I do feel like the way this episode ends where Nick basically says look..we're friends and yes sometimes I build your dresser and sometimes you know I'll make you a cup of tea and bring it to you and our friendship doesn't look like most male/female friendships, um but we just have to accept that we are friends that are sometimes attracted to each other. -Hannah
I arrived almost 12 hours ago, I've had two stupidly filling typical French meals, I've done too many loads of laundry than I'd like to admit because dryer, I've been spoiled with and am spoiling myself with coffee, my stress is diminishing, I got to read some great meta, and I'm chilling with Mara (who has numerous sleeping spots involving fuzzy blankets in this temporary repose, one of which being the fluffiest nest ever) while listening to and jamming out to Hugh Laurie leading the show in my ear. In other words, while yesterday was a time, I'm having a pretty darn nice time right now, because even if my back aches, my wrists are happier. Let's see if I can get any writing done on these 4/(5?) hours of sleep I've gotten in the last 48 hours, cause I'm pretty hype.
watched the kdrama celebrity over the last few days. was hooked from the first few seconds bc the EDITING in the show, & just the cinematography in general is on a whole nother fuckin level, man.
also, just. a really great show in general. v good at building suspense & throwing loops & very nice themes/takeaways. also just a rly interesting way to convey those themes/takeaways.
i think the only issue we had w it was the romance, but. eh. it wasn't so bad that it took away from the ample amount of good shit in the show.
def recommend it!! especially to anyone who really enjoyed the glory bc it has v similar themes.
i feel my main issue with the finale is that it’s a bad ending that exists for the wrong reasons.
one of the aspects of c!tommy’s lore that appealed to me was how fundamentally bleak his existence always turns out to be. he’s inherently a tragic character: the consequences for his actions are always overblown in comparison to both the intent and the impact of them. because of his loud personality and even louder voice, he’s the centre of attention in any room he walks into, which makes him a quick and easy scapegoat if you’re looking for someone to blame. he’s stubborn and he’s surviving, but he’s never at peace with his circumstances because something is always missing - his discs, his friends, his family.
i know that suffering for the sake of suffering is not a story beat that many are fond of. i know that many watchers just wanted tommy to heal because he deserved something hopeful. but to see a character whose circumstances are always stagnating, stuck in this tiring cycle where they always find themselves ending up right back where they started… that really appealed to me on a personal level, and so keeping that in mind, i always thought there was a chance his ending was not going to be a happy one.
but to me, this does not feel like his ending. it’s not an ending that exists for c!tommy. it’s not the natural conclusion to his story. this was an ending made to excuse c!dream’s entire villain arc instead. c!tommy’s characterisation as a victim did not matter here, because characterising c!dream as a victim instead was the intended goal. the abuse c!dream inflicted on c!tommy is less important than desperately clutching at straws to make a character, that we as an audience have no reason to view as sympathetic, ‘worthy’ of our sympathy. the narrative is desperate to give room for c!dream to have a second chance, something that comes at the cost of enabling victim blaming against a canonical child abuse survivor.
when c!tommy, in the haze of memory loss, befriends his abuser, i don’t think it was intended to be tragic. it could and should have been, because c!tommy having no recollection of anything is a good set-up that would leave him vulnerable, open to c!dream’s manipulation once again because he doesn’t know who to avoid and who not to trust. but it isn’t trying to be unsettling when we see c!tommy unknowingly befriending his abuser; it’s meant to be a sign of hope that now everything has been reset, maybe there could be peace again. it doesn’t work, because the viewers remember everything even if the characters don’t. instead the amnesia plot line feels like a flimsy method of making a blank slate and a fresh new start where c!dream can avoid the consequences of his actions completely. this is a unintentional bad ending for c!tommy, because he’s placed in a position where he will grow to trust someone who has the full capacity to hurt him, but it’s an intentional good ending for c!dream and it seems that’s where the cc’s priorities lie.
im losing my mind waiting for my last class to start and I've just been drawing ev over and over again so. here are the best three i had all shoved over to the side
PSA: if you ever, ever feel the urge to make assumptions about the abuse history of a real ass person in a discussion about depictions of fictional abuse--in particular, any variation of the words 'you don't know/should learn what real abuse is'--