#it's maybe fucked up but shows about other people's interpersonal conflicts are really good escapism for me

[scare-ard--sleigh]

what should be my real housewives of beverly hills replacement once i catch up? keep in mind that this is to fill a reality tv specific hole in me and i watch that show bc i love Mess !!

[hawkland]

Dear Fandom5k Author

My AO3 account (sidewinder)

Hello and thank you for writing for me! I’m excited to give this exchange a try for the first time and cannot wait to read what you can come up with for one of my requests. Please note I’d love any of them equally, no matter if I have more prompt ideas for one or the other. Some I seriously would love just about anything about since they are so rare, others I have more specific requests to scratch itches I haven’t seen written before (or that much.)

General Likes:

Soumates with a twist. I love soulmate/soulbond AUs, as long as it’s just not a shortcut to happily-ever, no-conflict fluff. I want there to be some difficulties or angst involved. For instance, I’d love seeing any fusion/inspired-by fics based off the concept of the AMC Soumates series - where there’s a newly-developed scientific test a person can choose to take to find their soulmate (if the other person out there has also taken the test). That way it’s a choice to find out or not. Would an already established couple want to take the test to find out if they’re really “meant” to be together or not? What if they find out other people are their “soulmates”? What about the possibility of platonic soulmates vs romantic? Discussions for the future if/when one partner dies before the other? I’d love to see these questions played out with one of my fave ships in either a  happy or somewhat angsty/dark way.

Vacation/travel stories. Being unable to travel this past year+ thanks to covid-19 has me desperate to explore and live vicariously through my favorite characters! So I’d love a story involving travel to somewhere new (to them). It could be a romantic getaway/honeymoon trip to somewhere special - and I love it when an author “takes me” to a favorite city/place of their own. Or two friends just going on an escapade together, maybe one sensing the other needs some time away from a stressful situation or workplace.

Smutty likes: I love extended kissing scenes, frottage, light restraint play, sharing-one-bed-for-~reasons~-ooops-how-did-we-wake-up-cuddling, bathing/caretaking an injured partner-turns-erotic, desperate/reunion sex.

Canon-divergent AUs - I’m always good with fix-its, shifts in canon that only change one thing and see what happens next or instead.

Do Not Wants:

A/B/O dynamics, mating heats. (I do like Supernatural fics that explore Castiel and the angels having bird-like behaviors and instincts, however.)

animal abuse/death

anything related to pregnancy/childbirth/kidfic (except for Jack in SPN)

formalized BDSM relationships

scat/watersports

unrequested alternative-universe scenarios such as high school/mundane/genderswap/coffee shop/fantasy/etc. There are a few ships/groups where I would enjoy specific AUs, and those are outlined below.

Completely sad endings/permanent character death or injury that isn’t part of canon

Rape/non-con between requested characters. Dubious consent is fine in situations like magic spells/possession/fuck-or-die, however.

Supernatural

AU - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Fix-it fic, Interpersonal Drama, Smut, Angst, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding, Horror

In general for SPN, I love canon-divergence AUs at pretty much any point in time (especially as they kept having so many dumb reasons in canon to keep Dean & Cas apart just when one or the other seriously needed support or TLC!) I’m okay with post-series Heaven fics as well as canon fix-its/completely ignoring the finale, and I like exploring both human!Cas as endgame or Cas keeping/getting his full angelic grace back (which is a slight preference to me, as he repeatedly seemed to genuinely value/want to be an angel? But exploring all possibilities in fic is cool for me.)

I’m a sucker for Castiel Whump/hurt!Cas in general, so long as the author remembers Cas is a bad ass and not just a baby in a trenchcoat. If he’s going to suffer, I want him to suffer stoically until he just cannot keep up the facade any longer.  

SPN-specific DNWs: mentions/implications of Wincest, past or present; extreme bashing/characterization of John and Mary Winchester, or Jimmy Nowak, as homophobic. 

Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester

Give me all the finale fix-it fics - no I’m still not over it, I’m still happy to read any new twist on how Cas got out of the Empty and got back together with Dean (and Sam). If Dean still dies early/ends up in Heaven, I’d like a story that explores what happens when one gets bored of peace-and-happiness-ever-after. (Yes, I’m a big fan of The Good Place and as such it makes me wonder if eternity with no conflict and everything you could ever want would just melt your brain and identity after a few millennia.) So what then?

I’m also stealing a Tumblr rant as a prompt I’d love to read, if you want to get into some good dirty smut:

ive had it up to here with fictional gays being like “i love you and if all i can ever have is that knowledge it’s enough for me” we need more “i have been struck down by horny insanity and i beg you to fuck me once. i’ve had three smirnoff ices and i’m gonna be crazy now. we can pretend it didn’t happen i don’t give a shit just gimme daddy’s blunt instrument” it’s more realistic [x]

Um so yeah. I’d love an au where, anywhere along the line when it’s been their/someone’s/the universe’s life on the life, Cas takes the initiative decides they’re gonna have crazy sex even if it’s just once before the end of the world/we die. But then, oops, we’ve survived, now we have to deal with it. ...Please?

For something different, maybe more romantic/fluffy, I’d really love a vacation/getaway story here, since they never really got anything like that of substance on the show. I want to see Cas take Dean somewhere beautiful and amazing in the world he’s never gotten to see before. Show him there’s more than just greasy diners and the landscape of America to enjoy and experience. If you want, they could stumble on a case/haunting/monster from another part of the world while they’re at it...but I just really want to see Dean having some mind-opening and expanding experiences beyond what’s he’s known and seen so far in life.

In specific with Cas/Dean + Sam, I love another tumblr idea I saw recently where Sam totally keeps bringing up the idea of “Sastiel” as a fun joke between him and Cas, and Cas plays along, and it drives Dean up the wall. Cas has to just keep re-assuring Dean that no, he doesn’t see Sam that way...but why does it bother Dean so much? A.k.a. Dean has to finally own up to the fact that it bothers him because he wants Cas to feel that way about him.

Castiel (Supernatural)

I just love Cas, period, end of story, he’s my One True Character of SPN. I love any stories that try to explore him more fully—be it his relationships in the past with other angels and being a BAMF commander/warrior of Heaven, or what specifically it is that keeps him so tied to the Winchesters. I love stories that feature his true-form in some fashion or try to dig into the alien/different nature of angels vs. humans.

Also, another Tumblr-musing-turned-prompt (I lost who posted it, sorry!) I'd love to see explored in a canon divergence fic focused on Cas. Specifically: 

"I would have loved an arc for Cas (after he got his grace back) where he wanted to help people, like he was helped. Spending time in soup kitchens or healing people, and through that developing a sense of self purpose, leading to his grace replenishing unexpectedly. Sort of fulfilling the traditional angel role (as we know it nowadays) by replacing his faith in heaven/dean with faith in himself, to redefine himself as a protector of humanity instead of heaven's soldier."

Group: Castiel/Dean Winchester & Jimmy Novak Group: Castiel & Jimmy Novak

We know Cas carried a lot of guilt for what happened to Jimmy and his whole family. So I'm interested in a post-finale, canon-compliant (I guess?) fic where Cas tries to reconcile things with Jimmy in Heaven. Maybe Jimmy & Amelia were one of his first "projects" or test cases in trying to build a new and better Heaven with Jack? (And it's what he was so busy with while Dean was still alive.) Or, is it weird in Heaven with Cas and Jimmy looking so similar? Does Cas still fight doubts as to whether Dean really loves him, or just desires this body/form that isn’t his own?

Otherwise, I've been thinking about Endverse!Cas, who had lost his grace/powers as the angels have all left and abandoned humankind. What happened to/where is Jimmy in all of that? (If we go by the canon that Jimmy was not killed, nor went to Heaven, until the end of Season 5, when Lucifer blew up that vessel and Cas was resurrected by Chuck.) Are they now two "mortal men"/souls trapped sharing one body? Is that why Cas is so messed up/always seeking an escape through drugs and sex? (Besides of course Dean having changed so much.) This is one prompt where I don’t mind a very dark/not-so-happily-ever-after ending.

The Police

Angst, Character Development, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Humor, Interpersonal Drama, Smut

Group: Sting/Stewart Copeland

Yeah I’ll always request these two together even though I know it’s a long shot to find anyone else as obsessed about them as I am. Really anything at all whatsoever would make me happy for this ship: Reunion Tour-era fic, early punk days before they grew successful, soulmate AUs...

I’d also love a spooky story where they’re on tour/on the road somewhere and end up in a haunted hotel. Or their tour bus/van breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they have to seek shelter in an abandoned house or farm or something...and supernatural weirdness ends up affecting them or bringing them together.

If you want to go the crack route: it wasn’t enough for Miles to take them all around the world to tour in “exotic” locations back in the day. He’s arranged for them now to go on the ultimate tour...of outer space and alien worlds.

Crossover Fandom

Action/Adventure, Character Development, Interpersonal Drama, Angst, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural

Group: Abe Morgan (Forever TV) & John Munch (L&O: SVU)

I’ve had a long running headcanon that these two could have been friends back in their respective 60s/early 70s hippie days. I’d love either a story set back then, “pre-canon”, or them running into each other in NYC later in life. Munch ending up in Abe’s antique shop, for instance, while on an investigation?  

Group: Dean Winchester (Supernatural) & Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone) Group: Castiel (Supernatural) & Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone)

I’m fascinated by the idea of crossing over these two canons. Even if there’s some conflict in their approach to Hell/Lucifer/demons, there’s still a lot in common. Dean & Ezekiel having both put in their time in Hell and being demon hunters, for instance, and their complicated relationships with (fallen) angels. I’d love to see them bonding over their experiences (Maybe they even meet in Hell? Time DOES work differently there…) Maybe somehow after Ezekiel completed his mission for the Devil, he did get his second chance at “life on Earth”…but the devil’s trick is that it’s not HIS Earth, it’s in a different dimension (Supernatural’s). I’m also curious how Ezekiel might respond to Castiel as an angel–perhaps he mistakes Cas for a demon at first, with his powers, but then they realize they are in fact hunting the same demon? Cas is stuck in an alternative dimension and recognizes Ezekiel as a similar soul to Dean’s, and seeks out his help?

Basically I’d love some kind of casefic/demon hunt here, with the characters bonding over their shared/similar past traumas, taking care of each other when/if injured on a hunt, and/or perhaps helping them sort out their complicated feelings for another (ie, background Cas/Dean and/or Zeke/the Devil are TOTALLY welcome here, as I ship both of those ships.)

Law & Order: SVU

Group: John Munch/Odafin "Fin" Tutuola

Character Development, Established Relationship, Humor, Getting Together, Interpersonal Drama, Canon-Style Plot - Freeform, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery/Procedural, Slice of Life, AU-Genre shift

Munch/Fin is one of my eternal OTPs so I’m always happy to see something new featuring them! I’m always good for procedural/case-fics. And this is one request where I’d love to read some AU-Genre or setting shift, reimagining the two in some other situations besides police work. I’ve always loved the idea of John hosting a conspiracy/weird news radio show or podcast, and Fin as someone completely skeptical but who gets wrapped up in one of John’s mysteries. Or John as the owner of a bar somewhere that Fin is one of his regulars, and over time their friendship develops/deepens into something more.

Supernatural RPF

Misha Collins/Jensen Ackles Established Relationship, Getting Together, Smut, Fluff, Slice of Life, Humor

It’s odd for me to be into an actor RPF fandom (I usually only fall for music/band-related ones), but what can I say...these two just make it almost impossible not to see the possibilities!

I was thinking I’d love something set post-Supernatural...their first time seeing each other again after a long time apart? (What with the show ending, covid, Misha’s surgery, etc etc.) Could be at a convention or maybe they get to go off on a getaway together somewhere private/romantic and it’s...kind of tense and maybe nervous/angsty at first? Like with doubts about whether they can/should go back to the way things were before.

Or: putting tin-hatty speculation about the “secret/real identity” of Alma Perpetua aside, I love their poetry and I’d love any “Cockles” fic using one of their poems as inspiration.

[adrunkgiraffe]

I have been through this journey before, so I get to be actually frustrated about it.

IUnder a read more because im not subjecting y’all to this. Also: I should caveat I haven’t watched the episode cause I’m waiting till its on Netflix but I have watched way too many other episodes of Supernatural so I have a right to say these things. 

TL;DR: I mean you all knew Cas’ confession was fucking bullshit and that SPN is...hm. But I’d like to actually express my genuine frustration, for a moment? I’m going to say things you already know, but I have too much knowledge of this show and too much stupid meta in my brain about a series I haven’t genuinely enjoyed for at least 5 years which makes this not just blandly bad but disgustingly insulting to me not even as a gay just as like. A writer?

Or, even shorter: Cas’ confession is just a Charlie Bradbury Speedrun 

So. As some of you may know if, for some reason, you followed me back in 2013 (and till...okay fine 2015), I used to be, uh. Really into SPN. Really, I was into Destiel. Like, as in, I slogged through seasons 1-3 to get to Cas and am also really vulnerable to the Sunk Cost Fallacy and projecting onto characters. (I was in 8th grade in 2013, okay? Get off my back)

Also, because I monopolised use of the TV, I kind of...also got my parents into it? In a “this is silly but fun” kind of way.

Over time, critiques of the show from viewers, learning what queerbaiting is at all, fatigue with how long it was going, and also fatigue from how characters I enjoyed, like Rufus, or Crowley, or Ellen, or Jo, or Kevin, or Charlie, or Cas a few times, kept getting killed off. As time went on, it didn’t escape my notice that, aside from Cas, all of these characters fit one or more of the following criteria:

They were a woman

They were a person of color

Were Queer or Queer-coded in some way (listen Crowley was bad rep but at least Mark Sheppard actually kissed a man on screen)

I also just...generally got tired of the way the show treats women and sidelines people of color. 

The final straw really came with Charlie’s death. It got us all excited, because she hadn’t been back in a bit! And it was interesting to see how reuniting with her dark side from Oz had changed her! (yeah remember the fucking Wizard of Oz storyline? The writers sure don’t!) And maybe she’d get developed! Because at this point, Charlie and the fairly good writing of her character was a major upside for the series! Charlie was cool, fun, gay, and morally complex in a way...none of the female characters had been before her, in large part because by definition, her relationship with the boys would always be platonic.

And then. Offscreen. She is violently murdered. For no damn good reason. Like, literally, her being brought back in this episode after fucking off to europe after having returned from fucking off to Oz seems to have filled two purposes in total. 

The codex is solved (but Sam doesn’t know till next episode)

Charlie is dead, which means Dean can be angry, specifically at Sam, and kill more people because he’s the big bad this season. 

That’s it. Two things. Twooooo whole reasons to do this episode. Whoopee. 

But you didn’t come here for this, you came here for me to rip this reveal to shreds. Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I want in your minds is that Supernatural already had a really good anddynamic queer character. And then they killed her off to make Dean angry. No, it doesn’t matter that they brought her back in season 13 or whatever. They made that decision. 

After the rage this incited, I started realizing general flaws in the writing (I had probably already noticed them but now I was angry enough to complain.) Every conflict is born of Sam and Dean not communicating/taking on burdens and Dean being angry at Cas for reasons that ranged from good to ridiculous, but in a way that always went way too fucking long, (which...yes, does make the “you do it for love” gifs fucking hilarious). It didn’t help that seasons 11 and 12 were next, which meant Demon Dean and GOD’S FUCKING SISTER, plus the decision to resurrect Mary, which, while I do like her later scenes, as a season 12 finale it...well I’ll be honest it kinda sucked. It undercut the majority of the Winchester’s’ arcs and their slow and painful journey out of their father’s toxic vengeance quest and knowing Mary as a person when it’s too late to know her was one of the last semi-compelling grounders of the narrative. 

By this point it was a hate-watch for my parents and I.

So then, I’m at college, and I’m not watching anymore cause I don’t have the motivation or access to Hulu to continue, and SPN is bad. I watch the Scooby Doo crossover when it comes out and my friend and I make fun of it, and we also continue making jokes about Dean and Cas and queerbaiting because we’re queer, but I don’t keep up. My Dad does though, so when I return, I watch some with the fam and lads. It’s even more tiring without context. 

So flash forward to Quarantine, my sister, the only one with taste, has left, and we have run out of netflix to watch. So we return to the well, and seasons 13-14 are. I’m gonna say it. Bad. Really fucking bad. The cycle of bad communication continues, season 14 has like seven antagonists and the way it’s structured makes it so I literally cannot remember the timeline of a season I watched 3 months ago. Oh also, they have a queer coded cannibal snake monster for...well I guess Jack’s snake bud was cool but like. Huh wow it’s almost like these writers don’t handle queers well. 

Our one saving grace is Cas, but he’s barely in any episodes, though I did note that his deal with the empty, being happy completely for one moment killing him, that struck me as “this has potential and I know they’re gonna half-ass it somehow.” Also Jack and Mary, but then oh...plot….The most compelling it gets is literally the finale.

But then, 3 days later, the first half of season 15 comes out on Netflix and it’s...actually kind of acceptable. The new character they give Jack’s actor is fun to watch him play until they make him evil. Exploring just how toxic Chuck can be gave the series direction again. The alternate future was genuinely scarring, and Eileen’s return was genuinely moving. Most of all, though, Cas got the opportunity to tell Dean no, that Dean was being unfair to him, had always been unfair to him, and he was sick of it. I had no illusions, I knew Destiel was never gonna happen, and Cas was gonna die, but giving him that bit of agency, letting Cas grow and be self-sufficient, and be angry with Dean not for existential reasons but interpersonal ones, was such a good sign for me, and Dean grew too! Dean fucking apologized for being horrible and Jensen Ackles had a...yknow what, ill give it to him, he had a good acting moment. 

But the thing. About. The “I love you.” 

Let’s take it in parts.

What was good: I’m gonna admit it, lads, “Wanting what I can’t have” - AS A LINE - is good, and, structurally, there is something to the Empty Deal that could have been an interesting aspect of Cas’ arc when it comes to self actualization and being on even footing with Dean. The problem is, this is Supernatural, and that arc only comes up when I bring it up because character study, even in bad media, is fun for me. 

What was bad:

I mean. Like. All of it? All of it. 

Okay. Fine. I’ll be specific. 

Cas dies immediately when - possibly because- he is revealed as having feelings for Dean. They kill him as they queer him, that’s a Bury Your Gays Speedrun right there.

Like the least they could have done is have him mention it to someone in another scene or something to establish some romantic feelings on the part of canon a full episode beforehand. That would have been the literal bare minimum. 

When Cas starts praising Dean, for some reason both the writing and Misha’s acting take a bit of a downswing (from...where it already was). Cas, whose most powerful moment this season was acknowledging that Dean’s anger at him is cruel and unfair, flatly praises him for doing everything out of love and it reads with a misunderstanding of both Dean as a character and Cas’ understanding of Dean. Dean is angry! VERY ANGRY! And it’s a problem he needs to work on and rarely does. 

Talking out of my ass, a better speech would have been about how Dean is angry because of his love for Sam, family, and the people around him, how, for better or for worse, he can’t help but be angry on behalf of others, and that his journey of moving that tendency towards the better is what made Cas care so much. Guys this alteration to the metaphor took 2 minutes to write tops I am an Art History student and these are TV WRITERS WITH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE CAN YOU TELL THEYRE NOT TRYING YET? 

A better speech would, of course, have come out of a better series. My point: this part was half-assed. Poorly written. Wow it’s almost like the series is also poorly written. 

 Also, Misha is the better actor of the three(***OF THE THREE), but his choices in that scene are jarringly out of character which. Makes the bad writing worse. It doesn’t help that they cut to the same fucking shot of Dean 3 times. The chemistry in that scene makes it feel so fucking hackneyed. Because it is. 

This combines lead me to the point: (wait there was a point to this?)

As someone who does not have the luxury of watching this capsized ship fall into boiling seas from a distance, it is less insulting to me that they did this so last minute and then sent Cas to the Void than it is how they did it. They had ingredients for something that could have been compelling enough to me as a former fan of the show to think that they had put effort into it, that they had decided months, perhaps even years ago to do this, and had crafted a storyline around it. That this was an intentional decision they cared about. It wasn’t. It was barely even pandering, because it’s almost insultingly blatant. 

SPN kinda proved to me that it didn’t care about queers when Charlie was killed off. It proved it to me again when Cas, not only died in confessing his love for Dean but did it in the weakest result of what could have been a surprisingly strong story.

[jupitermelichios]

So I decided to rewatch Suicide Squad and I have some thoughts...

This isn’t really a review so much as it’s just a series of thoughts and impressions. I will say that while it’s still one of the worst made films I’ve ever seen, it’s never boring, which is by far the biggest sin a film can commit. It’s bullshit but it’s consistently interesting bullshit which makes it better than something like Fant4stic, which is as bad and incoherant but also just incredibly dull. I don’t think this could ever have been a good film, there was too much massively wrong with it before shooting even started to have been salvagable, but I do think it could have been a lot more coherant if it hadn’t been for the reshoots, re-edits, re-edits of re-edits and all the the other stuff that happened to it post production. Unlike something like BvS, I get why some people liked this one.

On that note, while I am going to end on a few possitives this basically a roast so if you don’t want to read about a film getting picked apart, this probably won’t be your jam. But if like me you find critiques of bad movies cathartic, read on. I’m not the first person to do this, but I’ve spotted some stuff I haven’t seen anyone else talk about so hopefully there’ll be something new for you.

All the dialogue is just slightly off in a way that’s hard to pin down, in the way that a lot of comprehensible stuff written by computers and neural networks is just slightly off. It’s got that phishing email or pornbot quality to it. Literally the fourth or fifth line in the film is Griggs saying about the prison rations, “...Everything a growing young man needs like you”, which isn’t nonsense, but is clearly wrong, and a lot of the lines have that quality to them.

In a similar vein, Deadshot’s daughter is written like she’s five or six, but the actress looks about twelve. I actually went and checked how old she was when this released, because I know white people are often wildly bad at judging the ages of black kids and I’m bad at judging ages in general, but no, she was 12 or 13 when this was shot, so why’s she written like a toddler? She doesn’t give a good performance (which is not the actresses fault, Will Smith barely gives a good performance in this and he can do this shit in his sleep, there’s no way a kid could have risen above the terrible script and direction) which makes it even worse, because you’ve got this pre-teen delivering dialogue written for a kindergardener in a way that feel like it’s maybe the first time she’s ever seen the script, and it makes what is otherwise one of the most competant scenes in the movie feel just as off as everything else.

The Joker. A lot of people have written a lot about Leto’s Joker but I want to add two things to the discussion I haven’t seen talked about much before. Firstly, before the electro-shock torture and acid bath, he and Harley have no romance. Like, explicitly, there is no romance, or even cammeraderie there. He’s her patient. She’s his jailer. He didn’t seduce her, he just tortured her until she gave in. That’s literally shown in the film. Even after the torture when she’s now on side he still really doesn’t like her, and not in a Paul Dini BTAS he doesn’t like her but he also wants her around kind of way. He doesn’t want her in his life. He orders her to leave him alone and she fucking stalks him. That’s not even subtext, she is specifically his stalker, because apparently the solution to the relationship being abusive was to retconn Harley into also being a creep as though that somehow solves something.

Secondly, Joker isn’t smart. Not only is he no longer emotionally intelligent (and comics Joker is many terrible things but he’s probably the most emotionally intelligent character in DC, that’s a lot of what makes him so dangerous because it’s how he manipulates people) he’s not intelligent full stop. His great plan for breaking out of Arkham? Some of his goons from the outside literally just shoot their way in to get to him. Even leaving aside the fact that Arkham apparently isn’t set up to deal with that kind of violence in this world despite Batman having been opperating for a decade, that’s not a clever plan, and it’s not Joker’s plan. 'Hope some of my dudes are loyal enough to come get me’ isn’t any kind of escape plan, and nothing we see after that point suggests that this was a moment of weakness. Joker just straight up isn’t very bright in this, which is weird because that’s one of the few genuinely consistent character traits he has. He’s no Riddler, sure, but he’s really smart and that makes him hard to contain.

Ayer made Harley functionally a sex worker in this, and it doesn’t actually matter that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with sex work or that sex work is real work, because David Ayer definitely thinks there is, and also really really hates women. David Ayer hates women so goddamn much. The only thing Slipknot does in the entire film apart from die is hit a woman just for being a woman.

When Waller arrives at Belle Reve, Croc is doing push ups. And that’s fine, it’s a classic movie shorthand for ‘bored prisoner is also fit and strong’, but the actor isn’t actually doing pushups. He’s got one knee tucked under his body to support his weight, and is clearly actually just sort of bobbing his head. What I suspect happened is that the prosthetics on his arms and chest were too heavy to allow that kind of movement, which would tie up with the stiff way he holds his arms throughout the film, but he’s not even bothering to pretend very hard and it adds to this pervading sense of off-kilter wrongness the film has.

Rick Flagg is supposed to be ‘the best special forces opperative this country has’, but he’s... really bad? He’s no use in any of the fights, he’s incapable of working with a team and has zero interpersonal skills, and when he’s assigned to be a bodyguard, he immediately starts fucking his client which is like, bodyguarding rule 1. He’s really bad at his job. (Which would be fine if the explanation was that he’s a fucking psychopath who’s 100% willing to just murder a civilian in the line of duty, but he’s meant to be Hannibal Smith more than Dirty Harry, and also if he is here because he’s a psychopath, why did Amanda Waller assume June Moon would be into that?!) He even has to be blackmailed into joining the opperation, so he’s incompetent, unprofessional, causes unecessary conflict, and isn’t even loyal to the project, so why him and not, I don’t know, literally any other character?

On the subject of June Moon, she goes (alone) on an archeological dig in a rainforest somewhere, finds a cave full of human remains and ancient artefacts, and literally her first action is to deliberately smash one of the artefacts, presumably just to see what would happen? IDK! We never get any explanation for that, but it’s definitely meant to be deliberate and not accidental when she smashes it! Why are archeologists in movies all so terrible?!

People have joked a lot about the fact that the movie changes the purpose of the squad from ‘plausibly deniable black ops, especially on American soil’, to ‘punching Superman’ but kept Captain Boomerang on the team, but there is actually an explanation given. A really really stupid explanation. Amanda Waller says that he’s there because ‘he faced down a metahuman and survived’, referring to him surviving being arrested. By the Flash. Who is famously non violent, and in fact in the next film in the series specifically says he’s never fought someone. So Boomer is on the team because he didn’t die when Flash picked him up and carried him to a police station, and Amanda Waller thinks that’s some kind of achievement. Like that isn’t the case for literally everyone the Flash has ever caught. And Flash is a street level hero, so that’s a whole lot of muggers and purse snatchers who are apparently capable of fist fighting Superman by Waller’s logic.

(On the same note as the Joker, Waller is also now incredibly stupid, but she’s mostly stupid for plot related reasons, so it sort of gets a pass? It gets more of a pass than the Joker at least, because making him comics-smart wouldn’t have necessatitated changing anything else about the film)

Re: Waller’s stupidity, her whole plan for recruiting El Diablo to the squad is... show him a video of him setting fire to some dudes. That’s it. She doesn’t even speak to him, she literally just holds up the video to the little window in his tank and seems surprised when that by itself isn’t enough.

And then when Flagg is like ‘hey let me try persuading him with actual arguments instead of just a weird video’, Diablo’s response is “You think you’re the first person to ask? I won’t do it. I’m a man not a weapon”, which gives us the amazing insight that in Ayer’s version of the DCU, there are apparently just... other Taskforce Xs running around. Other government agencies recruiting metahuman soldiers. So what exactly was the point of the half an hour or so of footage of her persuading the brass to go along with it? Because apparently they’re fine with this if every agency is doing it!

Tone? What even is tone. Griggs both has an antagonist but banter-y relationship with and brings cookies to the prisoners, but also he tortures them and is implied to be sexually abusing Harley, and like... you can’t have it both ways, Ayer. This is a one or the other situation. They can’t have a fun and jokey relationship with a man who is explicitly torturing and abusing them. Tone. You need to pick a fucking tone!

The decision to add a subplot about Deadshot being involved in a custody battle with his ex-wife was a fascinatingly terrible choice, and honestly tells you a lot about Ayer’s relationship to MRA talking points. Like, we know nothing about Deadshot’s wife except that she raised a cute well adjusted kid, so probably a pretty good parent, and that she doesn’t want her daughter to be spending time with a MASS MURDERER! So definitely a good parent! The comics just kind of handwave away Zoe’s mom most of the time, which was the right choice, because Ayer wants us to be on Deadshot’s side here, but it’s literally a choice between "a serial killer but you take credit cards” and a normal loving parent and somehow he thinks serial killer is the right answer? WTF happened in Ayer’s life that he thinks this is a choice where we side with Deadshot?! And it’s not even visitation rights or anything, Deadshot wants full custody. And the film thinks he’s in the right!

Not once, at any job I have ever had, one of which was a tourist attraction that required all visitors to wear a pass, have I ever seen someone wear a visitors pass on their sleeve. Not once. And it’s honestly such a good summary of the pervading wrongness of this film. This doesn’t feel like it was made by people. It feels like it was made by middlingly intelligent algorithms trying to pass as human.

Someone please tell me what the fuck any of this set is supposed to mean. The pose feels deliberate, but it’s not invoking anything I can see except the hanged man from the Ryder-Waite tarot deck, the halo of knives almost looks like it’s pseudo-religious imagery except that it’s not a full halo, the circle is incomplete on one side because of a broken piano, does the piano mean something? What about the babygrows, do they mean something? Does the Joker... want kids? Kill kids? Think Harley’s pregant? What the hell is any of this supposed to mean, and if, as I suspect, it was never supposed to mean anything why the fuck did they go to the trouble of making it?! What exactly does the hours this took to put together add to the movie?

David Ayer has a really weird relationship with both gang culture and latino gang culture specifically. He always feels the need to shoehorn them in somehow, and it’s this weird love-hate relationship where he apparently thinks latino gangs are so cool they have to be in everything, but is also so fucking racist he’s incapable of having a latino character who isn’t in a gang. Also in order to shoehorn them in here, he basically removed all of Joker’s henchmen (except for one scene which serves no narrative purpose) and replaced when with generic racist-stereotype LA gangs.

The fact that Griggs just hands Harley the phone in front of all the other guards and soliders was A Choice. Made even more so by the fact that Griggs never actually pay off. He gives Harley the phone, she tells him he’s “so screwed now”, and then... nothing. He’s just gone for the rest of the movie. He’s not even in the epilogue back in prison scenes.

I fucking love that the first thing Waller does is tell the world’s best assassin her real name. That is just... *chefs kiss* Everyone in this film is so fucking stupid.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming and I remembered the line perfectly, and I still had to stop the film because I was laughing too hard for “Ah would advise naht gettin’ killed by her, her sword traps the souls of its victims”. It’s the ‘that wizard came from the moon’ of film dialogue, and no one could have made it work, but the southern accent is really what makes that line delivery. I don’t know why, there’s just something about it in that drawl that it just endlessly hilarious.

It really is impressive how every character in this manages to be an offensive stereotype, sometimes multiple offensive stereotypes at once.

I love how Flagg’s right-hand woman is a samurai with a magical possessed sword that traps the souls of the damned who also isn’t military and refuses to speak English most of the time, but the squad are too weird for him. “You won’t believe it, this guy Boomerage, he’s got these bent stick things, and when he throws them they come back! I am freaking out, I can’t deal with this. Oh hi Katana, trap any damned souls lately?”

Harley is explicitly malicious in this in a way no other version of Harley has ever been, which is a Freudian nightmare when you combine it with her also being more sexualised than ever, and more infantalised than any version outside the Arkham games. Someone get Ayer a goddamn therapist. (Also in the vein of everyone being dumb in this, Harley is now an absolutely terrible psychiatrist and all her diagnoses are explicitly wrong, so that’s fun.)

The fucking pink unicorn-bundle of money switcheroo. There’s nothing to say on it that hasn’t already been said but holy shit. How do you fuck something up that bad? How? It’s like looking into Chekov’s nightmares and finding a pink stuffed unicorn staring back.

I love the way the soliders just come and go in this. Are they dead, are they alive, have they abandonned the cause? Why the fuck knows? Certainly not the editors!

I love how we’re supposed to be really sad about El Diablo being dead, but not care that Croc is seemingly directly underneath the explosion and definitely about to die, that’s fun.

I need to know if it was Ayer or Cara Delavigne’s choice to make Enchantress be just.. doing a little dance. Duing all the ‘tense’ moments. Because there are probably things which undercut tension more than the bad guy having a bit of boogy, but not many.

Enchantress gets so many costume changes, and I want to believe that they’re all from different versions of the film but I honestly think it was deliberate and I need someone on in the design department for this movie to tell me why because it add nothing.

I think the best thing about the stupidly on the nose liscenced soundtrack is that it just disappears once they arrive in Midway city. After spirit in the sky it’s original music all the way until the final scene. The great soundtrack DC stans insist this film has is literally only in the first 50 minutes and the last 2 of a 2hr+ movie.

The glorification of abuse in this is... seriously fucking something else. Twilight doesn’t have a patch on this. 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t have a patch on this. This shit is disgusting, and the fact that they pushed so hard to get it a child friendly rating is just morally bankrupt.

Possitive note to end on:

The dialogue is way too on the nose and exposition dump-y but the scene in the bar works pretty well. It fulfils its role in the story, and gives us a decent dose of team bonding.

Deadshot and Harley have great chemistry, and Boomer is perfectly cast, in a way that makes me really hopeful for James Gunn’s take on the team. A writer who knows how to write friendships could do a lot with the three of them, and they’ve been the core squad since 2011 so they’re the ones who matter. It probably helps that whatever Will Smith’s faults as an actor, you could cast him opposite a housebrick and they’d somehow have great chemistry.

[turtle-paced]

GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

Well, an extra week’s break has given me the time I need to tackle one of the season’s longest episodes.

6.04 - Book of the Stranger

(1:53) Here is a shot of Longclaw, in focus. Someone’s in the background (Edd) kinda messing with some stuff.

(2:04) Here is where Edd picks up Longclaw. So many places where two or three seconds should be trimmed off the shot (if that shot even has to be included at all). It doesn’t take eleven seconds for viewers to get their heads around what’s happening here visually or aurally.

(2:15) And here’s where we start on the actual action of the scene - Jon packing. Twenty seconds of Edd futzing around with Jon’s stuff later…

(2:56) I think this exchange of dialogue is pretty good, actually, showing a genuine and warranted “fuck everything” mentality in Jon and reminding the viewers what the stakes of that “fuck everything” mentality are.

(3:13) Note how Brienne’s in the lead and the camera’s tracking her. Tormund’s reaction shot to Brienne also gets established over Sansa. Sansa, almost as much of an afterthought as Bran.

(3:48) And yet in spite of that, this moment where Jon and Sansa reunite is done very well. Especially considering that Jon and Sansa haven’t even shared a scene in the books. Did Jon even find out that Sansa had been married off to Ramsay in the show last season? Because in ADWD he sure knew that “Arya” had been married to Ramsay, and that affected the plot.

(5:05) Now the problem is that the writers have to establish, very quickly, what the dynamic between these characters was. Even though Jon and Sansa have never shared a scene in the books, we’ve still seen them think about each other and we know that even though Sansa called Jon her half-brother at Winterfell, she loves Jon, and Jon loves her. In isolation, I think it would be perfectly fine to have Sansa establish the dynamic by apologising for not being an A+ sister to Jon (I’d prefer if the “awfulness” Sansa is repenting for was described, so we can see the class dynamic and discrimination in play, rather than leaving it for the audience to go ‘oh she was a brat’). But as usual, this does not and cannot stand in isolation. We have multiple examples of women apologising for or regretting not being the perfect female relative - just off the top of my head we’ve got Catelyn, Selyse, and Cersei, and now we’re adding Sansa to that list. The only time I can think of a male character doing the same is Jaime’s trip to Dorne in season five, and I think we’d all be better off forgetting that.

(5:20) One of the things that does make this better is that Jon admits to one of his own childish character failings.

(5:44) And, of course, it’s nice to see these two characters enjoying each other’s company. I don’t suppose the writers will shoehorn in some “tension” and “rivalry.”

(6:29) It’s right here, when Sansa’s talking about enlisting the Free Folk to fight the Boltons, that I’m really feeling the rehash, and how it’s messing with the broader structure of the entire series. By ADWD, we’re steadily building up to a confrontation with the White Walkers. Jon’s plot in particular is like looking at a big bank of dark clouds building up on the horizon. What’s happened here is that the writers throw a bone in the general direction of the White Walker plot, but then leave it so that Winterfell can finally be retaken - but by characters they (supposedly) like better than Stannis. The action in the Northern arena goes backwards in order to dispose of Stannis and promote Jon, at the cost of building tension on the Northern border. I mean, it was one of the things that ‘Hardhome’ did right, showing the White Walkers in action, and now they pretty much disappear as a motivating force for a season. The show made this mistake in season four. It’s worse to make this mistake again in season six.

That said, at last someone points out that it matters to the broader conflict just who holds the position of Warden of the North.

(6:43) Sansa just told Jon that Arya, Bran and Rickon are all alive (she doesn’t know Jon knows about Bran and Rickon), and he doesn’t react. Hell, she doesn’t act as if this is a thing he doesn’t know. Maybe she told him earlier - but why not show Sansa’s joy at getting to tell Jon that their younger siblings are alive, and Jon’s at learning this?

It’s because the writers don’t care about depicting the Starks as a family unit. Creating tension from loving relationships, where the interpersonal stakes are so high precisely because the parties involved love each other deeply, is not something the writers of this show excel at (see the changes to Catelyn and Robb’s relationship, the neglect of Jon’s with Ned, the lack of feeling between Sansa and Arya, and as always, who the hell is Bran); they do far better where people are in direct conflict driven by hatred, resentment, or rivalry.

(6:56) Nobody made Jon hang Olly. Indeed, I would argue strenuously that if Jon intended to quit the Night’s Watch (which his comments indicate was his plan from before the hanging), he should have left it for the next Lord Commander to deal with.

(7:20) Promising signs for Sansa’s characterisation! Asking for help but not dependent on it, confident and assertive, we’ve even seen here signs of book!Sansa’s intelligence.

(7:41) Mel here calls Jon “the prince that was promised.” Which is a very definitely Targaryen prophecy, rather than a R’hllorite one. Eh, I’m sure they’re all the same and carry the same meanings to these very different people.

(8:03) Davos asks about Stannis. Melisandre says that there was a batte. Davos follows up with a question about Shireen, recognising that “there was a battle” doesn’t explain why nobody tried to get her clear of it.

(8:11) Brienne walks up to Davos and Melisandre discussing the issue. She interrupts, actually. When Davos attempts to introduce himself politely, Brienne responds with rudeness and hostility.

(8:56) Brienne then tells Davos and Melisandre that she “executed” Stannis (bullshit, that was revenge murder) and walks off. She had no purpose in this conversational detour but to cause them pain. While I can understand how Brienne got to “red priestess = likely source of blood magic that killed Renly,” I’m not sure why she wants to hurt Davos. Nor actually why I should think this character is admirable.

In the meantime, Davos forgets to press the point about Shireen. Eh. It’ll keep.

(9:01) Cut to Robin Arryn here. He’s attempting to aim an arrow.

(9:09) Cut away from Robin Arryn’s attempt to aim an arrow. Eight seconds, just of Robin attempting to aim. Earlier seasons have shown us children practicing archery, and they didn’t need eight seconds of aiming to establish skill or lack thereof; they cut straight to a conspicuous lack of arrows in a target, unless also developing relationships between characters.

(10:15) Littlefinger here lies about the plan to marry Sansa to Ramsay and engages in a little standoff with Yohn Royce. So he knows that this would go over like a lead balloon in the Vale and has to distance himself. This is before he’s certain that Ramsay raped Sansa. Truly, the Ramsay-Sansa match was a brilliant plan brilliantly executed.

Not to mention this is a really crappy lie. How do you get from Royce lands to the Fingers? How would a “large party” of Bolton men get from Winterfell to the relevant route? Undetected, no less? This story stinks to high heaven. It’s ironically consistent with book!Littlefinger that he comes this close to being rumbled by a transparent lie and has to sic armed men on someone. Unlike the books, however, this is not portrayed as Littlefinger failing, but at Littlefinger being very clever. Yay for winning the staredown! Don’t think about whether the staredown was remotely necessary!

(11:37) Someone was really proud of the “the wars to come” phrasing. By this point, they should not be proud.

(12:07) Littlefinger has friends in the North who tell him Sansa has escaped Winterfell. First, his friends told him that Sansa has escaped, but did not manage to tell him what sort of person Ramsay was? Second, I believe this is the last we’ll hear of Littlefinger’s friends. Spy networks are only for exposition.

(12:35) Last season, Littlefinger was whisked down to King’s Landing, ostensibly to obtain Cersei’s permission to get the Knights of the Vale to ride against those treacherous Boltons (but really just to deprive Sansa of allies so she could spend the season being raped). Here in this scene, it seems Littlefinger does not need Cersei’s permission at all. And later on, we’ll see that this Vale mobilisation could be accomplished without having this scene with Robin and Royce at all. It’s a waste of time (upwards of seven minutes of screentime spread over two seasons), and it still fails to patch the massive plotholes the Ramsay-Sansa plot opened in the first place.

(13:02) This is probably the best writing for Tyrion we’ll see all season, as Missandei and Grey Worm attempt to tell him that he’s got the wrong idea about the nature of the enemies they’re facing. At this point, the narrative is allowing for the possibility that Tyrion’s wrong, and allowing for the possibility that Tyrion’s personal flaws and background are blinding him.

(13:18) “How many days were you a slave?” “Long enough to know.” “Not long enough to understand.” Yep. Best exchange we’ll get in this part of the story. External problems linked to Tyrion’s internal thought processes. There’s conflict, character and military.

(13:28) Tyrion drinks: 1.

(14:35) In other ways, this is a deeply confused scene. As with Mossador last season, we’re supposed to think that Missandei and Gray Worm have a point, but we’re also supposed to be thinking they’re aggressive and radical, compared to the diplomatic, moderate Tyrion.

The content is also strange, as the Masters tell Gray Worm that he’s not a free man, he’s still a slave…after the scene opened by recognising that when Tyrion went from slavery to the top of the Great Pyramid of Meereen, that was a marked change in fortunes indeed. Tyrion also says that he’s not here to change the world…in a meeting between ancient slaving powers and, amongst others, two former slaves, appointed representatives and trusted confidants of a fiercely anti-slavery queen. If Tyrion has missed that the world here has changed dramatically and/or cannot deal with the fact appropriately in negotiations, he’s not cut out for the position he’s holding.

(14:45) Not to mention that Tyrion definitely doesn’t understand slavery. “You don’t need slaves to make money.” That’s the key issue here to be sure.

(15:50) And then Tyrion rings a bell to summon sex workers 1, 2, and 3, to entertain the Masters. Grey Worm going from slave to commander of an army in service to a cause he believes in = still slavery. Tyrion ringing a bell to summon sex workers to entertain slavers = freedom!

These women aren’t given a voice. They’re keys dangled in front of the Masters to distract them, exploited to gain assent for Tyrion’s seven year plan. All the worse if these women were formerly slaves themselves.

(17:11) Again, the writing in this episode acknowledges that Tyrion’s plan is hardly uncontroversial, and that his opponents amongst the former slaves have every right to be pissed as hell. The problems mostly arrive in subsequent episodes.

(17:32) I say ‘mostly’ because there’s this bit, which I don’t think the narrative quite came to grips with. Grey Worm and Missandei were not ‘included’ in this negotiation in any meaningful sense. The opening makes it clear that Tyrion did not inform them that he was so much as asking the Masters to negotiate. The reaction shots make it clear that Missandei and Grey Worm had no idea about Tyrion’s seven-year plan. Instead, he brought them into that room without warning, did not consult them or respect their opinions or wishes, and now he’s using them as a prop to get out of a jam with the former slaves. And while the writing allows that Tyrion might be wrong on content, it’s less willing to examine the fact he’s treated Missandei and Grey Worm like absolute crap. We get one line from Grey Worm (next scene), and then we’re back to “is Tyrion right or wrong to attempt a peace?”

(18:24) Which culminates with Missandei quoting Tyrion.

(19:04) Grey Worm going on the record, saying Tyrion is wrong, and explaining why. Tyrion brings out the argument from self-interest, Grey Worm says it’s not relevant. These scenes actually have content and conflict in them!

(19:53) Jorah and Daario made it out of Ireland!

(20:21) Episode 6.01, two men discuss Dany’s pubes and the prospect of raping her. Episode 6.03, Dany is forcibly stripped. Episode 6.04, we get another two men discussing sex with Dany, as a form of one-up-manship. Girl power.

(21:46) So the plan is to sneak into the city after dark and rescue Dany. Jorah mentions that they can pretend they’re traders from the western market if they’re caught. You can see the cultural preconceptions at work in the writing staff. Jorah and Daario are white! They will be instantly noticeable in this place! So they need to be very sneaky indeed. Truly it is their only option.

Vaes Dothrak is a big damn place. It supports two sizeable markets and attracts trade from all over Essos. Right now it’s even busier than usual due to the meeting going on. The Dothraki are not a monolith, nor do they have a hive mind. Jorah and Daario could walk right in pretending to be merchant guards, purchase some hair dye, and attempt to smuggle Dany out through this very crowded city.

(22:20) Jorah tells Daario not to worry, his infected skin did not make contact with Daario just then! Daario reacts not with horror and concern (‘cause they’ve been travelling together for a length of time and even if they’ve never touched, they’ve probably touched things the other has touched), but with “that sure is a nasty disease you have there, Jorah.”

(22:58) Ambiguous consent: 1. The public sex here is books vs show in a nutshell - GRRM uses the lack of taboo about public sex to hit that familiar “horsey barbarian tribe” note, then links it to to broader Dothraki cultural traditions (“all things of importance in life must be done beneath the open sky”). The show’s stuck to “horsey barbarian tribe.”

(23:16) Sneaking through the Dothraki camp with all the skills of Solid Snake under a cardboard box.

(23:36) And of course, they’re immediately caught and their lies fall flat (corollary of that Unspoken Plan Guarantee; if a character explains their plan, it can’t be allowed to work).

(24:23) Deaths: 1. Daario kills one of those two Dothraki guys.

(24:43) Deaths: 2. Daario kills the other Dothraki guy.

(25:03) “If they find a body with a stab wound, the whole city will be looking for us.” The no-spilling-blood taboo is so strong that a massive manhunt will start if spilled blood is discovered.

(25:24) …so Daario hits the body repeatedly with a rock. I think he’s missed the point. The stab wound isn’t the problem, the spilled blood is the problem. We’re dealing with some smart guys here.

(26:04) “The khals depend on us for our wisdom.” Yeah. Sure they do.

We keep going over the same points in Dany scenes. The Dothraki think that Dany should join the Dosh Khaleen. Dany does not want to join the Dosh Khaleen. If she does not, and she finds no other way out, then Dany will be raped. Three times now we’ve had more or less this discussion.

(26:34) How long has Dany been here, again, if this is the first time she’s gone to the toilet?

(27:17) Dany does not have much of a reaction to seeing Daario and Jorah. From her reaction, you’d think she was expecting them to show up.

(27:32) Apparently these three will never be able to leave Vaes Dothrak alive. So I guess that’s still a no on covering and then dyeing her hair to make herself less immediately noticeable and sneaking out in these just-established-to-be-multi-ethnic crowds.

(28:32) Mentioning these shots of someone (Margaery) walking through a building because this is one of those occasions where including those shots works! Margaery doesn’t know what awaits her at the end of this short trip, so not skipping straight to it effectively builds a bit of tension.

(29:05) The High Sparrow is a big supporter of the union of faith and crown…he just opposes all the trappings of the crown on a theological basis. I’ve been saying that this guy does not cohere into a single comprehensible character. Sometimes he’s a ruthless power-seeker, other times he’s a religous fanatic (with anachronistic ideas).

(29:05) In this story that’s supposed to be about the evils of seeking wealth, the High Sparrow tells us he was a skilled tradesperson. He put effort into learning his craft, and effort into making quality goods, and then people paid him correspondingly higher prices for the effort and skill he put into those goods! How disgusting.

(31:39) “And I saw it with perfect clarity. I saw what my sins were. The gold I had, the wine I drank, the women I used, my ceaseless struggle to maintain my position…” and from this somehow the High Sparrow has come to the conclusion that it’s not treating people like objects and power as a game with money as a score that’s a sin, but gay people.

And despite Jonathan Pryce’s best efforts, all I can think of is, “You wanna know how I got these scars?” The lack of rhyme and reason fits much better.

(32:34) Margaery’s said barely anything, but the High Sparrow is changing his position. Mostly, that scene was an excuse for a monologue.

(33:11) While this is a touching scene of two siblings caring for each other (two such in one episode? What’s going on?), this is all we’ll see of Loras until he’s scarified and then blown up.

(33:48) Loras’ comments here imply that he’s confessed to what his torturers want him to confess to, and they’re torturing him anyway. Because he’s gay. Nothing but victimisation for gay men this season.

(35:10) Pycelle starts leaving. The joke is that he’s very slow, but it takes him seventeen seconds to leave the room. More than long enough for us to get the “he is old and very slow” joke.

(36:20) Cersei says things like “Margaery’s safety is paramount,” clearly not caring if Margaery falls down the stairs and breaks her neck, but equally, she puts those personal feelings to one side and acts to try and check the High Sparrow’s power.

The structure of this scene is a lot like the one with Varys and Vala last episode. We waste time on some obvious “the High Sparrow is a dangerous man!” “yes, Tommen, the High Sparrow is a religious extremist in a powerful position!” sort of stuff (at least it’s not “people deserve torture” is all I’m saying), then cut away right as the scene gets to the point. Which is then summarised for us in the subsequent scene.

(38:18) In this discussion of what power Cersei has, still nobody has mentioned that Cersei’s the Lady of Casterly Rock.

(38:33) Cersei’s trial is apparently in a few days. What are the charges? *shrug* Besides that, apparently Margaery’s being made to do a walk of atonement. So again we see that the writers understand that the walk of shame is misogynistic, but they don’t understand how it’s misogynistic, nor the broader patriarchal society in which it fits. Perjury is not a gendered crime. It has nothing to do with sex.

(39:00) So the plan is, bring in the army. That’s book!Mace’s plan too. But they’ve explained the plan, so now we know it can’t work. Unfortunately, this is a solid plan which, if the conspirators were halfway careful, should work. It works in the books. The High Sparrow hands Margaery over to the custody of a trusted Tyrell bannerman. The solution to this problem, as we’ll see later, is instead to make sure the conspirators do not behave halfway carefully.

(40:04) Kevan says, the Sparrows have many friends in the city. Sure was nice they packed themselves into the one sept to watch Cersei’s trial then, wasn’t it! Kevan literally says, “we’ll have civil war.”

(40:29) Bamf! Theon approaches the Iron Islands. He’s ‘needed’ in that plot. (Actually, the showrunners have no idea what to do with him.)

(40:51) Theon enters the room here. The set is very badly lit, so it’s not as though we’ve got a visual feast on our screens.

(41:10) Theon reacts to Asha’s presence here. That was twenty seconds of Theon walking maybe two metres.

(41:54) In an episode that gave us the Jon-Sansa reunion, and the Margaery-Loras reunion, we also get the Theon-Yara reunion, and one of the first things out of her mouth is “men died trying to rescue you!” Starts victim-blamey, continues victim-blamey.

(42:04) Man called ‘cunt’: 1.

(42:10) Yeah, like, Yara says Theon “betrayed” her for being too traumatised to participate in his own rescue, linking it to the idea that he was a spoiled child, and making sure he understands that “you were my brother” is past tense. Nice person, is Yara. For this, Theon was evicted from the Northern plotline.

(43:25) Cut to Ramsay peeling an apple here. He’s not very good at it. There’s a lot of apple coming away with the peel.

(43:48) Osha was dragged into this room by guards. Ramsay says “they’ve cleaned you up nicely.” Osha did not decide to come into this room or how she looked when she was brought there. More sexual victimisation of women in this plot, fantastic.

(45:25) Ramsay makes it clear that he intends to kill Osha unless she gives him something he wants. (Spoiler alert: he intends to kill her anyway, since there’s nothing she has he wants.)

(46:21) Deaths: 3. Ramsay kills Osha. It took just under three minutes to get us to this point. Nothing of value was added, since we already knew Ramsay was evil, and we get treated to a further fifteen seconds after this of watching Osha twitch as she bleeds out.

(47:43) Did Sansa just say there are more important things than food? In ASoIaF? That seals it. Now we can be absolutely sure that this is not an adaptation true to the spirit of the original.

(48:21) Even the way this version of the Pink Letter opens shows the differences between show!Ramsay and book!Ramsay. Book!Ramsay’s letter is me, me, me. I want, I want, I want. Between every line is avarice and insecurity. Show!Ramsay opens and closes with politics, complaining about the Free Folk first, and finishing with an assertion that he’s the Warden of the North. Also, show!Ramsay is a terrible, terrible writer. The repetition of “come and see” is just not working. It reads more like blank verse than it does a threatening letter.

(49:11) “You will watch as my soldiers take turns raping your sister. You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother.” Ramsay put this to paper. If anyone at this table was thinking straight, they’d take this letter, seal attached, and show it to every Northerner they meet. The Lord of Winterfell, everyone! Promising to rape Sansa Stark and kill Rickon Stark, written right there in his own hand.

(49:11) One smart person on screen at a time. Since it’s Sansa’s turn to show off what she knows, Jon has been forbidden from bringing a brain cell to the table.

(49:53) You know what they could have shown Sansa do last season? Gather exactly this sort of information about Ramsay’s troops and resources. Instead she sat around Winterfell doing nothing except being raped.

(50:16) Sansa here proposes that Jon takes the lead when it comes to the army recruiting. It’s not necessarily a bad idea even given Jon’s bastard status. She seems fine with him being the public face…now. She also says that the Northerners are loyal to the Starks. Shows what she knows.

(50:49) Here we see that the Dothraki taboo against spilling blood in the sacred city is every bit as strong as the Westerosi taboo against kinslaying.

(51:03-5) Abs & pecs: 1, 2, 3.

(51:44) Yay! More sexual threats against Dany!

(53:17) I count thirteen people in this shot.

(53:40) Dany’s argument for leading the Dothraki is purely from force. What makes the khals small men is that they are only raiding small villages. No mention of building a better world (even if that means fire and blood), just “eh, you’re small potatoes in the infliction of violence stakes.” Girl power!

(54:13) Woman called ‘cunt’: 1.

(54:32) That dirt floor caught fire surprisingly well! And headed straight for those fine gentlemen.

(55:01) It’s implied that Jorah and Daario barred the door to the temple of the Dosh Khaleen. Seems like they could sneak around this city just fine.

(55:22) Deaths: 16. Dany kills thirteen khals.

(53:34) Abs & pecs: 4.

(55:47) The Dothraki gather around their burning temple and react with absolute silence. Nobody starts getting water. Nobody’s crying, nobody’s screaming, they’re all just standing around waiting blank-faced because they know they’re extras in someone else’s story and they don’t matter.

(56:05) Boobs: 1. Meant to show female power.

(56:15) White woman burns down temple belonging to a religion consisting mostly of brown people = girl power! And the Dothraki monolith, getting their cues from the hive mind, bow to this woman they’ve been calling a witch for the past few episodes.

(56:40) The white guys Daario and Jorah get to stay standing as they move through a sea of unmoving, unreacting Dothraki, and then take a knee rather than prostrating themselves.

Guess the writers really didn’t learn from the controversy after the ending shots of season three.

Game of Numbers S06E04

Deaths: 16. Daario killed two Dothraki, Ramsay killed Osha, and Dany killed thirteen khals.

Boobs: 1, meant to show power as well as desirability.

Abs & pecs: 4. All Dothraki, of course.

Sex workers: 3.

Consensual sex: 0.

Ambiguous consent: 1.

Woman called ‘cunt’: 1.

Man called ‘cunt’: 1.

Tyrion drinks: 1.

[anonymouscrocodilefan]

Leadership Styles and Law (”Law is an INTP” revisited)

Haha what this is a Croco blog, why am I talking about Law after months of silence.

To be honest? Because this past year of developments in the manga has left me feeling REALLY vindicated about my reads on characters again. I am terrible at predicting Oda, but my track record at interpreting and analyzing his subtext ain’t too shabby. My read on Sanji, frex. Also, I actually REALLY regret not talking about Viola in depth before now – I mentioned her in passing in at least one post I published, but really regret relegating my thoughts on her relationship with Doffy to “ah this is crack I’m reading too much into this and no one cares anyway right?” Because one recent SBS more or less confirmed what I’d been thinking about there – and why I found her character very very fascinating in context, despite her being fairly low on my list of “characters I like”. Maybe I should still put together a writeup on that at some point.

But I digress.

Just as this past Year of Sanji has more or less borne out my thoughts on Sanji (despite his intelligence, spy hijinks, and capacity for trickery, he is not a calculating rational type of person as some people kept insisting, but a Myers-Briggs Feeling type who deeply values interpersonal relationships above all else, for better or for worse)... towards the end of Zou there was one particular chapter that made me feel SUPER pleased about my read on Law.

Specifically, my opinion that he is an INTP, despite the fact that he doesn’t fit into any of the cliched, stereotypical images of INTPs. (And the fact that I saw a fair amount of people complaining about the apparent inconsistency between his pre-timeskip personality vs. his post-timeskip personality.)

I wrote about that in this post: http://anonymouscrocodilefan.tumblr.com/post/135651487781/one-piece-mbti-allies-introverted

Mainly in that post I talked in generalities about his relationships and his plotting style and how they related to the cognitive functions (read up on them if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, but the four abbreviated letters aren’t just binary labels).

Chapter 819 though, made me giggle so much, because Law’s behavior through that entire sequence (throughout all of Zou, really) is basically THE ultimate giveaway of his INTP-ness.

Disclaimer: As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m an INTP myself (if it wasn’t already obvious from all my tl;dr analysis). Whether this fact biases me towards or against this interpretation of Law is up to you – but I will add that I originally only grew confident in my assessment after we saw our first glimpse in text of child!Law.

Preliminary note: throughout the Zou arc, Law very noticeably retreated into the background. He was off-screened for many chapters (for good reason). But hilariously, even when he was ON screen... he was often deliberately blocked out by word bubbles or just a silhouette in the distance. This despite the fact that he is technically the other major leader of the alliance...

Guess what? INTPs hate to lead. We’ll do it if we have to and depending on the individual we might even do a decent job of it. (Yes, introverts can hold leadership positions.) But we’d rather not, all in all. So was I surprised at Law backing off? Nope, not at all. In fact, I’d expected it. (And it’s not like hiding/fading isn’t “normal” behavior for him – he owns a submarine, ya know.)

1. What Law is most definitely NOT:

- an ISTJ. He’s contrasted directly with Drake in his own flashbacks, even. If he were a dutiful ISTJ sort who believed in the system despite everything he’d gone through, Law would’ve been in the perfect position to join the Marines the way Drake did. I mean, kid wasn’t stupid. He knew who Cora really was. He let Cora lie to him because he wanted to believe in the lie, but he clearly wasn’t fooled.

More importantly, an ISTJ leader (they’re one of the more common introvert leader types due to their dutiful nature) tends to be more anchored by a strong sense of responsibility. No ISTJ leader would have EVER run off to pursue their own personal agenda the way Law did (it’s even made explicit that Law never expected to see his crew again). And it’s not like Law doesn’t care, doesn’t love his crew – he very clearly does. But he simply doesn’t feel that sort of obligation toward them. Hell, he can’t even be bothered to introduce them properly. XD

In fact, we need look no further than Jinbe for a classic ISTJ leader, torn between his various conflicting duties and obligations and his own personal desires. Completely different from Law.

- an INTJ. An INTJ is characterized by meticulous long-term planning – which I have already pointed out in the previous post, doesn’t actually characterize Law and his ability to be spontaneous, as well as the specific ways his plans fall short.

Again, it’s also interesting to consider leadership styles. I do believe INTJs & INTPs are closer in that regard (most of us aren’t interested in being “leaders”, but INTJs are more likely to have ambitions that involve being thrust into such positions), but perhaps the best point of comparison is INTJ Croco.

Because you know what more “developed” and/or ambitious INTJs are good at that INTPs definitely aren’t? PR. XD

Croco played up that heroic public persona of his for more than twenty fucking years. And is obviously a man very much concerned with keeping up appearances, even during a fucking prison escape of all things XD. Law? Law has a TERRIBLE public rep, what with his coldblooded heart-swapping and whatnot. He doesn’t care what the public thinks, he doesn’t think it matters (from his experience, it’s all a lie anyway). He doesn’t consider that public perception can be used as a weapon – or rather, he definitely does, but I don’t think he understood the full extent of it. See also: everything he tried to pull off wrt Doflamingo (his goal had not been so much undermining Doffy’s “public” reputation, but Doffy’s position in the underworld – had he taken the former into account, I think he would have perhaps not been so blindsided by what ended up happening).

And then there’s Marineford to consider: time and time again Croco decides to step up to the plate – towards the end, he even briefly takes on the mantle of leadership when all the WB pirates are despairing. INTJs definitely have more of an assertive tendency (compared to INTPs). Law? Even then he was a “wait and see” sort of person. He’s explicitly the one Supernova who delays entry into the New World – a pretty INTP thing to do, btw. We’re perfectly capable of being risktakers and making spur of the moment decisions, but ultimately, passivity (out of a desire to keep gathering more info) is more likely to be our downfall.

- an ISTP: If an INTJ is characterized by too much plotting, I guess it’s arguable that an ISTP is characterized by too little. XD (Zoro is the classic example: ACT FIRST THINK LATER.)

ISTP leaders though... ISTPs are again actually fairly close to INTPs – lone wolf tendencies mean that you rarely actually see them in true leadership positions, although they’re capable of it (Zoro). IMO the main difference though is that an ISTP will tend to lead by example and decisive action. An INTP has ideas about what should be done but isn’t going to go out of their way to make sure those ideas are enforced. See again the same scene I referenced when discussing ISTJs. XD

(Note that he doesn’t actually explicitly forbid them from introducing themselves. XD)

2. Seriously though, having achieved his major life goal, post-Dressrosa Law doesn’t really care that much about leading. He’s perfectly content to cede control to Luffy... and even to Zoro. He speaks up only to clarify what he’ll personally do/contribute to the task at hand or to ask about things he’s interested in (even then he doesn’t always ask, we sometimes see panels where he’s just reacting silently), never to suggest a course of action (it even takes outside prompting for him to remember that he has Bepo’s Vivre Card... yep, that’s an INTP derp moment all right – it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that our brains don’t prioritize like that).

This is to the extent that he’s even blatantly shocked when Kin’emon includes him in his request for alliance in Chapter 819:

(Who, me?!)

Hahaha, I hadn’t even noticed that on my first readthrough, but when I later went back to read the chapter I found it hilarious (yeah, I know, it’s not THAT funny, fairly normal/subdued reaction, even Luffy had a bit of a surprised look, but still – this IS Law’s freakout face, he has pretty much the exact same expression in the previous chapter when the big reveal about the Kouzuki relationship to poneglyphs* is made and everyone else’s jaw is dropping, and a similar expression when he hears about Kaidou’s direct involvement with Momo & co, and an earlier omgwtf face when Raizou shows off his ninja techs...). I mean, it’s kind of a given that Law should be addressed for a major decision like this as well, but it’s like Law expects everything to just go through Luffy from now on... XD

* For the record, I wonder what else Law knows that he’s not telling anyone. He reacted suspiciously to two things that I recall during this arc: Momo’s ability to hear the voice (chapter 817) and to the poneglyph info... after Dressrosa it had seemed that his knowledge of “D” came solely from Corazon (disappointing everyone still waiting on his pre-timeskip quote to bear fruit), but we’ve been getting hints again that he actually has picked up some more info on his own since then.

3. But wait, you say. Doesn’t Law complain about this exact issue immediately after that???

[… After pretty much everyone else has already agreed to the deal.]

(Some other translations made it more explicit; this one is closer to the more subtle needling of the original text, but the implication given the context is that he’s grouchy over Luffy not bothering to consult him regarding major decisions, like, ever [i.e. “He cares more about an eight-year-old’s opinion than about mine!111”].)

Well, yeah. But see, it’s a semantics thing. XD A matter of principle. And trust me, for INTPs, semantics is Serious Business. Even Kin’emon took the time to acknowledge Law’s ostensible position. Luffy though... Law is WELL aware by now what Luffy’s idea of an “alliance” means, and he still does not approve. XD

That’s what he’s all pissy about. The fact that Luffy just assumes everyone is buddy-buddy and will therefore just go along with everything without question. (“That’s not the way this works!”)

(Luffy’s not wrong though. If Law really had a problem with it, he could have and no doubt would have spoken up much earlier. XD Luffy just instinctively has a good read on Law’s personality, LOL.)

As further proof, just a few pages later we have this:

Yep. Semantics. XD

Does it really bother him that he’s getting no say in any of this? Nah. As long as there’s some sort of plan going on and it’s not completely absurd (… not always a guarantee with Luffy involved), he doesn’t really care. He’ll do his part (while holding his cards close to his chest), and trust that the others will do theirs. Very hands-off, very self-contained. Very much an INTP approach to leadership.

Even so: there’s a difference between alliance and friendship, and IT MATTERS. XD