ethosiab · 1 year ago
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The first yellow of secret life
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a version without blood + the original sketch
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percheduphere · 11 months ago
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I wanted to find and gather some lesser appreciated Mobius moments from S1, and some thoughts occurred to me.
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When we see Mobius drill into Loki about his choices, his thought patterns, whether or not he enjoys hurting people, Mobius comes down on Loki HARD, cruelly, goading, and manipulating (Sound familiar? Just wait...). He does so in a way that's confident he will get the answers he expects from Loki, which he does.
When we cut to the scenes with Renslayer, Mobius's truer, gentler side appears. The side that is kind and soft and believes in second chances. Notice, also, the difference in lighting between these scenes.
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And then it hit me:
Mobius was using a carefully constructed persona--an illusion--with Loki to control the situation and get Loki into the headspace of self-reflection. He uses the very same technique Loki uses regularly to get the outcome that is beneficial for both of them.
Genius, really.
As we move into S1E2 and E3, the power dynamics are decidedly uneven, but once they are out in the field, Mobius's actual power and control over Loki is quite limited and actually banks on a LOT of faith. A ridiculous amount of faith, to be honest. Despite logical misgivings, Mobius makes a POINT of giving Loki freedom and trust because he has analyzed Loki enough to know that lack of trust perpetuates a destructive self-fulfilling prophecy.
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So when Loki chooses to escape with Sylvie, all those centuries of belief and good will Mobius invested in him were thrown in his face. He's understandably furious, but the interrogation scene after both Lokis are captured simply does not read as normal without the additional lens of jealousy. If Mobius were not emotionally compromised in some way, he would have handled the interrogation clinically, and he would have sent Loki to be pruned without a thought.
Mobius doesn't do either of those things. Rather than asking Loki objective questions, he focuses on Loki's attention on Sylvie and verbally twists the knife where he can. His punishment for Loki after the interrogation is shockingly personal:
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A word about the Sif loop scene: I really, REALLY hated that Mobius did that. It honestly made my gut churn. I think the writers tried to play it off for laughs because Loki gets kicked in the balls repeatedly, but the emotional undercurrent of Sif's words and everything that it means is just awful.
That said, I understand that this scene reveals not only Loki's vulnerability but ALSO Mobius's. This is a "passionate diagreement" through proxy. Mobius knows what would hurt Loki the most psychologically. But why would Mobius choose to hurt him this severely with these specific words?
Remember, this might be a memory, but Mobius is choosing to speak his feelings to Loki through Sif.
I think the answer is 4-pronged: First, Mobius put his career, reputation, and friendship with Ravonna on the line for Loki. The stress of the potential repercussions (which were HIGH) should Loki betray him was a constant heat on his neck. Despite this, Mobius chooses the riskier route of believing Loki would not betray his trust. And yes, within the context of what Mobius has done to advocate for Loki and what's at stake for Mobius should he fail, Loki absolutely betrays him.
Second, Loki told Mobius everything he believed about the TVA and his place in the multiverse is a lie. When was the last time Mobius reacted so violently?
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When Brad called him a "nowhere man".
Mind, there is guilt beneath this anger. Not only has everything Mobius believed in been revealed as a lie, it is revealed he was complicit in the genocide of multiple timelines for which there was never any ultimate good. YIKES. That's a lot to take in, and Mobius at his core is a deeply empathetic person. The guilt of this horror, at his hands, is probably why Mobius does not defend himself when Sylvie tears him a new one in S2E4.
Three, I think Mobius may have wished for a friendship with Loki long before his intervention. I've written elsewhere that his intervention appears to be premeditated. Mobius was only waiting for his chance to come along. Who knows how many centuries that took. I believe he may have rationalized away his emotional attachment as a means to help the TVA succeed. Mobius is adept at suppressing not only his emotions but his wants.
Four, by S1E3, Mobius came to love Loki to some degree, platonic or otherwise. I think it's very difficult to not develop love for someone or something you've been tasked to be an expert on. Having Loki actually beside him, engaging with him over lunch and work, no doubt added some much needed color in Mobius's life. It's hard not to become infatuated with someone fun and exciting.
The jealous rage that overwhelms Mobius doesn't last long. When it comes down to it, Mobius can't help but believe in Loki. Doubt in the TVA takes root once his immediate anger dissipates. So Mobius steals Ravonna's TemPad, verifies Loki's claims, and immediately self-corrects. Mobius could have dug his heels in with more denial, but he doesn't. Why? Because Mobius ultimately cares more about Loki than himself.
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When Mobius returns to Loki, he asks a few other questions that I can't share images for because of the 10-image limit. Those other questions include but are not limited to:
Do you care about Sylvie?
Do you really believe you deserve to be alone?
I should point out these questions are not at all tied to the well-being of the TVA or the multiverse. They are specifically tied to Loki's well-being. Loki's happinness.
Why does Mobius ask these questions? Because, in my opinion, Mobius was preparing himself to let Loki go, be with who he wants to be with (Sylvie), and fight the battle he wants to fight. Mobius will not be the obstruction to Loki's path to personal success even if that means letting go of the TVA, letting go of Ravonna, letting go of Loki himself.
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All of this is a selfless act of love. What kind of love that is is up to the viewer, but it is very much there. It's real and integral to the story.
Classic Loki points out that this is a high cost. In response, Mobius takes the crux of his belief in Loki and directs it to himself.
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The beauty of the goodbye scene in S1S6 is that the emotional thrust of selfless love is echoed and amplified in Loki's own self-sacrifice in S2E6. Loki lets go of the TVA, lets go of Sylvie, lets go of Mobius himself. Ouroboros.
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coolstuffiseverywhere · 1 year ago
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Revolutionary Girl Utena - S1 E3 "On The Night of the Ball" Part 1
Hi! I wrote this like a week ago, but had to stop mid-episode. I'll point out where things are new!
Pre-episode thoughts: 1. Cinderella references to be expected? or just a take on the idea of a ball? a school dance through fancy symbology? who knows!
2. I just need to reiterate how much I love this music. Not a single miss yet.
3. I wonder if I'm completely missing everything or if I'm vaguely on the right track(or as much as you can be with two episodes so far), and I am willing to hear vague opinions on it.
Without further ado, the episode
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Clearly, Utena needs to discover the power of lesbianism. Anthy, can you save this poor repressed homosexual?
More seriously, this series is even realistically gay! Outside of jokes. I am so glad.
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Aren't you in high school? and in your last year? I am excited to see on where the (intentional, presumably) creepiness is going.
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Sooner backhands then expected. At least she isn't putting up with his shit.
So I guess the rings are signs of having any actual agency in the plot? Considering the rose symbolism though, I have to assume that agency comes with a catch.
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Considering the prince is clearly black, probably not. Also because I'm fairly sure that was the magic figure last episode, which I think was in the actual magic, which makes me assume the mysterious Dios? or someone else connected to him besides Anthy, which would make me guess her brother from what I've heard.
What's with the repetition so much? I think part of it is the semi-episodic nature of the show and saving budget, but it also seems thematic. Time loop, or just time fuckery? who knows!
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What is this for?
Hi, future me here again, this is where I stopped. Sorry for the wait everyone.
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Saionji I expect no better from you. I wish you hell. The shadow here is interesting though, considering how big it is. Is it meant to just be showing Anthy having a secret, happenstance, or what?
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Yellow roses apparently mean friendship and joy, but besides that, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!?!? Like, is this meant to showcase her role as a princess? Or that Anthy is imagining her doing this? That this is her front? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?
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Maybe it's symbolic for her upholding the status quo and being a arm of misogyny? idk
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What did Chu-Chu eat??!?
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So, she's just going along with this because they're engaged, right?
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I guess he just wants her their to investigate her? I hope?
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? and what do the pets mean???!? They look like Anthy and Utena, but they can't be. Anthy and Nanami? Someone mocking Anthy and Utena? And what are the pets, boys following them around head over heels?
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Nanami what has he done to you? I do not trust this relationship at all.
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This feels potentially important!
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So... I feel like this is meant to highlight people following the patriarchy? or something? at this point. But Pink to show real love maybe? And also femininity, according to google, which checks out.
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I don't know how to feel about Nanami.
Not something a picture would convey, but I just heard Nanami call Anthy Senpai??!? Is the student council for the high school or middle school? They commented on Utena being from the middle school before, and those are often connected. Is she a lower year representative? Or is it that Anthy being the Rose Bride gets her called this?
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I am really unsure how to take this besides kinda creepy. We'll see I guess? I suppose you could take how understated this is, and how adult this party looks, to be kinda how heteronormative society is pushed onto kids, even ones who are younger then these ones?
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Anthy's social anxiety go brrr
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WHAT THE HELL NANAMI? I AM UNSURPRISED AND YET TOTALLY SURPRISED! I had seen her mentioned as a character who is comparable but very different to Eva Ushiromiya, with weaponized misogyny presumably, but somehow did not see this coming.
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What did Kiryuu/your family do to you? Seriously, that comment is more then normal misogyny, what is happening to you Nanami?
Also, alcohol being casual and handled by a waiter does speak to the idea of this being a symbology thing and also forcing the teens to seem more adult then they are?
This is apparently going to another post, since I'm over the image limit, but at least I can finally post this one.
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sp6ghetti · 2 years ago
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Enneatype 8 summarised!!
Core type- Passion: lust. E8s think that anything worth doing , should be done all the time, similar to e7s gluttony. However lust is more focused on physicality, this is usually stereotyped as aggression. Fixation: vengeance. They feel as though their wrongs can be forgiven by being angry at- and blaming external factors. Trap: justice. They have a good grasp on how unfair our world is, they’re very sensitive to actions they deem unfair towards themselves. Their response to this is revenge, as it would balance the two wrongs. Defence mechanism: denial. E8s avoid being seen as weak, and feeling vulnerable at all times. Through denial they block out any thought, feeling and need they see as vulnerable or weak, and refuse to accept situations in which they are these things. Virtue: innocence. In order to admit to themselves, they need to learn that vulnerability is okay, and immediate reactions to external, often unnecessary, judgement, whether made by themselves or others,  aren’t needed.  Key traits: Anger and the willingness to confront, rebelliousness, punitiveness/revenge, dominance, insensitivity, autonomy, sensory-motor dominance.
Subtypes-  Self preservation [sp]: Sp8s are usually more introverted and don’t care as much about expressing their desires. They want to get what they need without communicating it, this can make them seem overly impatient with others. They’re very independent and know how to get what they want really well. All this can make them look overly egocentric and selfish. Sexual [sx]: The sx8 is more of a leader type. They want people to look at them and be the centre of attention, usually they strive to achieve this through rebellion and being good at expressing what they want and how they want it. Though they want to lead, bigger groups aren't their thing, they often feel like they might lose control over the people they’re supposed to have all the attention of. Social [so]: The so8 is more friendly and caring than the other subtypes. They want to rebel against social norms and help people out who they think of as weaker than them. They want to be able to protect those who struggle in environments they understand, due to this they want to gain knowledge over these environments. 
Contradictions-  INTJ, INFJ, ISTJ, ISFJ, INTP, ISTP, INFP, ISFP, ENTJ, ESTJ, ENFJ, ESFJ, ENTP, ENFP Most importantly, e8 is exclusive to se dominance. While this seems like an excessive limitation, it becomes obvious by their value for tangible reality, sensory motor and lust. One thing people tend to get wrong about e8 is assuming it could be compatible with judging functions, especially Te. While Te and Se can sometimes appear similar, the deciding factor here is the fact that Te still prefers thinking over doing, while e8 wants the opposite. A similar case can be made for intuition, however this would be more focused on intuitions abstraction and e8s realism. Some people have considered sp8 to be on the debatable side of things when it comes to ISTP and ISFP, however I personally disagree and find the introverted and judging dichotomies to be contradictory for the reasons I named previously.  Types you might want to look into if you are on this list are e2, e3, e4, e6, e7 and e9.
Compatible types- Self preservation: ESFP, ESTP Sexual: ESFP, ESTP  Social: ESFP, ESTP
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foodfightnovelization · 1 year ago
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Introduction
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So here it is, here's the book we're going to read together. I'm aware this is a Junior Novelization and is basically a book for small children, but it's interesting for SO MANY reasons so please just indulge me on my bullshit for a little while.
First of all, the fact that it's a novelization of the movie Foodfight!. I'm sure if you're reading this blog you've already heard of the movie so I'm not going to spend too much time going over the basics, but to cut a long story short, Foodfight! is a 2012 animated children's movie directed by Lawrence Kasanoff, centering around a supermarket that comes to life at night. Said city is populated by "Ikes", icons of the various brands of grocery store product e.g. Mr Clean, the California Raisins, Charlie Tuna, as well as original characters like Dex Dogtective and Daredevil Dan. In many ways, you could say this movie is like Wreck-It Ralph if it took place in a grocery store instead of an arcade. You could ALSO say this movie is like if a cartoon dog fought Nazis, poorly attempted to recrate the "La Marseillaise" scene from Casablanca, and hung around with a racist caricature played by Wayne Brady who regularly talks about wanting to ejaculate in/on various women. And all of that would be true, because this movie is crazy loco. Because of that, it's hard to imagine what it'd be like in book form, but it's interesting for other reasons too:
The film itself had a long and painful development. Originally intended to release in 2003, the release date shifted to 2006, then 2007, until it FINALLY came out in 2012. Over the years, the animation was redone so many times that it went from looking like this:
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To looking like this:
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Around 2006 (one of the initial release dates for the movie) various merchandise for the movie was in development, ranging from picture books, to plush toys, to even a videogame that had a playable demo at E3 2006. The game was never released, but the picture books eventually made into stores, and the plush toys were sold off to various arcades, claw machines and carnivals as prizes. However, there's one piece of merchandise I've never seen discussed ANYWHERE online- and that's the novelization.
I found it on eBay a few weeks ago and just HAD to buy it. There were so many questions in my head right away: Why was the novelization was published in 2008, four whole years before the actual movie came out? Okay, it's probably just because the movie was planned to release around that time at one point, but how is there no other information about this anywhere online? If this was published in 2008, is there a chance it's based on an earlier version of the movie and has vast differences from the finished film? (if you can even really call the film "finished"...) The book says it contains 8 pages of color stills from the movie- again, how can that be when this was 4 years before the movie came out?
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I just couldn't leave all these questions unanswered, and so here it is in my hand (next to the Daredevil Dan plush I own because I'm NORMAL about this movie), Foodfight!: The Junior Novelization. As far as I can tell, this was the ONLY copy of the book available for purchase anywhere (is it maybe even the only copy in existence? Why is this book so vague and unknowable?) so I'm really at the forefront as far as discussion of this is concerned, on account of being the only person to even know it exists. Once I'm done talking about it though, I'll be uploading the entire book to the Internet Archive so everyone can get a chance to read it themselves. But for those yearning for a page-by-page analysis comparing the novelization to the finished film, I'm your girl! Stick with me and we'll strawberry jam our way through this enigma of a book.
Chapter 1 analysis coming soon!
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pendragaryen · 2 years ago
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The 100 rewatch 2023 S1 E3
Episode “Earth Kills”  
A word in advance: I always loved and appreciated the way they were playing around with the episode titles back then. Sadly it completely got lost in the translation into german. There the 2nd and 3rd (”Earth Skills” and “Earth Kills”) episodes titles are: “Wir sind nicht allein” which basically means ���We’re not alone” and “Wozu man Freunde hat” which can be translated to “What friends are for”... See? The initial meaning got totally lost here. It’s frustrating. Therefore i’m only watching in english language. (The german voice actors aren’t the best either... so... it wasn’t a hard choice for me in the first place...) This just as a little info before i begin. ;) Now here i go, my Earth Kills-live rewatch is about to start!
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“Previously on The 1OO...” Oh Bob’s voice! NICEEE!
Awww... Flashback to happier days on the ark. The Wells- and Griffin-families are watching an old football match together. Also: MEET PAPA-GRIFFIN! Maybe it’s bc i’m getting older but... he’s quite the DILF isn’t he?! Haha... sorry... hormones..
Earth, now: Jasper is in so much pain. He’s screaming... Meanwhile little Charlotte is screaming too. She’s got nightmares. But there’s MOMMA BEAR CLARKE immediately tending to her. “Maybe being on the ground is our 2nd chance” Clarke’s trying not just to cheer up Charlotte but also herself...
Two kids of the 100 out alone in the woods for a little rendezvous. Oh! There’s the acid fog already! I forgot it came so early in the series. Poor kiddos... They just wanted to have some fun...
Asdfghjkl BELLAMY! Bellamy and his hatchet. Training and aiming at a tree. Hit me baby one more time... seriously... Bellamy and Murphy are unnerved by Jasper’s screams echoing through the camp. Atom thinks the screams are frightening the kids. Oh look! Murphy isn’t half as good as Bellamy aiming at that tree... lol nice try... Bell and the others want to go hunting.
Meanwhile in the dropship: Clarke’s worried. She tries to fix Jasper’s wound but it’s really a task of its own. Wells and Finn are helping.
O and Atom. She wants to sneak out of camp with him - but he doesn’t even reply. Oh... she has a certain suspicion now... She’s FUMING when she enters Bellamy’s tent, he’s preparing himself for the hunt. “You can’t keep everyone away from me!” He must’ve threatened Atom. She’s so done with this brotherly overprotectiveness..
Jasper’s screams cutting through their dispute and they’re both off to the dropship. There, Bell’s pessimistic: “That kid’s (Jasper) is a goner.” Clarke’s IMMEDIATELY in his face tho “DOWN HERE EVERY LIFE MATTERS!” - Bell wants to kill Jasper when he’s not getting any better within the day. “You don’t have the guts to make the hard choices. I do.”
Everyone is pissed or shook by his words, especially Monty “What a selfserving jackass!” but FINN (of all people...) defends Bell in a way “He also happens to be right...” Yeah well..
Flashback again. Abby and Jake are talking about the ark’s system failure he discovered. The ark is going to get out of oxygene in a forseeable future - which basically means certain death for the ark’s citizens. He wants to make it public but Abby’s desperately trying to hold him back.
On earth, now, Clarke’s found some herbs that could help with Jasper‘s wound. She, Wells and Finn go off into the woods to fetch some more. Oh look! They find an old car which basically stucks hidden in the ground.
Charlotte secretly followed Bellamy and the others on their hunting trip. OUPS! Bell almost hit her with his hatchet!!! Kiddo’s tough tho. She wants to stay, although the forest might be too dangerous for a little child. She even wants to hunt herself.
Meanwhile Clarke’s found some of the herbs in a river. But suddenly there are harsh noises: A swarm of birds coming towards the group! Then there’s kind of an alarm to hear, a siren. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! But they don’T have time to think about it bc a toxic looking storm cloud is rushing towards them!!! Like the birds before, they’re fleeing now too.
Flashback/The ark: Aw, baby Clarke and Wells playing chess together. Just besties having a good time. But Clarke’s worried. She’s telling him about the discovery her father made about the ark... and that he wants to go public with it! Wells reassures her “Your secret is save with me.” Mh...
On earth, now: The acid fog is everywhere now. Bell and Charlotte hurry to seek shelter in a cave together. In the dropship Octavia is worried “My brother is out there!”
Clarke, Finn and Wells find shelter in that old hidden car in the ground. Oh nice, there’s also an old bottle of whiskey. Finn immediately takes a sip. They have to sit out the storm anyway so they could as well have a drink.
It’s night now. In the cave Charlotte wakes up screaming again from a nightmare. But there’s DAD BELLAMY, reassuring her with his deep, hoarse voice. (Woah i mean it! It’s SO DEEP! I’m shivering... ) He’s probably used to similar situations with his sister back on the ark. “Slay your demons while you’re awake.” Oh-oh--
“Down here weakness is death, fear is death...” Well Bellamy... That’s some approach to soothe a kid after having a nightmare... But then he adviced her to hold on tight to her knife and face her fears: “ Screw you, i am not afraid!” The initial thought is nice. Seriously.......
Meanwhile in that hidden car: We learn, why Clarke’s hating Wells so damn much. “Remember the time when you betrayed me and got my father executed?” OUCH... That hits. She’s also drunken now. Wells defends himself “I made a mistake”. Kind of a weak excuse... Is he hiding something? Maybe?
Oh god... every word from Clarke hits now “If you were be my friend you would walk out into this fog and never come back...” Jesus... she’s so hurt and pissed. 
In the dropship Murphy’s got enough, he wants to put an end to Jasper’s screams - and his life. Once and for all. But he’s been shut out from the higher deck by Octavia and co. Thank goodness..
Another flashback/The ark: Jake’s recording his message for the people of the ark and Clarke comes in witnessing it. They have an argument. Clarke’s so worried for his savety. But BOOM there are the guards already storming in, arresting Jake for treason... HOW COULD THEY KNOW?! It sinks in... Wells... right? shit... Clarke is screaming!
Earth, now: The acid fog is gone. Clarke and the others on their way back to camp. Finn confronts Wells about his betrayal on Clarke. Another weak reply: “I made a choice. And if she hates me for the rest of her life...” Ouch...
Bell and Charlotte are searching for the others of the hunting group in the forest. They meet. But where’s Atom?
Finn wants to play the referee between Clarke and Wells now. “How sure are you that Wells’s the one who turned in your dad?” He noticed that Wells might hide something... Clarke snaps back, she’s sure, she seemingly doesn’t WANT to forgive him - but you can see his words are gnawing on her. - Suddenly we hear Charlotte’s screams!
Charlotte has found Atom. He’s lying on the ground, gravely wounded and bleeding, visibly in heavy pain. Is that what the acid fog does to people?! Omg! Bell’s kneeling at his side, but he seems so overwhelmed by the situation. It’s clear to him: Atom won’t make it. It would be merciful to help him die... Atom even begs for it... Oh god... it hurts so much to see that guy suffer... But Bell’s just sitting there, the knife already in his hand, paralyzed and shook to the core...
And then Clarke appears behind him. He senses here before he sees her. She kneels down on Atom’s other side. She also notices very quickly that there’s no hope for Atom to survive this. Clarke flashes Bell a desperate look. There is no other way. OH GOD. I can’t even look at what comes next... but yes... i do it anyway...
Clarke takes the knife from Bellamy’s hand... and while humming a little lullaby to soothe him she plunged the blade into Atom’s neck, puts him out of his misery... And Charlotte’s witnessing it all... Oh-oh.--
Bell’s clearly and utterly impressed by Clarke’s doing. He’s almost in awe, can’t take his eyes off her. NOW WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE GUTS TO MAKE THE HARD CHOICES, HUH?! Bell’s seeing the princess with different eyes now. He’s got a lot of respect for her now. Nice for a change.
Back in camp Octavia’s mourning Atom’s death. She doesn’t want Bell to comfort her or any explanation and storms off crying. Bell IMMEDIATELY takes all his frustration about his inability to help Atom and the reaction of O onto Murphy, who’s just insulted Octavia. Suddenly there’s a lot of aggressive tension. But Murphy gives in. Good for him.
Flashback to the ark again: Jake’s about to be getting floated. Abby is desperate. Wells and his father are there too, of course. They can’t even look at the Griffins. Jake says goodbye to Abby, gives her his wedding ring. Oh gosh and suddenly Clarke’s there too, rushing into her father’s arms. She’s crying hard. Jake’s giving her his watch she’s later wearing in memory of him. Clarke doesn’t want to let go of him.
Just before he gets floated Jake only has eyes for the two women he loves, especially for Clarke. Then he gets sucked out into the vacuum. Very sudden, very fast.
Clarke’s breakdown in her mother’s arms is heartbreaking and hard to watch... Jesus i have to blink back tears, even though it might be already the 10th time i’m seeing this. This is so sad, gods...
Back in camp, today: Clarke’s tending on Jasper with the weeds she brought. He’s finally fallen asleep. - Out there Wells is digging graves yet again. Clarke appears, asking him right away: “It was my mom, wasn’t it?” She thought about it. What Finn was saying was probably just the last push she needed to come around. Maybe she didn’t want to see the truth until now. It’s too painful. Her own mother turned her father in... WHY?!
And Wells... Omg, good boy Wells took ALL THE BLAME on himself, just so that Clarke wouldn’t have to hate her own mom... Imma cry... What a selfless friend! Jesus, what you do when you’re in love... I’m speechless...
Oh, look! Jasper’s awake again! And he already wants a shot of moonshine... great... That’s not how you’re getting better, moron!
And then in the end... i feared it...
Charlotte and Wells... I see the bad moon rising. Seriously... Out of the blue inmidst an innocent talk... she’s STABBING HIM DOWN!!! She hit him with her knife! At the same spot, where Clarke had plunged her own knife into Atoms neck!!! Wells father killed her parents. His father’s face is what’s haunting her in her nightmares every night. “Slay your demons...” OH MY GOD... SHE TOOK THAT LITERALLY! Bell’s still got a lot to learn about parenting it seems... JESUS NO! NOT WELLS! Even after all this time i’m still cursing at my screen! WTF CHILD!  - Well... What a LOST child... Completely broken. That’s not even fair on all fronts... It’s so controversial.
Bellamy had all the good intentions - and it lead to so much pain. That’s hard. But he couldn’t have forseen this! How could he? IT IS NOT HIS FAULT! But that doesn’t make things any better. It just HURTS to see Wells die in such a bad and unnecessary way! Right after he had been forgiven by his Clarke... I CANNOT... I admit it... I shed a tear. I’ll probably always do it at this point. Wells Jaha deserved better. And we all know it. Woah that’s quite a show we’re watching here. And it certainly makes you pensive.
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Tough stuff. But from now on... almost every episode is tbh. That’s the route we’re taking here. Serious shit’s happening - and is coming towards us. We know this now, at latest after finishing this episode. The mere THOUGHT that a kid should be capable of such a cruel act is almost unbearable. It‘s so hard to watch and it overpowers almost everything else that happened this episode. Jake’s death was very sad to see. But i understand why he had to try to warn the people, who are otherwise completely oblivious to what’s really going on with the ark’s survival systems. Also incisive: The mercy-killing of Atom... All these moments hit like a ton of bricks and make us, the audience, realize, what kind of show we‘re watching here. It’s dark and very disturbing but SO INTRIGUING and interesting you just want to watch further.
What i liked: Bellamy learns to respect Clarke, he even admires her for her courage.  Wells and Clarke’s reconciliation.
What i disliked: Isn’t that obvious? Charlotte killing Wells. Jake’s death. Clarke and Wells fighting (with words). It’s not nice to see Atom die either...
Fave quote(s): “Maybe being on the ground is our second chance”
Song(s) i associate with the episode: “It’s the fear” by Within Temptation (”It's the fear, fear of the dark. It's growing inside of me, that one day will come to life. - Long ago it came to me and ever since that day, infected with its rage, but it ends today. ”)
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the-shining-river · 2 years ago
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Karen’s relationships and priorities, DD S1
I’m rewatching DD S1, and some posts about Karen’s relationship with Matt got me thinking about her priorities and interests.
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In this podcast DD S3 writer Erik Oleson talks (starting from around 14:00 mark) about Karen’s feelings of guilt and how it has kinda prevented her from forming real romantic attachments, but I think it’s also that... she doesn’t trust easily.
In S1 we also see how Matt and Foggy—two people she would like to build a closer romantic or platonic relationship with—periodically shut her out because of some other shit going on with them. At the same time, Karen is so passionate about things she believes in, and so dead-ass focused on other stuff; and if she doesn’t trust or want other people involved (to keep them safe), or if they’ve left her hanging, she’ll just go ahead and do it alone. First, it’s about her survival past the framing and the attack in the prison, then the stuff with the Union Allied NDA agreement, then investigating the truth with Ben Urich, then getting real invested in helping Mrs Cardenas. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for dating, even if she was in the headspace to go out and actively look for romance.
More details and receipts under the cut.
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In S1, Karen is initially distrustful of the two lawyers, wondering about their motives and also not wanting to endanger them, preferring to do things by herself. She doesn’t tell either Matt or Foggy about the Union Allied file she stole, she doesn’t consult them about the Union Allied non-disclosure agreement, doesn’t share about going to that auction where she bought all that unnecessary office equipment.
Instead, Karen, on her own, seeks out Daniel’s widow to find out what others in her position have done about the NDA and possibly find an ally; and then she goes to Ben Urich—supposedly someone with experience in handling this sort of dangerous information.
Because she doesn’t trust anyone else. Because good people get dead because of her.
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Karen and Foggy have bonded over that night of drinking in E2 and helping Mrs Cardenas in E5, and I can believe that they are actually friends. Even if Foggy, for a while, has a crush on Karen, while she simply doesn’t seem to feel the chemistry, and it’s awkward for a bit, they get over it and continue being friends.
But not Karen and Matt. Past that little bit of bonding talk when she was staying in Matt’s apartment that first night, and throughout her being busy with all her other stuff, Karen and Matt’s relationship doesn’t seem to progress beyond being coworkers and allies.
The way Matt in E3 only asks her to not have any more long lunches, it feels like he treats her simply as his employee. And in E5 when Karen has charged the auctioned office equipment to the law firm, her first concern is getting her ass fired, not how she’s gonna explain it to the guys on a personal vs professional level.
There is some attraction, a crush on Matt from Karen’s side (I think she has a bit of a competence kink too) that comes out when Matt gives cool speeches or speaks fluent Spanish to Mrs Cardenas. In E5, Foggy mentions to her how Matt always gets involved with the wrong girl, and Karen IS curious, asking about his dating habits and the face touching. She also has that cute flustered smile on her face when she calls Matt while Foggy is in the hospital following the explosions in E6. But they’re not friends, and whatever crush Karen has on Matt, it’s low-key enough that it doesn’t seem to impact her priorities or her work in the office, it’s not informing her decisions.
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One of the reasons why it’s not really going anywhere is that every time Karen brings up something that is important to her (the truth about Union Allied, or helping Mrs Cardenas), Matt’s response is kinda dismissive, or it’s the bare minimum effort. If he then goes and does something about it as Daredevil, Karen doesn’t know that. Mrs Cardenas’ case gets delegated to Foggy while Matt continues following his Daredevil leads on Fisk. Even when asked about what he thinks about the Daredevil being painted a terrorist, Matt jokes and avoids answering her, and then gives a careful, lawfully neutral reply to Foggy:
“What happened to Hell’s Kitchen, to you and to Elena, and to all the people that were hurt, yeah, it pisses me off. But this man, whoever he is, whatever his motive, he shouldn’t be tried and convicted in the press. We’re lawyers, we know that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
Foggy suspects something is going on with Karen, suspects she has secrets, but Matt is not even particularly interested. “Everyone has secrets,” he says before returning to his research on Leland (and lying that it’s about the tenement case), whereas Foggy’s reaction to being discovered following her is plain honest and straightforward: “You were acting weird. I was worried about you!” — because that’s what friends do, they pay attention and they worry.
Karen and Foggy order the Nelson & Murdock sign together. They investigate the construction workers together, while Matt is off in the art gallery investigating Vanessa. She apparently poses for a silly picture for Foggy (see the caller ID when Karen calls him in E10). When Mrs Cardenas dies in E9, it’s Foggy Karen turns to for a comforting hug, ends up sitting the wake with him at Josie’s after Matt leaves.
While still having that crush on Matt in E8 (because feelings aren’t always neat and logical), Karen knows him well enough by then to have pretty realistic expectations regarding his reactions. When Foggy mentions that they should tell Matt about them investigating Union Allied, Karen’s clear position is that they shouldn’t, because he will be against it:
“Matt wouldn’t understand. You know what he would say. [..]That we’re being stupid.”
And then, Matt does exactly that. He dismisses Karen’s trust in Ben Urich, says she’s been acting like a kid, that they need to be “smart about this”. The message Karen gets is that all the work she and Foggy have put into their research while he was away doing... personal (Daredevil) stuff, apparently is anything but “smart”, and only Matthew Murdock can do it in a smart way (It’s an understandable overprotective reaction from Matt, considering he just rescued a beaten up Claire who was kidnapped because of him, but again — Karen has no idea where he’s coming from, and he’s not explaining).
Matt strong-arms them into playing it safe, and for a guy who was pretty chill about “everyone having secrets”, he kinda goes off about Foggy having followed Karen and them both getting into trouble, and then he shuts them both down and starts making decisions like he’s in charge, not like he’s an equal member of their team. And they somehow let him. Because Matt has this confidence about him. The air of leadership.
Matt: “I don’t want anyone to be a hero, Karen. I want you to be safe. And I want to protect this firm and everything we’re trying to build here. We know the law. We’ll use that to our advantage. Agreed?”
Foggy: “Do we have a choice?”
Matt: “Not so much.”
Karen doesn’t believe the law would solve this, but she agrees to work with Matt—whatever gets the case solved, because it’s so important to her, and because he is a highly intelligent lawyer.
She’s still kinda bitter in E9 when Ben comes to the law office and meets Matt officially (”Matt Murdock, attorney-at-why-the-hell-bother”), but she gets flustered and smiling when she and Matt are left alone in the office. It feels like, chafing as she is under Matt’s unilateral decision to run things by the book, that take-charge attitude is also something that appeals to Karen, at that point. I think it makes her feel safe, that he’s willing to take control of all this mess, even if Matt admits he’s making it all up as he goes.
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So it feels... definitely not straightforward. There’s an attraction and a liking, from Karen’s side, and an admiration for Matt’s intelligence and strong beliefs, his goodness; but there’s also frustration with his commitment to the law and the way he tends to make unilateral decisions instead of discussing things with her and Foggy.
In terms of relationships, it feels like she’s actually the closest to Ben, at that point. They share a passion for uncovering the truth, they both see the world in terms of stories to tell. (”All the people here, all the years that they’ve lived, there must be so many stories,” she gushes to Ben when they visit the nursing home.) He’s her mentor, the brave, experienced champion for justice that Karen has so much to learn from (including being careful).
In E10, we even see Karen opening up to Ben emotionally, a bit, and that’s not something Karen Page does often:
“There's nothing worse... Feeling choices are made for us. There's nothing you can do, but swim in shit and hope you don't get too much in your mouth.”
I suppose, talking about his wife’s illness and why he didn’t tell her (”Saying it means it’s true”) struck a chord. Karen knows from personal experience how “We all have things we hold onto for ourselves, that we don’t want anyone to know”.
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So yeah, I’m not sure where Karen’s attraction to Matt comes from. They’re not open with each other; Matt the lawyer doesn’t show any particular interest in her causes; and he makes unilateral decisions when the three should be a team.
During the wake for Mrs Cardenas in E9, they talk a bit, Matt mentions he’s Catholic, and Karen says she's not religious—a personal subject outside of their established boss/secretary boundaries. She even tries to comfort him (”Fisk will get what he deserves. You have to believe that.”), but she just spends so much more quality time with Foggy or even Ben than she does with Matt.
But maybe Matt’s aloofness and unavailability is another thing that attracts her to him. Maybe that she finds him more conventionally handsome than Foggy? The way he’s more confident? And, yeah, maybe for Karen he feels safer, finally a good boyfriend material, considering her dating history in Vermont?
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It feels like Karen’s dynamic with Matt changes in E11 when she’s faced with the most glaring evidence that Matt’s lying to her about something big. There’s disappointment. A realisation that Matt never trusted her after she lied about the Union Allied pension file, and so maybe it’s her own fault that her budding feelings were never returned (not that she regrets keeping him and Foggy safely out of it).
It ends in Matt’s stubborn silence and Karen’s sad disappointment. But at the same time, it feels like the first real glimpse she has of him, without the rose-tinted glasses. The way she approaches and touches his face, she acts like his equal, not his employee with a crush. Even if Matt’s response right after she updates him on her findings is to issue her tasks and instructions—to go to the office, contact Foggy. He obviously cares about her (her safety), but he still treats her as his subordinate, to some extent. Or as some kind of a passive object for him to keep safe (also the way Matt just tells Foggy to “Get her home” in E13 despite Karen’s protests that they’re not leaving him.)
In any case, when Karen had tried calling him, when Karen had wanted to tell him what she was doing going to the nursing home, Matt simply hadn’t been picking up.
And then Foggy doesn’t pick up either, and doesn’t show up at the office and refuses to talk about it. Both lawyers are shutting her out, her relationships suddenly not as solid as she had believed them to be, the law practice hanging by the thread, and Karen is upset and freaking out, and the only thing remaining steadfast is her desire to bring down Fisk. Even with Ben she hits a rough patch after she has tricked him into going to the nursing home, but at least they hash it out and move on.
Then Wesley meets the wrong end of his gun, and Karen feels so alone. This is a Very Bad Thing that has happened, and she doesn’t dare tell anyone.
She can’t sleep, goes to the office, meets Foggy and rightfully gives him shit about not picking up when she calls and just pretending to care about what’s going on with her.
But, like with Ben, they hash it out. Foggy can’t give her the answers she wants, so Karen backs down and instead just directly asks what she needs, that “it would be really nice not to be alone” in the office as they deal with Fisk. Foggy apologises and promises that he will be around and keep working on Fisk’s case and that he won’t be ignoring her calls. This is Karen stating her emotional needs. This is Karen compromising! This is how she is fighting her loneliness, telling people in no uncertain terms what actions they can take to make her feel better (show up at the office and pick up the damn phone), and honestly I just love her for it.
(later, in TP S1, we also see this with Frank—he’s not telling her about Kandahar and doesn’t want her involved, so, as a compromise, she asks to see him again so she knows he’s okay, and he agrees)
With Ben it’s also important that he’s the only one who has managed to unearth Karen’s past, and that, knowing all that, he still cares about her. He understands her fear of other people discovering it, and understands her frustration from her inability to publish the story herself our of a fear she’d be discredited. Ben goes along with her urging and pushing him after Wesley in E12, because getting the truth out there is so important to her, and so he gets one of those wonderful Karen hugs.
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When Matt, coming from Madame Gao’s heroin warehouse in E12, says he “can’t do it alone”, that he “can’t take another step”, it powerfully echoes with Karen’s own recent feelings of being alone while being caught in Matt and Foggy’s drama, only whatever has happened to Matt is obviously so much worse than what Karen is/was experiencing. So Matt gets a hug too. Hugs and involvement compromises are Karen’s love language.
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Karen really, really doesn’t do well with being shut out of conversations and relationships (wonder where that trauma might have come from...). In E13, she legit basks in the atmosphere when the avocados figure their shit out and all three start working together again.
“It’s the way it should be. [..] Nelson and Murdock.”
And in the end:
Foggy: Now everybody knows what kind of asshole Fisk really is.
Karen: And we are the ones that made it happen, the three of us.
And in the very very end of S1 when Fisk is put away for real this time, I love how the three of them are joking and bantering like a team, like equals. Even if there’s still a crush happening (Karen gets all flustered the moment Foggy leaves to meet up with Marci, leaving her with Matt), it also feels like they’re all on a much more level footing, and that there’s some real actual flesh to Karen’s relationship with Matt, ambiguous as it may be.
The way he finally asks about what it was that he has been hearing in her voice, Karen finally knows that Matt cares about her as a person too, not just someone to keep safe.
Matt: I thought whatever it was, whatever’s been... I thought it would get better once Fisk was put away, but... it hasn’t, has it?
Karen: We put him away, yeah. But it won’t bring back Elena or Ben, or erase what we’ve been through, or... what we’ve had to do to get here.
Matt: Yeah. A lot of decisions I’d give anything to go back and change. But I can’t. None of us can. It’s like I told Foggy, all we can do is move forward, together.
That little dialogue is a beautiful mix of ‘too little too late’ (Karen doesn’t have much of an incentive to tell anyone about Wesley if Fisk is put away and she’s safe), and Matt kinda opening up and offering his thoughts, and at the same time both are retreating into their own heads for a bit (each referencing something the other has no idea about).
The way Karen looks at him, with his extended hand, no flustering, for once, just this serious, penetrating gaze, like she sees him for the first time, that interpretation depends on your goggles I guess. She could be taking it as a confirmation that her interest is returned. Could be a sort of an olive branch, an apology for how he shut her out before. Could be both, why not. Either way, it looks like something solid, something real, and a new beginning or a levelup for Matt and Karen, and that’s beautiful.
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TL;DR
So, in terms of Karen’s priorities in DD S1, I’d say she has a very passionate urge to unearth the truth and get justice done to the bad guys (through legal efforts or via the Daredevil). That’s her driving factor, everything else is pretty much secondary.
Emotionally, she definitely thrives in a group, among friends and allies sharing an open atmosphere. It’s interesting how she seems to make a distinction between telling lies and simply hiding things or lying by omission. Because she certainly does her own share of hiding things and not opening up to the people in her life about what’s going on with her, but she certainly wants to be able to trust what people say, and doesn’t do well at all when told something is not her business and to not get involved or that “nothing” is going on. Her own strategy is flying under the radar in all her unassuming blonde secretary glory, and in such way avoiding any interest for people to ask her questions in the first place. But if pestered (if anyone showed they cared enough), she might actually tell the truth. In return, if she has noticed something going on with other people, she expects to be told the truth, not just be shut out.
Being shut out just leads to Karen doing her thing anyway, but behind people’s backs. Because relationships are important, but not AS important as getting to the truth of the matter that she’s investigating. In case of S1 that’s Fisk, so Matt and his secrets simply get lucky. However, if a relationship is strong enough, Karen can and will push for some kind of a compromise regarding her involvement, taking into consideration how much shutting out she can take before the relationship suffers permanent damage.
If it’s not strong enough, she’ll chafe and silently disagree, and then go do her own thing in secret. So voicing her needs and compromising is a mark of a good relationship, in case of Karen Page.
And voicing this need for inclusion also seems the be the most emotionally open that she ever gets with anyone in S1. In case of Foggy, it might simply take more time for her to open up to him about her past, but the friendship feels solid there. With Matt, it’s a bumpy road, and learning that she can treat him like a friend and make demands of him, or offer comfort, that feels like the greatest milestone in her S1 relationship with Matt.
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Probably to be continued in Part II about DD S2 eventually..
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bahbahhh · 2 years ago
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The Killing Moon Author's Note
He asks if he remembers her.
He doesn’t answer.
There is quiet longing between them in moments when they are alone that Link still cannot place. He thinks he needs time but Hyrule won’t grant them peace. Especially not when there is a kingdom to rebuild and the Blood Moon still rises. But Link doesn’t want to rebuild, he just wants-
(Or, Breath of the Wild 1.5 for those who are tired of waiting.)
Rated E - Post BoTW/ TotK theories - 50,834 words - complete
Read The Killing Moon on Ao3
(Two months later, here it is!) Wow. I cannot believe this story is finally done. I started writing this before so much of what defines me and my life today even happened…I look back at 2017 and the things that used to excite me, bother me, worry me have shifted and changed so significantly…and yet LoZ remains
There have been a few games in my lifetime that have touched me this way, becoming sources of comfort during challenging or stressful times, never losing their luster. (“Seriously, you are playing that again, B?” ) The idea for The Killing Moon came following a frantic explosion of creative energy after I finished BotW for the first time.  I didn’t want it to be over. I remember diving into fanfiction at the time, hungry for anything and everything that would keep the story alive.
Then I decided to write a multi-chapter, lore-heavy, character-study of a fanfiction. As my first stab at fanfiction. Because, why not.
I churned out several chapters REALLY fast (I think 9??) and then my life got busy, my attention shifted, and before I knew, it had been years.
I would occasionally think about the story, sometimes making a mental note to go back and delete it, only to forget about it again…To be honest, I was nervous to look back at my writing and get stuck….I had had a vague outline of where I was going that was lost, so all I had in my head was a final confrontation under Hyrule Castle (more on this later).
Following a replay of BotW and the 2021 E3…I decided to do a massive edit, removing chaptering 2-9 completely, and reworking the plot to align more cohesively with what we received about the sequel. The story had a clear endpoint and it took off from there.
Major changes/themes/story notes
[MAJOR CHANGE] the tense:
I switched the ENTIRE story from past to present tense (I am positive I've slipped up here and there…I did not have a beta and, alas, I am not an editor…truly, this was written in the sleepy moments I get at the end of the day when my kids are in bed).
The Killing Moon was never meant bring much resolution and I felt present tense lent itself better to the suspense and tension I wanted present throughout with this in mind. Also, from the beginning, this story has been primarily about Link beginning the process of unpacking some of his trauma. I wanted a chance to deepen my version of Link POV and intensify the complexity of emotions he might face after all he has endured…I wanted to honor the complexity living with trauma. At times, it was meant to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable and confusing. He is actively remembering his past in this story, specifically recalling personal details no one else can give him. Even Zelda is limited in what she can tell him about himself and as Link says, it feels wrong (even though she would gladly do it) to hold her accountable for chronicling his life. So if he wants it, he must endure it.
[THEME] loss of knowledge to time/making decisions on incomplete information:
I also wanted a tense that promoted unreliability…this story is very much a guessing game. For us (the fandom) with the sequel coming, but also the characters themselves…literally working back from the almost-end of the world where many of the information-keepers died and records were destroyed/lost.
BotW is a post-apocalyptic Hyrule.  The “golden age” is long gone. Even the “robust” Hyrule we see in the events of 100 years ago do not hold a candle to what is alluded to exist in Hyrule 10,000 years prior. There is little/no mention of KEY elements in LoZ lore because they have been lost to time, purposely concealed, and then forgotten over the ages.
“Goddess, don't tell me you’ve forgotten your sacred charge? “A pause. “The power without equal. The hidden treasure of Sky Keep? Broken by Twilight’s touch? Fa ha ha…The birth of the Calamity has even faded into myth, hasn't it?...Now give me what I ask in return for the secrets of the Triforce.” (Horned statue, Chapter 4)
In the Killing Moon, first time they have ever heard about the Triforce is from a demon.
This Link and Zelda, in a way, resemble the first version of themselves. They have very little guidance. The history they are working through is incomplete and potentially inaccurate (maybe even skewed by those who recorded it) and yet, they must face destiny all the same. As we saw in BotW, destiny doesn’t wait for you to be prepared.
[THEME] the burden of destiny/ trauma across lifetimes:
Jacob Geller provides a beautiful narration to the theme of darkness in the Zelda series as a whole and does a magnificent job of summarizing what sets BotW apart.  “It is a game in which each acre, every abandoned stable and crumbled temple and forgotten spring is a monument to your failures.”
I didn’t come upon this video until very recently, but I feel like it captures the essence of the the "big picture stuff" I was aiming for with Link.  The first scene I wrote for The Killing Moon was actually his panic attack in chapter 3:
"Nothing - left of me," he continues in a desperate whisper. He can’t read her face. "If we have to - again," His hands are sweeping in front of him, tracing his broken speech in patterns that feel true. “I won't come back. My body but I-”
A new resolve takes hold of him. He doesn’t need her to just hear him -he wants her word. He’s in her face now. She takes him up in her hands again, and furiously thumbs away the tears from his cheeks. He is supposed to be dead. He whimpers and dips his head down, chewing, chewing, chewing on the words. 
"Not-not even sure I'm fully alive!" 
To die (I know the jury is out on whether he actually dies or not, but in The Killing Moon, he does die 100 years ago), come back without your memories (essentially the stuff that make us who we are), into a world that has seen generations since you closed your eyes, and be thrust back into a destiny you have already failed…and then the WEIGHT of your past lives…thinking about the overstimulation alone breaks my heart. I feel it in my gut.
Now that Link has finally done it, “completed” the task he was charged with 100 years ago, what happens to the weight of duty when the war is won? What happens to a weapon? Does he get put on a mount somewhere, too? Does he turn to dust?
He can’t even figure that out because of the inescapability of his fate. In the first chapter, he is called to destiny a THIRD time in a single lifetime.
He is also trying to make sense of this with another person. Someone he learns he once loved, who still loves him, who he understands has danced with him in these roles over many lifetimes.
Is there any part of this soul that is his alone? (Chapter 7)
How much of this was manufactured? Does that even matter to him now? Can he allow himself to have feelings? In BotW, we learn 100 years ago Link felt so burdened by duty, he stopped speaking (in The Killing Moon, it is a total loss of the already very little verbal speech he had as an individual who is/was selectively mute.) Now, faced with another “calamity” of sorts, it is his feelings toward Zelda, in particular, he struggles with. And she as well -can they allow this when they know what is at stake?  There is a push and pull intentionally through the story, the impact of severely ingrained GUILT for wanting more than what they are destined for. Wanting each other more than anything.
 “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard stories about your travels, all you’ve done for everyone else since you woke up.  It doesn't feel like my Hyrule anymore.  It feels like yours.”
“It can be yours, too.” His voice frays at the end. He sets his hands on her thighs. Something burns in his throat.  
“It’s OK. I’m at peace with this. Really, I am. I will do everything I can to protect it. To protect them. For you.” (Chapter 10)
Also a feeling that their timing is off. Their specific time together, that they were supposed to have, has past (I think we see it in AOC tbh). They’ve lost that to destiny, too.
[MAJOR CHANGE] Big Bad
"A Spring is created only when a divine spirit departs from Hyrule." A mischievous smile. “What is born from shadow? A Void. The Blood Moon is a harbinger of what’s waiting beyond. See, look here-” (Hino, Chapter 3)
In the original draft of this story, before 2019 E3, Void was the name of the "Big Evil" in this Hyrule. It was going to be revealed as another title for Demise, trapped inside Ganondorf who was sealed under Hyrule Castle.  I shit you not, lol. His sealing was going to have been flawed somehow and the malice or essence that escaped is how we get Calamity Ganon. That is why in chapter 7 the movements of CG in the footage are “off”. Basically a dead spirit carcass being possessed by the Big Evil because, fuck, he’s not going to die that easily after 10,000 years and then another 100 more of being this close.
When we got the teasers, Void became a description for the concealed bit of history. I still wanted to play with the themes of parasites/possession and added in the possibility that after his time with Zelda, a silver of the human he was started to come through. You can read my thoughts on the battery theory, which heavily influenced the connection between Ganondorf, Link and Zelda in this story.
“All three or none at all.” (Master Sword, Chapter 7).
Ganondorf too is trapped by his destiny and how TERRIBLE it is to be on THAT side of it. Imagine if your destiny was the soul of not a Hero or a Goddess, but a demon.  What if your destiny was to be the one who will Eat the World? And what if you loved Hyrule? What if Ganondorf was a man of the people, who was trying to do right and the Royal Family tried to ERASE him from history by sealing him away and concealing everything from the records? 
“We are bound too tightly in this fate. We’ve been fighting for a long time. More than a century. It was us ten thousand years ago. It has been the three of us time and time again. Link, when I was in the darkness, sometimes I felt like he was a part of me. And that part was lonely and scared and so tired. I think he wants us to save him like we saved you. Is that crazy?”
I am admittedly pretty obsessed with the idea Zelda feels connected to Ganondorf.
[STORY NOTES] Zonai
Mentioning the Zonai came in the rewrites. Not even on my radar in 2017 when I started The Killing Moon. Clearly, I am firmly in the-Zonai-play-a-big-role-in-the-past-and-TotK-camp. But I didn’t think it was realistic for Link and Zelda to figure out everything about them in this story.
[STORY NOTES] Luminous Stones
Another addition to the rewrite. I became obsessed with all the raw luminous-stone looking crystals in the teasers and ran with the detail about them rumored to contain souls of dead. It did not make it into the story but I did have tons of notes about how these luminous stones might be souls of Zonai or the army of the spear-wielding rider in the pictographs/ petroglyphs and their energy is part of the seal.
[STORY NOTES]Losing the Master Sword
The threat of this was always in the original story but it was emphasized more in the rewrite.
The original story had Link’s nightmare in which the Sword is gone (it was actually written to be symbolic of LINK “becoming” the Master Sword in the nightmare, that his body is the weapon, to be bent and broken and forged again and again with the Shrine of Resurrection). Hyrule Forest–resting place of the Master Sword–was destroyed in the original story. It fits well with TotK. I do wonder if the Lost Woods will be inaccessible for the game or for a part of the game.
[Fun-ish facts]
I love to connect all the LoZ stories and overiously do so with direct references to past lives (this story is SS, TP, Oot-heavy). But there are more indirect references in The Killing Moon I tried to sneak in:
"Wind waker" -  Stamella shroom tonic for soldiers (Wind Waker)
The three comrades from Link's past (Colson, Medin and Jayde) are called "four swords" by their commanding officer. (Four Sword Adventures)
This is dangerous.” Link starts.
“Take this.” Zelda hands him her torch before stepping further into the cave.  (Chapter 11)
(A spin on "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!" The Legend of Zelda 1986)
Thank you to those who have stayed with the story. Thank you to those who are new. I do this for fun and I can't tell you how much it means to me every time I get a notification someone took time out of their day to leave kudos or write a comment or I see the story was bookmarked. Comments/questions always welcome. I am planning to go back and do some minor (mostly grammar) edits but I already have some ideas for a continuation once TotK is out.
I just love this fandom.
B
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bahamutgames · 2 years ago
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RPG TIME: LEGEND OF AFTERTHOUGHTS
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Game: RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright (March 10, 2022)
Console: Xbox One
Look at that! My first RPG of 2023! RPGs are always the biggest part of every year to me, naturally since it’s my favorite genre. So of course it doesn’t take long for me to sink my teeth into one at the start of the new year. And the one we have here is VERY interesting.
I actually bought this game when it launched but it just took me a really long time to finally sink my teeth into it. But I’m very happy to say I did FINALLY play it and now you can read all my thoughts on the experience! How exciting!
As always, this is not a review. This is just me throwing up my thoughts on the game now that it’s done. If you’re interested in playing the game at all, PLEASE check it out and support the devs! Please don’t expect my thoughts to be super well written and don’t expect any serious critique.
SPOILER WARNING FOR RPG TIME: THE LEGEND OF WRIGHT! DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS!!
Opening
SO! This is a little game I’ve had my eyes on since it was revealed a good long while back. It was shown off during E3 I think at one of the Microsoft conferences? Regardless, it was a game I was SUPER excited for, an RPG with a super cute notebook aesthetic? I used to draw my own RPGs all the time as a kid!! I was stoked... And then it just completely fell off my radar.
Until it launched! Then I remembered it existed and had to pick it up asap! But like I said, it took me a good while to play it. But at the start of this year I was out in the living room and decided to finally play it since it had been sitting there for so long. And I’m glad I did cause this was actually a very interesting game.
Stuff I liked
There’s a LOT to love about this silly little game. I think right out of the gate I need to talk about the art style and whole theme around this game’s graphics and aesthetics. I ADORE how this game looks. It’s all played from a first person perspective of you playing an RPG a friend made in their notebook. And because of that the main gameplay is all cute handdrawn pencil sketches, occasionally interrupted by real life items and other fun stuff in the classroom it takes place. I LOVE how this game looks. In addition to being very charming the actual pencil sketches all look great, are cute to look at, and even the real world elements look very good and cute. Thankfully they made a good call by not showing any of the real world humans so I really think the graphics in this are basically never gonna date themselves.
As for other not gameplay things. I think it has a SUPER cute ost (again the theming around the music is ADORABLE as your friend is playing it through an MP3 player and you like, actually see the track names and they come from other made up in-universe games and sources). The writing is also very funny and charming, it’s got a lot of scenes that gave me a good chuckle. Lots of goofy as fuck and random stuff happen so if you want a game where there’s never a dull moment you really cannot go wrong here. The story is also pretty basic BUT it’s standard RPG fare which I always love. Similar to Dragon Quest where the stories are pretty standard high fantasy stuff but it’s always unique enough or something you really haven’t seen before regardless.
I think the part that stuck out to me the most and was probably the most surprising with how much I enjoyed it was the gameplay. Particularly the battles. I LOVED the combat! Like, a LOT. Basically the way it works is you have a pencil sword (the you in the game, not Wright, the guy you play as.) and you have to pick where, when, and what direction to slash across the enemies on the page with that pencil sword. It’s probably not super easy to understand if you don’t see it, but it’s a REALLY clever idea that I LOVED. You’ll have to use it to slash things with timing, hit between bars, ect ect. It’s super cool and I genuinely had a blast with the fights! I do have only 1 problem with them but we’ll get to that later.
Even outside of combat is pretty cute. Not amazing but it’s fun to wander around and see all the little details in each map (there’s TONS). The whole game is just full of loving little details sprinkled across every single page of the notebook. One of my favorite details is how the center fold in the notebook is actually something Wright will walk behind. It’s cute. This game is just so damn cute!
The ending in particular really got me, the final boss is fine but I was pretty surprised that the ending almost made me cry. It’s so good and really emotional. The kid in universe who made this game is a pro. Overall the whole experience was fantastic, there’s great visuals, great character designs, interesting gameplay, and LOTS of crap to see and do. I didn’t even do everything and I already saw stuff I missed out on. There’s special move slot machines, mini ninjas hidden on every page, a drawing minigame. There’s TONS of shit to see and do in this game.
Stuff I didn’t like
Truth be told, with a smaller and more experimental game like this, there’s not a whole lot I can really take away from it as being bad. But there are 2 points I have here that bugged me a little bit through the game.
Number one is just that the game gets a little boring part way through. I would say the airship, town sections, and dice adventure chapters are kind of a drag. Thankfully they’re very short. The game never gets so boring that I don’t want to play but it has some sections where I’m kinda like... Eh? The tank game really stands out to me as being kinda dull. But again thankfully it’s short.
No my main issue with this game is that there’s not enough combat!! I LOVE the battle system in this game! Like SO much! But every fight is a very scripted affair so there’s only a handful you really do through the whole game and you don’t really refight any enemies. This is fine, it worked perfectly fine. But I can’t stop thinking about how much I would LOVE if this game had like, random encounters and stuff and each enemy was a puzzle to figure out. I’m sure that could drag the game’s flow down pretty hard but I think it can be done right, Undertale is a great example of enemies who are puzzles to solve but it works pretty well. And you could have random encounters be done on flash cards so it explains how the pencil markings go away every time.
I think this whole game could benefit from being a more traditional RPG. I know that’s really not the point. But I do think having more battles, a more standard gear system, and junk like that, could be pretty cool! Regardless, if you like RPGs that are lacking in a lot of RPG staples but are still VERY good, I think you cannot go wrong here. I swear this is not an insult but this really reminds me of the secondary Paper Mario trilogy. Both in its art style but how it also tries to make an RPG without doing a lot of the stuff that makes RPG games what they are. However... And I hate to say it, RPG TIME does this a lot better in my opinion, particularly by having REALLY fun combat. I think this new Paper Mario style could honestly learn some stuff from this game.
Final Thoughts
And that’s that on that! My first RPG of 2023! It wasn’t a very traditional one, but it really is a love letter to the genre and now it’s got me REALLY fired up to play a straight up traditional turnbased RPG.
But yeah, I had a great time with this game! It’s a fantastic little game that I haven’t really seen ANYONE play and that is SUCH a shame. I think a lot of people I follow would be REALLY into this. Like seriously if you like RPGs or goofy and cute games or ESPECIALLY Mario RPGs I think you really should check this game out. It’s now out on everything including Steam and Switch, so if you’re interesting I REALLY recommend giving it a chance! This game deserves a lot more attention than it got!
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Thank you for reading! For some reason I had a hard time forming my thoughts on this game so it was a little difficult to write up what I wanted to say about the game. That’s why I liked doing these as twitter threads, it helped me keep my thoughts concise. But sadly I am stuck here... doomed to share my thoughts where no one can see them for eternity. Oh well.
I’ve got a lot of games I want to play this year, so I really need to get a move on. Sad to say I’ve been a little distracted from gaming this month due to being depressed, work, or just getting sidetracked with other games like Fraymakers (which is SO MUCH FUN HOLY SHIT. I hope Wright can show up in it!) and... Embarrassingly, Fornite. Which me and 2 of my siblings who are both very into Battle Royales have gotten very into recently. But I’m FINALLY making some progress into my next major game! So that’s nice. There’s some releases coming out this year I want to check out, lots of stuff on Game Pass I’ve had my eyes on for a while (which I guess I should take advantage of ASAP if it’s gonna go up in price. ugh.) And just TONS of old games I gotta play. My to-play list for 2023 is really stacked! Hopefully I can make time for everything, but if I get distracted by other games not on my list, so be it.
As always follow me on twitter for... uh, twitter stuff... And follow me here for more.... uh, gaming stuff? The year is still young, so let’s make the rest of 2023 great!
That’s all I got, thanks for taking some time out to look at my thoughts! Go out and play a game that makes you feel super creative!
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gingerylangylang1979 · 2 years ago
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Why could Sydney fall for Carmy?
Side note: I like the Carmy x Sydney tag best because that’s how they have each other in their phones. WTF is there a gazillion tags for them? I’m fairly new to tumblr and don’t get it completely. Anyways… 
Back to my rambles. I keep seeing people wondering why Sydney would possibly fall for Carmy the way he will/is falling for her. This also manifests as the thought that Carmy is a loser and she could do better. I balk at these ideas for a few reasons.
1. She is just drawn to him. She just is. I’ll take it to a weird gothic place and say it reminds me of Dracula saying he crossed oceans of time to be with Mina. Like WTF, but also, aaaw, epic. That may seem lame but it’s just the damn truth. Before she even met him she was drawn to him. We know he made the best dish she ever had but we also know she knew he was Food & Wine’s best new chef at 21. Did she know that before she ate his meal in NYC? Either way she knows him before she knows him. We are our creativity. I know the truest forms of me comes out in my creativity which has a few forms (writing, fashion, and the other two are quite personal). I view these characters similarly. If you pay attention to my fic you will get the last two and be like !!! if you really pay attention. Anyways, she knows him because she knows his art. She tasted it, she consumed it, she internalized it… and found it to be perfect. It was so perfect to her that she took a chance on The Beef (what a horrific name, and I eat meat) because of knowing him. And yet…
2. She can’t admit to his face what that knowing him really means to her, the way it makes her feel. It’s so compelling and life changing that she can’t say it to him on her first day, she lies. She’s ok saying she knows him, can list the accomplishments that everyone recognizes. But the thing that is personal and sensual, the most impressive thing she can’t share with him. There are huge implications there. Why can’t she say it to him? Sydney does not hold back. Why can she only say it to Marcus but he had to ask her twice. I don’t even think she realizes she deflected by adding that final touch of acid (oh, the irony). It’s discreet, erotic, vulnerable. She isn’t ready to be those things yet in a visceral way… especially with him. He takes her to that place but she’s not prepared for that place yet. She likes to be in control. She resists help, she wants to be the one caring (giving people the best bacon ever). And yet…
3. She lets Carmy help her. In E3 Marcus tried to help her, Tina tried to help her. The only person she point blank asks for help from is Carmy. Marcus helps her after she rejects his help and she has that sad moment but she kind of just resigns herself to his help because she actually needed it. When she asks Carmen for help in E5, she doesn’t really need it. Like, I think she could figure out how to strain stock on her own and has done it a gazillion times. Like, come on. But she wants to work WITH him, she finds an undefined comfort in him giving her the help when they are having this oddly ambiguous intimate scene. She lets herself be soft with him in a way that isn’t her taking care, it’s her receiving and she asks for it. That dynamic is unique between them. So…
4. She has high emotions with him that are veiled. A lot of their tension could be dismissed simply as work arguments but I feel there is more going on. They don’t know how to categorize each other. With Carmy it may be more obvious. His first time being a business owner, grief, anger, feeling lack of control, etc., etc. But with her it’s a little more nuanced. He was her idol. That may be simple but there are all kinds of weird emotions wrapped up in that. How can there not be? It could stay platonic and just stay a deconstructing your heroes thing but there seems to be a bit of lingering looks of wonder when they have bizarre ‘chef moments’. Why the starry eyed look when they talk about the veal fat? Why was she looking with such yearning when he was eating her dish? I never look that way awaiting a boss to review my work. What the hell did she feel like when she ate his meal? Did she want him to have the same ecstasy she had tasting his? Why such a needy look from someone so professional? It was just EXTRA. Why the prolonged stare down about the boiling stock. She desperately wants his approval but I think she also desperately just wants him, she just doesn’t get that yet and in what way that could be. So…
5. She stays through all this BS that The Beef is. Why the fuck does she? I get why she fucking bolted in E7. She put up with so much shit and it was her breaking point. She chose her at that moment and I don’t blame her. I’ve quit jobs in a blaze of glory like that so I get it. Sydney is already accomplished in the fine dining world. Maybe not famous, but accomplished. Yes, she hit a snag, but her training and work experience is stellar. Of course, she wants to see what working with Carmy will expose her to but it’s pretty clear right away that this is no fairy tale. He isn’t respected in this kitchen, they broke as fuck, he owes a $300k debt to a mobster, they get a C, his fake cousin is an abusive HR nightmare, they get shot at, shit is always breaking, she’s mos def overworked and underpaid, so much screaming… yet she fucking stays. Inexplicably. Yeah, they can be different blah blah, E3 rambles, but why does she put so much faith in that? Carmy. Not Carmy the excellent chef, something about Carmy because he’s just fucking who he is to her even if it doesn’t make any sense. Her instinct is to stay. Even after she quits her instinct is to stay. She has no history with that place other than Carmy but she stays. 
6. Their partnership is romantic. I just feel she is the type that needs a common ground with a lover for it to have any substance. Them being able to vibe creatively, not just about the mechanics of running the business, but being able to create together will have an impact on her that will be earth shaking. That would kind of epitomize her whole reason for wanting to work with him. She may think it’s to get his approval but really to make something together is more magical. Like, can you imagine them making a recipe TOGETHER?!
7. And this may seem corny but she may fall for him because he falls for her. Carmy is intense, passionate, singularly focused. Imagine that in the context of romance. Messy at first but wow, when it matures. 
8. Yes, Carmy is a hot mess but he won’t stay that way if this show is smart and I think it is. Carmy is already progressing even if he backslides at times. I think the fact that he doesn’t fall into the typical chef vices speaks volumes and is overlooked. He does not abuse drugs or alcohol (other than chain smoking), he’s not a whore, he doesn’t blow money, he doesn’t party. He is a workaholic (yes, damaging no doubt). But he could be a lot worse considering everything he’s battling yet for some reason he has an inner fortitude and discipline. That’s admirable even if he’s a hot mess. That is what gives him the foundation to try to better himself even in the thick of his trauma. He still seeks hope. It takes some fumbling but he does go to Al-Anon, he does apologize, he does simmer down, he does know he was wrong. But he isn’t prideful, he tries to correct himself. That's strength. Once he heals more who knows what kind of character he will attain. Carmy is also successful, even if he is struggling right now. He will keep working on something until he gets it right. This says to me he can be a provider, he doesn’t want to fail. He won’t be okay with mediocrity. He wants to produce quality in anything he does. That’s virtue. Give him time and he will be a romantic hero. He’s just deeply wounded but he’s on a hero’s journey. Randomly, I think of Matty Matheson’s story. Boy was a hot ass mess, then met his wife (while still being a loser) and is now a successful chef, husband, and father. Just saying. Everyone doesn’t have to be perfect when you meet them to be the one. I just don’t think Carmy’s a loser. He’s struggling but he’s trying in dynamic ways. 
I dunno, I feel I could ramble on but I’ll stop here. I’m sleepy. Bottom line, Sydney is an angel, I get it, but I don’t think it’s so far-fetched to see her falling for Carmy eventually. They aren’t perfect together yet. He’s not perfect yet. I mean there is nothing perfect here on earth, but you know what I mean. I think Sydney falling for him could be deep because he’s deep, and it wouldn’t just be a cutesy infatuation. They will have struggled together and seen each other at their worst and grown together in every sense. That’s adult love and this is a coming of age story.
Bonus: She touches him when they aren’t on the same page in E7. Why does she need to touch him to try to connect again? Very interesting. I never touch my boss.
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charaznablescanontoyota · 3 years ago
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“hey marn! i want to get into alternate reality games, but i don’t like being scared!”
[walks on-screen in my sweatpants, eating a bagel] well boy do i have good news for you
hi, i’m marn and i host a podcast about alternate reality games (args) with a co-host who is so horror-adverse that we have a separate spinoff podcast where we watch horror movies together for charity sometimes. have you ever wanted to know what args are all about and get involved in reading up on/playing them without dipping your toe too far into jumpscares and fucked up guys who look at you? great! let me tell you about some args that are an absolute fucking delight.
frog fractions 2: ff2 is my favorite arg to point at as an example of a highly successful arg that was also goofy as hell. you may have heard of the ‘[x] is frog fractions 2′ meme - that’s because frog fractions 2′s kickstarter was made on the premise of ‘i am not going to tell you when the game is done, or what it’s called, and i will only reveal how to access it once someone finds it and emails me to confirm that it is in fact ff2′. this arg is everything that lead players to actually find the game, including an obama shaving simulator, secret agent party lounges, and dubiously ethical time travel. WARNING: you will have to look at exactly one fucked up guy but it’s a francis bacon painting i promise zagmar is not real and cannot hurt you.
waking titan: alice & smith my beloved. this is an arg they made to promote some dlc for the video game no man’s sky, which you may have heard of. i have never played no man’s sky and i still enjoyed reading about this arg very much. it’s about a research organization trying to create an ai that has infinite processing/precognitive power in order to tell them if they live in a simulation or not. things, as you may suspect, do not go well!
the beast: the grandfather of args! the arg that provided a foundation for how args are today! the beast was made to promote the movie a.i., and has basically jack-all to do with anything about the movie. it was written by an actual science fiction novelist, run in the early 2000s when dial-up internet was still a thing, and features a cast of like 30-50 characters with complex lives, web pages, and relationships. it’s also a murder mystery about a guy who might have gotten killed by a boat.
must love robots: a lot of these are about robots. i know. this one is a romantic comedy about a guy, his robot roommate, and a bunch of meddling arg players trying to help said robot roommate find a girlfriend. it’s short and very sweet, there’s a pastor who hates robots in it, there’s a robot dating site that eerily predicted a lot of data-stealing controversies of the present day. and lots of youtube videos, if that’s your thing.
this is my milwaukee: also one of my favorites. this one is a little spookier than the rest of these offerings, but mostly in a dark comedy/’sense of unease’ way. it’s about the milwaukee tourism board trying to convince people to come back to milwaukee after a vaguely defined apocalyptic event wiped out a large chunk of the midwest. the trailhead video for it stands on its own as a short film very well, and it’s also by the guys who everyone got really mad at for turning horse_ebooks into a different arg for a fmv game satirizing the 2008 economic crisis.
art of the heist: sorry for linking to my own podcast on this one but other sources are hard to find and this arg is batshit and i love it so much. audi (yes the car company) spent millions of dollars to market its cars by incentivizing people to break into them for arg clues. they paid for players to go to coachella. they staged a fistfight at e3. they gave out phones to players. they won an award for this arg and it was extremely well deserved because i love every single piece of information about it.
anyway these are just some completely non-scary args that i really enjoy! all of them have wrapped up unfortunately - if you’re looking for a new one to be involved in, i highly suggest jumping into alice & smith’s arg dscs that just started a couple days ago! 
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Big Sky S3 E3
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Come chat with me about the episode below the cut:
So we learned just an inkling more about Beau this episode. He talked a bit about the differences between Montana and Texas, which I found entertaining. We still didn't get anything about his ex-wife or his divorce, which I'm dying to know about.
Can I just say how much I'm loving the empathy he shows to the suspects they deal with. Like how he was in the first episode with the Mom who just wanted to see her daughter before she was taken away. He told Hoyt to give her time to hug her daughter and say goodbye.
Then in this episode the way he was with Ivan was very sweet. In the beginning, the way he took the chance that Ivan wasn't going to shoot them, putting his gun away to show that belief and his encouraging little, "Come on Ivan." we're so sweet. Then at the end, convincing him that the swindler wasn't worth going to jail over. I love that empathetic streak in him.
I have to say I was very disappointed that Beau didn't get to punch Avery In the teeth and that he doesn't even know what happened!! I certainly hope he discovers it at some point and gets to use him like a punching bag!
I like Emily a lot and I like that she tried to reach out to her Dad with the Sat phone that she was denied. I really like how tenacious she is, and that she went after Avery for being super sketchy. I also love the little dig she gave Avery when she was saying she wanted to go back for knife because it was special to her. "My FATHER gave it to me." Loved that.
Oh, and Avery is sketchy af!! I so wish Emily could reach Beau because if she could reach him, her concerns might even end up helping Cassie and Denise reach the right conclusions.
Ooh, the scene where Cassie almost saw the backpackers body in Walt's truck?!! She was so close! That was a great tense scene!
I don't know what to make of Cormac, he kinda skeeves me out, but I can't tell whether the show wants me to feel that way, because he's a red herring, it because there really is something up with him! Aaahh!!
All the scenes with Walt and Sunny continue to be creepy af. Their dynamic is so dysfunctional and weird!! Love it!
Now to the stuff with Jenny x Beau x Cassie!
I appreciate that they're trying to do a slow burn with Jenny and Beau, and as I stated, I will take Jensen Ackles in a love scene with ANYONE!! But I really prefer him and Cassie. I like their relationship more, but I also just prefer Cassie's character to Jenny's. I just can't really like Hoyt. It's partly my issues with Kathryn Winnick, but also, I just find her character kind of abrasive and unlikeable most of the time. With Cassie, she's a badass and she gets the job done, but she's also warm and caring. Jenny always just makes me wanna slap her a little. Lol!
I did find some sympathy for the character though in this episode when she was talking with her Mom, cause you can see she really wants to trust her and a part of her wants to think her Mom came back, at least partly, to see her. So when she finds out, nope it was just a scam, I felt bad for her.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the episode, please let me know yours!
P.S. I had to "rewind" and rewatch a couple great shots of Beau's ass - multiple times in this episode. I also found it remarkably hot when Ivan was telling him to get back down, or he'd shoot him, and Beau was just like, "No." And then when Ivan is like, "wtf did you say?" again Beau is just stone faced, and like, "I said, no." It was just such a badass move!!
I reiterate, Beau Arlen is gonna kill me.
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Steamy/Smut Prompts:
D1. “We have to be quiet.”
D2. “You’re trembling.”
D3. “Mmm… you’re warm”
D4. “Your lips are so soft. I could kiss them all day.”
D5. “Are you here to finish me off, Sweetheart?”
D6. “I’ll just go ahead and go fuck myself”
D7. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard that you’ll forget you’ve ever even met that asshole”
D8. “If you don’t like me teasing, then why are you moaning?”
D9. “What? Does that feel good?”
D10. “C’mere, you can sit on my lap until I’m done working.”
D11. “I haven’t even touched you , and you’re already this wet.”
D12. “I could just pull your bikini bottoms to the side, no one will notice.”
D13. “If i don’t stop, you won’t be able to walk for the next week.”
D14. “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you until you cum at least three times”
D15. “The only way you’re getting off is on my thigh.”
D16. “You taste like fucking candy.”
D17. “Bite me” “ well if you insist.“
D18. “ Come to bed. I can’t sleep without your hips pressed against mine.”
D19. “Look at you, stretched out and trembling.”
D20. “I don’t care if it takes all night, you will submit.”
Soft Prompts:
E1. “If I could, I would kiss away all your scars.”
E2. “It’s not bad to cry. In fact, I think it makes a person stronger.”
E3. “I’ve had a rough day and honestly all I want right now is a drink and someone to cuddle with..”
E4. “No, you can’t get up! You’re my prisoner for today.”
E5. “Shh, it was just a bad dream. Just a dream, okay? None of it was real.”
E6. “ You know I’m/we’re always here for you, right?”
E7. “I’m sorry, what? I keep getting lost in your eyes.”
E8. “Stay for me.”
Insomnia Prompts:
F1. “It’s nearly two in the morning, what are you doing up?”
F2. “I’m pulling an all-nighter.”
F3. “I can’t sleep.”
F4. “I’m having nightmares.”
F5. “Will you stay awake with me?
F6. “It’s past midnight, why are you still up?”
F7. “Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of you.”
Angst Prompts:
G1. “Do you love him/her?”
G2. “You’re not sorry.”
G3. “How did you find out?”
G4. “Don’t lie to me.”
G5. “Am I not important to you anymore?”
G6. “I didn’t realize I was such an inconvenience.”
G7. “ Do you think about them when you look at me?”
G8. “How many times am I supposed to forgive you?”
G9. “Don’t raise your fucking voice at me.”
G10. “ I trusted you.”
G11. “Are you ashamed of me?”
Sarcasm Prompts
H1. “Well, what can I say? I’m a badass.”
H2. “Do I get bonus points if I act like I care?”
H3. “Were you dropped on your head?”
H4. “Excuse me, I have to go make a scene.”
H5. “I already know that I’m going to hell. At this point, it’s really go big or go home.
Conversation Prompts:
J1. “Oh, the things I’d do if you were mine.” “So take me.” “Is that what you really want, Sweetheart?” “Yes, That is all I’ve wanted. So take me”
J2. “I’ll kill you.” “Darling, I’m already dead.”
J3. “They’re right behind me, aren’t they?” “Actually, they’re right in front of you.”
J4. “ You’re okay, right? You’re not hurt?” “No, no, no, I’m fine! Totally fine, no, no, I’m fine.” ’‘Really? Because you’re repeating your words, you’re pale and you look like you’re going to pass out” ’'Yeah, you might wanna catch me.”
J5. "they trained you for this” “I don’t I don’t want this. I haven’t ever wanted this.” Oh, but darling, you can’t erase the past… Not even if you don’t remember it.“
Fluff:
K1. “I like the way your hand fits in mine.”
K2. “You have something in your hair, umm… Do you want me to get it out?”
K3. “It’s nice that your voice was the first thing I heard today.”
K4. “You can call me whenever you want… Even if you don’t have a reason to.”
K5. “I’m bad at texting first, so I always end up hoping you will”
K6. “This movie is really scary, but you’re into it so I’m trying not to cover my face the whole time, but- WHAT IS THAT?”
K7. “You look really cute in that sweater.”
K8. “No, like… It’s just, I can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.”
K9. “I wanted to say ‘I love you’ for the first time without stuttering, but that failed.”
K10. “I can’t get over how a few months ago I wanted to learn your name and now you’re having breakfast with me in my sweater.”
K11. “Quit smiling at me, I can’t stop messing up my sentences when you look at me like that.”
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rwby-redux · 3 years ago
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So, Tai and Summer were omitted from the weapons list? Also, I can guess at some of your reasoning for the weapon changes for Coco and Glynda, but I'd very much love to hear your thoughts there. :D (and just anything else you're dying to talk about from that post tbh, hit me with it) (what the fuck even WAS Leo's tbh)
Howdy there!
Tai and Summer were omitted for the time being because I’m waiting to see if the canon will unveil their weapons. I might change them in the Redux, depending on what they are and whether or not we’ll actually get that confirmation. In the event that Tai’s weapon isn't revealed, I’ll be giving him gauntlets similar to Yang’s, because I really love the idea that Yang and Ruby both modeled their fighting styles after people in their family.
(and just anything else you're dying to talk about from that post tbh, hit me with it)
LET’S DO THIS BABY
The gist is that most of the overhauls were done to fix what I considered glaring issues with the canon—weapons being impractical (Leo), weapons not having any usefulness (Glynda), weapons never being used by the wielder (Vine), weapons being copy-pasted between wielders (Joanna, Fiona, May), weapons lacking names (multiple), and weapons being offensive either in-universe or out-of-universe (Marrow, Coco). Additionally, I wanted to give weapons more specific categorizations beyond just “sword” and “gun,” so I spent a few hours trying to accurately classify them based on their morphology and function.
There were also a few changes I made directly to characters—Coco, Ilia, Amber, and Robyn—which I’ll address separately. First, let’s go over changes to weapons.
Weapons
Myrtenaster — Because I changed how the Schnee family Semblance works, Myrtenaster no longer acts as a means of conducting her glyphs. Weiss’ Semblance is now used exclusively to summon thralls of defeated Grimm, rather than augmenting Dust. Myrtenaster’s only ranged capabilities come in the form of elemental ammunition fired from the revolver. Weiss’ fighting style relies heavily on fencing, similar to Winter’s as seen in V3.E3.
Gianduja — The handbag turning into a gatling gun (apart from being ridiculous) doesn’t actually seem all that useful when you consider that the vast majority of Huntsmen are mobile fighters, and Coco’s weapon requires her to be stationary. Her canon weapon is also no longer compatible with her fighting style in the Redux, as she now relies on a familiar for mounted combat. A recurve bow that transforms into paired swords gives her greater versatility—and more importantly, maneuverability—in a fight.
Omen — In the Redux, blades forged from Dust are no longer feasible due to the changes I made to Dust’s physiochemical properties. Like, we know that in the canon Dust is extremely reactive. It explodes if it’s subjected to too much mechanical stress. Therefore, it wouldn’t make any sense for a bladed weapon to be made of Dust, simply because if the show actually bothered to adhere to its own worldbuilding, then those blades would literally explode any time they hit something. And hitting things is literally all that swords are made to do. Thus, Omen is now just a standard ōdachi, with a shotgun configuration that parallels Qrow’s.
Stalwart — LEO WHY THE FUCK DOES YOUR SHIELD LOOK LIKE A YU-GI-OH DUEL DISK? I hate this thing so much. It makes Leo look pathetic. This guy’s an academy headmaster, but you wouldn’t know it when you watch him fight since he’s more incompetent than Jaune. It’s impossible to take him seriously as a threat when he’s shooting fucking meteors at people with all the finesse of the Earthbenders in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Stalwart’s redesign (a longsword that morphs into a longbow) was borrowed from this Monster Hunter concept art by Zhuhai-Syseros. Not necessarily the look, so much as the morphing mechanics between its melee and ranged forms.
Minerva — There are, admittedly, a lot of things I dislike about Glynda’s canonical weapon. My biggest complaint is that it actually doesn’t have any offensive capabilities, and exists purely as a means of conducting her Semblance. Which begs the question—can Glynda not use her Semblance without it? It would be weird for her telekinetic powers to be dependent on a conduit, especially since we’ve seen other characters with kinetic Semblances—like Pyrrha, whose Semblance is ferrokinetic—manipulate objects without channeling their powers through a proxy. That aside, I also really dislike how—for lack of better words—sexualized her weapon is. With Glynda’s new weapon, Minerva, I wanted to emphasize something that we rarely see in the canon—a wielder’s weapon complimenting their Semblance. When used as a javelin, Glynda can throw her weapon at opponents from afar, and then recall it with her telekinesis. In its quarterstaff form, it can be used for blocking and striking. In its spear form, it can be used for impaling. Its name, Minerva, is a reference to the eponymous Roman god of wisdom and strategic warfare. (Whose symbol, fittingly, was also a spear.)
Solemn Vow — Hazel’s weapon of choice. In the Redux, Hazel no longer roids himself up with Dust crystals, so I gave him a pair of gauntlets to compliment his berserker CQC. In the interest of not spoiling things too much, I won’t be saying any more about his weapon. But I will leave you with this: they once belonged to Gretchen.
Aegis — Marrow’s canon weapon (his boomerang) is part of a recurring issue with RWBY’s inability to handle racism, especially within the context of the fictional ethnicity they created. It’s established during the very first episode of the show that a large number of Faunus reject being compared to animals (as evidenced by the sign a protestor carries, which reads “We Are Not Animals”). So it always struck me as rather odd that the writers would consciously decide to conflate their POC-coded in-universe minority with a dog, by giving him a boomerang named fetch. Like, unless Marrow was choosing for himself to reclaim the association, then it doesn’t make sense for a Faunus living within a racially-prejudiced country to have a weapon that doubles-down on the dog comparison. That, to me, seems more like an insensitive oversight on the writers’ part than a deliberate commentary on reappropriation. (On a semi-related note, why the hell is Marrow a dog Faunus? Dogs are animals descended from wolves, selectively domesticated by people. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Marrow to be a wolf Faunus?) Digression aside, it felt rather tasteless to keep Marrow’s old weapon, so it got axed. His new weapon, Aegis, is a shield that has all the ricochet physics of Captain America’s shield in the MCU.
Thorn — Did you know that when writing the weapons post, I had to actually look up what Vine’s was because I couldn’t remember? Imagine my surprise when I read the wiki article and realized it was only used once in the entire series. Which, you know, not great. To fix that, I decided that I wanted Vine to have a weapon that accentuated his acrobatic fighting style, so I gave him a glaive. The way he wields it in battle is reminiscent of the insect glaives in Monster Hunter (minus the insect).
Sagitta — Joanna, Fiona, and May all have the same problem in that they suffer from Minor Character Syndrome. Because they weren’t important enough to the story, they were given generic weapons. Not only that, but the exact same generic weapon. Somehow that fact gets even more egregious when you realize that these characters—who were relevant for two entire seasons—didn’t get unique weapons, but Team BRNZ (whose members only show up during one episode) somehow did. In the Redux, Joanna has been given Robyn’s canonical weapon, her crossbow.
Gravedigger — Fiona’s weapon of choice is a spade that separates into a shield-and-spear combination. The spade is a continuation of RWBY’s theme of weapons being adapted from improvised items.
Invicta — May’s weapon of choice is a pair of claws similar to Brawnz Ni’s. The name of her weapon, Invicta, means unconquerable in Latin, and the grammatical declension was deliberately made female.
Vae Victis — Tock’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. In the canon, she dual wields what appears to be a cutlass and a katana. Given that one of her weapons looks like a Japanese sword, and she uses both simultaneously, I thought it would be more interesting to change her cutlass into a wakizashi, and base her fighting style on the kenjutsu technique nitō ichi. The name for her weapons comes from Latin, woe to the conquered.
Solstice — Winter’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. The name itself doesn’t have any overt symbolism to it. I liked how it sounded, and thought that it suited her.
Haliastur — Amber’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. Haliastur is a genus of kites, or birds of prey, native to Southeast Asia and Oceania. The species that it’s named after is the whistling kite. In Australia, the whistling kite is one of three species colloquially known as firehawks, so called because they pick up burning sticks and spread wildfires in order to flush out prey. The name was chosen because Amber’s staff canonically uses Fire and Wind Dust.
Encore — Flynt’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. Its name is sort of a joke based on his weapon being a musical instrument, and his Semblance allowing him to form clones, letting him literally give a repeat performance.
Memento — Neon’s weapon of choice, previously unnamed. I’ll admit that I struggled a bit when trying to come up with something creative for Neon. In the end, I settled on Memento because whenever I went to concerts or boardwalks as a kid, I always somehow managed to get my hands on a glowstick, which by the end of the night I ended up bringing home with me. And because I can’t resist the opportunity for a pun—Neon’s character is based on a meme. Ergo, Memento.
Hartsbane — Nicholas’ weapon of choice. I found it interesting that both Weiss and Winter use fencing swords, so I thought it would be cool if it was a family tradition. Nicholas’ estoc was named after the centuries-old Hartless that he single-handedly slew.
Icicle — Willow’s weapon of choice. In keeping with the family tradition, Willow took up a court sword when she was younger.
Reckoning — Harriet’s weapon of choice. Hers is the only one on this list that remained physically the same as its canon counterpart, but had its name changed. And let’s be honest—“Fast Knuckles” really doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Well, I think that about does it for weapons. Now on to the characters.
Characters
Coco’s entire redesign (her surname, her appearance, her weapon) was done in an effort to disassociate her character from her namesake, Coco Chanel. For anyone who wasn’t aware, Chanel was a Nazi spy. Rooster Teeth has been coming under fire for years now because they were made aware of the issue, and refused to redesign the character, or quietly drop her from the series. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Coco’s weapon is literally a WWII gatling gun.
To rectify the issue, Coco has been renamed Adler, after Irene Adler of Sherlock Holmes, who she now draws some inspiration from. Her combat attire and weapon have also been similarly modified.
Ilia’s surname was changed from Amitola to Amirauld—which I talked about here—and Amber was given a surname, which she previously lacked: Ochoa.
The reason why Robyn isn’t on this list is because in the Redux, she’s not a Huntress, nor is she the leader of the Happy Huntresses (and for the record, that name got ditched). That role now belongs to Joanna, who graduated from Atlas Academy on a team with Fiona and May. Robyn just so happens to be their friend (and Fiona's girlfriend).
That being said, Robyn's still important to the story, particularly during the Redux's equivalent of V7 and V8.
As for May’s name change—I actually just checked my inbox and saw an ask inquiring about it, so she gets her own special, separate post. :)
And believe me; there’s a lot to talk about.
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beautyofthend · 3 years ago
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Kate Fleming - A Character Study
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There were many things that annoyed me about the series finale of Series 6, I could talk about it for days on end. But the one thing that perhaps annoyed me the most was the way in which Kate went through massive character development throughout Episodes 1-6 and then that got all but dropped by Episode 7. Dropped in the sense that every piece of character development within Kate through those first episodes had been obvious, explicit; we can see very clearly that Kate had changed in the time she had left AC-12 and joined MIT, but as we got to Episode 7 this character development dropped to mere subtext and having to read between the lines just to understand Kate’s motives. 
I’m going to be exploring that and finding the best possible explanation for Kate’s character because I feel as though it would be very easy to misjudge her without explanation. 
To start I just want to say that this is all my opinion, I’ll try to back up my points as best I can but it is just my interpretation of how I’ve seen Kate as a character. Enjoy. 
Character development is crucial in shows that have multiple series, more so when it’s main characters are prevalent throughout. We, as the audience, need to see these characters go through change, they can’t stay as the same person the whole time. They can have certain characteristics and arcs that remain as we watch their journey but when characters go through situations, like real life, they don’t come out the other side as who they were before. We as humans change everyday, I am not the same person I was last week. Of course, not in a drastic way but events change us, we develop. So when we watch programmes we expect to see similar changes in characters. 
And we do. Throughout Line of Duty we see our main characters, Kate, Steve and Ted, put through many events, some major, some not so. They are often put in danger or will be witness to catastrophic moments: Kate and Steve were present when Tony ended his life, Kate was present when Dot got shot, she was also present when Danny got shot. I could go on but you get the point. We’ve seen our characters go through a lot so we should expect to see their development. I shouldn’t expect to see that Kate remains fairly the same between Series 1-5. 
But let’s dig into that more. Kate is a strong, steely, kick-ass character. She doesn’t put up with things and isn’t afraid to tell someone when they’re in the wrong - she has quite happily pulled Ted up on his wrongdoings over the years. We see Kate in numerous undercover operations, we know that she is an expert at hiding her true feelings as a result of that. She can manipulate people into giving her information and she’s very good at playing on their emotions - but this only occurs under the guise of being a UCO. 
Kate follows a set guide when she becomes a UCO and we see this throughout. I find that she is pushy, never letting her questions up when she hasn’t been given the answer she wanted. She earns their trust by offering her support and being emotionally available for them (some more than others). One particular thing that she always does without fail is slate AC-12 as a means of gaining trust. Everyone she goes undercover for are under the watchful eye of AC-12 so she must show that she has nothing to do with them, that her aliases: Flynn, Foster, Francis, do not side/agree with the actions of AC-12 - this is excluding the first series where we see her using her real name Kate Fleming but she still sticks to the idea of bad-mouthing AC-12 to earn trust. Some examples over the show being: 
“AC-12, they’re robots them lot. They don’t get the difference between a corrupt officer and a decent one who made a mistake.” - To Tony Gates in S1E3
“AC-12, they twist everything and make everyone look guilty.” - To Lindsay Denton in S2E2
“You know what they’re (AC-12) like, fishing for inconsistencies. Anything they can pounce on.” - To Jackie Brickford in S3E3
“AC-12 leaving with their tail between their legs.” - To Roz Huntley in S4E2 - this is more telling as this scene actually takes place in front of Steve and in E3 she does it again, going as far to call Steve a “wanker” in front of everyone. 
The only time we don’t see her using this tactic is in S5, because she has no reason to - she’s not undercover at any point so she doesn’t need to gain anyone’s trust - and in S6 where in which she actually uses her knowledge of AC-12 to reassure Jo. 
“I know the kinds of cases that AC-12 are into, boss.” - In S6E2. She’s not trying to distance herself from AC-12 she’s trying to show Jo that she doesn’t have to worry about anything since “It’s just the way AC-12 operate.” - You could argue that she has no need to bad mouth AC-12 since Jo is fully aware of Kate’s connections to anti-corruption though. (She does also mention that she got “fed up of nicking coppers,” but this is in relation to her own personal feelings rather than AC-12 itself). 
But that doesn’t mean to say she doesn’t slate AC-12 at any point during S6, it’s just that she does this directly to Steve, “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” This shows that despite, in a way, defending AC-12 to Jo she doesn’t particularly side with them and feels very strongly about her reasons for leaving them in the first place.
All this is proof that Kate will go to a number of lengths to keep her cover, appearing to hate AC-12 and people that she trusts just to get close to the people she’s investigating. And she does this fairly successfully, she manages to pull the wool over their eyes - to an extent - and proves that she is a good officer, she is good at cutting off her emotions for the sake of the job. As Dot says to her in S3E2 “You’re a brilliant liar that’s all. Kind of unsettled me,” and Lindsay says something very similar to her in S2.
Kate is a master manipulator when it comes to her undercover operations, okay she isn’t always successful and has had her cover blown a number of times but they’ve always ended up being worthwhile and they manage to bring down the person that they were investigating. It shows that she is very good at her job. And her ability to control her emotions so well, really go against this stereotypical idea that women aren’t in control of their emotions, which isn’t a bad thing. 
We instead see this trope throughout Steve’s character - and Ted to an extent. Where Kate can take control of a situation and push her emotions to the side, Steve isn’t as successful in that department. He is an extremely emotional person and often lets those emotions get in the way of his job. For example, his anger and frustrations towards Tony Gates in Series 1 meant that his vision was clouded and he couldn’t see the wood for the trees, similar to his dealings with Dot -  both occasions needed Kate with her lack of emotions and clear vision to help him. 
Whilst I think it’s good that Jed is challenging these stereotypes and telling us that men can be just as emotional as women, and women can be closed off and cold - even the fact that Kate is a mother and she remains so steely is very telling - I don’t think it always works. I love that Kate is the resident heroine in Line of Duty, she’s always there to save the day and that’s great. But that doesn’t mean she can’t show emotion and that doesn’t mean she has to be so closed off all the time. We see in glimpses that this emotional side to Kate does exist however, after she hears Ted slate Dryden for having an affair with Lindsay (it’s an unknowing attack on her own situation), when she gets locked out of her house and most notably during S6E6 - there is a lot of emotions at play so there is a lot to talk about for that particular episode. 
With that being said, Series 6 does delve into this emotional side to Kate - with Jo being integral in bringing about that development. Unlike the previous series, this one perhaps focuses on Kate the most, showing her in a different setting through MIT and showing her making genuine connections with people outside of AC-12. 
When we have seen Kate outside of the realms of AC-12 it’s only been through her undercover operations, where she is having to pretend to be another person to get information out of others. But finally, in Series 6 we see her perhaps being her most true self. This is shown through the change in her wardrobe, she’s wearing clothes that she hasn’t necessarily worn before. I could go deeper but people have already done that and could explain that much better than I can. But to put it into simple terms, her wardrobe for Series 6 is vastly different from her wardrobe throughout Series 1-5, right down to the shoes. 
(Won’t go off on a tangent too much but one thing I did notice was the fact that throughout Series 1-5 Kate, most of the time, wears heeled boots - on occasion she can be seen sporting trainers or flat pumps but it’s rare - but in Series 6 she starts wearing flat, doc-style boots and can be seen wearing them, along with other flat shoes through the series. Up until that meeting between her and Jo and she’s wearing her heeled boots again - no doubt symbolising how the events of this meeting cause Kate to almost cut ties with Jo as she returns back to AC-12. She continues to wear these heeled boots through the next couple of scenes but returns to the flat ones she’s been wearing this whole time when she goes to save Jo - symbolising that yes she’s letting Jo go but she’s still on her side despite everything.)
Series 6 Kate stands out from what we’ve seen of her from the other series - she seems genuinely happy. She’s able to be herself, not having to pretend. Not having to manipulate others for information or form false friendships. Instead, she forms a close, emotional bond with Jo Davidson and there are many indicators that this is real and genuine and not Kate “pretending” as Jo so aptly put it. 
From the first episode it is very clear that Jo and Kate are close, the first time we see Kate in this episode the two of them are flirting with each other - in front of their team as well. 
“Don’t think I didn’t notice DI Fleming skulking in last minute like the dirty stop-out.” 
“Don’t go there, boss, glass houses.” 
It’s showing that Kate has settled into this new team and new dynamic and is very comfortable. Further pushing this sense of casualness that has been set up between Kate and Jo is in a later scene when Kate comes into Jo’s office and Kate is leaning on the back of the chair next to Jo’s desk.  
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When we usually see Kate in a scene with a senior officer she can be seen doing the typical ‘stand to attention’ and the fact that she isn’t here is very telling. She also goes on to say in this scene “I haven’t shared this with anyone else, boss.” Telling us that there is a level of trust that has already been set up between these two - Kate doesn’t need to earn Jo’s trust, she already has it. 
This is very different to how we’ve previously seen Kate, she usually has to earn people’s trust: 
“I just want to help sir,” “Just give me the chance to prove myself to you,” “I’m here if you need to talk,” “If you need my help, just ask,” “I could make it disappear.” - Various phrases she said to Tony Gates throughout S1.
“Anything I can do boss?” Along with telling Lindsay that she’ll say that she was with her the night Lindsay’s neighbour alleged Lindsay attacked her during S2 and turning up to Lindsay’s apartment with a bottle of wine - trying to form a friendship. 
“Thanks for letting me in on this, ma’am. Look, I know we’ve had our differences but, for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’d have replaced you as SIO if you were a bloke,” to Roz Huntley in S4 - she’s also very good at working out how to get to people. She knows that the lack of female diversity and patriarchy is a weakness for Roz so Kate plays up to that (although how much of that is Kate pretending is another story but will get into that later.)
The only time she doesn’t use this ‘buddying up’ tactic is in S3 where she takes on a whole different approach with the ‘MOB.’ Where she had been previously seen, with Tony and Lindsay, to play nice to the people she’s investigating, to earn their trust, in S3 she almost aggravates them. She’s straight in there with questioning them and probing them so that they’ll crack - but I think she also knows that they’re weak, they don’t have that close a bond so if she pokes them enough someone will break away. 
But we don’t see this set up between Kate and Jo, we are thrown into an already established and trusted connection which is done on purpose to show that Kate and Jo have been close for a while prior to the events of S6. Further emphasising this, is Farida’s accusation that Kate and Jo are having an affair - it’s not said without reason. We see repeatedly throughout the time that Farida is in MIT, she is keeping a watchful eye on the interactions between Kate and Jo and it’s enough for her to suspect a relationship/affair. 
What is most interesting however, is the fact that this is the first genuine female connection that Kate has had on-screen. Of course, we became aware of her friendship with Jayne Akers but Kate was also sleeping with Richard, Jayne’s husband, so it couldn’t have been that close of a friendship. We also see a glimpse of a friendship between Maneet and Kate but it’s never delved into enough to make it relevant. 
This is the first time we’ve seen Kate work alongside a fellow female officer and have their connection be something that is real rather than faked - I think this also plays into a lot of Kate’s confusion surrounding her feelings towards Jo. Is her connection with Jo related to the fact that they’re both women who have had to work their socks off to get to the top or is it the fact that there is something deeper bubbling under the surface between them? 
Whatever it may be, there is a strong level of trust between Kate and Jo that sets them apart from all of Kate’s previous UCO interactions. Where she would normally have to dig for information from people, asking leading questions etc, Jo gives Kate information freely (obviously this is done on purpose on Jo’s part since we later find out that Jo wanted Kate on the team to solve the case and henceforth free Jo from the clutches of the OCG). All Kate has to do is ask if Jo is okay and boom, Jo opens up - not totally, but enough to emphasise the trust. 
This is a completely new dynamic for Kate, yes she’s close to Ted and Steve but even then there’s a professional distance set between all three of them. They know hints about each others lives but they don’t know everything; it wasn’t until Mark phoned Steve in S2 did he find out about Kate’s situation. And it isn’t until the last episode of S6 that Kate finally learns about Steve’s painkiller misuse. They are friends and they are close but there’s a small wall between them. But Jo is the one to break that wall and invites herself into Kate’s personal life via the small dates we see them on and Kate wanting to see Jo at the weekend outside of work. 
It’s not just a new dynamic for Kate but also a new dynamic for the audience. The only consistent friend Kate has had across the show is Steve, we see them leaning on each other in a sense and going out to the pub or for takeaways. We see that they’re close (even if they don’t necessarily reveal everything about themselves) and now all of a sudden, we are seeing Kate meeting up with someone else. Talking to someone else, having a friendship with someone else. And it’s nice. Kate deserves to have someone else outside of Steve and outside of AC-12, it hints that she’s able to have a life outside of her work. 
Note: Steve’s “Do you see a life for yourself outside the job?” In S2. Jo is proof to Kate that she can exist outside of her work. 
But now that this trust has been set up between Kate and Jo, we then delve into the moral dilemma that Kate is thrown into once Steve asks her to become a CHIS on behalf of AC-12. 
“Great. So either I’m accused of being a traitor or I become one to avoid being accused?” 
She doesn’t want to be stuck in the middle because she has loyalties to both parties. The trust formed between herself and Jo showing that she wants to stick by her but there’s still trust between her and Steve despite there being distance - this is told through her clothing later on (as pointed out by wecantseeyou here) and also by the fact she doesn’t strictly tell Steve she won’t do it, rather that she will think about it.  
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Returning to Kate’s relationship with Jo and what solidifies the bond that has been set up between them is that scene that takes place at the end of the first episode. We see Kate watching as Buckells is laying into Jo about her decision to not charge Terry Boyle. Kate appears to be the only one watching, or at least the only one that cares enough - shown by the fact she follows Jo out when she leaves the room. If this was undercover Kate this would be something we expect to see, she would use this as an opportunity to swoop in and provide emotional support. But Kate isn’t undercover, she’s going after Jo because she genuinely wants to see if Jo is okay. 
She doesn’t ask Jo about what Buckells had been having a go at her about, she only asks “Boss, you okay?” - that’s the first one and Jo delves into the reason she had become so upset/why Buckells was having a go. This wasn’t something Kate asked about but she lets Jo talk and get it off her chest. As Jo goes to leave Kate then asks again, “Boss, is everything okay?” She wants to know how Jo is feeling within herself, why else would she ask twice? Kate is interested in the welfare of Jo, not in finding out the gossip of what was said in that room. 
What happens next is monumental and this is where Kate’s confusion really begins. Everything that happened between Kate and Jo before (dirty stop-out scene, talking at the same time etc) could all be passed off as them having a close friendship, nothing more. But there is a shift in this scene that pushes their relationship in a different direction - the music playing in the background only emphasising this.
Kate’s reaction to this moment is very telling, the way she looks down at their joined hands, she knows how it would look if someone seen them now; it’s not exactly how colleagues act around each other is it? We’ve not seen her form a romantic connection with a colleague (you could maybe argue Dot but it wasn’t set up in the way Kate and Jo have been set up) let alone a woman so this is all new territory for her but it is definitely romantic and this is the shift towards that. Kate’s panicked look towards Jo as Jo is leaving, she knows that something deeper is going on between them from this point on.  
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Before I continue with Kate and Jo’s relationship I have to talk about that scene between Jo and Buckells and why it’s so important that Kate is the one watching that interaction and why she is the one to comfort Jo. I have said in a previous post about how there are many parallels/similarities between S4 and S6. I also said that it wasn’t necessarily related to Kate’s character but it absolutely is the more that I think about it. 
Series 4 heavily plays on inequality within the police force, how women are at a disadvantage to men when it comes to getting promotions and what not. This is portrayed through Roz Huntley, her frustrations being that she is now having to work extra hard to prove herself after returning to work from being a mum - this coincides with Hilton blackmailing her and putting the pressure on her to close the case. 
Now although Kate goes undercover to investigate Roz, they do bond over one thing: they are both women who are striving to be the best. Kate throughout S4 is persistently undermined by Ted, yes she gets a promotion to DS - something that Steve gets rather jealous over - but even after passing her inspectors exam and being more than capable of being a DI, Ted still turns her down, telling her that it was more than likely going to go to Steve since he has more experience. 
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Kate is visibly hurt by this but does well to hide it. This moment in particular we can see that Kate is feeling isolated, she’s put on her own in the lift, pushed to the back of the frame, she holds herself - a visual representation of how women often feel in a male dominated workplace. This is no dig at Steve (it is, sorry) but Kate is a much more capable detective than Steve. Kate even swiftly points out how Steve’s attempt at an undercover operation had landed them in court. He’s not a bad detective, he is an extremely good one and does the job well but in comparison to Kate, he doesn’t match up. But simply because Steve is a man he gets a better chance of promotion before Kate - or at least that is how it appears. 
This brings me back to my earlier point of when Kate uses something Roz feels strongly towards and sides with her to gain her trust. But I don’t think this is Kate necessarily pretending, it’s convenient to have the topic come up but I do think it’s also something Kate feels strongly about. She’s just experienced first hand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of inequality and in a way, despite being there to investigate Roz, she does share her feelings on this issue. 
There is a defensiveness to Kate’s tone in this scene between her and Steve:
“It’s a crucial item and any irregularity…”
“Is something to throw in Huntley’s face?” 
“This isn’t personal. She’s at the centre of everything, I just want to get the truth.” 
Obviously Kate’s opinion on Roz does turn back to believing/knowing Roz is guilty but for a brief moment it appears she takes the view that AC-12 might just be investigating Roz simply because she is woman who made a couple of mistakes. We also go on to see Roz and Kate having a confrontation and sexism comes into play, with Roz lowkey telling Kate that she is worth more: 
“How old are you Kate?” 
“31.”
“I’ll tell you about my road to 31. I’d been a DI two years already. Then, I made life choices in the best interest of others. Not in my best interests, at all, as it turned out. And from what I know, you won’t make that mistake. You’d give up anything to get to the top. But despite all your ambition, you find yourself on the wrong side of the line.”
“What do you know?” 
“That you’ve got a son you barely see. Hardly holier than thou.” 
(Remember Roz’s “You’d give up anything to get to the top,” it’ll be important later).  
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These words get to Kate because she knows they’re true. She is an ambitious woman who keeps getting knocked down simply because she is a woman. And the fact that she has given up her life with her son in order to pave the way for her career and yet it still hasn’t paid off clearly annoys her. She might not like Roz but they do agree on this. 
Something else that Roz brings up in her series is something that was mentioned briefly by Steve, Kate and is later mentioned by Jo - bringing in the link there. The something being The Masons. We first hear it in S3 in reference to Ted Hastings and Patrick Fairbank. And since Fairbank ends up being corrupt I think it’s fair to say that The Masons now = a form of corruption. In the same series Kate goes to meet a female AC-3 officer in order to request permission for an undercover operation, said officer goes on to say “Because I’m a woman, I can’t be a Mason,” this further solidifies that The Masons are synonymous with corruption. I mean, they are an organisation that exclude women from high ranking positions and get away with it. The fact that Kate seeks authority from a different, female officer because she knows that The Masons are technically a corrupt organisation is very telling of how she feels towards them. 
Roz accuses Ted of being a Mason and henceforth explaining that that is why he is always more interested in investigating female officers and why there is a lack of diversity within AC-12. This is a play on Kate since she had just been turned down the DI role in favour of Steve - and I think it’s fair to assume that Ted then only gave that position to Kate later because of what Roz revealed in that interview, and if he didn’t put a female officer in a high ranking role after what he had just been accused of, it would’ve looked bad on him. Which is really rather annoying to be honest, Kate should’ve got that role because she makes a good DI not because Ted got called out on his bullshit, but we move. 
In S6E3 Jo says to Kate about Buckells employing Ryan: 
“Family friend or something, probably got a nudge down at the Masonic Lodge.”
Now that one line was enough for Kate to know, at the time, that Jo wasn’t ‘bent,’ since she had just spoken out against a form of corruption. Jo had shown a dislike towards the idea that Ryan got a job on merit for simply being a man and that gives Kate ammunition to go after Buckells and find the evidence that would prove Buckells is corrupt. The fact he does end up being ‘The Fourth Man’ further pushes the idea that The Masons = Corruption. 
So Kate witnessing Buckells laying into Jo is another reason for Kate and Jo to share a bond; they’re both women in a very male dominated workplace who are more likely to be subjected to bullying by fellow male colleagues. If we do get another series I wouldn’t be surprised if it digs into The Masons and that form of corruption. 
In summary, Kate feels very strongly about inequality within the workplace since she is always undermined by her male colleagues and it wouldn’t surprise me that if half the reason why Kate feels so comfortable within MIT is because she’s working alongside a woman and she isn’t undermined nearly half as much. 
See: Jo’s constant, “That’s a good point, Kate,” “You’re right, Kate,” as opposed to Ted’s constant, “Steve’s right, Kate.” 
Back to Kate and Jo’s relationship. The shift in their relationship post that corridor scene becomes more obvious as it is from that point on where Kate starts to defend Jo to Steve:
“For Christ’s sake Steve, she’s my gaffer, you want me to rat on her?” 
And that moral dilemma comes into play again as Kate warns Jo that AC-12 are going to storm MIT and seize files. Kate isn't happy with what she’s done, you can see that from a mile off but she knows that she needed to do it since her loyalty now lies with MIT and she needs to protect the case she and her team are working on.  
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I also think it has something to do with what she previously says to Steve:
“You know what it’s like being ex-anticorruption. I’ve had to work my bollocks off with them lot.” 
She knew that if she didn’t warn Jo about AC-12 then her whole team would turn on her and accuse her of being undercover/colluding with AC-12 when she isn’t (necessarily). And we’re back to the point she raises to Steve about her being seen as a possible traitor. 
We later see the first ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo and much like how we were thrown into Kate and Jo’s relationship/closeness, we are thrown into this scene. We assume they’ve been there for a while and they’re in the middle of a conversation when we join them. And Jo is leading the conversation, she is talking freely whilst Kate is listening - once again, there’s a lot of trust between them. 
What is striking in this scene however is the parallels to a similar scenario between Kate and Tony in the first series. Context is different since that meeting is arranged as a means for Kate to dig for information from Tony whereas with Jo, it’s a chance for Kate to be a ‘sounding board’ as she puts it, she’s being emotionally available for Jo. But there is something that really stood out:  
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Kate’s reaction to both being very different. With Tony she makes light of the situation whilst with Jo she doesn’t say anything, just simply nods her head. It’s all explained when given the context, she’s undercover with Tony and rule number one is to not form too close a relationship with the person you’re investigating as it could jeopardise the case she’s working on, so she has to keep it impersonal. But she puts it in a way that shuts down the allusion but doesn’t give anything away. 
Her reaction to Jo, on the other hand, is striking. She nods, not saying a word. She wants to call her Jo, she wants to cross that boundary and there is nothing stopping her from doing that so she can agree to it.
But whilst we’ve brought up this parallel we might as well look into other parallels concerning Kate’s relationship with both Tony and Jo. Tartan grey suits aside, Tony and Jo are quite similar, they were both groomed by Tommy Hunter - Jo in a much deeper and longer way but the point still stands. Tony was the one to introduce Tommy into the show and Jo was the one to take him out - not in a literal sense but she revealed the most information that would shut down the era that could be deemed as Tommy Hunter’s era. Both Tony and Jo form a close relationship with Kate, Jo’s being more genuine whereas Tony’s is faked and all smoke and mirrors. 
The proof is in the pudding here:
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It’s awkward and unwelcome. Vastly different to this scene: 
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Jo and Tony are perhaps the only two of the ‘bent coppers’ we see that don’t really do anything - at least nothing drastic like murder anyway. Out of all the ‘bent coppers’ they’re the most innocent. The fact that they both have connections to Ryan Pilkington as well is very telling. But I won’t go into it too much since this is about Kate. 
The difference between Kate’s relationship with Tony and her relationship with Jo is that it is made very obvious that she doesn’t like Tony. She shows no sympathy towards him at all when talking to Steve in private - once again proving how good of a liar she is since that isn’t given away in the slightest during her scenes with Tony. Jo, on the other hand, she is very fond of, even after Jo lures her to the lorry park to be murdered Kate is still defensive of the woman and still, in a small way, takes her side. 
That being said, of both relationships there are assumptions made. Nigel makes the dig “Her cover wasn’t the only thing she blew, ask Tony,” and Farida’s “Smart money’s on Kate Fleming,” to which Jo replies, “Kate and I have been shagging on the sly for months.” 
Now what would’ve made a REALLY good parallel between S1 and S6 would’ve been this conversation between Steve and Kate:
“He saved my life.”
“He put you in danger in the first place.”
A wasted opportunity there considering how many parallels there have been between these two series with all the callbacks to old characters and little references that have been made. It would’ve made the parallels between Tony and Jo even greater; Tony lured Steve to be murdered (note how Ryan is present there also) but ended up saving him and Jo lured Kate to be murdered but ended up saving her by taking the blame for Ryan’s death. It would’ve made for a very good reference. 
Moving back to the ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo, I think I’m pointing out the obvious when I say that it has clear romantic undertones, from the lighting to the music that plays underneath - notably increasing as Kate says “Nah, not really my type.” The close up shot of this moment making it even more intimate. 
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Then we move onto Kate being the one to ask Jo around for the weekend, which Jo initially turns down and Kate adds, “Yeah, no pressure,” before initiating the hug that then changes Jo’s mind. We have not seen Kate in this situation before at all. Not in a heavily loaded romantic scene anyway, not even with Richard Akers. There was a sense of a deeper connection with Richard, they were sleeping with each other after all, but it also felt impersonal. Kate would turn up to his house, they’d sleep together, they might have a small scene together afterwards and then Kate would leave. We didn’t even see them kiss. They were just two lonely people, stuck in a loveless marriage wanting to feel something that they were both missing in their relationships.  
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But there’s an intimacy that’s been set up between Kate and Jo, this is more than just a friendship and it’s coming from both parties, with Kate being much more explicit about it than Jo; offering drinks, seeming happy that Jo turned the two men down and then asking to see Jo more - this is all Kate. But it’s not in the pushy way we have seen with her when it comes to her UCO’s. She’s not digging for information from Jo she just wants to love her. 
They also reveal their relationship status to each other in this moment, “It’s Mark’s turn to have Josh this weekend,” “I’ve just come out of a long term relationship.” If that isn’t screaming that what is happening between Kate and Jo isn’t just friendship then I don’t know what is. 
We then have Kate watching Jo as she leaves, there’s a pensive look on her face. She’s just crossed that boundary, she’s all but asked to spend the weekend with Jo and then followed it up with a hug. She’s made the first move and is clearly nervous about it. The romantic music continues under this and it sounds hopeful/happy. A stark contrast to how the show usually feels so the fact it’s playing up to this and taking the time to set Kate and Jo up shows that it’s important - the show doesn’t focus too much on personal lives. And because of that, it only signifies more, how annoying it is that these two got dropped to subtext after having it be so obvious. 
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And with such focus on Kate in this moment it show it’s integral. Kate is finding herself in a position that she has never been in before and because she knows that AC-12 are now investigating Jo, it only worries her more. She might think that AC-12 are wrongly investigating Jo but there’s always that chance they could be right and if they are, then her professional integrity is going to be questioned for the first time. She’s finding herself in a position that is usually filled by Steve. And Kate is highly judgemental of Steve in that department. 
Then we have this scene in the third episode: 
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This is their first sort of argument and Jo has pulled Kate up on her interviewing techniques, telling her that she was too harsh and that she’s “gotten used to nicking coppers.” It bothers Kate, she taps her foot, ponders for a moment and then follows behind Jo. She knows Jo’s right and we know this because she says to Steve in the next episode “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” 
She’s actually taken something that someone has said to her on board. This is rather unusual for Kate, who is extremely stubborn and isn’t a fan of people criticising her (but will happily criticise others - Kate really is the epitome of AC-12 isn’t she?) But the fact she listens to what Jo has to say and it changes her in a sense just goes to show how much she really likes Jo and she wants Jo to like her and also shows how much change Kate has gone through in just the first three episodes of S6. 
I am still trying to figure out why Kate made the decision to follow the patrol car but then I suppose it can be easily explained if you think of the fact that Kate will never be free of AC-12, no matter how hard she tries. Kate is AC-12 through and through, she is so deeply embedded in it she will never get out - it’s a stark parallel to how Jo is in a similar position in regards to the OCG. Going to be ~controversial~ here and say that I don’t think AC-12 makes Kate happy. It’s her home, it’s where she feels safe but it isn’t what makes her happy. S6 is, perhaps, the happiest that we have seen Kate. There were small hints throughout S5 that Kate no longer enjoyed working as a UCO/for AC-12, a number of quotes alluding to that, S5E1: 
“She couldn’t stop the hijack but the best she could do was limit the loss of life.” 
“Oh Christ I’ve been there. The lies, the fear. Got only knows what she’s going through.”
S5E2:
“Look Kate…Corbett’s embedded in a group of hardened criminals who’d execute him if they discover his true identity.” 
“I’ve been there, it’s not nice.”
S5E2 again:
“(About UCO’s) Ask her. She was undercover. Perfect job for a selfish arsehole that don’t give a toss about his own family.”  
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“Look what Corbett’s missus said about undercover work, that was never you.”
“Thanks Steve, but she was right.” 
All that does is hint that it wasn’t just Ted’s betrayal that pushed Kate to leave AC-12, rather it being the last straw and it giving her an actual reason to want out. 
She does, however, go back to AC-12 in the end because she has nowhere else to go and her job is her life. She’d rather sacrifice her happiness to keep her job and to keep doing what she’s doing.
When she returns to AC-12, for the first time this series, she hits us with the “My first duty as a police officer is preservation of life, sir. That’s why I’m here.” Her job always comes first, above everything else (it’s half the reason why her marriage broke down). Other examples of this include this moment from S2E6:
“I was undercover with Denton, and I blew it. And now we’re blowing the whole case. I need to close this, Steve, or I’ve got nothing.” 
And in S5E6:
“I’m just calling it as I see it, Steve. The truth comes first…I’m not going to sit around and wait for a kicking off the gaffer or Carmichael when there’s police work to be done.”
Kate is highly committed to her work and will stop at nothing so she can complete it; no matter who she might be investigating/building a case upon. This causes her to come across as callous and cold but this is Kate. Her job is her life. And honestly, out of all three of the main characters, Kate is probably the straightest. The only thing coming to mind about this not being the case would be the concealment of her relationship with Richard Akers but even then, it wouldn’t have effected the case too much since Jayne and Kate never had that phone call. This idea that Kate is the straightest out of all three of them does change in S6 however, since she is the one to shoot Ryan and she lets Jo take the blame for it. But despite that, Kate still continues with her holier than thou attitude which we’ll delve into more later. 
I know I keep switching back and forth between Kate and Jo’s relationship but Jo really is integral to this development in Kate that I can’t not talk about it. There’s further proof that Kate is more interested in the welfare of Jo rather than wanting information out of her shown via this scene:  
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Kate can be seen listening to the conversation between Jo and Steve but it isn’t until she hears Jo’s voice falter after hearing about Farida in prison does she then turn to look over at Jo. It peaks her interest and it explains why she brings up the topic of Farida at their next ‘date.’ 
“Look boss, I, uh, don’t want to speak out of term but…well, (Farida) claims that you two were close.” 
She’s not asking Jo a question here which is interesting. UCO!Kate would ask the question, she knows how to work people to get information out of them if she needed to. But she leaves this opened ended sentence that gives Jo the option to answer if she wants to (you could argue that since she knows how to work people then this is her way of working Jo but it doesn’t ever come across that way in my opinion). And she doesn’t, but this doesn’t necessarily bother Kate, at least not enough for her to push another question on Jo. 
“I imagine everyone’s got off on that little scenario. No life of their own so they pick holes in someone else’s. Especially if you’re a single woman.” 
“Yeah tell me about it, all it takes is a short haircut.”
Typical Kate to make a joke in this situation, it’s very much in character (made me think of her making a joke about putting Lindsay’s cat Bella into an evidence bag). The light joke doesn’t go down well with Jo and it causes her to back off. But we must remember that this is Kate’s first proper female friendship, we’ve only seen her in male dominated groups and she’s used to their way of making jokes. Prime example of that being half the jokes made by Dot and Nige during the first series, hardly stuff you want to hear but unfortunately it’s true to life. Being used to that sense of humour meant that Kate didn’t see much wrong with what she said until after she notices that Jo closes herself off: 
“Whatever you’ve heard Kate, it’s wrong. Farida’s a liar. That’s not me.”
“Okay.” 
Kate knows it’s a lie but doesn’t push it. Her obvious confusion is pointed out when Jo leaves the room: 
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I can’t tell you what’s going on in Kate’s head but it’s probably a mixture of wondering why Jo had gone so cold on her suddenly, if she had said anything wrong and if everything that has happened between them in the past three episodes has been all in her head? 
But what happens in this scene and what is spoken about isn’t necessarily subtext. Okay they don’t actually say the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ it’s more alluded to. But this is a very obvious and deliberate conversation about Jo’s sexuality/Kate trying to figure out her own and wanting confirmation from Jo that she hasn’t just been imagining it. It’s done on purpose because they’re setting Kate and Jo up to go on that route - and once again, this is what makes it so annoying that they did get dropped to subtext by E7. They had painted a very clear picture in the first couple of episodes - Kate and Jo are falling in love with each other, it’s a doomed love story but it’s still a love story. 
Despite Jo being hurt by Kate’s not very well thought-out joke, she still carries a lot of trust in Kate by the fact she leaves her belongings on her seat. This seems minimal and unimportant but it rules out the idea that Kate was asking about Jo’s relationship with Farida for more information, from a case POV. If she had been and if she was interested in finding out if Jo really was as bent as AC-12 are making out then she would’ve seized that opportunity to take a look through Jo’s bag (we see her debate that opportunity when Tony leaves his phone behind after their drink at the pub in S1, but before she has chance to he’s already noticed he’s forgotten it and takes it back). But Kate is too busy wondering why Jo had lied to her, once again showing that she’s interested in Jo from a relationship standpoint. 
One thing I do love though and just from this alone we know that Kate and Jo are genuine is the fact that they bond over their hatred for Ian ‘what a twat’ Buckells: 
“I hope he’s going to give credit where it’s due.” 
“How do you mean?” 
“You brought Ryan onto the team, boss.”
“Not me. That was Buckells’ idea.”
I’m not going to underestimate Kate in this moment however because she does pull a very clever move. She doesn’t ask outright but she is able to get an answer to a question she might have been asking. Steve made a dig earlier on in the episode about how Jo may have employed Ryan onto MIT herself, allowing Ryan to interfere with the Gail Vella files. Kate doesn’t play up to that accusation but you can see that she keeps in mind, she doesn’t want to believe that Jo picked Ryan on purpose but there is always the chance that she has. So, she uses this opportunity to find out if that was the case. Knowing now that it wasn’t, she’s reassured and she feels more confident in defending Jo as we see in later episodes. 
And as previously discussed, Kate starts looking into Buckells after Jo’s quip about the Masonic Lodge. And once she gets all the information she needed she then takes it to Jo and we get this line: 
“I knew you’d come through for me.” 
There’s a perspective change, we’ve seen before how Kate actively pushes how she will be able to do something for someone in order to gain their trust, “I’ll make it disappear,” in S1 and once again, telling Lindsay that she’ll say she was there that night of the ‘alleged’ attack on Lindsay’s neighbour. But she doesn’t investigate Buckells on Jo’s behalf, or because she wants to gain Jo’s trust. It’s quite ironic really isn’t it? She’s always tried to gain trust from these ‘bent coppers’ by offering to cover their crimes - which they never take her up on to be honest - and then the one time she does something off her own back and without any of those intentions, she does - sort of - cover for a ‘bent copper.’ But as we know, Buckells does end up being bent so Kate wasn’t in the wrong to look into him, just a shame they never clicked on to his deeper corruption sooner. 
And then Jo follows up with the line: 
“I needed someone on my team I could trust completely. Someone with no chance of being bent. Who better than an ex-anticorruption officer?” 
Oh if Kate only knew the deeper meaning of that line at the time. But in the same way as The Mason dig Jo makes, this is confirmation to Kate that Jo isn’t bent and AC-12 have got it wrong. If Jo was bent, why would she encourage Kate to flush out the corruption? 
It isn’t until Episode 4 where we actually learn more about Kate’s reasonings for leaving AC-12 and it comes at no surprise that it is due to Ted’s indiscretions during S5. But what is surprising about Ted and Kate’s conversation is that Kate doesn’t hide her true feelings and tells Ted the truth: 
“You made your choice to move on, and I know that the disciplinary action against me was definitely a factor. It put you and Steve in a really difficult position.” 
“Yeah, I’m not going to lie.”  
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But considering that Kate isn’t all that shy being honest in front of Ted it’s not that surprising. But given it is a tender, emotional topic for Kate I suppose you’d normally expect her to hide away her feelings but it’s quite nice that she doesn’t. She wants Ted to know that she hasn’t totally forgiven him for what he’s ‘alleged’ (at the time) to have done. 
And then we get the conversation between Kate and Steve and we get Kate’s second defence of Jo. And this time it is said with more confidence because she’s witnessed key moments first hand that have confirmed to her that Jo couldn’t be bent: 
“Without Jo we wouldn’t have got Buckells. Look, you haven’t seen the change in her I have. Now that Buckells is off her back, she’s on the Vella case 100 percent.” 
Typical love is blind moment there, ‘you don’t know them like I do.’ And the fact that she mentions that Buckells has been on Jo’s back for most of the case, is pulling it back to my previous mention of how Kate witnessing the argument between Buckells and Jo is so important - she’s now using it as an excuse to Steve about why Jo may have been lacking in her investigation into Gail Vella’s murder. 
(Just want to drop in and check that you’ve had drink or something, this is about halfway through I think so...continue).
Later on in the episode she’s seen defending Jo again: 
“He’s watching her.”
“Or meeting with her.”
“You got evidence of that?” 
We know why Kate is so defensive, she’s falling in love with Jo and she trusts her completely. But even still, it’s very interesting since she has never defended anyone quite so fiercely - at least not in private to Ted and Steve. 
In S1E5 Steve and Kate have this conversation about Tony Gates: 
“He didn’t kill her.”
“No?” 
It’s short and simple but enough to prove that no matter how much it appeared on the surface that Kate liked Tony it was all faked and she didn’t trust him in the slightest, going as far to say that he was capable of murder. 
We also see in this scene that Steve grows suspicious of Kate’s closeness to Jo (or at least that’s what it appeared to look like at the time and maybe if Kate and Jo’s relationship was acknowledged by Steve then this moment would’ve made more sense): 
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There is also another paralleling conversation that Kate and Steve could’ve had in S6 from S1. And once again, this is in reference to Kate’s relationship with Tony: 
“Something happened between you two.” 
“Like what?” 
“Nothing, forget it.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I shouldn’t have asked, it’s private.”
“Yeah, it is.” 
It’s very interesting that all the ‘moments’ between Kate and Tony were all faked on the basis of Kate wanting information between him but because of one comment from Nigel, Steve decided to pull Kate up on that accusation. Yet in S6, despite appearing suspicious of Kate and Jo’s relationship he never once brought it up? You could argue that Steve knows Kate better than anyone and he has learnt not to push her on those topics because she will just tell him to piss off, but, how many times has Kate slated Steve for getting involved with witnesses/suspects? That would’ve been Steve’s perfect opportunity to tear a strip off Kate and say that she is no angel and she’s not protected from falling in love with the wrong people. But alas Jed Mercurio would rather have focused on a straight relationship where one half only appeared in a handful of scenes <3
But back to the ‘You got evidence of that?’ Moment before I get too annoyed, the fact that Kate wants to reveal to Jo about Ryan’s movements is very telling. She wants to protect Jo and she genuinely believes that Jo is a good person/isn’t bent. We see that this trust runs even deeper when she goes ahead and tells Jo anyway despite Ted telling her not to - but she’s clever enough to not mention any collusion she has with AC-12.
“I need to talk to you in private.”
“Something wrong?”
“It’s not personal. It’s work.”
This is the first use of the word ‘personal’ from Kate and the fact she feels the need to state that what she wants to talk to Jo about isn’t to do with them and their relationship is…interesting. A few people have pointed about how the use of personal within Line of Duty could be argued to allude to relationships/love interests - Farida left for ‘personal reasons’ after all - for Kate to use it here and to make that separation between personal and professional shows that Kate and Jo’s relationship runs deeper than being just colleagues. We know that already from how they’ve acted around each other but now we’ve had it explicitly confirmed. 
Ironically though, this is the moment Jo starts taking a step back from Kate in order to protect her. She now knows that Ryan is watching her and if Ryan is watching her then he will be able to see what’s forming between herself and Kate and that puts Kate at the centre of danger. Look what happened to Farida, she was in a relationship with Jo and then she ended up in prison. Worse could’ve happened but Jo did what she could to protect Farida - she used harsh words to hurt Farida and push her away (a similar tactic used by Tony Gates to his wife), but because Farida kept pushing and ended up ratting on Jo, Jo had to take drastic action by planting those burner phones. 
And now it’s happening to Kate but she knows that Kate isn’t Farida and she won’t cave as easily - as we go on to see later on. 
That being said, Kate does give Jo a confidence boost. She tries to get rid of Ryan. But Kate’s support isn’t enough, it’s too late for Jo. But just the fact that one word from Kate gives her enough to stand up goes to show how much Jo has come to rely on Kate and how much she trusts her. 
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But as we know, Jo gets threatened by Ryan so Jo does the only thing she knows how to do and that’s to push Kate away. 
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She tells Kate to drop her issues with Ryan otherwise she’ll request a transfer for Kate. Kate mouths the word ‘ma’am’ completely unable to use her voice. She’s annoyed and evidently so. But she isn’t just annoyed at the fact Jo has told her that she would get rid of her if it came down to it. She’s annoyed because, in her eyes, Jo doesn’t know the danger she’s putting herself in by keeping Ryan on the team. (Of course we know that Jo knows Ryan and his connections but Kate doesn’t, she’s been defending Jo to high heaven and truly believes that Jo is innocent). Kate has seen firsthand the sorts of things Ryan has been involved in - she doesn’t learn just how much he’s involved until later on but she did see some of things he got up to as a kid and knows that he could be just as dangerous now as he was then. 
You could argue that she’s also annoyed at the fact that she went against AC-12 and people she inherently trusts in order to protect Jo and now she’s just got that thrown back in her face.
And then we move on to the big episodes. What happened at the end of E4 clearly created a rift between Kate and Jo, we see Kate trying to pull Jo to one side but gets rejected, and she’s hurt by that.  
Kate expresses her hurt to AC-12 in the following scene: 
“Jo’s become cold and distant towards me, I don’t know what’s going on in the background.” 
Shows that there’s a distance between them now but Kate is still sympathetic towards her. She doesn’t like that Jo is pushing her out and I think this is when it really starts to click for Kate that something isn’t right. She gets those suspicions evidently confirmed when Steve reveals that Jo’s DNA was found at Farida’s house and henceforth that she’s related to Tommy Hunter. (Also the fact that Kate is using ‘Jo’ here and not ‘Davidson’ as you would expect her to reveals her personal relationship with Jo).
Despite that distance, Kate is still defensive of Jo and still trusts her: 
“You’ve put Jo under surveillance, why?” 
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“Our in-depth forensic examination of Farida Jatri’s home detected Davidson’s DNA.”   
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Her face the moment she finds out that Jo lied to her about her relationship with Farida is heartbreaking but I think the fact that we see Chloe and Ted’s reaction to this also, is so important. They’re very clearly aware of the feelings between Kate and Jo even if it is never said, and we’re back to being annoyed that Kate and Jo’s relationship wasn’t acknowledged in E7. Everyone was aware of it so why wasn’t it mentioned?!
“Davidson’s DNA is a partial match for Tommy Hunter.” 
“I know, from Steve, that you’ve formed the view that Davidson isn’t bent, Kate. But I’m sorry, it appears that she’s pulled the wool over your eyes.” 
And then there’s the explicit confirmation that Steve is aware of Kate’s feelings towards Jo.  
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She’s just been bombarded with a lot of information, information that goes against everything that she has believed in/defended for the past couple of episodes. She’s conflicted and doesn’t know what to think. Kate Fleming, who is usually calm and collected and in control of her emotions is now finding herself caught in a moment that she usually isn’t in. And now she’s wondering why she couldn’t see it, why she couldn’t see that something wasn’t right. She’s usually so sharp, quick to pick up on corruption - she spotted Dots pretty early on. But she knows, deep down, she knows and I think that scares her more. 
Kate has always pulled Steve up on his lack of integrity, for getting himself stuck in situations that would cloud his vision and now suddenly the tables have turned. It’s her getting in that situation. It’s her having her vision blurred because of her relationship with someone and she doesn’t know what to do. 
That being said, her trust in Jo is still very much there. It’s why she formulates the plan. She wants to prove that Steve and AC-12 are wrong about Jo, that just because she’s related to the OCG overlord doesn’t mean that she herself is corrupt. But she also needs to prove it to herself, she needs to know that she didn’t get it wrong. That she didn’t let a corrupt officer slip through her fingers because she fell in love. She’s an ex-anticorruption officer, she should be able to spot when a police officer is bent, more so than anyone else. 
She later reveals what her plan had been to prove Jo’s innocence to Ted and Steve, she wants to shout it from the rooftops that she was right about Jo and they were wrong: 
“Only one site was disclosed to MIT officers. However, I took the decision to inform DSU Davidson of all three possible sites.” 
“It’s a big call, Kate.” 
“Well, I believed it paid off, sir. You said yourself the information on Jo’s family history strongly suggests she’s colluding with organised crime, but that doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen first hand. We needed to know one way or another. She had plenty of time to tip off the OCG and she didn’t. As far as I’m concerned that’s proof she isn’t bent.” 
It’s the fourth defence of Jo and is said with even more confidence because now she has evidence to back it up. She knows for definite that Jo isn’t bent and her conscience had been appeased; she didn’t get it wrong.  
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And even after all that, after everything Kate does, Ted still hits her with the “Steve’s right, Kate.” She’s undermined yet again. She wants Ted and Steve to trust and like Jo as much as she does because she loves Jo. 
And then we get another hostile scene between Kate and Jo but Kate is still trying to let Jo know that she is on her side, that she has her back, that she has spent months defending Jo’s arse to AC-12 and Steve: 
“I’m telling you the truth, Jo, because I trust you with it.” 
Jo fires back by telling Kate to request a transfer but this has come after a warning look from Ryan. Jo knows what’s going to happen next and she wants to get Kate out of the way before she’s asked the unforgivable, she evens mentions that AC-12 would take her back in the hopes that that would be enough to turn Kate. 
“You’ve been distant with me for days, is this personal?” 
“I’m your senior officer, I should be distant.” 
“I thought we were friends, what’s happening here?”
“So you can tell AC-12?”
“No, I wouldn’t tell them personal stuff.”
And there’s the ‘personal’ again, twice. They’re talking about their relationship, Kate is making it about their relationship. She’s trying to tell Jo that the reason she trusts her so much is because she loves her and that’s something she wouldn’t tell AC-12 because it doesn’t concern them. 
“And as for requesting a transfer, I respectfully decline. I’m not leaving.”  
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That is very much in character for Kate, sticking to her true stubborn self there. But she’s angry at Jo because she won’t let Kate help her. Jo is angry because Kate doesn’t realise the danger she’s putting herself in - a nice parallel to the other conversation they shared where the roles are reversed and Jo was trying to help Kate by getting her to drop the subject of Ryan and Kate was annoyed because Jo was blind to the danger she was in. 
Kate’s ‘I’m not leaving,’ does have much more meaning to it than we first realise however. After shooting Ryan, she runs off with Jo - she has no reason to, she was lawfully carrying a firearm and serving her duty as an officer. But she gives Jo the chance to tell her everything, she doesn’t leave her side and does everything she can to protect Jo i.e the car chase scene. She takes Jo’s side despite everything and sticks to her words of ‘I’m not leaving.’
Later on, Jo manipulates Kate, playing on the one thing Kate wants to address, “The personal issues we discussed,” she knows that’s the only way Kate will come out with her (at least, that’s what she thinks). Kate is desperate to explore whatever is going on between them and Jo plays on that.  
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And judging by Kate’s hopeful face, it seems to do the trick. Kate’s hopeful face being that she thinks Jo might actually open up to her and tell her the truth, and invite Kate into whatever is going on in her life/head. Poor Kate.  
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She knows deep down that something isn’t right but she goes along with it because she trusts Jo so much and I think she truly believes that she’s gotten through to her. 
There is a dilemma going on within Kate here, she wants to trust Jo but knows deep down she can’t because of the AC-12 officer that is embedded in her (Ted’s ‘That’s my officer out there,’ coming into play here). She keeps the gun on her person which shows despite her constant defence, she’s still suspicious. However, she doesn’t phone Steve until after she’s arrived at the address showing that the trust for Jo is still there. Obviously that changes when she realises that the location is dodgier than she probably first thought. 
“Let’s not hang around here Jo, we’d rather be inside with a glass of wine.”
Sticking to her character once again here, trying to be hopeful, trying to be right about Jo’s character. 
“Jo wanted to give you a way out.” 
This line from Ryan is crucial for Kate’s trust in Jo. It may get lost amongst the other, more pressing events, but even just hearing first that Jo tried to save her probably brings her some reassurance in the long run. From this line alone she knows that Jo never intended to kill her and was coerced into setting the scene up. 
“I’ve done my bit. I don’t have to stay here and watch.” 
Jo was only told to ‘get rid’ of Kate. She was never told to kill her. She was the one to entrap Kate but she was never going to be the one to kill her, that was on Ryan. This is another crucial moment adding to the reason why Kate would run away with Jo and give her the chance to talk. 
E6 opens up with Kate being her typical self and taking control of the situation. But even so, she’s struggling. As I’ve mentioned a lot throughout this, Kate is normally calm and collected, she very rarely lets her emotions get in the way of what she wants to do. But there’s no room for her to hide from her emotions here, she hasn’t had the time to compartmentalise them, she hasn’t had the time to process and understand them. And that unsettles her, she wants to take control - and she does as best as she can - but she’s faltering. The person who she loves has just lured her to her death and she doesn’t know what to do with that information.
“You lured me there to be murdered.” 
Confirms that she knows that Jo wasn’t going to be the one that actually murdered her, just that she was the one to lure her. 
“Kate.”
“Didn’t you?”
She cuts Jo off, she’s angry and understandably so. But because she hasn’t had time to process her emotions she isn’t being as cool as she normally would be in a high-stress situation.  
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She is really struggling and it’s understandable of course. And then we have that scene:
“I always worried you were pretending.” 
“Pretending?” 
“You know what I mean…to lure me into trusting you.” 
Kate’s ‘pretending?’ Is more offence at the fact Jo felt she had to suggest it - Kate was far from pretending, her behaviour across the series is enough to prove that she is in love with Jo. I also think it’s to do with the fact that Jo had the audacity to ask the question now, of all situations to bring up the topic, Jo could’ve picked a better moment. But Jo doesn’t let up, using Kate’s preferred tactic of getting information out of people:
“You still won’t answer, were you lying to me Kate?”
“This is about you Jo, not me.” 
Deflecting the question that she has every right to deflect, given the circumstances. But she neither confirms nor denies said question - she’s trying to keep control of the situation, she’s trying not to let her emotions get in the way of what she needs to do. She needs to find out the truth, she needs Jo to tell her everything before the law inevitably catches up with them. 
She turns the question back to Jo, asking if she was the one lying, that maybe she didn’t want Kate on the team at all. She then goes on to reveal that she knows Jo lied about her relationship with Farida. It’s coming from a place of anger and frustration and like I said, Kate is well within her rights to feel like that.  
Then we have Kate doing something surprising, she drives away as she hears police sirens. I’ve been trying to place why she was so determined to keep Jo away from the police, to give Jo that chance to explain herself but then all of a sudden, Kate hanging the phone up on Carmichael made it all make sense. 
The moment Steve told Kate that the observations on Jo and Ryan had been pulled as a result of Osbourne and Carmichael, she knew that something bigger was at play here. If Osbourne is the real H/The Fourth Man (extremely bloody likely) and Buckells was just the messenger, then it’s fair to say that it was actually Osbourne who ordered Kate’s death. And if that is the case then it makes sense he would pull the observations off, meaning that there would be no witnesses to the murder. But Kate’s not a stupid woman, she’s worked for AC-12 for God knows how long and she’s been part of the investigation into H/The Fourth man for just as long. She knows it’s someone higher up in the force and that information from Steve told her that something was going to happen at the meeting. 
But upon hearing that Jo tried to give her a way out, she knows that she can trust Jo, that she is just another pawn in this sick game, that she’s vulnerable and in need of protecting/saving. She must guess pretty early on, that it is The Fourth Man that is manipulating Jo and she knows that Jo isn’t going to reveal that in an interview, especially if it is someone high up. So that’s why she takes Jo out of the situation, that’s why she sacrifices her credibility and her integrity, as Ted said Ryan is a ‘sprat’ - he’s not important - she can get more information about the top man from Jo. Kate gives Jo that chance to talk and to prove herself before she is silenced by Osbourne and Carmichael. It helps that Jo trusts Kate and wants to tell Kate the truth. 
And then we have the emotion, oh the emotion:
“Jesus Christ, Steve’s in on it.”
She’s lost control of the situation, she’s lost control of her emotions and everything has just come tumbling down on her. And for a brief moment she feels as though everyone has turned on her: Jo, Steve, Ted, everyone she trusts most in the world and she can’t bear it. I can’t even begin to imagine how utterly alone she must’ve felt in that moment.  
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“You bastard, Steve!”
“Stay there, Kate.”
“You gave me up! You told them!”
“Kate, I give you my word, I didn’t.”
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“That’s bullshit.”  
“I promise you, I’ll get you to safety. Both of you.”
Kate doesn’t comply until after she’s assured that Steve will protect both her and Jo - shows that despite everything she still has a loyalty to Jo and she still wants to protect her. Despite what’s happened she can see that Jo is vulnerable and has been used her entire life, she gets that impression just from the little bit that Jo reveals to her. She feels for Jo, sort of in the same way she felt for Dot but this is on a much deeper level and to be fair, Dot did worse things than Jo. Kate might be an expert at compartmentalising her emotions but she still has a heart - we see it in glimpses across the whole show but it comes in tenfolds where Jo is concerned, as a result of how they’ve been set up. As much as she’s angry and upset and how much she feels betrayed by Jo, Kate still wants her to be safe and protected. Kate knows that Jo has been trying to get out of the clutches of the OCG i.e employing Kate in the first place. Jo holding the gun and taking the blame gives Kate enough assurance that Jo is being true to her word when she says she wanted out/didn’t want to kill Kate. That’s why she wants Jo safe, because she believes in her. 
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Being put in that cell on her own now gives Kate the chance to compartmentalise her emotions, she has time to think over the events of the night. She has time to think about her feelings for Jo, the love, the loss, the betrayal. We see that this works, later on when Patricia tells her that Jo had taken the blame for Ryan’s death.   
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She’s back to her usual stoic self, emotions cut off. She can’t allow herself to react about what Patricia has told her because it would give too much away, if she reacted then it would make it even more obvious that Jo wasn’t the one who shot Ryan. She can’t even show that she’s relieved or grateful that Jo had taken such sacrifice for her/kept to her word. 
“Are you sure you’re okay? I know nobody’s coming after you over Ryan Pilkington’s shooting, but if you ever need to talk about it.” 
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That is not the face of someone who is fine. She’s very clearly trying desperately to push her emotions down, put them to one side because she has a job to do. Jo has given her this chance to solve the case and she sure as hell isn’t going to let her down. 
“Did she say anything about her family history? She told me her dad was a police officer.” 
“No. Never even gave us that much.” 
Proving my earlier point that Jo inherently trusts Kate and was willing to give her more details before they were interrupted. 
“She’s scared, Steve. After what happened to Tommy, Dot, Lakewell, never mind John Corbett.”
“That’s why we’ve got her on the VPU at Brentiss, security cameras monitoring access to her cell.” 
Even now, after everything Jo put her through, Kate is still defending her. She still has Jo’s back and it just makes it even more annoying that Steve doesn’t bring up the Jo conversation to Kate. He has seen Kate defend her this whole series, he knows that Jo lured Kate to her death and now he’s there, listening to Kate defending Jo and worrying over the fact that she’s scared and vulnerable. I know at this point there’s a sense of trust between Jo and Steve (as a result of Kate) and Steve is much more aware of the situation Jo has been in her whole life, he does feel for her and understands Kate’s defence of her. But the fact that he’s not even suspicious of how Kate’s opinion hasn’t changed despite learning of Jo’s collusion with the OCG and almost being killed, just highlights how Jed was so quick to drop Kate’s development, pushing it to the side for the sake of making a political point. 
And here comes the complete reversal of all the development Kate has had across this series, and more to the point, the memory loss she seems to go through. 
“The stuff he’s hiding. I never thought I’d look at the gaffer like this.” 
But she did? In S5 when they were only suspecting that Ted may have ratted John Corbett out to the OCG. She was willing to report it, that was how much she believed it. And now she’s acting as if that never happened? 
“Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie.” 
“Come off it Steve. How many times have we criticised coppers that’ve took retirement to dodge disciplinary action?”
It’s a valid point and strengthens my previous mention of how she might be the ‘straightest’ out of all three of them. She is the embodiment of AC-12, truth and integrity - or at least she likes to believe that she is. Kate often sits in a place of judgement and thinks of herself as an innocent being that could do no wrong. This is hardly the case, she has made plenty of mistakes and although she hasn’t got herself into the vast number of predicaments that Steve has found himself in, she isn’t exactly free from this sense of ‘corruption.’ It does get pointed out to her on two occasions, the first from Richard Akers, “Holier than thou doesn’t suit you Kate,” and the second from Roz Huntley, “Hardly holier than thou.” 
The fact it’s mentioned twice and is very much the same quote shows that this attitude Kate upholds, is a part of her character. And we see it again with this moment: 
“She’s got a right to know what happened to her husband.” 
“Maybe she already does. She might be blackmailing the gaffer.” 
“Steph? No.” 
“You seem pretty sure…what?” 
“We’ve become…”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Steve.” 
Before I get into the main issue, I think it’s made pretty obvious in this scene that Jo isn’t the only one Kate is being cold towards, it’s everyone. She’s coming across as very cynical and unsympathetic. But you could argue that this is Kate, she’s almost the stereotypical ice-queen who has no emotions and doesn’t care who she hurts which, if this was pre-S6 Kate I would say is very much in character. 
But this isn’t pre-S6 Kate. S6 has shown the more emotional side to Kate, it’s seen her with her walls broken down, she’s opened up, fallen in love. And I know the events of the previous episode would be enough for her to put those walls up again but surely, if you are going to go to the effort of developing a character you could at least show the change that this development has had on her? 
I would’ve fully expected her to shrink away after what happened, I think that’s a completely normal reaction, even more so where Kate is involved. But given how she has gone through things in this series that she hasn’t gone through before, I would expect a different reaction from her? More emotional or more obvious that she’s trying to hold herself together. But I don’t see that, I just see her back as her S1-5, AC-12 self. 
It’s so hard because it makes total sense for Kate to revert back to her old self, she’s been burned and she’s hurting. But like I said, if she’s gone through this development over the course of S6, it’s set up in a way to make you think that she’s not going to handle this situation as she normally would but she ends up doing exactly that - any development Jed has put her through has now been reversed. 
But my main issue with this scene between Kate and Steve brings me back to my earlier point. Steve is shown to be aware of the possible thing that’s happening between Kate and Jo - little looks when Kate is defending Jo, the fact that Ted mentioned how Steve had been talking to him about Kate’s trust for Jo. 
Now Kate, throughout the entirety of show, has consistently berated Steve on his lack of control when it comes to women. She has torn a strip off him at every opportunity, when the situation with Lindsay occurred, she was so unbelievably angry and annoyed with him, that he had just quite possibly ruined the entire case because “Steve can’t keep it in his pants,” (thank you Lindsay Denton for summarising that up perfectly). 
This would’ve been the PERFECT opportunity for Steve to turn it back around on Kate. He’s aware of the situation and he would finally be able to pull Kate up on something that he is known for doing and something Kate never stops short to criticise him on. He could’ve taken that opportunity to humble Kate and make her aware of the fact that she’s not innocent and she’s certainly not free from falling/being interested/getting involved with the wrong person. A simple “What and Jo’s different?” From Steve would’ve sufficed. We don’t even need a verbal reaction from Kate, just a look that one, would’ve acknowledged Kate and Jo’s relationship and two, would’ve put Kate in her place and make her realise that she should be the last person to pass judgment on Steve since she has now found herself in a very similar position.
What’s more, and I have mentioned this before and it’s what makes E7 so frustrating, Kate and Jo have been constantly paralleled to Steph and Steve throughout the series, all the romantic scenes, alluding to relationships bubbling for our two main characters. So that scene is where I would expect the parallel to occur again but it doesn’t? And I just have to ask, why on earth would you parallel these relationships, show their romantic scenes side by side, have their development evolve in similar ways just to then only focus on one relationship? 
Okay the possibility of a relationship occurring between Kate and Jo went out of the window the moment we knew Jo was colluding with the OCG but Jed still took the time to explore it, to delve into it. So for it to not even be mentioned or acknowledged, I just think, why waste our time if it’s going to end up not being relevant? I mean the fact that a heterosexual relationship where one half got barely any screen time took precedence and verbal acknowledgment (aka not subtext) over a queer relationship occurring between two of the main characters of the series? I don’t even need to say it. 
But if subtext was all we’re going to get for Kate and Jo in E7 then I’ll just get back to analysing and reading between the lines because Jed can’t stick to and acknowledge storylines that he has spent the entire series building up and I need to make sense of it for some peace of mind. 
I’m going to call this outfit the ‘Proving Jo Davidson is innocent’ outfit since Kate wears it when she hatches her plan to prove just that and again, when she’s gathering evidence that would mean Jo would be able to get witness protection.   
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I promise you that these are separate scenes but honestly the fact that we have the same shot with Kate sitting in the same place, from the same angle only just emphasises my point even more. This was Kate on her proving Jo is innocent mission that she never let slip. Her goal hasn’t changed since E5, but perhaps now she is even more determined because she now knows that it’s what Jo wants. Jo got Kate on the team for a reason and now that is what Kate is doing. 
And because I’ve *briefly* touched on the fact that Kate/Jo are always paralleled to Steve/Steph I think it’s only right that I point out how in both of the scenes shown above, there is a Steve/Steph scene paralleled to it, either before or after. Both the Steve/Steph scenes taking place in Steve’s car with Steph on the phone/over voicemail with the scenes showing that Steve is unsure about his relationship with Steph - which you could argue is the exact opposite to Kate and Jo. Kate might be unsure of her feelings and how deep they go but she is sure of one thing and that Jo is innocent and will do everything she can to prove it. 
We go on to next to see AC-12 discussing new messages that have come through entailing The Fourth Man’s plans for Jo. Kate refers to her as “Davidson” a stark contrast to how she has previously referred to her in the presence of Steve and Ted but this is most likely to do with the fact that has had to cut her feelings off for the sake of saving Jo so she is trying to make it as impersonal as possible. 
I won’t even talk about how easy it could’ve been to include a scene between Kate and Jo in that ambush scene. Before or even after, if Jed wanted to keep that element of surprise that AC-12 had managed to intercept before the ambush could take place. A simple moment where Kate went into the van and said “You alright?” would’ve sufficed. 
“You’re safe now Jo.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean really safe. To apply for witness protection. All my notes, all my records will show that you acted under the control and coercion of others. You can live the life you should’ve lived. Be free to be the person that you really are.” 
I have spoken about this before but will briefly go into it again. ‘The person’ that Kate is referring to is the person Kate has been defending for this whole series. Kate was the only person to see through Jo’s walls and glimpse the person that existed outside of the clutches of the OCG. Jo could be herself around Kate, probably felt liberated and had moments where she realised that Kate is something she could’ve had if she wasn’t stuck in that life, so it’s only right that Kate was the one to set her free - even if it’s at the expense of her own feelings but we’ll get into that now.
Although Kate is coming across as ‘cold’ during this scene, she isn’t unsympathetic. Everything she is saying to Jo is coming from a compassionate place. It’s vastly different from the previous scenes shared by Kate and Jo so it feels more harsh but Kate is having to cut her feelings off to provide the protection for Jo and to henceforth save her. She still cares deeply for Jo but she’s not allowed to show that, and it’s more for her own sake than anything. 
If Kate allows herself, for even a moment, to let that emotion escape then it’s all going to come out. Everything she has have ever felt for Jo will be free and then she won’t be able to let Jo go because then it will be even harder. She can’t let herself come to terms over what she feels for Jo because she has to set Jo free, she can’t be selfish, it’s either her feelings or it’s Jo’s freedom. And considering she has spent so long defending Jo it’s obvious what option she favours. 
Then she gets straight back to the point, not allowing her facade to drop:
“If you tell us who the top man is.” 
Now remember how I said to remember Roz’s quote because it will be important later? Here’s why it’s important, “You’d give up anything to get to the top.” ‘Top’ in the context of Roz and Kate’s conversation is referring to Kate wanting to better her career but ‘Top’ could also refer to the fact that Kate, along with AC-12, have spent years digging into institutionalised corruption to find out who the orchestrator behind it all is, and now she’s so close to finding out who the ‘top’ man is, because of Jo. 
You could argue that this idea completely reverses the points I’ve just made and offers the alternative that Kate only cut her emotions off in order to get to the top - which is what Roz’s quote alludes to. But I do think that both standpoints can coincide with one another. She cuts her feelings off for Jo so she can save her, but because she has had to do that, that makes her able to dig for information and solve the case and hence find out who the top man is. 
And therein is the last scene that Kate and Jo share and to quote Kate Fleming on this one “Thanks for making me feel like shit.”   
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But Kate’s story isn’t over just yet so we will continue. 
“Sir, during an unlawful search an item was found that relates to the sum of £50,000. You’re not under caution so anything you say to us at this time can’t be used in evidence. That’s loyalty right there.”
I know she’s having a dig at Ted’s previous comment about loyalty to Steve whilst he simultaneously reveals Steve’s issues from across the series to Kate, but I also like to think it’s a dig at the fact that despite Ted continuously undermining Kate, she has still stuck by him and still fought his corner - to an extent. But the fact she does stand up to Ted and isn’t afraid to do so is something I have to give her, she is staying very true to her character there. 
I think this has been pointed out before and although it probably is a reach but this is Kate’s reaction after Ted says “…of a woman I cared deeply about…” 
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I do think that this is a moment where we’re meant to assume that Kate could be thinking about Jo as a result of Ted’s words. The focus is on Kate’s reactions rather than Steve’s so I think it’s a fair assumption/association to make and it’s not out of the realms of possibilities. 
“If I decide to come back.”
“Will you?”
“Well someone’s got to keep you lot in line.” 
She just can’t stay away from it, no matter how hard she tries. AC-12 will always pull her back. 
“You don’t realise what you’ve got until it’s gone.”
It’s a loaded statement from Kate and comes with many meanings to it, her missing AC-12 ( to an extent) and wanting back in, her missing her friendship with Steve and now losing Jo without having the chance to tell her how she really feels/that she wasn’t pretending. 
“You just going to stick to the one drink?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Still early enough to drive up to Liverpool.” 
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep seeing Steph.”
“But you want to?”
“Yeah. But what chance has it got?”
“You wanna be careful mate, you’re going to end up on your own.”
Having to read between the lines here again but Kate is encouraging Steve to go for Steph because she can’t go for Jo. It makes sense when you consider how much those two relationships have been paralleled against each other, one was doomed from the beginning but at least the other has a chance to *be* something. And this conversation could’ve been spun differently to acknowledge Kate and Jo’s relationship also:
“But what chance has it got?”
“More chance than me and Jo.”
It’s really that simple. I’m fine with subtext, it works sometimes. Not everything has to be said. But across the whole series Kate and Jo have been everything but. Everything that has happened between them has been obvious and deliberate. So the fact it got dropped to subtext in the last episode doesn’t make sense? If their relationship from the beginning had been pure subtext then fine it works, but like I said, it hasn’t. Kate and Jo’s relationship needed to be addressed and acknowledged, otherwise why the set up if you’re never going to bring it up properly? 
Okay, you can argue that it dropping to subtext and having to read between the lines is a representation for how Kate is having to suppress her feelings for Jo but your audience deserve better than that Jed. And not to sound like a stuck record but you don’t have your character go through massive development for her just to end up as the exact same person she was before she went through said development. She has to change, even if it’s just a little bit. No one stays the same after what Kate has been through. 
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 Which brings us to the therapy scene. 
“Me and my partner are separated.” 
I have also already spoken about the vagueness of this line so won’t go into it too much but, subtext again, she could also be referring to Jo. I would just like to point out as well that music that underplays the moment in which she talks about Steve is very different to the music that underplays the date scenes between Kate and Jo and the scenes between Steph and Steve so you could say that that rules out any allusion to a possible romance between Kate and Steve (and honestly thank God because there’s more sexual tension between two planks of wood than there are between Kate and Steve and if they EVER went down that route, another type of anger would escape my body because, just let women and men be friends without it being a *thing* please).
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She looks so washed out and unhappy in this scene - a striking comparison to how she looked during E2. 
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She looks drained but it’s understandable considering that this is the first time that’s properly opened up and given way to accepting her emotions and feelings - even if she isn’t addressing the elephant in the room. So, you could argue that this scene is that small change we have from Kate as a result of her development from across the series. But given that this scene, at a push, lasts 30 seconds, it’s not enough. I’m not expecting a half an hour scene of Kate opening up about everything but something a bit more than a nod to her kid and husband that she has only mentioned once throughout the entire series - along with a couple of text messages in the first episode. It just felt as though this scene was chucked in because they couldn’t show Steve going to therapy without showing Kate going as well, considering that they’ve both been through similar ordeals. 
But I’ll take it because it’s still part of Kate’s development, in a sense.
Digging into it more, it’s very obvious that Kate has lost the happiness we seen her with at the beginning of the series, she’s lost her warmth - a warmth that was depicted via Jo through clothing and scenes they shared together. There is a warm light in that scene but it’s situated behind Kate, a visual representation of how Jo is in her past now and how the loss of warmth in her life has left her cold and miserable - which further explains how she comes across in this episode. 
I’m going to return my earlier point of Kate not necessarily being happy at AC-12 here. I’ve mentioned throughout how Kate is AC-12 through and through and she will never truly escape it. She goes back to AC-12 in the end because it’s her home, it’s where she feels safe and comfortable but that doesn’t mean to say it makes her happy. And I think the fact that when we see her at the end of this episode and we see that she is the most unhappy she has been this entire series, it’s meant to signify that (and like I mentioned before, there were a few moments throughout S5 & S6 that emphasise how she might feel that undercover work/being in anti-corruption might just not be for her anymore). 
Kate set Jo free from the OCG but who’s going to set Kate free from AC-12? Jo did for some time, made Kate realise the life she could have outside of anti-corruption but that got ripped away from her and now she’s gone back to them, tail between her legs and probably feeling even worse than she had when she left in the first place.
Questions I wanted to address throughout this piece, is Kate Fleming a master manipulator?
Yes, to an extent. She knows how to use people and their feelings to her advantage. She knows how to get information out of people, we have seen that time and time again across the show, but it’s only ever under the guise of being a UCO and half the time I don’t think she enjoys it all that much (as we see in S5 with her allusions to that there). Outside of being undercover Kate is a genuine person, we see that via the connection she makes with Jo. She never pushed Jo for information, they built up trust between them and shared a bond. Jo worries that Kate would go running back to AC-12 with all the dirt on Jo but Kate reassures her, “I would never tell them personal stuff.” And she doesn’t. We know that she could, we see her do it with Tony Gates the moment she finds out the extent of his relationship with Jackie Laverty. But the fact she doesn’t, is telling us that outside of being undercover, Kate, despite what people might think, is an authentic person who can form relationships without it being faked for beneficial reasons.
Are her motives clear?
Not always. On the surface she is quite a hard person to read but once you pick her apart and piece everything together, you realise that she is an incredibly smart woman who, despite holding her cards close to her chest, plays them very well. She doesn’t reveal things easily which is testament to her being a good undercover officer but when you dig into it, I think her motives can be clear. She’s very career-driven, often putting that above everything else. She always want to get the job done and to the best of her ability. As I’ve mentioned throughout, she is the embodiment of AC-12, integrity and truth. She very much holds up the law. 
That doesn’t make her innocent and doesn’t mean she doesn’t bend the truth/law to her all the time either. But I do think that’s Jeds way of saying that no matter how hard you try to be good, you’re always going to end up in tricky situations that you have to worm your way out of, as depicted by Steve’s quote in S2 “Maybe there are some people out there who always tell the truth and ones who always lie. The rest of us choose our moments.” 
How has Kate been developed across the show? 
In short, she hasn’t been developed all that much and where she has been developed it’s been reversed by the end of it. From S1-5 she remains pretty much the same person, not much bothers her or effects her. Partly think that’s because of her burying her emotions and her trauma but I don’t want to give Jed too much credit where it isn’t due. 
S6 was where we seen the most development from Kate. We seen a whole new side to her, we seen her experiencing things for the first time, having feelings that have never been delved into where Kate has been concerned. S6 Kate felt miles apart from S1-5 Kate, or at least she did until E7. Kate had the potential to be fleshed out and to be shown that not even Line of Duty’s resident heroine is free from trauma and emotions but that, like I’ve said, got scrapped for the sake of a political point. We needed more than a 30 second therapy scene to address the issues and dilemmas going on in Kate’s head. We needed the relationship that she had been involved in, that had been set up, to be acknowledged and addressed. That relationship with Jo was so integral and important to Kate’s development, it needed to be brought up, even if it was just in relation to Kate’s development and Kate’s character. 
Jo and Kate were never going to end up in a relationship, it was doomed from the beginning but it still brought about a change in Kate and her character deserved to have that tied up and acknowledged to an extent, at the very least. We, as an audience, deserved that also. Kate went through so much in this series and the fact that all we got was a 30 second scene therapy scene to address it is, quite frankly, insulting.
I don’t care that Buckells was H, looking back on it’s obvious. I understood the political point of it and Jed was making a good point, in a sense. But with shows like Line of Duty, where it’s main characters remain constant throughout you have a due diligence to develop them and flesh them out into 3D characters who have good sides and bad sides - and that goes for ALL of them, Kate included. And she is but to an extent because she isn’t explored enough. Jed will start it, pave ways she could go and then forgets about it. As much as we all follow along for the plot and wanting to find out who these corrupt officers are, we also become invested in the characters, we want to know more about them. We want to see them go through things, we want to be able to relate to them and go on journeys with them. 
As much as we watch for the plot, we’re also watching for the characters. Like come on how many of us shouted “Oh God Steve, watch your back!” When the van toppled over and not “Oh shit they’re about to be ambushed!” I could go on but you get my point. The main plot is interesting and well thought out but we’re also watching the characters and we want to see them be developed with justice. 
Kate Fleming is a complex character and she deserved to be fully developed throughout S6 (and the whole show considering, you know, she’s a main character) and didn’t deserve to have that development fizzled out for political point scoring.  
And if you made it this far, well done. Have a drink. 
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dystopiandramaqueen · 3 years ago
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S4 E3: Lawrence's Hesitation
The first watch of Nick and Lawrence’s fireside negotiation scene, I didn’t understand Lawrence’s hesitance to get involved. He’s a rebel. She’s a rebel. Nick’s a rebel. What the fuck dude?
Lawrence spoke like June’s story was over and done, like her fate was already sealed. “She’s stubborn. You can’t save her. Maybe it’s time to move on.”
I understand now that Lawrence is a master strategist and he knew the current configuration of pieces on the chessboard was a stalemate.
June vs. Gilead. Shielding her loved ones with her silence.
Game over. They won’t break her if that’s the power dynamic.
Because love makes us strong. Love allows us to endure unspeakable pain. Lawrence knows that the current power struggle between June and the Eyes will go on forever without end, and he urges Nick to walk away, emotionally disconnect, and save himself the pain of watching his lover's torture.
Lawrence speaks from a place of resignation.
Nick is speaking from a very different place. A place of urgency and desperation to get her out at ANY COST. Nick asks him to change his perspective to one where the outcome can be changed.
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The first and last words out of Nick’s mouth? You OWE me. I'm not taking no for an answer. I saved your life. I'm calling in the debt. You will get June out of there, no matter what it takes to make her talk. I don't care what you have to do, just do it. Unless you want me to throw your ass back in jail and let the Eyes take a turn on YOU.
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Lawrence is a biologist. Remember in S3 when he clocks Nick and June’s chemistry at that commander meeting? He asked her to get The Descent of Man, a Biology text about human nature.
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Lawrence knows that a mother's desire to protect her young- is a human instinct that cannot be circumvented. Individuals who did not have this trait died. The ones who had it survived.
He knows that a parent will do anything to save their children. Even betray their friends or themselves. He knows that's the only way to change the power dynamics so that June loses and the Eyes win.
At the fake dinner he can barely fucking say it. His voice is a pained whisper.
June calls his bluff. Because it's still an idea to her. A threat, nothing more. She holds her ground.
The truly terrifying part? Lawrence wasn't just talking. He asked them to bring Hannah. Hannah was there, at the mercy of the Eyes. She'd been admitted as a torture device for June, and was now in the hands of June's interrogator.
It would have happened. They would have hurt Hannah. That's why he whispers "I was hoping we could avoid this" as they drag June away. He promised Nick he would do whatever it took. So he does.
That’s why Lawrence was so hesitant to agree to Nick's request. He knew what it would take to break June, and he really really didn’t want to do it.
But it was the only way to get a mother as tough as June to break. Threaten her child. It’s deeply disturbing and fucked up. Makes him a very bad person for even thinking of it. That's why he didn't want to go there. Lawrence had to call up his darkness, he had to become the devil, to change June's mind.
Luckily, when June saw Hannah in the cage, the chess board changed. She understood what would come next, and it was checkmate. They'd won. That was a battle she would not fight.
On the bridge after? Nick looks HORRIFIED. Because he'd found out what Lawrence had done. And while he'd asked for it, I think he was deeply guilty and horrified at what had transpired. Which is why he apologizes instantly, tells June Hannah's safe, and reassures her that she is loved.
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Max confirms this head cannon in an interview.
"Was Nick the one behind having Hannah brought in?"
"Oh...um...I definitely don't think so. No I don't think that Nick would ever be capable of being personally responsible for something that malevolent, especially not something that would have that kind of impact on June. That's sort of antithetical to his intentions, I think."
Messy. Real. But it kept her alive. So here for this season. It's fucking art.
Gifs by @nickblaine and @splitscreen
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