#darryl is still darryl lol still a coward

[theangrypomeranian]

been thinking about my Barryl Hunger Games AU again

[witchofeindor]

Yeah, I know these are all freebies but you've already done the more interesting ones lol: 2, 10, 14

Thank you!

2 - what character do you hate the most + why?

Before I answer this I’ll just say that I hate Silas, Marco and Bob deeply too but since 1) their horrid actions are not woobified 2) they got just the right screen time and never compromised other characters’ screen time 3) they’re actually interesting characters (Marco’s and Greg’s dynamic of a narcissist raising a caregiver is a particularly interesting one in my eyes), they are not my top hated character.

That title belongs, as y’all probably have guessed already, to Nathaniel.

Why? First of all, he’s BORING AS FUCK, super bland, and beyond that very badly done deconstruction done in 3 mins in 3.13, he adds nothing to the tropes he was born of, contrary to literally any other on the show, all of whom are not only deconstructed, but also have such depth to them beyond the tropes they were born of.

All characters feel like real ppl, and that’s why I also always managed to feel their pain, with Nathaniel he’s just. boring. and not only that he doesn’t feel like a real person, he just doesn’t feel like a consistent character at all. Season 2 Nathaniel is nothing like season 3 Nathaniel, and season 3 Nathaniel changes from ep to ep but not in a realistic manner like all other characters.

Second, he’s SO vile and all of his actions were completely woobified even though in reality, they would so fucking destructive and petrifying. He sexually harasses his employee in an enclosed space where she can’t escape him and it’s passed off as ‘hot’? He orders a hit on an innocent man just so said employee, who is at that moment very unstable, would sleep with him? He destroys an innocent man’s, a man of colour at that, business just bc he’s upset he can’t have said unstable employee and ruining ppl’s lives apparently cheers him up and like, that’s supposed to be normal. We are supposed to be ok with his behaviour. We are supposed to feel sorry for him bc he has a saddish back story or whatever (literally half of the other characters on the show grew up in emotionally abusive households, yet their toxic behaviour is never justified). His relationship with Rebecca is beyond destructive for her (and one day I WILL write that post I promised explaining why out of all her relationships, that’s the one that makes me most uneasy), yet the show erases all of the red signs till last moment. And even then the show touches on only ONE aspect of why that relationship is so toxic, and not on all aspects, which is SO FRUSTRATING BC 1) they did such a great job calling out the toxicity in previous relationships, ‘Shit Show’ covers almost all issues grebecca had (except for Rebecca’s exploitation of Greg) & ‘We’ll Never Have Problems Again’ covers almost all issues joshbecca had (except for maybe Rebecca’s manipulation of Josh). 2) The show took deconstructing toxic tropes as its mission, yet they did a VERY poor job with this one. They won’t even burn that ship to the ground. WRITE NATHANIEL SLEEPING WITH NAOMI YOU COWARDS.

He’s a blatant misogynist and a bigot in general yet all of this is overlooked. He has no legit reason for us to feel for him (and no, a sad back story does NOT work - give him redeeming qualities!!! give him non malicious motivations! give him a will to change his destructive behaviour if you want us to feel sorry for him, and if you don’t - then don’t try to fucking force us to feel sorry for him).

He is abusive, manipulative, murderous, creepy, misogynistic like woah, sexist, ableist, racist, anti-semitic etc., represents the (white) patriarchy in person yet all of his behaviour is completely woobified and whitewashed. 

I could go on and on but I’m too tired, to summarise I hate him bc 1) HE IS BORING 2)  HE STEALS TOO MUCH SCREEN TIME FOR ZERO REASON WITH ZERO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 3) HIS DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR IS COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED AND EVEN ALMOST JUSTIFIED BY THE SHOW 4) HE IS SO VILE 5) STOP BULLYING ME INTO LIKING HIM, RACHEL AND ALINE, HE IS NOT (yet) WORTHY OF MY SYMPATHY. 6) STOP TRYING TO CONVINCE US HE’S HOT OR WHATEVER, HE’S NOT. 7) STOP GIVING HIM SO MUCH SCREEN TIME WHEN THERE ARE FASCINATING FEMALE CHARACTERS RIGHT THERE!

That being said, I don’t think he’s irredeemable, he’ll redeem himself in my eyes if only he leaves Rebecca the fuck alone.

10 - who do you want Rebecca to end up with? 

Either single or with a woman (preferably Valencia). I don’t want her to end up with a man (and even if she does, it cannot be ANYONE we’ve seen so far) bc I feel like it’d contradict one of the main themes of the show - which is exploring women’s happiness outside the world of men, so having her end up with a man, implies that a woman’s happiness cannot be complete without a man and that’s some nasty ass patriarchal bullshit. 

That being said, I recently realised that almost all of Rebecca’s relationships with men were exploitative, and the one that wasn’t (well, at least not her being exploited) was absolutely angsty, dysfunctional, unhealthy and toxic. So even though I want her to end up single (or with a woman), I also want the show to make an important note that she’s capable of having a healthy relationship by its end (as well as worthy of one), but she just doesn’t feel like she needs a relationship to be fulfilled. It’s like a bonus if it happens in the future, but Rebecca does not feel she needs one.

14- anything you wish the show would do/do differently?

All of the second half of season 3, basically. Ideally, Nathaniel would have not been a character, but even if we were forced to have him as a character, he would have not been promoted to a season regular and his season 3 arc would be limited to the revenge arc + later office exchanges with Darryl. It’d be nice to have Nathaniel unlearn toxic masculinity via Darryl and that way I might have actually not hated seeing Nathaniel on the show. (Might. I’d still find him boring, bland and dull, but then at least I’d be more accepting of his role on the show, since having such a toxic male unlearn his toxic masculinity by a fatherly, loving man who embodies healthy masculinity would be an important message to send).

But what bothers me the most is 

1) how they ignore consent issues - I would have the sexual harassment of 2.11 acknowledged right away, and I would definitely have Rebecca talk to her therapist about 3.04 and have the therapist make her realise she was taken advantage of and stop blaming herself. 

2) I’d NOT woobify Nathaniel’s destructive behaviour and show it as is, and I’d also address EVERY toxic aspect of his dynamic with Rebecca and have that ship COMPLETELY burnt down to the ground, at least as well as they sunk grebecca. 

3) Valencia would get a coming out arc, including a song about compulsory heterosexuality, to which Heather would reply chillaxly with ‘Cool, I’m the bi to your lesbian, then’ and it would make Rebecca reconsider her own sexuality, and then she’d come out as a bi with a ‘Gettin’ Bi’ reprise, to a different tune, one that suits her personality better.

Thank you for the ask!

[kanye--westeros]

This week on The Walking Dead

- King Ezekiel continues to be delightful which makes me VERY concerned for his safety in this war. - Fire Team Aaron's smart plan from episode 2 somehow didn't work because reasons. Got a nice moment between him & Eric out of it though...you know before the whole dying thing. It's tough being gay in the apocalypse. - Longhair McDickface still somehow not dead - Jesus becomes more and more like actual Jesus while Morgan becomes more and more disillusioned - "I'm not right...but I know that doesn't make me wrong" - Morgan - "We're two assholes that will do whatever we have to just to keep going. And the only difference is I'm the one holding the gun. That doesn't make me any worse than you Rick, it just makes me luckier" - Morales - Welp, bye Morales lmao. Can't say I was sad to see you go but at least you got to have a pretty interesting convo with Rick - Darryl's ruthlessness finna jeopardize his bromance with Rick.   - Speaking of Rick I'm loving that the show has stopped framing him as the "hero". He'll always be the protagonist for as long as he's alive but he stopped being the "hero" around season 5. - Of all of the walker set pieces in this show the walkers rolling down the hill definitely ranks with the worst of them lol. Also they REALLY shouldn't have been able to get up so easily. - This week's "Red Machete" mini-sode was actually pretty touching. Too bad none of this stuff actually matters because the main character gives me Clementine vibes. - Gregory continues to be a fascinating and brilliant coward. He's probably gonna mess around and survive this entire thing if he doesn't collapse under the debris from all of the burnt down bridges. - There's a new baby in Team Family...I'm now suddenly concerned about Judith. - That "I tell you what" made Rick's transformation into Shane complete. - A blind man could've called tonight's ending from a mile away. Still, that moment where several Kingdom members legit shielded Zeke was a powerful display of just how much he means to the Kingdom.

Overall:

I'd say that this was the strongest hour of Season 8 yet. It was briskly paced, told several solid to great stories and progressed the war along quite nicely. King Ezekiel and Morgan particularly shined tonight though Rick's crisis of conscious during this war has been his most interesting material since his hostile takeover of Alexandria. The Walking Dead has very much become a show where if you're not really invested in these characters or the story by now then you're just not going to; the show just sadly isn't good enough to convert non-believers at this point. As someone who IS invested in this world and it's characters though I was left with quite a bit to chew on tonight and I'm looking forward to seeing how All Out War progresses from here.

Rating: B