone of the show seems to agree with him rather than acknowledging his self-delusion. In season two, he joins the Dollhouse at the same time as openly declaring himself to be still against it, the plot conveniently pretends he never raped Mellie so that we can uphold the idea that he IS righteous, after all, and has no dark impulses, other characters at the Dollhouse put up with him being an obvious liability for no discernible reason, and then eventually he gets rendered brain-dead, reconstructed as a doll version of himself, and then dies a few episodes later anyway. Big whoop. It feels an awful lot like they had no long-term plan for what to do with the character, so they just focused on giving him a romance with Echo and then threw some contrived death stuff on top of that for flavour. Speaking of the romance thing: eek. Again, in season one it seemed they couldn’t decide whether or not his mounting obsession with his damsel-in-distress vision of Caroline was creepy as Hell (pro tip: it absolutely was), but then in season two it all became very simple: Ballard wants Echo, but doesn’t really believe she’s a real person (for some reason this is not a deal-breaker to her), and they dance around each other for a bit but never get together and somehow we’re supposed to interpret this as the development of a wonderful love story with a bittersweet tragic end when he dies, twice but also not really because then she downloads him into her brain anyway so they live happily ever after, sort of. It’s a fucking mess, y’all, and they don’t earn it, and the utter soup that is Ballard’s personality and motivation goes un-examined. The fact that season two tips heavily in favour of Echo/Ballard scenes is something very significantly to its detriment, because it’s the worst and most shakily-developed non-relationship of the series. Ok, that, and whatever the fuck Topher/Bennett was supposed to be.

Speaking of Topher...actually, I don’t have much to say about him. Breaking pattern with the rest of the characters, Topher shows no real sign of a personal story in season one, so it’s season two which attempts to give him some function as an individual outside of being the comic-relief tech guy. It’s not particularly successful, since the attempted character development revolves around 1) moral compunctions (which, as noted ad nauseum, this show left itself incapable of engaging with in any meaningful way back when it pretended sexual slavery was a morally grey issue), and 2) throwing a love interest at him: zero actual relationship-building ensues and it’s awkward and chemistry free and then she dies (so glad Bennett could exist to tick off a bunch of Whedon’s favourite suffering-woman tropes and then die for shock value, yay). At the end of the day, Topher was just a handful of affectations, fun to watch, but hardly amounting to more of a ‘whole person’ than the paper-thin personalities of the sex-fantasy cliches he imprinted into the dolls. 

If Topher is the character who suffers most from a lack of development in season one, Boyd is the hardest hit in season two, easily. As Echo’s handler in season one, Boyd was pleasant, mild-mannered, protective, and he had an ethos which governed his choices (imagine such a thing!). His former career as a cop was referenced variously, and it seemed clear that we should expect one day to learn how he came to leave the force and wind up as a bodyguard working for a secret organisation. Season two? Forget about it. Forget about it because of the idiotic ‘twist’ that turned Boyd into Rossum’s cuckoo founder and thereby unraveled his entire personality as a sham in one fell swoop, obviously, but forget about his character having even the appearance of development in the meantime, also. Removing Boyd from his position as Echo’s handler was a grave error, as it downgraded his importance and effectively stifled the natural bond he had developed with his charge which represented a nice, uncomplicated character dynamic (one far more welcome than that clusterfuck replacement which was Ballard as Echo’s handler, euch). Additionally, this led to Boyd being largely backgrounded for the entirety of season two, given no meaningful stories to engage with, and certainly not expanded upon or explored as a character. As noted, any such expansion would have been irrelevant anyway once the dumbass ‘big reveal’ happened, but that’s all the more reason to bemoan the loss of Boyd’s character, which essentially occurred a full season before he actually donned his suicide vest and exploded in the Rossum building. If you have to dump a character just to service your twist, don’t. Dump the twist instead. Like pretty much every other actor on this show, Harry Lennix deserved better.

And then there’s DeWitt...I largely covered the DeWitt issue back in the episode posts, really; she starts out an intriguing character (and I credit Olivia Williams with much of this, she created dynamism out of an oft-lacking script, in every case), but season two really did a number on her when it came to leaping wildly about different plot ideas that jerked DeWitt’s characterisation from one extreme to another with very little connective tissue to sell the change. If Ballard was the character whom the narrative couldn’t decide how to handle in season one, DeWitt takes up that odious mantle in season two; is she losing her grasp? Is she playing the game? Is she an evil, pragmatic genius? Is she foolish and deluded by an idealism that plainly has no basis in reality? Is she an alcoholic who spontaneously gets her shit together after a couple of other characters tell her off? Damn, that was easy. As with Ballard, the problem is not just that the story seems to change tone and purpose for DeWitt’s character from one episode to the next; it also robs her of the opportunity to be defined through consistent interaction with others - she has no one to bounce off in a manner which would create a baseline for her behaviour and how it is outwardly perceived (and thus, how the audience is intended to interpret it). 

I’m gonna talk about Sierra and Victor together, because frankly, that’s both the way the show packages them, and there’s not much to say outside of it. For the millionth time ever on this blog, I will complain that all shows ever would be improved by being ensembles; in this case, Sierra and Victor both would have benefited from a framework which allowed either one of them to take greater precedence more often, instead of having their own narratives distilled down to a single Personal Episode each in season two. I do enjoy both, and their relationship has legitimate chemistry and charm while also following a sensible plot concept through - the idea that strong emotional connections and bonds can transcend the mind wipe. Unfortunately, the show has little functional purpose for either character outside of their relationship, to the extent that it even sidelines them almost entirely in the climax of the series (pre-flashforward). Victor/Anthony is given the least plot purpose in the show proper, which is just a criminal misuse of Enver Gjokaj - Anthony is a soldier and that’s essentially his entire personality right there, and the only thing that gives them an excuse to make him do Manly Fighter Stuff in the latter stages of season two. Sierra/Priya gets more to do, but the bad news is, it’s all about being raped, and that’s her whole story - horrible possessive misogynists abusing her so that she can embody Whedon’s favourite Broken Bird trope, with the added misfortune of changing the nature of her relationship with Victor to make it a little bit about him ‘rescuing’ her with the love of a good man. Both of these actors are so good, and their characters had such potential, I can’t believe the show fucked around and wasted them like it did. 

Ok, one more before I go. I know he was never a member of the central cast, but we gotta talk about Laurence Dominic, because he was deceptively essential to the show, important to what made it work for the brief time when it could be said to work, and he was altogether the best character on the show insofar as he was the most cohesive, consistent, and logical player in the piece. I said as much when he made his welcome return in ‘The Attic’ (the best episode of season two...coincidence?), and as I noted then, it may be that Dominic’s early exit from the show was to his benefit in that he avoided being jostled across season two having all semblance of coherence torn to pieces along the way. I’m fairly certain the writer’s had no idea how valuable Dominic was to the story when they axed him (not least because they clearly had no idea how important it is to create some kind of moral framework to support a story that is inherently morally dubious), but consider the most obvious changes to the show format and the other character’s stories once Dominic was out of the picture: Boyd takes over as Head of Security, to his detriment as a character, and to the detriment of his relationship with Echo, leaving her wasting time with that dolt Ballard instead and putting audiences everywhere to sleep. And DeWitt? DeWitt loses her sounding board, the right-hand man who - for most of the first season - anchored her character by giving her someone to talk and plot and, at times, disagree with, creating that behavioural baseline that she lacked when she was being dragged all over season two. Dominic’s role was a structural pillar on the show, he held the roof up so that the rest of the characters could interact and interrelate - with each other, and with him - he had distinct relationship dynamics with pretty much all of them - and he was exactly the kind of character that you want around being a stable, unobtrusive presence. They could even have kept the idea of him being an NSA spy, just keep him working undercover, the audience knows the truth but the other characters don’t, it creates tension! Sure, it’d probably mean letting Ivy be sent to the attic under false charges, and that wouldn’t help this show’s abysmal abuse-of-women record, but considering the show did nothing of consequence with Ivy in the end anyway and she just existed to be belittled by Topher while he sent her to fetch him snacks...yeah, anyway. I could talk a lot about why Dominic was the best character on this stinking show, but it’s ultimately beside the point: the point is that nothing in this show really worked, and that had a lot to do with major conceptual issues (moral grounding is not optional! Misogyny is not tasty plot flavouring! Joss Whedon is an abomination!), and keeping Dominic around long-term would no more save the show than if Eliza Dushku possessed a modicum of acting range. It’s frustrating because there are so many good pieces there, excellent actors, intriguing character set-ups, fantastic plot possibilities, and heady existential implications. It’s just that some moron decided the best thing to do with that would be to play nasty sexual wish-fulfillment games and leave the rest to rot. I’m pretty sure the version of this show I enjoyed once was largely the version I made in my head, because the reality is a wasteful disaster. And misogynistic as Hell, too. We, the viewers, deserved better.