fortheflock

[fortheflock]

Some thoughts on Andor, and that final shot everyone hates so much.

I don’t. I’ve been sitting with this show for a while now. This whole season I’ve been waiting to hate Bix’s arc with the same fervour that some of the more vocal fans do. I’ve been waiting to feel the injustice done to a “strong female character” (a phrase I fucking hate by the way, but that’s an argument for another time). I’ve seen the arguments that she should have stayed with the rebellion, that she was a fighter sidelined for the sake of a man, that she was reduced to a baby-factory straight out of right wing propaganda (Jesus Christ). And I disagree with every fucking one of them. 

For me, in season two, Bix is the heart of the show. She is the ethos, the drive, the reason that rebellion matters. Bix becomes, in a way, the most important character Andor has to offer us.

Andor has always been very clear in its ideology. Blatantly so. And one of the ideals it strives to impart to its audience is that we are not meant to live in fear. We are not meant to live under oppression. We are not meant to live looking down. For Andor the heart, the drive, the reason behind rebellion is to create a future where we are free. And where love, and peace, and community, and kindness, and hope are our foundations and are the only matter of our lives. 

Andor doesn’t want its characters to be fighters. They are forced to be. Andor doesn’t want its characters to live hiding and scared and clawing for any glimpse of peace and love and hope they can get. They have no other choice. Rebellion is important. It is so so fucking important. But it is only important because of what it fights for. 

Bix is not a fighter. In Andor’s first season she is a mechanic selling to Luthen on the side for extra money. She is not struggling against the empire. She is not joining a rebellion. She is getting the fuck by and living her fucking life. And one day her connection to Cassian puts her under the empire’s gaze and she is invasively tortured and horrifically traumatised because of it. And she endures. 

Bix is, also, an incredibly important character to me personally. There can often be a narrative surrounding trauma that it should make you the fighter everyone seems to think Bix should be. That you should take your pain and terror and suffering and turn it around and let it make you stronger. Use it to beat back against the person, or group, or institution that traumatised you. That you should pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take that horror, and fight back (girlboss-ify yourself and take those motherfuckers down). And to that I say, no. I don’t want that. I’ve done my fighting. I’ve lost my battles and I’ve come out the other side scarred in ways that still hurt to touch. What I want is to stop. Is to rest. Is to put this pain down and move out the other side of it and live, finally. 

For me, watching Bix as an horrifically traumatised woman live stuck in that fight for the first half of the second season was harrowing. To see her spend her time in the Coruscant safehouse grappling with the true cost of what it means to fight the way she needs to in this war, never at peace as the life she lives and the things she must do force her to stay held in her trauma, had me aching in ways I didn’t realise I would. To see her stuck in the dark and the gloom and the cold, and yearning the whole time she is in Coruscant to be able to go out and live without having to look over her shoulder, hurt in ways I struggle to put words to.

And then, to see her get out. 

I know there is a lot of contention about seeing Bix have little to do on Yavin. And to that I will say, it’s a big show, there are a lot of characters, and she is on Yavin during a storyline that arguably should not narratively or structurally be focusing on her anyway. I know there is also a lot of contention about writing her leaving Cassian for the sake of the rebellion. That it diminishes her character to a plot beat. And while perhaps the tropes at play feel trite in comparison to the more grounded beats the show is known for hitting, this is still storytelling. All the characters are, functionally, still devices serving a narrative. Bix leaves, and narratively becomes our ethos. Becomes the heart of this story. Becomes the reason we have been watching this all play out for our two-season run. Bix becomes the most important character in the show. Because this is why we must fight. For Bix. For everything she represents in that moment. She becomes the way Cassian’s life should be if it weren’t for this war, and in doing so becomes the way all of their lives should be. Should have always been. And will be one day soon. 

She is the reason. For all of it. For every loss, for every death, for every fight. It is her. She is the hope at the heart of the rebellion.

That last scene on Mina-Rau; the gentle light, Bee playing, the table set for a community to eat and laugh and be. People smiling and content and together and peaceful. And Bix, free. Of the trauma, of the loss, of the death, of the fight. Looking up at the open sky with her child. Literally holding in her arms the life that the rebellion has always been fighting for. 

That is the hope at the end of our story -- that Bix is the one that gets to live. 

And you can pry that fucking ending from my cold dead hands.

[fortheflock]

thinking about the character a lot today. call it pondering my blorb

[fortheflock]

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!!

The working title of Dark Angel was Maximum Girl!!

It goes deeper the more you watched.

It's like as jp watched it, he realized he also had a lab kid character called Max from when the wind blows and stuck her and the rest of the flock into the Dark Angel essence and just moved the whole apocalypse thing until the later books.

If you squint just a little you can see all the similarities.

And there's three Dark Angel novels!

AND apparently Cybersix is another similar show that tried to sued Dark Angel so thats another to check out

i watched the first episode of dark angel and tbh i am absolutely convinced that james patterson watched this show, said "hey that gives me an idea," and then wrote maximum ride

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I’m going to hate read a book series for shits and giggles because its terrible- oh fuck its awful but I keep turning the pages it makes no sense and I hate it but I keep reading - Oh shit I’m thinking about their biology and I’m detailing evolutionary history and drawing detailed guides to anatomy oh shit oh fuck why does this keep happening to me

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No

I know we like to note on the mass amount of that books James Patterson has written. But has anyone actually read any of them?

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Iggy (MR) headcanons

My favourite boy!

Please keep in mind it's been over a decade since I read these books (and even then I think I only read the first 3).

I think overall they are all touchier/affectionate with Iggy, to help ground him and so he feels acknowledged

They make an effort to do this after he confesses one day that it bothers him when he can't tell/can't see if people are actually listening when he's talking

Sometimes when he's talking to another flock member they'll hold his hand or touch his shoulder or something to show that they are listening to him

He flinches when anything touches his face with no warning

Flock members can cup his cheeks, kiss his forehead, etc but first they touch the side or back of his neck so he has warning, then trail their hand up to his face

When Fang has trouble speaking he will sign into Iggy's hand and Iggy will reply verbally

Iggy is the one who helped Fang come up with most of their pidgin sign language, starting from when they were small and he could still see

When they are on the run, Iggy sleeps in the middle so he is within arms reach of everyone and can reassure himself that they're safe

He sleeps best listening to someone's heartbeat, or holding his hand to their pulse (either on the neck or wrist)

I'm imagining him putting little Angel down for a nap and conking out beside her, holding her little wrist

They have epic couch naps

His earliest memory is of sharing a crate with Fang

The whitecoats separated them when they were 5 and they both cried for days

For the first 6 months after leaving the school, Iggy, Max, and Fang slept in the same room because they were so used to hearing the others breathe at night

Jeb would put them all to bed, then Iggy and Fang would sneak into Max's room

Iggy would sleep between them because he was used to his crate being between theirs

She had the biggest bed, and could never tell her little brothers no

Max always makes a point to tell him that even though he's taller, she's still older (then will kiss him obnoxiously on the cheek to gross him out)

He was actually the shortest of the three until they were about 11 and then shot up like a weed

The resulting growing pains were so bad he'd wake up in tears

When flying long distance his spot in the formation is usually between Max and Nudge

If he's beside Gazzy they get distracted talking about explosives and Max prefers Fang on the other end so that there's a big kid on each side of the v formation (in my head it goes Fang, Gazzy, Angel, Max (at the corner of the v), Iggy, Nudge. Fang flies a little ahead of everyone to lead and Max watches everyone from the back. Sometimes they switch.)

As long as there's at least one person nearby when flying he can match how fast they are going and in which direction based on feel/sound but it's easiest when they just tell him ("left 15 degrees", or "up 20 feet")

He's pretty good at guessing how high they are in altitude based on the air pressure

Max and him like to race while flying

She usually wins unless he cheats, but it's still fun to not have to worry about hitting anything

Iggy has been the instigator of every. Single. Prank war. That the flock has ever had.

He likes spicy food. This however does not mean he can handle spicy food- it means he'll insist he's fine even though there are tears in his eyes and his nose is running from how hot the food is. It's so tasty (enhanced sense of taste) he'll just keep eating it.

He likes music, but doesn't like wearing headphones because of how easy it is to sneak up on him when wearing them so he plays music out loud when he can (not in public like an asshole, but at home)

He like acoustic rock and classical the best, as he can pick out the sounds of the different instruments

He doesn't know it but he has perfect pitch

He's reasonably sure he'd be great at the drums if he ever got the chance to learn.

He has broken more than one pencil practicing (pretending) to drum

He also likes listening to baseball games on the radio

Him and Gazzy cobble together two walkie talkies

Max reluctantly agrees that they could come in handy in an emergency, but still is annoyed that they cannabalized the household appliances to make them (she admittedly didn't use her alarm clock that much but its the principle of the thing)

He is Nudge's first pick to help take out her braids (Fang knows its a trap to get you to talk to her for a few hours with no breaks and isn't always in the mood to chat, Max isn't gentle about it, and Angel takes too long. Gazzy is second her choice, at least until he realizes, as all younger siblings eventually do, that he doesn't have to do whatever the older ones ask. He'll still do it but he needs to be bribed.)

In return she'll brush his hair

Not that it needs it, it just feels nice

He's left-handed, and the day he discovers left-handed tools his life changes

He hasn't practiced handwriting since Jeb left (he used to make Iggy practice but Iggy thought it was pointless)

He's only had to leave Max a note once and she could read it fine so that's good enough for him (he wrote it half on the paper and half on the table by accident. It won't wash off.)

Fang is his first choice as a guide in unfamiliar places

Mostly because Fang is the closest to his height so he doest have to hunch as much to hold onto them

Gazzy has walked him into many, many tree branches because he forgets that Iggy is taller

Nudge is a pretty good guide but sometimes she gets distracted and forgets she's guiding

No one will ever let her forget the time she walked both Iggy and herself into a fountain

As in they ended up in the fountain

When possible he'd rather walk beside the person rather than following them

Angel sometimes sits on his shoulders and directs him telepathically

They make it into a game sometimes

Angel is the best at describing colours to him. She knows what he's thinking and bases it off that. ("It's as red as apples. No, darker than your hair. Like when you feel so mad your chest hurts.")

Sometimes certain lights are too bright for him and hurt his sensitive eyes. Sunglasses help on those days.

Gazzy got (stole) him a pair of aviators he loves.

If he ever got a cane he'd find it funny to trip people with it if he thinks they deserve it (walking too slow, or too close, or he hears them say something rude)

After that first ear piercing in New York he gets more

He figures he's endured enough needles, at least there's payoff for these ones

He likes accessories, but not rings

Some of his finger joints are too swollen from repeated breaks

But he loves bracelets. Nudge and Iggy had a bracelet weaving phase and he has a bunch in fun patterns/textures he can feel, or with braille messages woven in (their names, mostly, and one that says MAX STINKS that Nudge made once when she was mad and Iggy thinks is hilarious. Iggy has been wearing it for 2 years and Max hasn't noticed)

He's got a necklace with some of his lockpicks on it.

He treats them as a fidgit toy and will deny it but has been seen chewing on them

It's his spare lockpicks set obviously he has more than 1, what if one gets confiscated??

No you will not guess where he keeps the second set unless you want to get real close and personal

His hands and arms have scars on them from burns (cooking, experiments) and fights (erasers) but only a few are sensitive

The cold makes the scars ache

He got so sick once he couldn't hear out of one ear, and was scared it wouldn't heal and he'd be even more disabled

The others stayed by his side until he was better (they all camped out in the living room. It was the first time any of them got since after Jeb left.)

He likes reading, but his choices are audiobooks (hard to find), braille books (harder to find), or someone reading to him

Iggy and Max both like murder mysteries but Fang always guesses the plot twists correctly

Gazzy learned to read by reading outloud to Iggy

They both like chemistry and mechanics textbooks

Iggy is good at explaining the parts Gazzy doesn't understand

He's also the best out of the flock at math (and can do arithmatic in his head quickly)

He thinks biology is interesting but it reminds him too much of being experimented on

Basically he'd do really well if he ever got the chance to study STEM classes in university

He likes winter because of the smell of fresh pine needles. They all go out and pick boughs to makes wreaths for around the house.

The whitecoats put him in a sensory deprivation tank once, for a full day. He still has nightmares about it.

He has trouble sometimes differentiating between dreams and real life

He'll find a sense to focus on, like the taste of cocoa or the sound of music or the feeling of holding someone's hand until he's confident he's awake

He knows that if he can see, then he's dreaming

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Max named herself after hearing maximum to describe her past results on various tests. She kept breaking her previous records so naturally when she had to call herself something outside the lab she chose what she would always strive to go past.

Ride came much later after reading a highway sign named after the first American woman in space. Max had no idea people had even gone to space at the time so Sally became a bit of a fascination for her.

[fortheflock]

what if this part of her won

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Hawk mini-comic series I plan to work on. I don’t like the new books all that well, so I think having more fun with the characters and their interactions is good inspiration. Also lmk what silly scenes you want to see with the flock and the new generation, asks open!

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Dark angel season 2 episode 2

There's a bunch of human expirements that escape from Manticore and Max saves a bunch of kids from being killed, she ends up giving them names like Fixit , Bullet and Zero.

Its so of its time, but again so Maximum ride.

Ever since the last episode of season 1 its been very saving the world and other extreme sports.

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Clone fight with younger self

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LYDECKER EVEN has tiny Jeb glasses

Jeb and the flock