#anyway yeah I'm done with the drama over this and critical opinions now lol

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

alright was I the only one who thought Carlos was gonna say they were beards before I realized he was talking about Iris

[serenagaywaterford]

1) Feel free to keep rambling! Not only I love talking with level-headed fandom people, but our opinions seem to converge (even if my wording comes off as weird/wrong because of Tumblr's word limit). Anyway. I had many issues with S2, besides Serena's arc I mean (I'll get back to her). Blessed be the goddamned plotholes! Fred becomes a cockroach that just won't die (Red Center), because he's essential to the plot. Same goes for Aunt Lydia. (Although I'm kinda glad that she's alive, because

2) I LOVE Dowd’s acting and I’m excited about her background story.) Emily comes back from the Colonies and is smfh 100% healthy. Moreover, Gilead has been surprisingly lenient with Fred and Serena’s constant fuckups in S2 (mutilated fingers aside). June won’t leave with Emily, bc MOTHERHOOD (more like there’s a s3 on the horizon and drama is needed). And don’t get me started on that slow pace. The beginning and the finale were explosive of course,but some mid-season episodes?

3) They were dragging on and on. Examples? 2x11, where only 2 things happen: a) June gives birth to Nicole, b) Fred and Serena make it clear that they want to tear each other apart (duh). The only redeeming qualities of that episode was the wolf symbolism and the excellent cinematography. I get it, the series is successful and has more seasons ahead. But if only they had squeezed some episodes, it would have been so much better.

—-

OMG YAY!!! I’m gonna answer these in pieces since I’ll prolly flood a giant essay otherwise. Cos, lbr, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear I had multiple personalities and was secretly sending these to myself from a fugue state, that’s how much we agree! Cos I’ve just read through all your messages and sat here going “YES! YES!” lol. I think you, me, maybe 5 other people on tumblr, and 1 TV reviewer are of the same mindset and it’s such a relief to find others who are reasonable and critical about the show/Serena.

Yes, Fred not dying was just so fucking stupid I couldn’t deal. Like, it’s not even like, “Well, he didn’t die which is crazy but he’s horribly injured and disfigured cos I dunno, he was like 15 feet FROM A MASSIVE BOMB EXPLODING.” But noooo. Instead we get Fred in hospital with a scratchy throat for like a few weeks, and when he comes back he’s got a little bit of a limp. No burns, nothing. And, to top it off, he’s got all the strength and balance of a perfectly healthy man to whip the shit out of his wife. I get they needed to get him out of the way and out of service so Serena and June could have all sorts of treasonous hi-jinks together but surely… they could have considered having Fred not 15 feet from the bomb. It killed handmaids that were way farther away than that. Just a thought. Deffo an eye-roll moment.

Aunt Lydia I’m less irritated about simply cos, like you, I love Ann Dowd and think she’s done a fab job. And we honestly haven’t got enough of her backstory and I wanna know that too. I think this show can only really captivate if it tells ALL the women’s stories, not just the victims. Like how does a woman become an Aunt? How do they justify that? Or is it simply a type of socio-religio-politcal brainwashing, akin to a lot of Nazi Party supporters? Is she a True Believer? Like, honestly, wtf is up with her? Like, cos so many of us can empathise with the Handmaids and we understand how that came about–but it takes more sides to tell a full story. So, Aunt Lydia being back… I’m not too fussed about. I really do consider Emily so damaged that I would never trust her with a baby–but that’s me. She’s been so broken, so traumatized, and like I don’t blame her at all ofc, but she needs softness and patience and no stress ever again. Like, she is not well emotionally by any stretch.

Which leads into the Colonies bullshit. That was just really bad writing. She, Janine, etc, were there for MONTHS. Like, June ran away and was gone for 92 days (Thanks for that count, Serena!). And then add on whatever time passed between her being returned to the Waterfords house and when Lilly set off the bomb. That is a long ass time to be splashing about in radioactive waste. Emily’s teeth were falling out, right? Like, how she went from literally dying of radiation poisoning to “Totally healthy enough to pop out some totally healthy babies!” I’ll never understand. The loss of the Handmaids in the bombing isn’t a good enough reasoning. A dictatorship like Gilead could easily have just conscripted a bunch of Econowives with the sweep of a pen. That is how these militant theocracies work. They’re already half-indoctrinated anyway. It was dumb to put Emily and Janine there in the first place if you knew they had to come back, as they are main cast members.

I always thought Fred and Serena were getting away with too much but I wrote it off as Fred (and Serena lbr) being a HUGE part of bringing about Gilead in the first place so they get some leeway. But then, you see Warren and Cushing being dealt with fairly severely for basically hearsay. (Okay, Warren’s I get cos you had outcry from Janine in a massively public display and backup from Naomi.) I guess because Fred/Serena’s fuckups were a little more ~private, they could excuse/lie about them/cover them up them easier? Cushing was dealt with way to easily. Like… no. “Fred” signs some paper and suddenly Cushing is being disappeared immediately. I suppose Fred took over Pryce’s place in the hierarchy? Who knows. And from what I understand, nobody in SOJ knew about June’s escape to the big country house. But c’mon, one Handmaid kills herself, the new one another starting shit every where she goes with other Handmaids and is pals with two of the most notorious other Handmaids (Emily and Janine), then is “kidnapped”, is partners with the bomber, then runs away again, then again… Sigh.

June not leaving… I just… it was so obvious that she wouldn’t cos otherwise there is no show. But why bother with all that drama then. Like, what if Emily hadn’t been there??? June had no way of knowing she’d be meeting up with Emily. She would have just dumped Nicole in some van and run back? Ugh.

And the pace was bad. ITA. There are whole episodes I don’t even bother with on rewatches. I thought the season premiere was great, then it fell of a cliff and lost my interest until about the 5th episode? Then it got going nicely (altho 2x07 wasn’t great either), then took another nosedive in 2x10 and sort of coasted almost aimlessly until the finale. I don’t like to hate on June but honestly the really 100% June-centric episodes bore the shit out of me. 2x02/03 and 2x11 being the biggest culprits. I’m just tired of the excessive use of flashbacks that all basically say the same thing now. And Moss is a great actress but there’s such thing as too much of a good thing. Not to mention, Nick and June bore me to tears as well (SACRILEGE! Send the indignant rabid fangirls on a rampage into my inbox!) so when there’s a lot of focus on that clusterfuck of inanity, I tune out. I can’t help it. I find them so annoying lol. (Which is were I usually lose common ground with basically everyone in this fandom cos everyone loves Nick for some reason I just cannot understand. If you like him, I apologise! I just can’t. I liked him more at the beginning but as it’s gone on the less I give even the slightest shit about him.)

Also, like I found 2x02 and 2x03 to just be… a waste of time? Like, okay, we got to see the Econopeople and how they live or whatever but to me, there was zero point to the whole thing because we all know June isn’t going to get away with it. So, why waste 2 whole episodes building to something everyone knows ain’t happening just for the sake of some worldbuilding that I’m guessing could have been done some other more cogent way? 2x04 was basically just to show more breaking June down in various ways. Then 2x05 was just to show the Colonies and had a lot of filler in it about that. I still don’t understand the point of the “wedding” bits. It wasn’t uplifting or hopeful at all. It was still really dark, like killing the Wife. I only really liked watching Serena go apeshit because her babyslave isn’t making proper gossipy conversation. It’s just an interesting angle cos finally Serena gets what she asks for with a super obedient Offred, and low and behold, it actually sucks and she wants June back. Story of Serena’s life and she never fucking learns lol. And Aunt Lydia flexing on Serena was hilarious. I just enjoy watching them go head to head. Not to mention the grotesque child brides thing. Gross. Super gross. Like, a bunch of stuff happened but I’m not convinced it needed to be dragged out over 4 episodes like that. Not to mention it was all really depressing. I remember watching and going, “JESUS, this show is fucking depressing. Why am I torturing myself?”

But yeah, 2x11 was super slow and all the important things that happened (that you listed) could have taken 10 minutes. Like I get too that she had to see Hannah in order to… make her decision in the finale make sense??? Was that the reason? I still don’t know. All of this could have been dealt with way more quickly and with just as much emotional gravity had it been done well.

I really like Moira but she’s been given shit all to do. I liked how we got a little insight into her and Odette. A LITTLE. But a huge weakness is that the Toronto peeps are so divorced from the drama that it often seems, not pointless, but something like it. It definitely slows the pace down to a crawl. That’s why I thought 2x09 worked well because it married both worlds. (I will never understand why 1x07 exists the way it does. What a stupid episode. I do not care about Luke’s journey, tbh. I’m here for the women–good, evil, or inbetween; not an entire episode devoted to him–especially not when we could have had Moira’s instead. I accept that his is intertwined with June’s attempted escape but… meh. It’s just like I will never care about Nice Guy TM Nick’s backstory or character. I don’t care about Fred’s childhood, or Warren’s marriage, or Luke’s manbabying, or Nick’s manpain. Eek.)

I dunno. Personally I think it could have been tightened up a bit better. But again, what do I know? I’m just a viewer. I’m sure other viewers have completely the opposite opinion.

[winds--of--change]

No.455

Wanderer: Why?

Actor: Because people don't get out of their habitus

Wanderer: ...

Actor: You understand right, "birds with same feather flock together", that's very true, you tend attract like-minded things/people, creating a zone, your comfy place, one that is where you belong. There are different zones, all kinds of habitus, but think about it, even if you leave one and enter something new, you enter that particular new one because it conjures up something similar to the old one, "you can never get away from your habitus" and once you go somewhere else you will choose to be where familiar/or actually recreate a version of your habitus.

Wanderer: You mean, after all experiences and all changes, doing all different things or being in different places and all you actually just always live in your own habitus?

Actor: Admit it, we live off from habitual socialization, even if you travel somewhere completely far away from your own home, it doesn't mean you are now a completely new person living in a completely 'new' environment different from your old one, actually you just carry the habitus with you and make your new place similar to what you have already had. That's you, Wanderer.

Wanderer: ...

Actor: Don't you see we are different, I am an Actor, you are an Individual, if you go somewhere you bring your own identity into that place, negotiation, readjustment, but you always retain something that is yours. By contrast, Actor has no personality, simply we are just no one, we are just nothing, we are whoever we become as part of the habitus we have to enter. Don't you see, I entered that drama group then I became the mean girl like the other, now I entered Yoshinoya and I became like other Vietnamese young students who came here for language schools, I acted like one and got treated like one by the Japanese. I just take in whatever there from the habitus I enter as I enter different habitus, usually people would not enter a completely different habitus from the one they used to live in, they would be prone to go somewhere familiar no matter how different and far-away the new habitus is from the previous one, as interesting and surprisingly true as it is, you would always find something similar even if you go for the most bizarre different, because you automatically subconsciously search for the familiar. Trust me. Just like how all of my friends from MA or Undergrad, they would never become one of those workers in such a place as a fast-food chain-restaurant.

Wanderer: Yeah right. Don't you think the fact that draws you to start your life in that habitus, it's actually because there's something in you familiar to that one, your old habitus for example, or certain kind of mentality from what you used to live with, the Vietnamese habitus for example.

Actor: Yes you are right, after all I am not in the same habitus with my MA friends I guess, we are still different from each other even though we are drawn to each other into same 'habitus' called MA GPGS.

Wanderer: ...okay so what's your point of talking here lol you are not an actor a real actor like those movie stars or something because after all even you play the Actor in your life by entering somewhere something, it is still because you are drawn to it for a certain familiarity in habitus that you have lived through.

Actor: I guess I am fake actor in that sense.

Wanderer: .... That's it?! To support your argument? Man you defend your statement pretty weakly I think, already gave in?!

Actor: I just had an urge to write down something about habitus, that's why, not exactly mean to defend anything...

Wanderer: ... ...

Actor: But the fact that one who is an actor takes in colors of someone who is supposed to must act so in the habitus they enter, is precise.

Wanderer: But different from real movies, in reality actors are still those prone to enter where they are somewhat familiar with, be it subconsciously or automatically, they still 'choose' the habitus they enter. I think.

Actor: But who actually has no personality, then become actors more easily than wanderers then, because they don't have strong individuality and egos to retain what is theirs in new habitus.

Wanderer: Those who are prone to become actors are just due to the fact they are kinda weak-minded and colorless and so easy to become someone else's colors or be influenced by other minds then. Wait actually unless you act knowing very well you are acting, then you are called an actor, if not, if you just act out unconsciously due to social inducement, can you call yourself 'actor'? Or just...hmm...'follower', 'shadower'?

Actor: Yeah but you could one day 'snap' out of it and leave the habitus, so does it just mean the actor was just so into the play he forgot himself an actor and instead, he played himself as if he was one of the 'real' habitus resident? Because seriously, I knew in the beginning what I was aware, I already got...hmm 'an opinion' but somehow along the line, I just went with the flow acting the way I did, forgetting my beginning standpoint. That means a real actor, not fake one no?

Wanderer: I mean, in reality everyone, no matter what idea they have from the beginning before entering a habitus, I think along the way they always get influenced somehow and really 'become' part of the habitus somehow, after all that is what socialization is all about, and you can never get away from socialization as a human being for we are all born from it, into it, and 'for' it. Think about it, and take the movie 'Closer' as example, when she is Alice, she really 'is' Alice no? Only till she gets OUT of the habitus does she go back to Jane Johns again? Before that she stays true to herself as an 'Alice'.

Actor: Depending on the level of how much we are "aware" of what we act I guess, that it measures what degree to which we involve ourselves to the new habitus. But as said, in reality we would be prone to the familiar habitus, not a completely distinguished one from what we usually have... ... Man so that is true, as my advisor who is Professor in Sociology said, 'you could never get away from your habitus', never. Just like how Murakami once said you could never get away from yourself. I could never get away from my 'Vietnamese-ness' then also the theories on 'actor' would be very questionable then, who proposed it again, I think George Simmel on 'four types of characters' the wanderer, actor, player and whatever yeah? In society there is in fact no actor then, people act for certain extent yet, not to a completely different thing from they used to be. In 'Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly would not weep in devastation for Fred, her brother because as a 'Holly Golightly' presumably she would not know anyone who is Fred, a brother from the army for it then means it is connected to her old identity yeah? As she received the letter of Fred's death from her old husband with whom she married as ... damn what was her name again before she left the husband to New York City and built herself as a 'Holly Golightly' T_T

Wanderer: Man if this continues on, I feel like my mind is gonna blown up lol can we go back to finish 'Ghost Protocol' T_T and then start making schedule for next week, and you need start working on your RA tasks asap, replying to your professor's email too...

Actor: Damn don't get me thinking about it now >_