#and that i deserve at least 5 more points just for powering throught

[thewritingpossum]

[thefeministhundred]

Feminist Review of The 100: 3x03 Ye Who Enter Here

Writer: Kim Shumway

Director: Antonio Negret

Total time in episode: 42

Total number of character credited in episode: 28 (5 main cast men are not in the episode)

Number of female characters credited in episode: 11

Clarke Griffin

Abby Griffin

Octavia Blake

Raven Reyes

Commander Lexa

Indra

Queen Nia

Gina Martin

Echo

Singing Grounder

Street Vendor

Amount of time at least one female character is the focus of a scene: 36:31 (mind you, there are at least two minutes of credits) This episode had the single most amount of time women where in focus of the show so far. 

Bechdel test pass: SUPER PASS. It starts with Clarke and Lexa talking.

Number of deaths in episode: 6 + 35ish Farm Station

Female: The only important female death is Gina.

Sexualized moments: None unless you are me and need a moment from all the bowing.

Bad Ass Woman Moment of the Episode: So I know a lot of people hated this moment, but I fucking love Lexa kicking the Ice Nation dude out of the tower. I mean, it was super obvious to everyone but that dude what was about to happen. Also, bow down bitches always plays in my head during that. 

Badass Female Friendship Moment: So I really loved Raven and Gina in this episode. I was all ready to ship Bartender Mechanic. SORRY GINA. IT COULD HAVE BEEN BEAUTIFUL. 

“I will never bow to you.”

Five seconds later....

GROUNDER WEDDING.

Okay so this is a super lady heavy episode. We will break it down by location.

Polis

Clarke and Lexa’s relationship is so complicated and it gives me so many emotions. I really enjoy that they let it all play out. Clarke’s rage, Lexa’s grief. 

I love watching Lexa teaching the little Nightbloods. It’s a new version of her and I think it fleshes her out some. And god I hated Titus from the beginning. I understand, from his point of view why he thinks Lexa is hurting her career and putting her life in danger by helping Clarke, but god I hate him so much. And yes, it is totally a biased hate because of what happens later.

The Clarke and Lexa knife at throat moment KILLS ME. Clarke is so raw and desperate and she wants to be that person. She really does, but she can’t kill Lexa. And Lexa is so broken by how broken Clarke is. I am often curious how far Lexa would have let her go. Could Clarke have slit her throat in that moment? I almost feel like Lexa would not stop her... 

Abby and Clarke! In the same scene! Awww, Abby just wanted her child back and Clarke is still too broken to be that. She’s still in Wanheda mode and will be for several more episodes. I also like that Abby finally realizes that she is not actually made to be their leader. Kane is so good at it. I have some issues with Abby in season two, but I really like her again in season 3. Good job, Abby.

However you feel about Lexa, watching a room full of powerful people bow before this woman brings chills to my body. The two most powerful people in this world at this moment are Heda and Wanheda. Two young, queer women. This is why this show is so important to me, this scene. These moments. Seeing myself as not just a sidekick or a one off guest but as the protagonist and one of the most powerful people in the world. Lexa bowing back to Clarke honestly made me stop breathing the first time i watched it. Just, unable to function from it all. 

Mount Weather

I love that we get this Raven/Octavia/Gina stuff. They seem like over the however many months it’s been, they really all got a little closer. It’s nice to see super confident Raven is back. Until she isn’t. But oh man, Raven and Sinclair. Their relationship really gives me a lot of emotions. Raven needs all the people loving her. She deserves all the things. 

The problem with Gina.

Okay, let’s talk about Gina. There is no question at all that Gina was fridged to send Bellamy to the dark side. It was something I really throught this show wouldn’t do, and I am super bothered that they did. They introduced a character just to have her killed off the move a man’s plot line forward. It is one the least progressive things this show has ever done. I think it was a pretty clear indication that season 3 was going to embrace some tropes it had previously rejected, which was going to be a pretty big downside to this season. If they had continued to stay away from the fridging, sexual assault, lesbian death, and POC dying in the MUD they really could have fixed a lot of stuff wrong with this season. I really hope they have learned. Also, it bothers me how Gina’s death is very torture porn. We watch her die in super intense detail and it felt very...gratuitous to me. This show really looses points in their feminist tally from Gina. And she is not the last person fridged this season. :( Also, I don’t understand why Bellamy didn’t react. I guess he was shocked? But even moments after finding out his girlfriend was dead he was still like “Clarke come home or I’m mad at you.”

Yeah. Bellamy is in love with Clarke.

RIP Gina. You deserved better and I think I could have liked you.

*all screen caps are from http://screencapped.net/

[renegade-girl-blog]

Woah, that was longer than anticipated! Somehow I was totally prepared, had a backlog of things to post, went to a convention, and then bloody GW decided to turn 40k upside down so I had to rethink my schedule! As the title says, I went to Salute 2017 on Saturday, for those not in the know it is a huge wargaming convention held in London every year, with my brother, and I thought I’d take some pictures! WARNING: FUCKLOADS OF PICTURES AHEAD

Queuing outside!

Theme 1: Cosplay

Unfortunately my on the fly camera skills need some work, but there was a surprising amount of cosplay going on. I missed taking a picture of someone dressed as soldier 76 from Overwatch, but he was probably at the wrong con anyway!

Theme 2: Warhammer

I thought I’d get the boring and familiar out the way early, since although the actual GW presence was fairly small (probably fearing for their life after the new 40k email went out in the afternoon), various GW models were pretty evenly smattered throughout.

Theme 3: Star Wars

I didn’t feel particularly bothered to photograph Star Wars stuff, but there was this great demo game based around the climax of Rogue One! On a side note, X-Wing is absolutlely everywhere! Seriously, more stands were selling it than 40k!

Theme 4: Other licensed stuffs

There was more, but I was pretty exhausted of seeing Halo and Star Wars that I ended up tuning it out. I did snap some pics of the AvP mini’s, which tempts the part of me that loved Alien as a teenager, but as with loads of stuff of Salute, it looked cool but I had no idea what I would do with it!

Theme 5: Giant Spaceship!

I think this was advertising Dropfleet Commander, who I swear the team for that didn’t show up until the afternoon, and it is so big that I thought it deserved it’s own spot!

Theme 6: Lions, Tigers, and Enormous Dragons, Oh My!

So many monsters! It was at this point that I really wished I could use these models for stuff in Sigmar and 40k, but alas I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything expensive! Seriously, these were the highlight of the con for me, since I love seeing beautifully sculpted gribblies!

Theme 7: Giant Robots!

Everyone loves robots. Wargamers have a goddamn fetish for robots it seems. I was pleased to see them, and had great fun seeing the different influences they had taken for each company; from the clunky more Robocop universe styled ones, the generic modern sci-fi hyper detailed ones, to even a few graceful, sleek Gundam ones. I wish I had the heart (and bank account) to buy them all.

Theme 8: WW2, but with mechs!

I didn’t take pictures of one or two more of these sorts of game systems, but mechs in WW2 was definitely the most prevalent niche sub genre of game. I can see why, since historical wargaming was almost bigger than fantasy and sci-fi put together at Salute, so combing these things was sure to be a winner! And really obvious.

Thew, I think that’s it! Sorry for the picture dump, but I just don’t have the time to comb through them all individually. To sum up Salute, as someone who is only really interested in 40k these days, it was really cool to look at all the other stuff out there, but I wasn’t that bothered about it. On a side note, it is interesting to note that Warmahordes was only being sold at one stand, which I thought rather odd.

The Haul!

I did still get some stuff though! In the goody bag I got these things, which I can safetly say will never be built!

I picked up two sets of these generic little sci-fi men for some Renegade conversions, as well as some dice and a dice bag (exciting!).

And I also got these two boxes, again for parts, from a very enthusiastic young company. Although, there is something a little familiar about those covers…

I won’t tell if you don’t.

But anyway, speaking of divisive things regarding 40k, the news then? I don’t want to go into depth about it, but I wanted to share my thoughts, even if you don’t want me to. I personally am encouraged by the new, proactive, community oriented approach that GW is taking, and I think I sort of trust them with this. Erasing all past rules makes to most sense to me, since every new edition has had to deal with the hangover of the past, which always is frustrating. I know it feels shitty to have new stuff invalidated, but I hope this pays off in the long run. I do however, have two concerns:

Listening too closely to the community. I think it is no mystery that the 40k community can be a pretty crappy place, with everyone whining about their least favourite ‘game breaking’ rules and units. I hope GW doesn’t go too far the other way in actually taking all the moaning into account, and give us a wishy washy mass appeal game that attempts to keep everyone happy, but loses all semblance of style and flavour.

New units. Having gone throught this sort of thing with Sigmar, there was a ‘golden period’ where there only the rewritten rules for units, and it was fun. There weren’t that many crazy powerful combinations, and it felt like a level playing field. Now in AoS it is dominated by the new factions, who really are a cut above the old ones and will mop the floor with fantasy units, even with a points system. Please don’t do the same with 40k

Any way I am done, sorry for walls of pictures and then text. Thanks for yadda yadda something about an AA pun, I’ll see you at the end of the week!

Thoughts – Salute 2017 and New 40k! Woah, that was longer than anticipated! Somehow I was totally prepared, had a backlog of things to post, went to a convention, and then bloody GW decided to turn 40k upside down so I had to rethink my schedule!