#why is Matt written as a fucking colonizer

[lilatreus]

Controversial take but the Daredevil comic should’ve never gotten into religion.

[cringefaecompilation]

not to dunk on junior year again but i am noticing a pattern here with the treatment of certain storytelling elements here.

both bell’s hells and the ratgrinders were pcs that gained sapience. the difference is that the ratgrinders were villains and the hells are heroes.

one of the most love-it-or-hate-it aspects of campaign 3 is that it does not only focus on the main 7 or 8 characters and everybody else is tossed to the wayside unless they benefit them like usual. all npcs (with downfall, that's including the gods!) deserve a chance to have their story told and they are all written to be that. the generic runaway prince you have to help escape to a life of freedom! the cute little helper robot npc! generic spooky evil minions based on public domain monsters! the quirky quest-giving fae! the rough and tumble hired goon! the brave captain of the guard protecting a strong lady in charge!  yes, even imogen, who in any other story would be the sad little abandoned daughter of the bbeg who would mourn the hero killing her mother but understand that the hero had to do what needed to be done.

and again, you don’t have to like it!

but there is a weird sort of thing i noticed amongst all the critical role c3 criticism that reminded me of people defending fhjy. an undercurrent of insisting that all the ratgrinders (who were teenagers. who were groomed and then murdered.) were pure evil spoiled brats and just wanted to be handed everything on a platter because they didn’t deserve what the main cast earned their place as the main characters and made passive aggressive posts saying things to the tune of you know they’re evil right. very Watsonian with a staunch refusal to look at a Doylist explanation. it got so bad to the point where people were insisting that if you liked the ratgrinders and sympathized with them then you were a fascism apologist.

astoundingly enough c3 criticism has only scraped the surface of this sort of overdramatic accusation, but it goes in the opposite direction. if you like where the story is going and how it's being told, then you’re not a real critical role fan. the story should have just been about the characters fighting evil fae or just wiping out the ruby vanguard and everyone in it without all this stupid introspective discussion on power because it’s retconning the gods being bad guys! grey morality sucks, why can’t good guys just be good? they all feel like npcs except for imogen because she’s the only one with a chosen birthright!

(of course, if they say that last part out loud, that might not look so good for them)

 yes, we know the gods are imperfect. that’s what we’ve been saying this whole time. but all these passive aggressive gifsets of liam-as-orym saying that the gods aren’t pure evil and it’s stupid to think so or laura and matt ooc saying that the gods have a grey area don’t mean fucking jack if you turn around and insist the gods have zero flaws and everything they do is good, actually and Aeor Had It Coming.

important caveats:

the actors on d20 could not react to things they were doing in the moment. they were tired after filiming 3 episodes back to back and wrapped up their season faster than usual to join the sag-aftra strike. i am aware of this.

yes i know that d20 is a comedy improv series! that does not prevent it from having deep themes and character introspection! ayda aguefort and zelda donovan still very much exist and had their own arcs despite being npcs!

yes the ratgrinders were working with a man trying to kill and replace a goddess and yes he is a colonizing twat. however, doesn’t that also make it the fandom’s insistence that liking the kids is bad and fascistic but making ship art of him and the other teacher that killed all of them is totally okay? rules for he but not for thee? 

[xycuro-illuminati]

Why didn’t you like the current Daredevil run?

I'll do a speed round here we go:

- Horrible character assassination on everyone especially Matt and Elektra.

- Zdarsky was v clearly inspired by the mcu Netflix show so the run had a severe case of mcu-ification

- The way he wrote women was atrocious (examples: Elektra, Kirsten, Mindy, literally everyone else)

- The shitty retcon to Elektra's backstory going from the sheltered sweet girl that loved her father sm that when he died it broke her to the point of grief and revenge that she became an assassin and it shattered her worldview to the stupid fucking backstory the mcu tried pulling of her being a spy sent by the Hand to recruit Matt.

- Whitewashed Kirsten AND gave her blue eyes

- the obnoxious way of how Matt was written in terms of religion to the point where he went from caricature to straight up crusader colonizer preaching

- Matt is so horrible in this run this is the most OOC he's ever been it legit feels like reading an mcu dd fanfic from someone who barely watched the show and only took word of fanon and saw gifsets

- Zdarsky tried grabbing story plots from previous runs and executed them horribly to the point where he only grabbed the worst shit from it (the ableism, infantalization, and sexual assault)

- Daredevil Elektra as a concept; it doesn't work. I'm sorry, cool outfit and all, but the Daredevil mantle isn't like the Spider-Man one where anyone can wear the mask. Daredevil was specifically for Matt to process his trauma of losing his father and used it to gain justice where the system would fail for his city. His upbringing fits the mantle and the only person who would fit that mantle is Sam Chung. With Elektra it doesn't work and it's on par with the whole "wife takes the husband's last name" but worse. My friend @thosemintcookies has made better points about this.

- Whitewashed Sam Chung and made him just sit at a cave waiting for the Beast or some shit

- Speaking of the Beast, the Hand being the big bad guys of the whole run sucks. Can we leave the Hand behind please the ninja clan isn't the ultimate dd villain.

- Foggy is just there. He doesn't do much and he's just THERE. It sucks. And he throws around the term catholic guilt for no fucking reason. The guilt Matt feels is regular guilt please shut the fuck up Zdarsky.

- Brought back Mike Murdock and did some decent writing on him only to kill him off. Cool, what was the whole point of that.

- Pulled a gotcha on making us think that zdarsky killed off Kirsten in a train explosion but it turned out she was fine which was so foul. Daredevil comics are NOTORIOUS for fridging female characters so that shit was just unacceptable idc argue with a wall.

- Checcetto's art style sucks I'm gonna be honest. The novelty of it being pretty ended v quickly as soon as he drew poc and holy shit he cannot draw them nor can he draw any other expression.

- Did I mention the ableism? And the infantalization? And the fetishization of Matt's disability? No? Okay well this post covers it all here.

- It gets into racist territory too with how they write Sam and the Hand

- This romantic mattelektra agenda makes my skin itch they're not romantic they're tragic their whole deal is that they could never go back to how they were as lovebirds in college. Soule broke up Kirsten and Matt and they kept it like that for this shlop I'm gonna kill you zdarsky and I'm making Elektra a lesbian now.

- Back to Elektra's character; zdarsky takes the cake in "Let's make Elektra's whole life and character revolve around Matt and Matt only". Making her quit her ways and making Matt treat her like shit by calling her a murderer despite the fact that in previous runs he would NEVER do that and has ACCEPTED that this is who Elektra is.

- Speaking of the murderer shit; Matt is a huge hypocrite in this run and not in a good or fun way. Homeboy got rescued by the other Defenders but then got mad and called them murderers bc they've admitted to killing people and it's the most fanficy thing I've ever read. Zdarsky, did you know. That Matt has known Jessica, Luke, and Danny for years now? Did you know that he already knows that they've killed people before? Did you know that he's teamed up with killers plenty of times (see: Elektra, Natasha, Frank Castle) and doesn't make a big shit about it? Did you know that Matt has killed people before in previous runs?? Did you know that zdarsky?? Bc it's clear he doesn't know.

- Whenever Spider-Man shows up Zdarsky writes him better than anyone in the run and this is a Daredevil run mind you

- Shitty ass writing. Shitty plot bc we've seen it all and there's nothing done. OOC on everyone. Misogynistic writing at its finest. Whitewashed characters. Stupid religious pandering bs that only the mcu girlies would like. Terrible run overall.

@thosemintcookies @froggynelson @faacethefacts @xuanelle @daresplaining @evileyeamulet

Feel free to add more or elaborate more on my post I'm giving yall the stage if you want it.

[anotheronechicagobog]

Ava Bekker x reader

Togther written by @anotheronechicagobog​

Warning: TRIGGER WARNINGS, attempted murder, arson, being forced out of the closet, fleeing to another country, being rejected entry, corrupt police, fear of the police, compliance for fear or violence, swearing

Hope you like it @sasssystephden

@chimerahh​

Belarus was your home, it was where you grew up, and it would always be a part of you. Unfortunately, you couldn’t be a part of it. You didn’t move to Chicago, you fled to Chicago. Being a lesbian was not something that people could ignore, so your only other option was to pretend that you were really just a spinster, it was something that they reacted violently to. You hadn’t even come out to your family, you were outed by your so-called best friend. She’d been invited to your family’s Christmas party, along with half the town, and she announced it to everyone.

It was like a scene from a horror movie, everyone turned to you in slow motion, darkness taking over their eyes. They didn’t even ask you if it was true.

You shook your head, not wanting to relive that memory. You turned back to your computer screen. You’d gotten a scholarship to the University of Dijon and gotten a degree in computer science, it made finding a job in the states much easier. You felt as though your boss, Sergeant Voight, was corrupt. He did a lot of the things the police in your home country did, and while it was clear he made you uncomfortable, no one knew why. You took your job at intelligence, not because you actually wanted to, but because Voight was interested and you thought he’d make you disappear if you said ‘no’. So you were back to living a good portion of your day in fear. The team didn’t understand why you’d never joined them at a bar afterwards and you were too scared to tell them.

You’d met Brian at your grocery store, a family-run Slavic grocery store and restaurant, you ran into each other so many times that you’d started to become friends. He was heartbroken to learn why you moved to the states, so he told you that he’d be your family. You’d been touched, and as a result, your brother-sister bond was forged. 

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It had taken a while for Brian to convince you to go to Molly’s because the team went there frequently, but he’d managed it. You put on a nice top, jeans, flats, a jacket, and headed to Molly’s before you could lose your nerve. 

When you opened the ornate door you were met with warmth and laughter. “Y/N! Over here!” Brian was behind the bar, but there were women sitting on bar stools near him who waved at you. You sat on the seat in front of him and let out a breath. “Y/N, these are my friends, Sylvie and Emily, they’re the paramedics for 51, April, Maggie, Nat, and Ava, they all work at med. Guys, this is Y/N.” 

“Hi, it’s nice to meet all of you.” Your accent was thick, something that all of the women noticed. Brian placed a glass of vodka on the rocks in front of you, which made Maggie raise an eyebrow and say, “are you Russian?”

“Belarussian, actually. I do speak Russian though.” 

“Damn, I am not good at pegging accents. I thought that Ava was from the UK and she ended up being from South Africa.”

“I grew up in an area that had been heavily colonized, something that not many people are aware of.” You nodded, grateful that she answered your question without you having to ask. “So, how do you know Otis?” You must have looked as confused as you felt because Sylvie realized her mistake and spoke again. “Sorry, Otis is the nickname we have for Brian around the station. Sometimes I forget that’s not his name.”

“Oh, okay, well, we kept running into each other at the local market that we started talking, it was nice to speak to someone in Russian again.”

“Ah, so should we be seeing you around more?”

“I suppose so?”

“She’s insinuating that we have an emotional and/or sexual relationship.” Brian’s explanation was blunt and something you appreciated. Although you were fluent in English you didn’t understand all of the slang just yet. “Oh. OH.” You turned back to Sylvie and the other women. “Brian is a wonderful man and any woman would be lucky to be with him, but I am a lesbian, so Brian and I will not be in a romantic relationship.”

“Is that why you moved here?” Emily was closest to you and put her hand on your forearm, sympathetic smiles gracing the faces of all the women barring Ava, she had one of remembrance and understanding. “Yes. A woman I used to be friends with told my entire family and town at a party. No one reacted well.” Nat looked like she had a question to ask but Ava cut her off, “that’s terrible, Y/N. I’m sorry that happened. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No thank you, I don’t enjoy remembering that night.” Nat leaned back into her seat and bowed her head slightly. You let out a breath and felt grateful that Ava had intervened. The night went by smoothly after that, Nat had pulled you aside later and apologized, knowing that it was obvious she had wanted to ask an invasive question. “I would love to become friends and I’m glad that Ava stopped me from asking that question, I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I should have known not to pry, I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay Nat, you didn’t actually ask anything, and I can see that it was just a slip of judgement and that you will respect my boundaries. I would like to be friends with you as well.”

“Of course, Y/N, I-”

“Y/N? What’re you doing here? I thought you were visiting a friend tonight?” Detective Ruzek made his way towards you with the rest of your team, his tone was surprised and somewhat angry, causing Nat and your new friends around you to bristle. “I am. Brian is one of the owners and he wanted to introduce me to these lovely ladies.” You smiled, hoping to diffuse some of the tension. “What so you just hang out with him every time we’re not working?”

“Usually, yes.” Brian knew how you’d felt about your job, and had admitted to having negative run-ins with Voight in the past. He’d gone as far as introduce you to his Captain, Matt Casey, who’d gone over how he met Voight in the first place. The meeting was meant to ease your worries, but all it did was increase them. You could see your team growing angry, you knew it frustrated them that you didn’t want to get close to them, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do so.  Detective Burgess put her hand on his chest to push him back a bit, and then stepped right into your space, and since you were against the bar you couldn’t back up. “What the fuck is your problem?” 

“Detective Bur-”

“I’ve told you to call me Kim. We have all told you to call us by our first names except for Voight. So why won’t you? Why do you avoid us? What the fuck is wrong with you?” You couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. This is it. They’re going to kill you. Escaping Belarus only bought you another year of life, and you didn’t accomplish anything in that time. Your hands were starting to get clammy, and your breaths were getting shallow. “Back off, Burgess.”

“Stay out of this Otis.”

“No. God, can’t any of you get your heads out of your asses? She thinks you’re going to kill her.” Everyone within earshot sobered immediately. “What?” Ruzek’s face had gone pale and Burgess stepped back. “She’s from a country that was part of the Soviet Union and is still heavily corrupt in law enforcement. She only took the damn job because she thought she’d be killed if she refused!” Everyone turned to you and you couldn’t take it. “Mne nuzhno idti.” (I have to go). You bolted out of Molly’s, ignoring those calling out your name, and that you forgot your jacket.

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You broke out into sobs a few blocks from Molly’s. You startled when someone ran up behind you calling your name. You ripped a knife out from your jeans and turned ready to face whoever it was. It was Ava. “You forgot your jacket.” You didn’t respond, just breathed heavily.”Y/N, let’s get you home, okay?”

“I can’t. They know where I live.”

“How about my apartment, then?”

“... Okay. Thank you.”

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Ava’s apartment was lovely. It was clean, classic, and homey. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?”

“Some coffee if you don’t mind.” She smiled and walked around the kitchen island to get to the coffee maker. “My mother tried to kill me.” You whipped your head away from some photos she had on the wall. “She invited me to stay at our family’s vacation house for the weekend after I came out, she had glued all of the windows shut, then locked and barricaded all of the doors so that even if I got out of my room, there was no way I’d make it to any kind of exit. She’d left a chair in my room, though, I threw it at the window and jumped out. It hurt like hell. The injuries and the knowledge that the woman I’d looked up to not only hated me so much that she tried to kill me, but that she was praised for it by the police when they found out why she set the fire.” A heavy silence hung over the room, choking you in the knowledge that you weren’t alone.

“My best friend told everyone in my town at my family’s christmas party. I didn’t even get time to deny it, even though it’s true, before my dad came at me with a knife. Everyone surged behind him and they were all grabbing weapons, anything sharp or blunt that they could get their hands on. I barely managed to make it to my room, lock and barricade the door. My parents, along with everyone where I grew up, were poor and so I didn’t have a lot. I threw my stuff in a bag and I climbed out the window. I fell on my ankle, but I just started running. I didn’t stop, I just ran to the next town, where there was a train station, I got on the first train to Minsk. I ran to the Canadian embassy first, because gay marriage was legal there when it wasn’t in the U.S., but I got denied entry. I applied to the U.S. right after and got in. It was so hard, just leaving everyone and everything I love behind... But... I had to do it. The only good thing that came out of being forced ‘out of the closet’ was that I didn’t and don’t have to hide anymore.” Ava nodded, she set down her mug and wrapped her arms around you. You wrapped your arms underneath hers, around her middle, and cried into each others shoulders. Crying over everything you’ve lost, everything you’ve had ripped or burned away from you. Encompassing each other in the knowledge that neither of you are alone.

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Chicago became warmer after meeting Ava. You started dating a couple months later when you’d gone skating and she’d just stopped and stared at you. Her eyes went soft and her lips parted. You skated over to her to see what was wrong. “Ava?”

“Can I kiss you?” It came out in one tangled breath. “Yes. Please yes.” She held your cheeks in her hands, you held her elbows in yours, and leaned in together.

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You woke up to Ava kissing your shoulder. A smile spread across your lips. “Goodmorning, Ava.”

“Morning, love. I was called into work, so I have to go, but I left breakfast on the counter for you.”

“Thank you, I hope you have a good day.” Ava smiled, stroked your cheek softly. A feather-light kiss was placed on your lips before she gave a whispered goodbye. After the front door closed you got out of bed and padded your way to the kitchen. You smiled when you saw a plate of fried sausages and eggs on the kitchen counter. Your heart warmed at the thought of Ava making breakfast for you. 

It was the weekend so you didn’t have to work today, so you decided to spend the day baking and cooking since you knew that if Ava had been called in on her day off it was going to be crazy, and that cooking is the last thing she’d want to do. So you got dressed and headed out to the market.

Smiling you walked down the street. The day was cool and brisk, only light power on the ground, but it would snow in the afternoon if the weather forecast was to be believed. You made your way to a South African grocery store to pick up the ingredients for chakalaka, Ava’s favourite dinner. You smirked as you entered, your eyes scanning the store. 

The house smelled like warm sugar and spices. In part from the chakalaka and in part from the ginger cookie recipe you got from Nat. You and Ava both really liked it and you wanted to make sure that a wonderful meal was waiting for Ava when she got home.

The door opened just as you finished serving the chakalaka, “Ava? How was your day?”

“Wonderful, just like that smell. Is that chakalaka? Oh my goodness, love, you made all this for me?”

“Yes, I hope that this is a good end to a hard day.”

“A wonderful end. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

“I was thinking, Y/N, you spend so much time here, and most of your stuff is here, so... I just... I think we should move in together.” You smiled and wrapped your arms around her neck. “I would love to move in together.” Your foreheads touched and your lips brushed against each other. “Together.”

“Together.”

[karenpage]

There’s a lot to unpack with the kastle episode, so this is my best attempts to articulate my thoughts regarding it. There are, of course, spoilers below the cut but I tried to keep my discussion to only that of Karen and Frank’s interaction (with mentions of the first episode for obvious reasons). This is just my take away, I’ll write more about the season as a whole at a later point.

But yes. The Punisher season 2, episode 11: The Abyss.

Okay. First and Foremost, you can tell the writers were strapped for time, that they might’ve had a larger role for Karen/Deb if she wasn’t busy filming dds3, which sort of makes me bitter because by and far Lightfoot has treated her character better when she’s on screen in the Punisher, but I digress.

We open up on Frank, beaten 99% to death which isn’t new to any long time fan of the show- but there’s something different. Something broken in him that we haven’t seen before and I’ll be the first to admit, it’s as unsettling as it is upsetting. Watching Frank, who has persisted through the worst of the worst, who has conquered unimaginable hurt and grief, be so willing to give up.. Ready to die in way that’s more a sense of him deserving it, rather than a byproduct of the life he’s chosen to live.

It’s all over the news, the radio announcing ‘the Punisher in police custody at the hospital’, and then we cut to Karen toting the sixth amendment and strong-arming her way past the heavy police protection surrounding Frank.

A direct, obvious, and intentional parallel to when they first met.

Frank’s tied to the bed, the setup is similar to that of dds2, visually. But Karen pulls a chair up to his bedside and she waits.

We don’t have any context for time, as for how long she’s there while he’s unconscious but something I’ve read in 10,000 fanfics winded me the moment he woke up. He was having a nightmare, saw the same vision he’d seen of Maria and the kids and then heard a hail of gunfire and screamed when he woke. Karen was there. Soothing him. Comforting him. And she grabbed his hand with both of hers.

Two hands.

It’s hard to watch as Frank relives their deaths, talks, at length about the day his family died and major kudos to Jon Bernthal, yet again, delivering a monologue that ripped my heart out and spat on it (not dissimilar to the speech at the graveyard in dds2 eps4), but Karen’s there every step of the way. She’s quiet, and supportive, and everything he needed in that moment because Frank’s grappling with something big and ugly.

He thinks he accidentally killed some women in a shoot-out with Billy Russo and his gang, they were innocent bystanders, and that circles back to what he’d been dreaming about. About his entire identity as the Punisher, and why he feels like he deserves to die.

‘Now I’m the monster’, GOD, let’s be real for one second. Kastle notwithstanding? That Shit HURTED the emotions evoked with a single sentence, with tears in his eyes and a trembling lip. I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Recover.

But Karen outright refuses to believe that. Denies that Frank deserves to die and she knows something’s up. Because Karen’s pursuit of the truth continues to be a cornerstone in their relationship. There’s some uh … Questionable Writing that I think they meant to use as comic relief but it just came across as gross (like some scenes in the season, the implied humor falls flat in the face of glaring and problematic issues), but, the effect is that she and Madani discover that it was meant to look like Frank killed those women, but Billy had executed them beforehand.

He wanted Frank to suffer. He knew that that’s a wound he’d struggle to heal from when they could only do so much damage to him physically (without killing him, and Billy didn’t want that).

Now, at this point, Frank’s TRIED to have a ‘normal life’ (time to segue into that real quick, because I have to break down episode one even if I’d rather claw out my eyes). Now, I firmly believe that he was doing what he did, behaving as he had because he doesn’t know how to heal. Frank’s never had the after. He says so himself in the end of season one. He’s scared. Where does he go? How does he navigate a life that no longer resembles his own? That’s a lot for a person to do by himself but Frank is headstrong, stubborn, and so he does it anyway.

PTSD (especially recurring, horrific trauma) can make people act… differently to say the least. One of the things associated with losing children, losing family, is that there’s no measure on how to cope with it. Frank saw a chance to feel normal and he took it, but he did himself (and Beth) a disservice. He’s a damaged man, and he was bound to bring all that accompanies it, to her doorstep. I’m not a fan of episode one but, surprisingly, it’s not that Frank hooks up with someone. Not that Frank tries to ground himself in a stranger, carve out a bit of an after. Which, again, people with PTSD don’t know how to open up to the people closest to them because they have the most to lose. If that person/those people can’t see through the fog of his struggle, the loss of them would be catastrophic. It’s infinitely easier to do that with a stranger. You have nothing to lose if they walk away.

My issue was him having sex with a woman named Beth, (his late wife being Maria Elizabeth) and that in the sex scenes they CONSTANTLY hone in on the wedding ring he’s wearing around his neck and he has flashbacks and it’s strange and mildly upsetting? It feels a bit like they were trying to show that Frank’s projecting (which he is) but they went about it all wrong from a narrative standpoint. And then, again, she gets shot - at least she doesn’t die, that would’ve solidified all of my fears - but that pain, that visual is still a raw wound for Frank and it’s what sets him back on the path of being the Punisher, with Amy by his side.

OKAY. BACK TO KASTLE. I have some issues with the scenes, but, again, I think it’s more based on the storytelling (which I’ll address at the end, independently), overall I just.. I love them deeply and profoundly but it definitely hurt to see Karen admit her feelings (again) and be rebuffed (again). NOT because Frank doesn’t feel the same way, not because, in an ideal world, Frank wouldn’t want to be with Karen. But because he doesn’t think he deserves it. He doesn’t think he gets to have a happy ending, period, which is stereotypical of a protagonist in the middle of their hero’s journey (we saw the same shit with Matt Murdock).

Karen straight up said she doesn’t want Matt. That she wants Frank (even if that means wanting and loving the Punisher too - which is new. Karen can’t deny who he is and I don’t think she’s trying to any longer). She told him to give loving someone other than a war, a chance (her. Love her, Frank. Choose her.) and watching her open herself up… pour out the contents of her heart only for him to give nothing (in that moment) in return??? That Shit Hurted 2.0. BUT, him saying ‘he doesn’t want that’, in reference to life with her, where they try together. Is just a continuation of the same thread they’ve shared from the get-go.

Frank continuing to push away the people he cares about most (Curtis, Karen, hell even Madani in the end), while they hold onto him tighter for it. That’s a pretty poignant and reoccurring theme in Marvel’s Netflix; that the heroes detach themselves. Think they don’t get a life like everybody else, and then have to get slapped in the face by the persistence of the people that love them.

He thanks her. That she waited by his bedside for him to wake up and was there for him when he did. He thanks her and there’s something broken in that, too. Like it’s him trying to say goodbye but he can’t find the words just right.

So Karen tells him to show her. AND MY HEART ! FUCKING ! STOPPED ! My gut knew we wouldn’t get a kiss, but this was clearly intended to be one, and Amy’s interruption is a semi-colon. It’s not their end. Just the middle. Which leads me to believe that, should we get a season three, Karen will continue to play a significant part in Frank’s life and they’ll take advantage of the fact that she’s no longer filming Daredevil, and her availability won’t be nearly as limited. Lightfoot and Jon both confirmed that they’d want more and more of her, always.

My take away: They are in love. They confessed it. It was as heartfelt and sad, as beautiful and ugly, as any of their scenes have ever been (And likely will be), but it didn’t feel like an end because it wasn’t. It’s ‘not right now’, if Frank had kissed her, if they’d pushed through and tried to be together then, it just wouldn’t work.

He’s in the middle of his story. That means there’s growth and learning yet to come and Karen deserves more than where he’s at, now. (Doesn’t stop me from writing a fuck ton of fanfic about it, though). He has to learn how to co-exist with the two halves of himself, and that’s something that needs to be done without throwing romance into the mix (but he really shouldn’t be alone, he should get help, and I really fucking hope they touch on that in season 3).

Karen’s also a big girl. She can make her choices and is fully aware of what they mean. I didn’t like that she was hurt, again, by someone she loves, again, and at the end of the day, Karen Page deserves to be loved deeply and entirely and Frank just can’t be that person right now. That doesn’t mean never (what’s the point of telling their story if it ended like that? Lightfoot might be on thin fucking ice but he wouldn’t do Karen OR Frank dirty like that).

The Punisher was written in three parts, the beginning, the middle, and the end (much like every other story, ever). Middle installments tend to be the most poorly received, which isn’t an issue in film franchises because of the revenue stream attached, but it DOES mean shows struggle in their Sophomore years. I like to use ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ as a point of reference, because it was almost universally hated upon release, and is now a cherished part of a dynastic film franchise. People cannot tell a story, or understand it, with only two acts of a three-part play so it can come off strangely, or the general tone can feel ‘off’, because there isn’t active resolution and we’re left with just as many questions as we entered with.

Ultimately, we need a season three to see how this plays out, (we DESERVE one, and a kiss, goddammit), but if this is where it ends. If this is the last time we see Karen and Frank, at least it’s ended knowing they’re in love, that it’s an indisputable fact of canon that cannot be ignored. Whatever that means going forward, we as a fan base can figure out in our own writing, conjecture, and in the beauty of all they’ve shared up until this point.

I am so profoundly happy with what we got, the tone of the season and everything else notwithstanding. I have issues, yes, of course, I do, but I’ve waited well over a year to see them share a screen and this is what my sleep-deprived brain could make of it.

Thank you all for reading, xo.

[violetsystems]

#personal

Sometimes you can tell when a dark cloud passes just by the way things sort of end up bare.  Everything feels like an epilogue like you are walking in the rain or something and it’s quietly drizzling on the pavement somewhere.  I was saying today that Chicago sometimes feels like a city with no closure.  Most of the time there’s just no resolution.  Not a just one anyway.  Sometimes if you pay attention too closely you can see another layer.  Maybe the reasons why you don’t really feel the need to pry anymore.  I was in Japan awhile back with a friend Renick who performs totally in code.  We were eating curry at this place called coco curry and talking about music.  He had mentioned this phenomenon of a brick wall in the music industry that you hit.  It was something that was described to him by a guy named Matt Dryhurst.  I knew vaguely what it might be but it’s another thing to be slammed up against it unknowingly.  And in a healthy mind and a very social one in the real world, what has transpired the last month is nothing I can even explain.  I was reading an article about people who have the most compassion possibly have the most boundaries.  And maybe it’s far more complex than that but I’ve seen my feet tramped over for no real reason or reward.  In that last week I’ve finalized a lot of my trip to Asia.  My flights, my accommodations, my passport, my intentions to have a nice vacation and nothing else are mostly done.  I don’t ever really believe I’m going on vacation until I get on the plane.  I don’t really know what to expect other than to be free of all of this for awhile.  What I’ve come to know of the music industry and what it does for people is wrong.  It’s counter intuitive to everything I’ve fought against my entire life.  There’s people I’ve literally given my blood, sweat and tears for here who just laugh it off.  And I’ve seen those people cover each other’s tracks and manipulate the situations and narratives around them to be seen in a positive light.  And a lot of me has no business trying to fight any of that by myself.  Which is why I’ve been thinking about just forgetting everything I know about music the last four years and being happy.

If it sounds fucked and dramatic, trust me I am tired at this point of my life even having hints of it.  The time I’ve spent here has always made me analyze myself and be critical of myself to a point.  But I feel like after all these paragraphs, shitty images, and esoteric quotes, we all at least respect each other’s desires to be free and human.  People can hide all they want in their back rooms and clubs and talk shit about me for all I care.  At this point, some people including myself see it more of a performance.  I’ve tirelessly tried to explain myself for years.  It’s only this week where I had to watch a friend from Vancouver experience the same wall.  He was supposed to play a show and crash on my couch.  The promoter changed their mind.  I think it’s unprofessional to go any further.  But this is the way it is.  The unspoken hush of despair when it comes to people like ourselves just trying to find a decent and human community.  One that accepts each other for who we are inside and out with no bullshit, no expectations and no abuses of power.  I was getting coffee earlier in the morning before work and the cashier was trying to make small talk.  She had asked where I worked and I repeated it three times.  She assumed that I was a security guard.  Which if you put the entire last month I’ve written about in context paints a very problematic picture of this city.  People assume they know.  And I guess the hallucination of what you are has some weight in the real world.  If people generally in passing think I’m a piece of shit daily then I’m probably going to have to work on that if I want to even think about surviving in life.  You would think that would be true.  I put a lot into that formula and risked being alone a lot.  I ran 600 miles in six months last summer.  Nobody really cared or payed attention.  People used to think I was depressing and sad.  Now people think I’m too aggressive even though I don’t really say anything to people.  Now some people think I’m safe enough to patrol the streets of Chicago in an Undercover jacket on my commute and off hours.  The expectations build from there.  Imagine when somebody gets offended that you talked to them for whatever reason.  Now imagine they tell everyone that you are a shitty person because of it.  And they largely believe it because they want to believe a shitty person like you won’t succeed.  So you have no choice but to walk away and roam the streets.  And somewhere in there you become like ghost dog or something.

What I’ve learned from all of this is that if I keep playing this game with people it will hurt me even more than it has already.  I really believe people in Chicago don’t ever believe you are successful until you fit into this bizarre hallucination of a utopia built by people with too much money.  I also believe the streets are a different story.  It’s not like I want to quit music and become Solid Snake or some shit.  I just don’t want to be a part of any of these shitty people anymore.  I used to think I could fight it.  But there’s no reward.  I don’t even want to play music here for people.  I don’t feel safe.  I always feel like I have to watch my back for some setup.  I walked out of work today and some people were street snapping me from across the street.  It was totally uncalled for.  Maybe it was flattering.  But I’ve been beat down so much by Chicago to think I’m a piece of shit.  A piece of shit with a job who took it upon himself to stand up for people time and again.  Of course I’m always the villain.  I’ve never been able to tolerate fake shit.  There’s no payoff in any of these spectacles that people maintain when they’re all secretly run by white male gatekeepers anyway.  It’s futile to argue with them.  Sometimes those scenes are more trouble than their worth.  I’m flying directly into a communist country I’ve never been to before outside of an airport by myself.  I’m actually flying to three countries by myself for two weeks.  I haven’t travelled in a year.  I took the last year off because I thought I should try to make things work here.  I thought I should play the game.  I thought I shouldn’t be another colonizer expat fetishist and face the fears everyone has projected onto me.  And what I found out was that people out here are on another level of bullshit that I do not want to fathom.  I’ve learned to keep my head down and walk away.  The last week I’ve liked to think I’ve been led around on a ghostly sort of leash.  Sometimes it feels that way.  It’s a cold chill and a knowing.  Maybe it’s just me facing reality finally.  The reality is I still care about all of you here.  I don’t much care for the rest of society now.  I don’t think it deserves my thoughts.  Only you guys do right now.  And my thought to you is to have fun this weekend whatever you do.  I’m going to get some rest.  <3 Tim

[astargatelover]

Who should have been the protagonist of Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium"

(SPOILERS AHEAD! But it'll be easiest to understand when you've seen the movie, anyway.)

Elysium, released in 2013, is the second film of director and screenwriter Neill Blomkamp. It is set in a future where the wealthy live on a space station orbiting Earth (the eponymous Elysium), and the rest of humanity lives on the polluted and heavily overpopulated planet itself.

The movie was a success at the box office, bringing in more than double the amount of its original $115 million budget, and it won a Leo Award for best visual effects.

However, in comparison to Blomkamp's first film, District 9 (which I haven't yet seen, shame on me), it was a letdown. District 9 received praise from critics, was nominated for 4 Academy Awards and achieved a rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.8/10.

In contrast to that, Elysium achieved 67% with an average score of 6.5/10. Its critics consensus says this: "After the heady sci-fi thrills of District 9, Elysium is a bit of a comedown for director Neill Blomkamp, but on its own terms, it delivers just often enough to satisfy."

It was also nominated for a Golden Schmoes Award in the category "Best Sci-Fi Movie of the Year and Biggest Disappointment of the Year". Blomkamp himself has said that he feels he "fucked it up", and that he'd "almost want to go back and do it correctly", since things like special effects, costume and set design were executed very well, but the script wasn't all there.

I agree with that statement, so here's a possible change that I think would make Elysium perhaps not perfect, but definitely a much better movie:

As you can see by the title of this essay it involves replacing the main character. To understand why I think that would improve the movie you have to know what is wrong with the current protagonist: Max da Costa, played by Matt Damon. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Matt Damon and consider him a great actor, so he's not the problem. Not personally, anyway.

I evaluated Max using what I call "the Tumblr criteria", because Tumblr brought them to my attention. We are, after all, known for fightning for social justice. (Even if we're also known for being overzealous, bordering on ridiculous, in this endeavor... meh.)

The criteria are as follows: cisgender, heterosexual, white, able-bodied, male. ("White" meaning white by US standards, i.e. "caucasian white". I looked it up, it's a tad complicated.)

As you all probably know the vast majority of protagonists of popular movies are all of these things, and it's a problem because of the huge lack of diversity. Lately we have been getting a few heroes which aren't male or white, which is great, but way not enough yet. A blockbuster with a lead that is not cis- and/or heterosexual and able-bodied, especially if the movie isn't centered around those things? No way. So people who aren't at least four of the five above listed criteria have a hard time finding a hero to identify with; not to mention that seeing the ever same traits in main characters becomes boring after a while, especially after the ~122 years Hollywood has existed.

Max, as you can guess, fits all of the criteria.

Now, he gets radiation poisoning about 20 minutes into the movie, so you could argue that he's not technically healthy for the majority of it, but it hardly has any adverse effects on him. He takes a few pills and he's mostly fine. His condition actually leads to him being fitted with an exo-skeleton and becoming a cyborg, so he's left more able than before. The emotional implications that should result from having a dying hero aren't explored to their full extent. Max's condition only serves as a plot device, an incentive for him to want to go to Elysium, but nothing more.

Max's heterosexuality is shown in the movie by him having something like a forced romance with Frey, a childhood friend of his. I call it forced because, and perhaps it's the fact that I'm gay, I just can't feel that chemistry between them. Granted, the movie doesn't explicitly make it a romance - neither of the characters outright say that they love each other and they don't kiss or perform other acts that are generally regarded as declarations of love - but it is heavily implied.

As soon as Max and Frey meet again as adults (in Frey's workplace, a hospital) he asks her out to dinner. When she declines at first he wants to know if he has to break his other arm as well to get her attention, because he would. (Which is NOT romantic like most narratives would have us believe, it's abusive, even if he meant it in jest.) They finally settle for a coffee. Later Max tells her that he gave up being a criminal for her. Considering all that I think it's pretty safe to say he is supposed to be in love with her.

Another thing that irks me about this is that Frey and Max met in an orphanage when they were about 10. We know that Frey left at some point to seek better opportunities. In the movie they're in their mid-thirties and recognize each other just by their looks, so they very likely spent a few years knowing each other when they were younger. I think it'd have been really nice (and less subliminally creepy) if their relationship had been depicted as that of estranged siblings trying to reconnect. You don't see that story that often, and at least to me it'd feel more emotional than a love story that still kind of seems to come out of nowhere.

To get back to the criteria: The worst thing about Max is the fact that he is white. For a movie this heavy on the symbolism it is a major mistake.

First off, Max's whiteness doesn't even make sense in-universe. Most people we see on Earth are hispanic.

Is it me or does Max stand out in this?

The majority of white people we see lives on Elysium. The only other notable white character there is on Earth is the foreman at the factory where Max works. And with his name - Max da Costa - our protagonist should, if not fully hispanic, be mixed-race, which Matt Damon decidedly is not; and I doubt that the film makers couldn't find a good mixed-race actor for the role, or at least someone who looks the part.

When you look at Max's ethnicity from an out-of-universe standpoint the problem becomes even worse. All the villains in the movie - Defense Secretary Delacourt, Agent Kruger and his cronies, and John Carlyle - are white, which makes perfect sense considering the "rich vs. poor" angle it takes, since in real life poverty rates are way lower among white people than they are among non-white people. However, having the movie's protagonist also be white makes this analogy fall apart.

What makes Max's whiteness even worse is that it makes the movie just drip with white savior syndrome. This syndrome is, at its core, a trope where a white person (usually a man) plays a leading role in saving a group of non-white people from their plight. It's quite an old concept that's connected to one of the justifications for colonialism, namely that the natives of the colonized areas were worth less than white people and needed them to "lead them to civilization". When it appears in fiction it, among other things, perpetuates the notion that non-white people can't save themselves, that they need a white person to do that, which makes it inherently racist.

Changing any of the above mentioned five criteria, especially the ethnicity, about the main character would already improve the movie. However, my suggestion doesn't just involve letting the protagonist be played by a different actor, but actually changing the focus of the movie to an entirely different character: Spider.

Spider is a people smuggler that Max goes to for help in getting to Elysium, and I think his story would be more interesting to see than that of Max, who is a more conventional cinematic hero. The movie raises more questions about Spider (starting with why he’s called that) than it does about Max, as I'll go into in more detail later. (And just to make it clear: I don't think a movie has to clear up every single mystery there is about a character to be good. What are headcanons for?)                                                                                                  

Matt Damon's wikipedia page describes his role in Elysium as a "former car-thief-turned-factory-worker". I mean... yeah. That's exciting. Elysium's own wiki page describes Spider as "something between an opportunistic entrepreneur and a modern day Robin Hood". Now that's a guy I wanna see a movie about!

Another argument in Spider's favor is that he only fits two of the five criteria: He's a cis male, because his actor is, and I don't necessarily think he'd have to be changed. Certainly not because of a lack of talent. Spider is played by Wagner Moura, who, outside of his home country of Brazil, is probably best known for his portrayal of Pablo Escobar  on Netflix's Narcos, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.

If you want to see his abilities for yourself, you can watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4oayRbfRo                                     

scene from the movie and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zxaHT-GJU 

interview, in which Wagner also mentions something I'm going to talk about later. (And yes, that IS the same guy.)

Here are the ways in which Spider doesn't necessarily fit the other three criteria:

First off, his sexuality is not mentioned or alluded to in the movie at all. If it was remade he could easily be written to be gay or bi- or pan- or asexual or any other sexuality there is. Or the remake could take the same approach the original movie already did: Decide that Spider's love life is not important to the story and leave it out completely, which would also make for a nice change, honestly.

Then, as I've said before, Wagner Moura is Brazilian, which likely means that Spider is, too, since Wagner kept his Portuguese accent when playing him. So he's not technically by US standards white. The accent also means that Spider must have grown up speaking Portuguese, so either he is an immigrant from Brazil or his parents were, which begs the question: How and why did he or his family end up in LA?

Third, Spider has a brace on his right leg and walks with a cane and a limp. What caused this, whether it was an injury or a disease, is not specified, and I don't think it needs to be. Everyone can draw their own conclusions (and I've had a lot of fun drawing mine. Never has research about knee injuries been so exciting). I think that issue is part of what's keeping him from physically taking part in heists himself. At one point in the movie he tells Max that there's a job he needs done and complains that none of the people working for him "had the balls". I think he might have just done it himself if it wasn't for that problem with his leg; I wouldn't put it past him.

That limp also illustrates something about Spider which gives him a lot of depth (Wagner also explains it in that interview I linked to): Spider's whole business is sending people to Elysium so they can get medical care, but he never once tries to go there himself. He's very proud that he's not part of that system, and he's probably proud of his limp, too, precisely because it shows that. This makes his disability important to the story without it being the focal point.

Casting Spider as the hero also makes sense from a story-telling perspective, because Secretary Delacourt is the movie's main villain. Max has very little to do with her, whereas she and Spider are diametrically opposed enemies: In their very first scenes they're fighting each other; he's trying to get Earth citizens into Elysium while she's doing her best to keep them out, which includes killing over half of them. That they don't personally know each other, nor ever meet, only makes this aspect of the story more powerful to me.

The biggest question the movie leaves unanswered about Spider (even though it is alluded to; Max mentions it directly) is why he does what he does at all. He's certainly not in it for the money. THIS:

is his expression when he gets THAT message about three shuttles that tried to reach Elysium. That's not a happy expression. That's not even an indifferent expression! I think we can safely presume that getting smuggled to Elysium is a "pay in advance" affair, so if Spider did only do it for the money, why should he care if they actually make it there or not? Maybe the shuttle pilots were friends of his, but if he was close enough to them to mourn them would he really have them risk their lives for the cash only?

Yet he keeps trying to send people up there, even though the success rates are anything but great, extrapolating from what we see in the movie (and I actually did the math on this): The two shuttles that get shot down result in 46 casualties, so there were about 23 people on each shuttle. The people on the shuttle that reaches Elysium end up as 34 arrests and another 13 casualties. This means their shuttle was much more crowded than the other two, since it was carrying 47 people. Only one person managed to get healed before being arrested.

In summary: The chances of actually making it to Elysium in a big group of people are about fifty fifty, and the chances of getting healed are considerably slimmer than that, namely about 1 in 93.

When Max first asks him for a ticket to Elysium Spider basically tells him to piss off and insinuates that he tells most people who ask him for one the same thing, so he's probably not doing it out of the pure goodness of his heart, either, especially considering the odds. He only offers Max a job when he's assured that he's dying. My theory is that he sticks to that approach when smuggling people to Elysium, too, and that's why he asks for such a hefty sum of money: Dying people are more desperate, and desperate people are more likely to find a way to bring up the money.

When Max brings him the data with which he can change Elysium's programming, Spider's immediate reaction is "We can save everyone". He's not the typical gangster boss you'd see in his position in a movie, and with this outlook he's way more of a hero than Max, who's really only in this to save his own ass. Spider's the actual leader of the revolution, and it'd make sense to make the movie about him.

This is one of Spider's tattoos. I think it illustrates his goal very well, and that he had it done emphasizes its importance to him once again. 60:22 probably refers to a bible verse from the Book of Isaiah. There are multiple possible translations, and your interpretation depends on which one you pick, so I didn’t put one here, but I do encourage you to look it up; there’s a link in the sources down below.

There's another issue that comes up when Max takes the data to Spider that I'd like to know more about: Spider finds out exactly what the data is, i.e. a reboot program for Elysium, by looking at the raw code for under five seconds. I'm no expert on the subject, but I think you'd have to be really good at coding to pull something like that off. So then my question is: Where did Spider learn that, and why?

The last thing that I find very interesting about Spider happens in one of the final scenes of the movie: When Spider realizes that taking the reboot data out of Max's brain will kill him, he tells him. (Well, he would have if Max hadn't known already.) And that is a moment that reveals a lot about Spider's character. He's probably waited for a chance like this for a very long time, and if he doesn't use it he won't get another one any time soon. He could just press the button and be done with it, yet he doesn't. He tells Max what will happen and he lets him say goodbye to Frey via radio even though the enemy is literally right at the door.

And I also think if Max had said that he doesn't want to die, Spider wouldn't have killed him. He'd have argued, yes, but not outright killed him. If he would why would he bring it up in the first place? (And if he had, in fact, done it after all, he wouldn't have just coldly shrugged it off.)

All in all I believe Spider would have been a better choice for Elysium's protagonist because he's more varied, more interesting and more likeable than Max.

I'm aware Neill Blomkamp might not have gotten the funding for this project if he hadn't gone for a white male lead, because that's unfortunately how Hollywood works, and then we wouldn't have a movie at all. 

I really like Elysium. I've seen it about 16 times since I first watched it almost a year ago. But maybe that is because I'm good at seeing movies (and TV shows) for what they could have been instead of for what they are. I wouldn't discourage anyone from watching Elysium, especially because I'm looking for people to discuss it with and the fandom is woefully small. It has its flaws, some might even say many flaws, but if you can keep that in mind while also looking past it there's a really great story to be found there, provided you're willing to do a little digging.

I have many more headcanons about this movie (mostly, but not only, about Spider) that I didn't touch on here, so if you're interested in those: Hit me up. I'd really appreciate it.

Let me end this "little" essay with a guess as to what Spider's name might mean. I have no clue if it's what Neill or whoever named him had in mind when they did, but it fits and I think it's pretty neat:

What are spiders known for?

Their webs.

Sources:

My DVD of Elysium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino https://www.quora.com/Are-Brazilians-considered-white-or-Latinos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_industry#Hollywood http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0 http://www.prb.org/wpds/2014/ (Graph: Child Poverty) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Percent_poverty_world_map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film https://bitchmedia.org/post/a-future-without-me-matt-damon-is-the-great-white-hope-in-elysium-race-feminist-movie-review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Damon http://elysiumfilm.wikia.com/wiki/Spider http://lrmonline.com/news/2013/04/stills-elysium http://biblehub.com/isaiah/60-22.htm http://rosettedelacroix.com/?p=392