#tempted to call it mansplaining because like

[kit-williams]

Toxic Love

tw: Solos is going to mansplain, manipulate, and manwhore his way back to his darling, obsession, possessive, yandere, he is toxic and parasitic, also some body horror because papa Nurgle loves body horror, I guess also the horror of someone calling a Death Guard Daddy is a trigger warning

Trying a larger/curvy reader for this one but its hardly really mentioned

Solos Phorgur the Reaper prides himself on a few things... being picky about his affections is something he prides himself on as some of his brothers are eager to just rush to give their enlarged hearts to a pretty little mortal or fellow brother. Solos was picky on it... where as many of his brothers would be called corpulent and bursting at the seams with Grandfather's love and gifts to the point it weighed them down. Solos was greedy and picky with it and so he was thin and wiry which made him rather quick compared to them. His mouth could pull apart and reveal his complex internal mouth easy to scrape away at the skin and get into the soft parts of a host. That's how his brothers saw him... he was greedy and hardly gave anything back... its why they teased him how he got so little from Grandfather because he was unwilling to trust him.

His relationship to Grandfather was his own and they could fuck right off! But he could give... he just was picky. Another thing he prided himself was his ability to use his words unlike his Da' who thought it would be better to use fists to get his family to do his bidding. Solos enjoyed returning home and putting him in his place! Outside of combat he used his words.

Oh there was his Lovie. Awww she looked so miserable. His mouth pulled apart for a moment as the parts all rubbed against one another. He wanted what was best for his bird. She was a plump little ball of joy. She couldn't help but be happy and love! She was practically begging for anyone and everyone to take advantage of her kindness, many would argue that surly no one who follows Nurgle would do such to another? Solos knew there were always bad actors everywhere and if he didn't have good intentions toward his Love then he certainly would be one of those people he was on the lookout for.

Solos will admit that he had handled their last conversation before he left on deployment... poorly. He didn't want to deal with her whining and her complaining about being lonely. He was there he didn't understand? He was all she really needed, she could interact with some of his friends... she had a few family around... he didn't like her friends they put stupid thoughts into her head. He was livid to come back to his quarters and see no trace of her... she left a note saying that she was done with him.

Solos had thanked Grandfather for his patience as he was tempted to rip through the ship to find his Lovie and give her a piece of his mind. Though the first problem was to find her.... he decided to play her game and give her space and let her realize how miserable she was without him. He was the bigger man... an astartes sized man in fact. Some of the mortals he trusted were his eyes and ears in finding his bird. She had moved several times and it took them ages to find her.

Solos was distraught at where his bird was hiding. Probably the fact that she hadn't bothered to cover up his mark on her was the only reason she was alive and untouched! But... she wanted space... she wanted her own life... she wanted to make her own mistakes. And Solos was going to let her and let her realize how much she needed him and when she did he was going to accept her back with loving arms. He didn't hate his bird... his Lovie... on the contrary his mates had to keep convincing him to keep going with his plan. He needed his host beloved back.

She was crying on the bench. She was barely keeping everything together and Solos knows if his mark wasn't on her she would have found herself in some unsavory situations. He already had gotten calls to "pick up" his cultist. She tucked herself some place alone so that she wouldn't be told to smile for Grandfather. His mates had done a good job of ruining what meager existence she had without him. Hardly a life really... working all the time verses showering Solos with affection... he missed her sweet coos... the way she was so deliciously soft against his boney growths.

He missed his beautiful plump bird under him when he loved her. Leaving his love bites and love bruises from just loving her a bit too hard or eagerly. But Solos believes no one would blame him given the delicious noises his Lovie made under him or the faces of adoration. He had worked himself up into a frenzy when he found out she was seeing others. How dare she share those moments with someone else?! He had them taken care of first. But... she had already been through so much. He watched her answer her communicator and just burst out into more tears as she pulled the device away from her ear.

He softly purred as his underling messaged him with that the, hopefully, final piece was set. His vox "rang" for a moment before he answered and rasped, "Solos."

A slanneshi like sickness raced down his spine as he heard that crying hiccup and a weak little, "Sol..."

"Hi Lovie." He purred, "Or was that to familiar to answer this vox with." He switched to a colder tone in his voice. His overly pink tongue licked those pale lips of his as he could hear her try to muffle that sob. She wasn't calming down or talking... "Lovie?" He crooned, "Do you want me to come by and talk? Is that what you want?"

"Yes." She whimpered out.

"Where are you baby girl?" He hummed while he waited for her to send him where she was and he pushed concern into his voice, "Lovie what are you doing all the way down there?" He listened to her cry again and blather something incomprehensible. "Shhh Shhh Lovie I'm on my way given me a bit." He let her wait 30 minutes before he walked into the hidden little park.

She had calmed down but when she saw Solos he watched her start crying again. He might be developing a kink or something seeing her cry like this. He looked down at her as she ran over and hugged his leg before he just picked her up and let her wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Solos hummed as he took a deep inhale smelling her sickly sweet scent... how her hives were weeping from how much she had been picking at them... a terrible habit of hers.

She laid out so much to him before Solos just spoke up, "But Lovie... I can easily live off of your love to me. Isn't my love enough? Is it not good enough?" He cocked his head to the side, strands of brown hair fluttered off at the sharp movement as his sickly green eyes looked at his Lovie. One of his eyes had three iris in them as he swept over her form as she just looked sad and guilty.

"I never said or implied it wasn't enough. Just sometimes you suffocate me." She looks away ashamed.

"Yet you were saying how much you missed me... how much you missed the way I loved you. You know no one else can love you as much as I do or like I do. My sweet Lovie." Solos crooned his poison laced words to her watching her lashes flutter and her cheeks darken in a blush. Knowing full well that blush descended down to her chest.

"I didn't... realize that." She wiped one of her eyes with her wrist trying to wipe away threatening tears.

"Mhmm but Daddy's back now." He purred as he went in for the kill to latch onto her supple flesh and not let go.

He watched her blush again and hold out her arms toward him sniffling, "Daddy." She just whimpered to him.

Solos couldn't be mad at his Lovie... his best girl... his ultimate good girl for someone as vile as he was. "Yes Daddy is here. But Lovie can't you see? Grandfather gave you to me to help me feel a bit more love in my life. Daddy needs his Lovie as much as Lovie needs Daddy."

"I'm sorry I left Sol." She blithered once more as he tucked her under his chin and purred.

"Shhh lets go get your stuff from your place and move you back into Daddy's quarters where you belong. Okay?"

"Okay." She sighed happily and once more let Solos handle everything like he was suppose to and he appreciated her being such a good girl when she didn't ask questions like how he knew where she was living without asking her.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I've been enjoying a long bout of complete sobriety since late May. Breaking out of any routine can be a bit behaviorally jarring. But I don't really know that anyone noticed the change because I keep to myself. I'm sure the dispensary misses the chance to set up revolutionary actions behind my back. But for the most part, dealing with the personal pizza of the political around my own home is psychedelic enough for me these days. With Bastille Day in full swing, I got to thinking this morning about Derrida and consequentially the remake of the outer limits. The writing in that show is perplexing enough to wake up to the subtitles in the middle of the night. But one particularly episode where a poltergeist is loose in someone's home is questioned by the male friend. "Have you heard of Occam's Razor?" You'd swear he was about to mansplain Roko's Basilisk. But it's something I've needed to hear lately. Basically that the simplest of theories is the most logical in a realm of competing conspiracies. Derrida explains this in the concept of ghosts as simple being a symptom of the future. Whereas the nostalgia of the past movements, holidays, and systems tend to be firmly rooted there. Sventlana Boym describes this pretty well in a book called The Future of Nostalgia in which she describes the hyper reality going on around people during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ghosts to me have spoken louder than the drama around me. One quote more than many by Gil Scott Heron echoed by the late DJ Rashad building off the revolution not being televised. Nobody ever sees the revolution in your mind. And this speaks to me as the future in terms of Derrida. How the individual freedom of the mind and soul is somehow lost upon the order of the past. The future is always chaotic. Always in flux. Some Scientologists come up with complex science fiction mythologies to root it back in the past with timelines and infinite versions of the self. Some Hindus and Buddhists describe the ego death and the inescapable binding of karma. Neo Marxists tie themselves to a book by a bearded guy who wrote about labor before the internet. Jesus, ironically, outside the tenets of religion is the ultimate ghost and was punished quite famously for it.

My point is not to berate the freedom of belief and religion but simply talk about the fear of a future tied to individuals. What I took freedom in America to be was the right to personal liberties, life and pursuit of happiness as protected by the constitution itself. Which seems to have been infinity stoned out of relevance by money, greed, and lawyers. Speaking on Rashad who I shared a tangential group relationship with post humorously in a Chicago footwork crew called teak dj's? Rashad was a community organizer. He was a movement maker. He was effortless and tireless in pushing forward a sound that would take him all around the world with the help of a movement that was rooted in the decaying paradigm of MK Ultra EDM festival culture. Something that grew like a cancer from the drug scenes of the Rainbow gathering and Grateful Dead. When he had a falling out with this, he dropped out of the music scene for a spell and created a renegade crew with Traxman which was a combination of Ghetto Technicians and Ghetto DJ's (pardon the proper spelling.) It really was just him and Traxman continuing another movement called "gutter" in which people just went in the studio in one take and made music. Just like the blues, white people came around and commodified something that was simply an individual expression. And thus like Kurt Kobain, Lil Peep, Van Gogh and many other individual tours de force they were stapled back in the ridigity of the broader movement as martyrs. Enshrined for all eternity as a voice that either rattled the chains on the walls of EDM or inside the minds of those still deconstructing what he was trying to say rhythmically personally. It's a tempting thing to want to be a part of something. To have clear rules, validation and order to what you do. But you will always ultimately feel failed by the middling out of a group and their broader agenda. Sort of like how Adam Curtis describes the failure of the occupy movements. The passion was so fierce at first but descended into nothing but an organizational chart and discourse battle of what was acceptable. Labor has this same feeling lately. A constant argument on enshrining the moment into history and burying it altogether. Accepting yourself as an artist, a writer, or even just a human being outside of the norms of society is hard enough. Especially when everything seems to adopt the army mentality of beating your individuality out of you to make you work as a cohesive unit.

Emotionally speaking, Anarchy is a haunting in and of itself. One that maybe I sought out ordering within by the ritual of psychedelics like thc. It dulled my dreams to the point where I never had any nightmares. Never any lucidity. Never had any visions other than these four walls that I banged around in. Individualism is a haunted state in and of itself. People are always trying to exorcise this spirit out of you for the greater good. Demonizing what doesn't fit in or can be easily pigeonholed into a movement. These movements are no more than folders for people on Tumblr. A way to organize the chaos of the future. To box it in instead of embracing the chaos within the self. I'm not saying it isn't torture to suffer alone. To be your own person and worship in your own way. To not have an organization to be affiliated with economically so you can incur income in a normal way. Everything is locked out to the individual in American society and demonized as selfish and narcissistic in a masked class war. I shouldn't be able to write here even though I do not get paid or tipped for any of it. While Andrew Tate is out there making twenty k from a billionaire who bought a platform to bury his affiliation with a sex trafficker. What makes me so free of sin? The ghost of Jesus Christ I guess? I'm not part of a church but I was raised Christian for what it is worth. Jesus to me was the ultimate anarchist. More so than the guy who tacked the blog post on the Catholic church's door for the record. You always have these people who ask you on the street the question whether you have accepted this guy as your personal lord and savior. And in the haunted sort of way you should be able to say yes and go about your day. But in America like every other movement, relationship and association there are things expected of you. And this is not personal freedom. It isn't respect. It's the constant confrontation of a graveyard. People want to reduce you to a monument that they can add to their collection rather than a ghost who walks free saying hi to forever. There is somehow something sinful about being free. No man is free from sin they say. And yet the paradox of Jesus as a ghost is pretty simple if you believe that sort of thing. I'm not here to lecture anybody out there about the past or even their personal beliefs on religion. I'm trying to live in the future and haunted by it consistently. The only holiday I'm celebrating is canceling my adobe subscription. I'm the same person I was with less baggage and this includes people speaking for my mind without giving me a voice. I've always said what I feel here. And I've always spoken it with love. Now you should ask the group if you are allowed to do the same. <3 Tim

[recurring-polynya]

You actually reblogged it! Yay! Thank you so much, I'm glad you did. I keep thinking about 'Brothers in Arms' because it's one of my favorite fics ever and i love everything about it, and just how well you nailed the ChadIshi dynamic down to a T. I think a lot about the dialogue right before this too, because it's my favorite part, but I mainly would love to see a breakdown of this bit: “Do you think he’s in Soul Society?” Uryuu asked. Chad must have been tempted to look. Uryuu knew he would have been, if he didn’t know for a fact that Souken had already moved on.

“I asked Abarai about that, actually,” Chad replied. “Abarai says it’s complicated, exactly how it gets decided where you go, but Oscar had a strong connection to his home and his friends, so he is most likely in the Mexican Land of the Dead.” A small smile crept onto Chad’s face. “My dream is to one day take a trip back to Mexico for el Día de los Muertos, and see him again.”

brothers in arms

Wowwww this bit is really rich! You would not think I would have so much to say about two paragraphs AND YET.

So for starters, you ever read a fic and it’s not even that big of a fic, but it just sticks in your head forever? Anyway, I am never not thinking about Not a Good Idea, a drabble about Oscar and Souken and Sora meeting up in Soul Society. It’s funny that each of the Karakura kids has some really important person that died on them, and even though the whole series is about life after death, aside from Sora’s short storyline, we never get to see any of them again.

I thoroughly admit that I may be wrong, but my reading of the dialogue in Uryuu’s fight with Kurotsuchi is that Souken went to Soul Society after dying, was immediately captured, and experimented on until he died again. I’ve posited this before-- that when the shinigami “exterminated” the Quincy, they killed them as living humans, and then hunted down and killed them as souls again so that they would get chucked back into the resurrection cycle and lose their Quincy powers. I think that the Wandenreich Quincy are actually either dead, and escaped this second killing, or born-as-souls (like shinigami nobles), descended from dead Quincy. I have absolutely no basis for this, it’s just what I think. That’s what I meant about Uryuu knowing that Souken had moved on.

I really, really love writing Renji knowing things. Something that you don’t really pick up the first time you read/watch Bleach is that Rukia seems like she knows a lot about how the afterlife works, but honestly, she is constantly just spitballin’. This makes sense! She never finished school! She’s a con artist! And if she’s learned anything as a noble, it’s that you can just say stuff with authority, and people will believe you! She’s a liar and a mansplainer and I love this for her. Conversely, Renji did finish school and he works for Byakuya and some of his best friends are nerds. I always like to write him as a guy who is very curious how things work, cities and squads and bureaucracies, and even though he pretends to be a cool himbo jock, he actually knows a shit-ton about the practicalities of being a grim reaper, beyond just killing monsters. I am also enamored with the idea of Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, and Hell being just a few of an infinite set of spiritual/magical planes (this may have come out of another fanfic that lives in my head rent-free, The Roots of Heaven). Afterlives are one of my very favorite bits of folklore, they are so varied and cool! I wrote a fic once that mentioned Renji corresponding with the Russian Afterlife, I have precedent. I also like to think about Renji and Chad spending a ton of time together during the Advance Team Arc, just hanging out and talking about little things, and I love to drop in little references to that whenever possible.

As soon as I put in that bit about going to Mexico for Day of the Dead, I wanted it as a fic more than I could say. The Karakura Kids would all be young adults, maybe shortly after Uryuu and Chad get married. (What if Ryuuken paid for it? As a wedding gift??? I would die) I feel like Chad would have this deep yearning to know if Oscar approved of him. People tend to get really hung up on the wording for Chad’s vow not to use his fists for Bad, but these things are rarely so clear-cut in real life. I mean, Oscar wanted Chad to not get in fights with neighborhood kids, he certainly did not foresee his grandson developing supernatural powers and traveling to other realms to save the nature of existence. Not to mention the gay thing. Astute readers may note that everytime I write a post-canon fic, I make Chad a social worker who boxes as a hobby. I feel strongly that this is perfectly canon compliant (just like Chad and Uryuu getting married, of course)

This is one of those fics that I would love to read but do not feel qualified to write (to be perfectly honest, in my heart, I want you to write it 😂)-- I would probably crib a bunch of the worldbuilding from Coco, because that movie slapped. I actually think that Oscar was probably a pretty fun-loving guy, I mean, look at this dude, he clearly fucks:

and I like to believe that in any Afterlife, you shed some of effects of age, and also, he’s not responsible for an angry kid who just lost his parents. I think he would be way more Fun than Chad was expecting, and by Fun, I mean, he and Ichigo would definitely cause an International Afterlife Incident, like they would release some ancient spirit or something that would then run around Starting Shit. The Mexican Afterlife calls up Soul Society and is like “come get your boy” and they send Rukia and Renji because who else wants to deal with Ichigo, and Renji has to spend the entire time negotiating extradition treaties at the embassy, except he can’t sit down because he’s got Ichika strapped to his chest. Rukia would run off to help the Karakura Kids and be like “I am off maternity leave and am down to clown” and she and Oscar would get along great.

Anyway, OF COURSE Oscar would approve of Chad, who would not approve of Chad? and he would be like "Uryuu is not a person I ever would have imagined for you, but he clearly really loves you, what else matters?” Again, look at him, I think he had some boyfriends in the 70′s and also I do not care to write homophobia in my fics, I prefer to make everyone at least a little gay instead. Also, Uryuu deserves someone to take a look at him and say, “hi there, you’re my family now,” with no caveats or expectations, which is basically how I imagined it going down in Tell You My Sins.

[w2beastars]

A good friend is someone who makes you feel comfortable about being angry

Sebun is a great character, possibly my favorite.

She is the businesswoman sheep that tried to commit suicide by tempting Legosi to eat her. Ironically, she ended up as his neighbor and good friend. Legosi would probably still be in his empty apartment without electricity if it hadn’t been for the ten years older female.

They became good friends. So good friends that she felt comfortable about being angry.

Here is the thing with Sebun:

She is furious. All the damn time. And she has every reason to it. She is a small female, she worked herself to death to get a high-profile job, then she lost her job since she apparently didn’t earn it and was just part of a social experiment and THEN got reduced to... therapy animal(meaning that she is suppose to let others touch her wool so they feel better). Also, she is a small prey animal, her co-workers constantly give her nicknames that refer to food and she is single.

Unlike Retsuko from “Aggretsuko” who is somewhat similar to her, Sebun doesn’t have a healthy way to get her aggression out. She doesn’t know anyone either that she would open up to about her troubles. So Sebun ends up depressed and just take the passive abuse from the rest of the world.

Legosi however treats Sebun as not just an equal but as someone who has a higher social ranking than him since a) she is older than him and b) she has an actual job and c) he is a school dropout. Sebun becomes that older neighbor that helps the young wolf with getting started with being an adult by giving him advice on how to pay his electricity bills and how to get a job.

They end up being friends and even hang out now and then, like when Sebun asks Legosi to accompany her to the shoe store. In the store, Sebun meets some of her co-workers who low-key bully her and Sebun is passive as usual. But Legosi is around this time, and he finds it odd that her co-workers calls Sebun, a grown-ass woman, “Lamb-Chan”. Sebun’s co-workers agree with Legosi that it is not an okay thing to call someone, and they are SUDDENLY very busy and leaves the store after saying goodbye to “Sebun-San.”

They called her something respectful simply because she was friends with a big wolf... And it pisses off Sebun beyond believe!

It might seem like an unfair reason to be pissed at Legosi. After all, he didn’t do anything, he was just... there. He didn’t even notice that he intimidated the guys into being respectful.

And that kind of makes it worse. This was Sebun’s battle, her problem. Something SHE was dealing with... she did poorly, but that is beside the point. The point is that it was her problem to deal with and her problem to solve. And Legosi just steps in, simply just look at the guys, and he then makes them so scared that they end up treating Sebun with respect.

This is yet another reminder for Sebun that her age, her education and her social status means shit. Legosi is younger, has a criminal record and a shitty job. Yet HE has privileges a small animal like a sheep doesn’t have.

AGAIN, it is sort of unfair for Sebun to be pissed at Legosi. On the list of people she should be angry at, Legosi is almost at the bottom of the list.

But Legosi is her friend. Someone she can actually relax around. Someone she can be around without pretending that everything is fine. Someone she feels like she can be angry at without it being a problem.

She makes a very angry rant and yell at Legosi about the injustice of their positions based on birth. The important thing here is that she is not really yelling at Legosi, she is yelling at the world for reminding her that a brat with a criminal record has more freedom than she does.

And Legosi proves to be a good friend by doing what a friend SHOULD do in this situation: He hear her out, he acknowledges that she is upset and he then apologizes for not being thoughtful. He doesn’t mansplain her, he acknowledges that her situation sucks and says sorry even though he didn’t mean to upset her.

Because Legosi allowed Sebun to be angry in peace and not try to explain why she is in the wrong or something, Sebun can calm down at her own pace and the two of them can make peace and share a drink.

[benperorsolo]

The 'bad stuff' Ben does as Kylo, his most fatalist/hopeless state, is meant to be a character study about fatalism vs hope, not an invitation to pre-determine his fate as Total Villain when there's still a chance he could (and did) turn. Rejecting KR isn't him denying the gravity of his mistakes & his crimes, but actually facing them like he faced Han, and rejecting the dark path of his fatalism. A lot of anti discourse doesn't resonate with SW because they're fatalist to start with.

(This ask is from a few days ago sorry but I thought I should specify because the fatalism vs hope commentary is 100% spot on adam approved yes)

Exactly. And this is further highlighted with how Ben’s fall to the Dark Side happens after Snoke, Palpatine, and Ren purposefully cut off Ben’s every support structure until there’s nowhere for him to escape. They corner him until Ben just gives up and succumbs. He doesn’t ask for anything when he joins the DS; he doesn’t ask the DS for the power to save his wife or power over life or death or anything. Because he never wanted to join the DS, and Ren even explicitly says this when he says that Ben keeps fighting the dark side at every turn even after “joining” the KOR. 

Ben fell to the dark side because he thought he had literally no other option. He fell because he lost hope that he could escape it. Not because he was tempted by it. And with every crime he commits, he tries to solidify to himself that there is no hope for him, because he doesn’t truly believe there is a way out, and because he is a sick-hearted soft soul who cannot stand any more heartbreak, and he is trying to break his own heart and accept his misery before false hope of escape and redemption breaks it for him. 

Kylo Ren isn’t a real person. Until Ben rejects the persona he can’t be honest about himself or his crimes because KR is a persona that was created to shield himself from the truth of his crimes and the damage they wrecked upon his soul. Until Ben can take that mask off he can’t face his deeds in truth, and he can’t move on to atone. This is what so much of the fandom was missing especially in the early days, when they somehow thought Ben could redeem himself while still calling himself Kylo Ren. Not possible. 

And antis are 100% fatalists. I saw literally today a tweet where someone said that they were upset by Galaxy of Adventures acting like Ben is just a scary villain and never acknowledge that he is Ben or died a good man. And some “well actually” mansplaining walnut of course had to “explain” that because Ben committed his life to evil (yes, all six years of his life), then he will only be known (read: deserve to be known) for evil, just like Vader. And I was like...............this is disgusting, and George would be disgusted, and you have reading comprehension worse than a middle schooler if you are failing SW this badly.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #467

Top Ten Romantic Couples in Superhero Movies (& TV)

It’s Valentine’s Day this weekend. Woo, I guess? I dunno. I’m not generally cynical about holidays but Valentine’s Day does seem to be entirely focused on selling cards without any of the associated pleasantries of, say, Christmas or Halloween. I’d rather just try to be nice to my wife all year round. At least because of the apocalypse all the restaurants are closed so we can’t be tempted to pay through the nose for a set menu. Anyway, it gives me a strained excuse to tie this week’s Top Ten to something vaguely romantic.

Superheroes are often horny. This seems to be a defining characteristic of the artform. Whether it’s their descent from ancient myths, or their creators’ origins in writing romance books, or just a function of genre storytelling in the mid-twentieth century, there’s quite a lot of romantic angst in superhero stories. Pretty much every superhero has a significant other; Lois Lane even got her own comic that was actually called Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane. It’s hard to conceive of many heroes without their primary squeeze, and often – as we get multiple media adaptations of characters – we can add diversity or a twist to the proceedings by picking a lesser-known love interest, or one from earlier in the character’s fictional history; for instance, Smallville beginning with Cark Kent’s teenage crush Lana Lang, or The Amazing Spider-Man swapping out Mary Jane Watson for Gwen Stacey.

Anyway, I’m talking this week about my favourite superhero couples. I’ve decided to focus on superhero adaptations – that is, the characters from movies and films based on superhero comics or characters. I find this a little bit easier as I don’t have a phenomenal knowledge of sixty years of Avengers comics, but I have seen all the movies a bunch. As many comics as I’ve read, and as much as I love various ink-and-paper pairings, I can arguably talk more authoritatively about the fillums than the funny books. And let’s be real here, kids: my favourite comic book romantic couple is Chromedome and Rewind in Transformers. Also if I split them in two I can talk about comic couples next year. Woohoo!

It really is hard thinking of these things nearly nine years in, folks.

So! Here, then, are my favourite movie-TV Couples in Capes. Obviously there’s a fair bit of MCU in here. And I’ve been pretty specific about “superhero” romances: so no Hellboy and Liz Sherman, sadly (and I do really like them in the movies, of which they really need to make a third). Some are civvies-and-supes; some are capes-and-capes. You’ll work it out.

Superman & Lois Lane (Christopher Reeve & Margot Kidder, Superman, 1978): who else? The most famous romance in all of comics, a combo so strong it remains the focus of pretty much every interpretation of the character, but arguably never better than here; so good are Reeve and Kidder that their fast-talking banter and inherent goodness set the template for a huge swathe of other comic adaptations to follow. She’s sarky and streetwise; he’s gormless and good-hearted. She leaps in where angels fear to tread, he’s an invulnerable alien in disguise. They have buckets of chemistry and an utterly believable (tentative) romance. They’re perfect performances and the scenes of Clark in Metropolis for the first time (including Superman’s balcony interview with Lois) are the best bits of an already excellent film.

Raven & Beast Boy (Tara Strong & Greg Cipes, Teen Titans Go!, 2014): on a totally different register, we have the comedy stylings of the Teen Titans. Raven and Beast Boy had a flirtatious relationship on the original Titans series, but on this longer-running and much more demented comedy follow-up, they were allowed to make the romance more official (I nearly said “explicit” but, y’know… it’s not that). The jokes and banter – BB the love-struck, jealous suitor, Raven the too-cool partner who feigns nonchalance – build and build, but every now and again they’re allowed a moment of genuine heartfelt romance, and it hits all the more strongly amidst the ultra-violence and outrageous comedy.

Captain America & Agent Carter (Chris Evans & Hayley Atwell, Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011): the premier couple of the MCU, Steve and Peggy spend a whole movie flirting (she sees the goodness of him even before he gets all hench) before finally arranging a date that, we all know, is very much postponed. Peggy casts a shadow over the rejuvenated Cap and the MCU as a whole, founding SHIELD, inspiring dozens of heroes, and counselling Steve to her dying days. She remains Steven’s true north (like Supes with Lois, Peggy’s an ordinary human who is the actual hero of an actual super-powered hero), guiding him through the chaos and tragedy of Endgame, until they both get to live happily ever after. Even though he snogged her niece.

Batman & Catwoman (Michael Keaton & Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns, 1992): Pfeiffer delivers a barnstorming performance as Selina Kyle, all barely-supressed mania and seductive feline charm. The chemistry between her and Keaton is electric, and propels the film forward even when the Penguin-runs-for-mayor stuff gets a bit daft and icky. There are beautiful moments of romantic comedy when they’re both trying to cover up injuries they gave each other, and of course there’s “mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it” – a line that runs a close second to “dance with the devil” when it comes to Burton-Batman quotations (just ahead of “never rub another man’s rhubarb”). Burton, generally favouring the macabre villains over the straighter edges of the heroic Batman, nevertheless makes great play of the duality of the character, and how this is something he and Catwoman can share – both “split right down the centre” – but also how this means a happy ending for either of them is impossible.

Spider-Man & Mary Jane (Tobey Maguire & Kirsten Dunst, Spider-Man, 2002): whilst a lot of this is really down to the sexiness of them kissing upside-down in the rain, there’s a nice duality to Peter and MJ seeing through each other too: he sees the wounded humane soul beneath her it-girl persona; she sees the kind, caring man underneath his geek baggage. This arc plays out beautifully across the first two films (ending in that wonderfully accepting “Go get ‘em, tiger”) before sadly getting all murky and unsatisfying in the murky and unsatisfying third film. Still: that kiss.

Wonder Woman & Steve Trevor (Gal Gadot & Chris Pine, Wonder Woman, 2017): probably the film that hews closest to the Clark-Lois dynamic of the original Superman, to the point where it includes an homage to the alleyway-mugging scene as Diana deflects a bullet. Steve is Diana’s window into man’s world, showing her the horror of the First World War but managing to also be a sympathetic ally and never talking down or mansplaining anything. He’s a hero in his own right – very similar to another wartime Steve on this list – and very much an ideal match to the demigod he’s showing round Europe. And, of course, Gadot’s Diana is incredible, both niaive and vulnerable whilst also an absolute badass. There is an enduring warm chemistry to the pair, with a relationship which we actually see consummated – relatively rare for superheroes! The inevitability of his heroic sacrifice does nothing to lessen the tragedy, and no I’ve not seen Wonder Woman 1984 yet.

Hawkeye & Laura Barton (Jeremy Renner & Linda Cardellini, Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2015): I love these guys! I love that Hawkeye has a relatively normal, stable family life. He has a big old farmhouse that he wants to remodel, he’s got two kids and a third on the way… he’s got something to live for, something to lose. It humanises him amidst the literal and figurative gods of the Avengers. And they’re cute together, bickering and bantering, and of course she is supportive of his Avenging. I hope we get to see more of Laura and the kids in the Hawkeye series, and I hope nothing bad happens to them now they’ve all been brought back to life.

Wanda Maximoff & Vision (Elizabeth Olsen & Paul Bettany, Avengers: Infinity War, 2018): theirs is a difficult relationship to parse, because they’re together so briefly. They cook paprikash together in Civil War before having a bit of a bust-up, and by Infinity War they’re an official couple, albeit on the run (and on different sides). That movie does a great job in establishing their feelings for each other in very little screentime, with their heroic characteristics on full display, before the shockingly awful tragedy of Wanda killing Vision to save the galaxy, before Thanos rewinds time, brings him back to life, and kills him again, and then wins. Their relationship going forward, in WandaVision, is even trickier, because we don’t know what’s up yet, and at times they’re clearly not acting as “themselves”, defaulting to sitcom tropes and one-liners. Will Vision survive, and if he does, will their relationship? Who can say, but at least they’ll always have Edinburgh, deep-fried kebabs and all.

Batman & Andrea Beaumont (Kevin Conroy & Dana Delany, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, 1993): woah, Batman’s back but it’s a different Batman, say whaaaat. Animated Batman has had a few romances, from the great (Talia al-Ghul) to the disturbingly icky (Batgirl, ewwww), but his relationship with Andrea Beaumont is the best. Tweaking the Year One formula to give young Bruce a love interest that complicates his quest is a golden idea, and making her a part of the criminality and corruptiuon that he’s fighting is a suitably tragic part of the Batman origin story. Conroy and Delany give great performances, him wringing pathos out of Bruce, torn between heart and duty (“It just doesn’t hurt so bad anymore,” he wails to his parents’ grave, “I didn’t count on being happy”), her channelling golden age Hollywood glamour. The tragedy of them rekindling their relationship years later, only to wind up on different sides again, is – again – so very Batman. It’s a beautiful, earnest, very Batman relationship, a great titanic tragedy of human emotions and larger-than-life ideals. And they both look good in black.

Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy (Kaley Cuoco & Lake Bell, Harley Quinn, 2020): this one’s a little bit of a cheat, as I’ve only seen the first season of the show, where Harley and Ivy don’t even get together. But in the wider, non-canonical sense of these being characters who are part of the pop-cultural ether, Harley and Ivy will always be a couple, I feel; and there’s definitely enough in there already to see the affection between them, not yet consummated. They adore each other, are always there for each other, and as the season follows Harley getting out of her own way and acknowledging the abuse of her relationship with Joker – and finally getting over it in the healthiest way possible for a bleached-white manic pixie in roller derby gear. And all through this, holding her hand, is Ivy. They’re utterly made for each other, and I’m glad that they do get together in season two. I hope that Margot Robbie’s rendition of the character can likewise find happiness with a flesh-and-blood Ivy. Hell, just cast Lake Bell again. She’s great.

Just bubbling under – and I’m really gutted I couldn’t fit them in – was Spider-Man & M.J. from Spider-Man: Far From Home. Like Batman, I’m comfortable including multiple continuities here, and those cuties offer a different spin on a classic relationship.

[nazariolahela]

Best Beloved: Chapter 3

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a PM AU I’ve been working on. It’s a bit different than my previous fic series and I’m really excited to try something new. I hope y’all enjoy it. This story is told in dual first-person narrative, from Kaia (F!MC) and Damien’s POV. The first half of this story takes place during Kaia’s freshman year and Damien’s senior year of college. The second half is two years after Kaia graduates. There will be sprinklings of canon in this fic, but we’ll try to step out of the box for the most part. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @burnsoslow​ @lady-calypso​ @irishwhiskys-blog​

This chapter contains scenes of underage drinking. Please read at your own risk.

Synopsis: What happens when you find yourself crushing on your best friend? For years, Damien and Kaia have been best friends, while secretly harboring feelings for one another. Everything changes one night after a little too much alcohol and years of pent up feelings. Can they control their emotions and salvage their friendship, or will the feelings they hold for one another destroy everything they have?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: The gang attends their first college football game and frat party.

Kaia

I laid back on my bed and threw my arm over my head, my phone pressed to my ear. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to wear to a college football game, Nadia. Can you please come over and help me?”

She laughed. “Just wear something with the school logo on it. You’re telling me you don’t have anything Bobcats in your closet?”

I sighed. “No, I forgot to run over to the bookstore and pick up a shirt. Do you think they’re still open?”

“You can grab one at the team store on the way to the game. They’re always open before kickoff. Just throw a cute tank top on and slip the shirt over it. Or change in the bathroom.”

I huffed and shoved a Twizzler in my mouth. “Fine. I gotta let you go so I can jump in the shower. Text me when you’re on your way.”

“Will do,” she singsonged and hung up the phone. I dropped mine on the mattress next to me and tried to work up the courage to get up. The mattress wasn’t the most comfortable, but after the crazy first week of classes I had, it was more tempting than getting up to go to a football game. Or a frat party. My roommate Victoria marched in, holding a bag under her arm.

“Just call me your fairy godmother,” she said, tossing the bag on my bed. I sat up and looked inside, seeing a Hartfeld Bobcats t-shirt inside.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“Bought one last weekend, but it was the wrong size. I’ve been meaning to take it back, but I never got around to it. Try it on. If it fits, you can have it.”

I jumped off the bed and pulled the shirt from the bag, slipping it on over my black cami. I gasped when it fit like a glove. I stood in front of the floor-length mirror in our dorm room, checking myself out. Daaaamn, I looked fine!  I engulfed her in a hug. “You’re the best!”

“It was nothing really. Go have a great time at the game. And tell me all about it tomorrow.”

“You’re not going?” I asked.

“Nah. I met this guy the other night and we have our first date tonight. He’s taking me to this Italian restaurant the next town over. Apparently, the plates are bigger than your head.”

“Ooh! New guy? Dish,” I probed. I didn’t know much about my roommate’s love life. Mainly because she kept things like that to herself. Although, I did find out that first night we hung out that she lost her virginity to some guy named Spike. She told me he roared like a motorcycle when he came. We laughed about it for a good twenty minutes.

She turned crimson, hiding her face behind her long black locks. “Well...his name is Drake. He moved here for school from some foreign country named Cordonia, but he doesn’t have an accent. I think he said his family is from Texas, but he grew up overseas. He’s kind of brooding. Wears a lot of denim. I really like him.”

I squealed and pinched her cheeks. “Well, good luck. And if you bring him back to the dorm, put a sock over the doorknob so I know not to interrupt anything.” She blushed and I winked at her. “Okay, I gotta hit the shower. My cousin will be here shortly.” I grabbed my clothes, a towel, and my shower caddy and made my way down the hall to the shared bathroom in our dorm. Thankfully there wasn’t a line, so I took the first open stall.

After my shower, I slipped on my favorite pair of Levi’s jeans and the Bobcats shirt Victoria gave me. I applied neutral eyeshadow, false lashes, a light sweep of blush, and a swipe of nude lipstick on my lips, checked my reflection one last time, and headed back to my dorm. My phone chimed with a text from Nadia announcing that she was on her way, so I grabbed my crossbody and a hoodie in case it got chilly and headed downstairs. I saw Nadia and Sloane sitting in the cab of a royal blue 1990s Chevy Silverado pickup.

“What is this?” I asked, holding my hands out.

Nadia jumped out of the driver’s seat and rounded the vehicle, swinging her arms out like she was Vanna effing White and this truck was the grand prize. “You like? It’s Steve’s. He’s letting us borrow it to go to the game.”

I scrunched up my nose, examining the beat-up body of the pickup. Is...is that a racing stripe? 

Sloane remained in the truck, fiddling with the dials on the in-dash radio. “Come on, you two! We’re going to be late,” she shouted from the front seat. My eyes darted to Nadia, then back to Sloane. I sighed and moved over to the passenger’s side, crawling up onto the bench seat next to Sloane.

We drove the five minutes it took to get from the dorms to the Robert Q. Harris Memorial Stadium, going over our game plan for the night. As we pulled up in the parking lot, we noticed a tailgate in progress. 

“Ooh! This is going to be exciting! Your first tailgate, Sloane!” Nadia squealed. She pulled into a spot and put the truck in park. “Okay, girls. Here are your pom-poms,” she said, handing Sloane and I each a pom wand. We exited the truck and walked over to where some other students were playing beer pong.

“Oh, my gods! I’ve heard of this game, but I’ve never seen it played up-close,” Sloane said, clutching her hands to her chest. She moved toward the table and watched the two guys in Bobcats jerseys line up their shots. The first guy’s ball bounced off the rim of the red Solo cup, and his companions all groaned in frustration.

“I’m usually way better than this,” the guy protested as his friends laughed at him. We watched a few more rounds of the game before moving on to another group. Three girls in cut-off Bobcats t-shirts were holding a funnel and a tube above another girl’s head and pouring beer into the funnel.

“Why are those girls drinking beer out of a funnel?” Sloane asked.

“That’s a beer bong. They do this so they can get drunk faster,” I explained to her. She nodded her head, watching the girls in concentration as they assisted their friend in “funneling” her beer, then cheering when she finished it.

“Fascinating,” Sloane said, observing the girls as they lined up for another hit. We made our way through the parking lot, stopping occasionally at different groups to check out their tailgating activities. After several minutes, we made it to the stadium gates. Nadia fished our tickets out of her purse and handed them to the attendant. He scanned our tickets and let us through. We walked through the concourse, checking out the different food and drinks offered at the concession stands. We found our gate and made our way to our seats.

We took our seats and settled in, squeezing into the front row of the bleachers, right behind the home bench. A guy in a BU Wolves jersey sitting at the end of our row slid across the bench and wrapped his arm around Sloane’s shoulder.

“Hey, cutie! You here to check out a little sports ball? Greg here will tell you all you need to know. So, the guys in burgundy are the home team. They’re who you need to root for. That weird spherical object in the middle of the field is called a football. That’s the name of the sport.”

Nadia leaned over and gave the guy a death glare. “Excuse me! Are you actually trying to mansplain football to my friend?”

He raised his hands in defense. “Calm down, babe. I’m just trying to help her out. She doesn’t look like she’s ever watched a game in her life.”

“Who are you to assume she’s never watched football because of how she looks? Get lost, creep,” I spat out.

Sloane cleared her throat. “I’ve got this, girls.” She straightened her glasses and turned to the guy. “For your information, I’ve watched plenty of organized sports. Did you know that the main physical actions of American football, such as blocking, running, and tackling illustrate several fundamental concepts in physics, biomechanics, and math? It’s quite interesting to calculate how many pounds of water a player loses on the field or how much energy it takes to stop a running back in a full-on sprint.” She crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at the guy. He hung his head sheepishly and got up from his seat, scurrying away embarrassed. Nadia and I sat there in awe, then dogpiled her in a group hug.

“Have I told you you’re my hero?” I asked her.

“I’m dating the first-string wide receiver and I didn’t even know that,” Nadia chimed. Sloane laughed and returned our hug before turning her attention back to the field. Both teams were announced and we leaped from our seats and cheered as Steve jogged past us to the bench. He spotted us in the crowd and shot Nadia a wink.

The game kicked off and the Bobcats received the ball first. The quarterback threw a 20-yard pass to Steve on the first play, and he took it to the house an additional 60-yards to put the first points on board. I thought Nadia was going to pass out with how hard she was screaming and jumping up and down.

The opposing team got the ball next and their running back broke through the line on the first snap for a 45-yard play before he was tackled by the Bobcats defense. They drove down the field on the next play and tied it up. Both teams went score for score throughout the game, and it came down to a tied score of 35-35 during the final two minutes of the fourth quarter.

The Bobcats had the ball at their own 45-yard line. It was 3rd and 2. The running back lined up in the backfield while Steve lined up off the line of scrimmage to block and wait for the center to snap the ball. The QB called an audible at the line and when the ball was snapped, he slung it to a wide-open Steve, who danced down the sideline 50-yards as time expired to give the Bobcats a 42-35 win. Nadia tossed her popcorn and her pom in the air as the stadium erupted in cheers. Steve’s teammates engulfed him as they celebrated on the field.

We filed out of the stadium and waited by the team entrance for Steve to arrive. When he emerged a few minutes later, Nadia took off in a dead sprint and leaped into his arms, nearly tackling him to the ground.

“YOU DID IT, BABY! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU,” she shouted as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, peppering his face with kisses. Sloane and I watched in amusement as Nadia and Steve mauled each other in the parking lot.

“Okay, lovebirds. Let’s save some of this for the afterparty,” I said, rolling my eyes. Steve set Nadia down and we made our way to where his truck was parked. We climbed in and set off for the Delta Mu Kappa house.

When we pulled up to the curb, the party was spilling out onto the front lawn of the frat house. We exited the pickup and weaved through the throngs of partygoers to enter the house. The bass thumped through the room and dancers moved erratically to the beat on the makeshift dance floor. 

Steve held Nadia’s hand and guided us through the living room to the keg set up in the kitchen. The guy operating the tap extended his hand to Steve for a high-five, which he returned, then poured beer in cups for him and Nadia. He then offered Sloane and I a drink. I declined, but Sloane accepted. The guy poured her a beer and she took a sip, a dollop of foam coating the tip of her nose. Her face turned up in disgust.

“This tastes awful,” she said, wiping the foam off her nose and upper lip and handing the cup back to him.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Steve laughed, taking a sip of his own. Nadia pulled on Steve’s arm, urging him to the dance floor. He nodded at Sloane and I, then followed her to the living room. Keg Guy pointed to a red cooler and offered us a couple of Smirnoff Ice Wild Grapes. Sloane and I took the drinks, clinking the bottles together in cheers, then each took a swig.

“Oh my gods, this is delicious,” she shouted over the loud music. We leaned against the kitchen counter, scanning the crowd. After a few minutes, she noticed someone from her Spanish Comp class and excused herself to say hi. I continued to crowd watch, sipping on my Smirnoff, when I noticed Damien striding toward the keg. His eyes met mine and a grin spread across his face.

“This doesn’t look like your scene,” I said to him.

“Yours either,” he retorted.

I laughed. “Touché. Nadia’s boyfriend invited us. At least the refreshments are top-notch.” I tipped my drink up to him. He chuckled and moved over to the keg, grabbing a fresh beer from Keg Guy. He nodded thanks and walked back over to where I was standing. 

“Nadia’s here? I’m going to have to say hi to her sometime tonight.”

“Yeah, she and Steve are out dry-humping on the dance floor.”

He threw back his head in laughter. Gods, I missed that laugh. “So, what do you think of your first college party so far?” 

“Who said this was my first college party?”

“Just a guess. If it was, I’m sure we would have run into each other by now,” he said, taking a drink. “Nice shirt by the way. It looks good on you. Did you go to the game?”

I looked down at my shirt, noticing the way it hugged my curves. My cheeks flushed as I avoided his gaze. “Yeah, Nadia’s boyfriend is the star wide receiver so we went to watch him,” I said, brushing a piece of lint from my shirt.

“Mhmm, Tennyson. Yeah, he had a hell of a game. That 50-yard TD at the end was nuts. No one could cover him. The kid’s a machine.”

What a weird thing to say. I took another sip of my Smirnoff and scanned the crowd. “So, where’s your girlfriend tonight?”

He sputtered and started choking on his beer. I leaned over and slapped his back a few times until he regained his composure. He wiped the beads of beer dribbling down his chin with the back of his hand. “She’s around here somewhere. What about you?”

“My girlfriend is at home waiting for me. Parties aren’t really her thing.”

His eyes widened, which caused me to burst out laughing. “I’m kidding, I don't have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend for that matter. I’m just here with my friends. Who have all conveniently disappeared. But that means I can scout the local talent for my next boo.”

He cleared his throat and hid a smile with his cup. “Well, good luck with that. You have your pick of the litter with this new crop of freshmen. What about him over there?” He pointed his cup to the dance floor.

I squinted, trying to follow his line of sight, but with it being so dimly lit, I was having trouble making out most of the faces in the crowd. “Who?”

He leaned in to guide me to where he was looking and I got a whiff of his scent. Masculine. Earthy with hints of leather and sandalwood. I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying not to make it obvious. The smell caused the butterflies in my stomach to flutter wildly. Memories of our last night together flooded my mind and I took a step back and chugged the rest of my drink, trying to tamp down my urges. I spotted the guy he was pointing at — a shorter guy with curly brown hair and glasses — nursing his beer as he made eyes with different girls on the dance floor. “Wait...I-is that Brad?”

He burst out laughing and I leaned over to slap his arm. My palm touched his bicep and the firmness of his muscles against my hand caused my breath to catch. I narrowed my eyes at him and shook my head. “Not funny, dude.”

“It was worth a shot. Hey, I’ll be right back. I gotta hit the head,” he set his empty cup on the counter behind me and winked as he moved through the crowd toward the bathrooms. I watched him until he disappeared from sight and clutched the empty bottle in my hand, willing my nerves to calm. You can do this, Kaia. It’s just Damien.

But could I?

***

Damien

I made my way through the packed fraternity house, trying not to bump into anyone as I headed for the bathroom. When I reached my destination, the door was shut and only one person was waiting. I leaned against the wall and tapped my fingers against my thigh. The door swung open and a drunk guy stumbled out, allowing the girl in front of me to enter.

I looked back toward the kitchen and could still see Kaia leaning against the kitchen counter. The strobe lights danced off her features as she was leaning over talking to the kid manning the keg. Whatever he said made her throw her head back in laughter. A tinge of jealousy coursed through me. Why was I jealous? She wasn’t mine. And besides, I had a girlfriend. Somewhere in this house. Speaking of. I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent her a text, asking her where she was. 

The girl in the bathroom came out, and I entered. I shut the door and leaned forward, resting my hands on the sink. Staring at my reflection, I sucked in a deep breath and tried to get my emotions in check. Having Kaia back in my life after four years was fucking with my head. When she laughed, I wanted to do everything possible to keep hearing that sound. When I leaned in to point Brad out to her on the dance floor, her hair brushed against my nose and I inhaled the scent of her shampoo. It smelled like lavender and rosemary. When she smacked my bicep, I wanted to grab her wrist and pull her to me, to feel her body pressed against mine.

My phone chimed with a text from Alana, breaking me from my Kaia spell. She said she was in the backyard and asked where I was. I gave her my location, then set my phone back down on the sink and turned on the cold water faucet. I cupped my hands and splashed water on my face. A few moments later, someone knocked and I heard Alana’s voice on the other side. I swung the door open and she strutted inside, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it.

“Well, looks like we’re all alone in here, huh?” she said, sashaying across the bathroom to where I was standing. “Why don’t we pick up where we left off since we were so rudely interrupted the other day?” She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my head down, capturing my lips in a searing kiss.

“Alana, baby. We can’t. Not in here.”

“Why not? We’ve never done it in the bathroom of a frat house before. It could be fun.” She said, pulling the shell of my ear between her teeth.

“What if someone comes in?”

She backed away from me and locked the door, never breaking eye contact. “Better?” she said, arching her eyebrow. I sighed and moved in, kissing and sucking the curve of her neck. She brought her hands up to my hair, raking her fingers through the thick strands. “See, this isn’t so bad, is it?”

I growled into her neck and dragged my hands down her hips, catching the hem of her shirt and pulling it up. When my fingers skimmed the strip of skin, she inhaled sharply. Our lips crashed together and she scraped her nails across my scalp. My fingers trailed lightly up her ribcage and brushed against the lace trim of her bra, causing her grip on my hair to tighten. A loud pounding on the other side of the door startled us.

“Yo, you about done in there, bro? Some of us gotta take a piss,” A guy’s voice called out.

Alana growled, “Motherfucker!” She huffed and pushed herself off of me. Fuming, she straightened her clothes, checked herself in the mirror and yanked the bathroom door open. The drunk frat bro on the other side jumped when she appeared.

“Whoa! I didn’t know it was this kind of party! Hey, baby! If you’re done with this dude, I believe it’s my turn,” he said, reaching out to stroke her arm.

She rolled her eyes and brought her knee to the frat bro’s groin, dropping him like a hot potato. The people in line behind him all groaned as Alana stomped away. I leaned down and rested my hand on the drunk guy’s shoulder. “You should probably learn how to talk to girls, bro,” I said, patting him a few times before walking off. I scanned the party for Alana, but when I couldn’t find her, I pulled out my phone and texted her to ask her where she went. Several minutes passed with no response, so I made my way back to the kitchen. I saw Kaia still standing in the same spot, talking to a girl with curly brown hair and glasses.

“Took you long enough. Did you fall in?” she said, raking her eyes up and down my body.

“Long line. It happens.” I turned to her friend, “Hi! I’m Damien. And who might you be?”

The girl extended her hand. “Sloane. Sloane Washington. So, you’re Kaia’s mysterious hot older friend. Wow, I can see why she’s so enamored by you,” she said, winking. My eyes darted to Kaia and her cheeks instantly turned pink.

“Sloane! What the hells?”

“Oh, whoops! Was I not supposed to say that out loud?” she giggled, slapping her hand over her mouth. “I probably should stop drinking these.”

I chuckled and turned back to Kaia. “Hot older friend, huh?”

Kaia looked down at the floor, her silky strands falling in her face. I resisted the urge to reach out and brush them away. “Don’t let it go to your head, Dames. You know how good you look.”

I cocked an eyebrow and Sloane giggled. “Well, thank you. I’m glad that my looks haven’t gone to shit yet. I figure I’ve got about five more years before Father Time superkicks me in the face.”  My comment drew laughs from both of them.

“So, how do you two know each other?” Sloane asked.

“We grew up together,” Kaia answered quickly before taking a long pull of her drink.

“What she means is that she lived next door to me and always hung out at my house because all the kids her age were losers, so she wanted a ‘cool friend.’”

Kaia rolled her eyes, trying to hide a smile. I turned back to Sloane. “How was your first week of classes?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Pretty good, but my Calc class is going to be tough. The professor is a nightmare.” 

“Dr. Carson? Yeah, he’s a real ball-bust...err...I mean, he’s strict. When I had him freshman year, he made a girl cry the first week of class. He also grades on a curve.”

Sloane’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me that! I have to take Calc II with him next semester too.”

I laughed and turned to Kaia. “What about you? Any classes or professors you want to run screaming from yet?”

She shook her head. “Thankfully, no. Although there’s this super creepy guy in my Interpersonal Comm class that keeps hitting on me, even after I’ve rejected his advances.”

I hummed. “You should probably punch the guy. I’ve heard that gets your point across pretty effectively.”

She laughed and I felt my chest tighten. Gods, I loved that sound. I asked the girls if they both wanted another drink, and they nodded yes, so I made my way over to the cooler and retrieved three Smirnoff Ices. I handed them to the girls, and when Kaia took hers, our fingers brushed. Her breath hitched and a smile tugged at my lips. She twisted the bottle cap off, not meeting my eyes. I popped the top of mine and took a long swig, my face turning up in disgust. Holy shit, this stuff is awful. How do chicks drink this garbage? I looked over at Kaia and saw her watching me. She noticed my facial expression and burst out laughing.

“You gonna finish that?”

“Fuck, no. This is all you,” I replied, handing her the bottle. I moved over to the kid manning the keg and asked him if they had any rum.

“I think there’s some in the liquor cabinet, bro. Right over there,” he replied, pointing to a China Hutch on the other side of the fridge. I walked over and opened the cabinet, examining the contents inside. A few bottles remained. A thin layer of dust coated the shelves where liquor bottles once sat. I spotted the bottle of spiced rum toward the back. Thanking the liquor gods, I grabbed it and dusted it off. I grabbed a red Solo cup off the counter and poured two fingers of the golden liquid into the glass, taking a sip. Damn, this shit is smooth. I made my way back over to where Kaia and Sloane were still talking and held the bottle up to them.

“You girls wanna play a drinking game?”

Sloane shook her head. “I’ll pass. But thanks for offering. I’m going to go use the bathroom.”

My eyes darted to Kaia. She shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Let’s do this.”

I smirked and moved over to Keg Guy, asking if he had a deck of cards. He pointed me to a drawer next to the sink. I opened it and found a deck of adult-themed novelty playing cards. The box had pictures of women in various states of undress. I rolled my eyes. Classy.  Kaia and I moved over to the kitchen table and I poured more rum into my glass. “Okay, so this game is called the Nazario Chug…”

“Wait...you have a card game named after yourself?” Kaia asked suspiciously.

I chuckled and began shuffling the cards. “Long story. We came up with it my freshman year. So here are the rules. You take the top card. Black card means dare, red means truth. If you fail or want to dodge your task, you drink according to the number on your card.”

“Ooh, a new twist on truth or dare. This should be interesting,” she said, taking a sip of one of the bottles of Smirnoff.

I smiled and cut the deck then placed it between us on the table. “Hey, save your drinks for the game. Okay, since this is your first time playing, you go first.”

She leaned over and grabbed the first card and flipped it towards me. “Five of diamonds. So, red.”

I nodded. “Truth. So, what do you think about Hartfeld so far?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Softball questions right off the bat? I thought this game would be more of a challenge.”

I laughed. “I don’t want to be too hard on you your first time. Answer the question or drink.”

She pressed her lips together and hummed. “It’s okay.”

“Just okay? Come on. You can do better than that.”

“Well, the classes are good. The professors seem cool. And I’ve already made a few friends.”

“But…” I probed.

“I don’t know. It’s only been a week. I feel like I can’t give a more detailed answer just yet.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.” I reached over and pulled the next card from the deck. Three of Clubs and black. I shook my head and Kaia’s eyes lit up when I turned the card to face her. She laughed maniacally and rubbed her hands together. “You’re going to make me embarrass myself in front of the whole party, aren’t you?” I groaned.

She tapped her finger against her bottom lip, the motion drawing my eyes to her mouth. Her lips were so plump, I wanted to lean in and taste them. She caught me staring and snapped her fingers in my face. “Hey, space case. Pay attention. Here’s your dare. See that blonde doing a keg stand over there?” she pointed to the keg where a freshman girl — being held up by two frat bros — sucked the beer from the lever while a small crowd cheered her on. After several moments, she gagged and beer shot from her nostrils, causing her to start coughing.

“You want me to do that?” I asked. She giggled and nodded. I shook my head and moved over to the keg. One of the frat bros noticed me.

“Hey, man. You wanna get in on this?”

I sighed. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.” I braced my hands on either side of the keg’s rim and lifted my body weight. The two frat bros grabbed each of my legs and held me up as I grabbed the tap and opened the lever, allowing the foamy liquid to pour in my mouth. I chugged the beer as Kaia and the crowd around us started chanting, “Chug, chug, chug.” Thirty seconds in, the beer must have gone down the wrong tube, because I started choking and spat up beer. The crowd moaned and the two frat bros helped me down. I moved back over to the table, where Kaia was crouched over laughing, holding her stomach.

“Holy shit. That was awesome!”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, freshman. Draw your damn card.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and retrieved the next card. A frown formed on her face and she turned the card to face me. The King of Clubs, black.

“Payback,” I smirked. She groaned and threw her head back. My eyes scanned the crowd, looking for someone to recruit for Kaia’s dare. I spotted a kid with frosted tips and a denim jacket that screamed late ‘90s, leaning against the wall. He looked completely out of his element. Bingo. I pointed to him. “See that guy over there? I dare you to go over to him and pretend you’re his biggest fan.”

“Wh-what?”

“Then, you have to get a selfie with him.” 

She gnawed on her bottom lip for a few beats, then nodded and took a deep breath. My eyes stayed glued to her as she rose from her seat and straightened her clothing. “I’ve got this,” she said with a cocky tone. She smirked and marched over to where the guy was standing. I watched in amusement as she gripped his arm with both of her hands and shouted, “Oh wow! Are...are you Niall Horan?” The guy gave her a confused expression as several people turned around to look at them.

She released his arm and pretended to fumble with her phone. She then tapped the screen and handed it to a random girl standing nearby. Jealousy coursed through my veins again as the guy snaked his arm around Kaia’s waist and pressed a kiss to her cheek. The girl held the phone up to snap the photos and I watched them, trying to tamp down the feelings. I pushed back from the table and started walking toward them when a pair of arms caught me from behind.  

“There you are! I’m ready to go when you are,” Alana slurred, clutching my midsection as she swayed on her feet. 

I watched Kaia as she chatted with the guy. A smile spread wide across her face as he leaned in to whisper something in her ear. As much as I wanted to go over there and claim her, I knew I couldn’t. I sighed and turned around, wrapping an arm around my intoxicated girlfriend’s shoulder. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.” 

She slipped her hand in my back pocket and guided me through the crowd toward the door. I looked back and caught Kaia’s eye as we retreated from the kitchen. She stared at me, her face void of emotion. I gave her a weak smile and led Alana out of the house to our car.

[lukaafrancesca]

Y’all ever get so incensed by an internet argument where the person you’re debating comes into your wheelhouse to mansplain you something about your own field to prove that trans people don’t exist that you’re tempted to give them credentials but you know as soon as you do that, they use that as ammo to discredit everything you say because they’re a rightwing loon who thinks college indoctrinates people into the left so you kind of just have to sit there getting even more incensed because they’re so fucking wrong and you can’t even be smug about being right? Because it happened to me. In other words I’m out here spending COVID-19 social distancing time arguing about a guy this bruh called “James Money” (actually John Money) and why trans people deserve to have their pronouns respected instead of, like, working on my book. Honestly, sometimes I envy the rightwing. They get to be wrong constantly yet still act smug and superior while the left has the same argument 1000 times and nothing ever changes even though we have all the facts. Why is it so hard for people to just... respect other peoples’ pronouns?

[quillusquillus]

Last part of the Torchwood S5 liveblog, oh god there’s an escape room episode.

Section 1 - Section 2 - Section 3 (final)

Ep 10 - Tagged (live) okay for like a solid minute I thought this was Gwen narrating hbbfgf woops nice to meet you, Serena wait you're not that Owens copper are you? lmao andy no OH uh, that escalated quickly oh fuck I forgot Yvonne's in charge now yes. win their loyalty with bagels. sure. oi don't you horn on Rhys what the hell ...Singeon?????? wait wtf, is that.... Colchester's first name? the idea that Jack, JACK, could actually be a racist or bigot of any kind is wildly laughable ffhfg can't even what-... was that an editing error? what was that about a chalice?? god, the Rift snarling away in the background continues to be unnerving beware the small notecards of GUILT again Orr just accepts the shadowy recesses of human thought, it's super interesting :V wonder what Yvonne (or indeed anyone else) would have to do for Orr to be like whoa hey now that's not ok (besides threatening to blow up a somewhat-innocent sapient building AI) Colchester don't be fooled by the deliciousness of the bagels, they are there to TEMPT you with their WICKED DOUGHY SEDUCTION omg Orr you poor creature lmao Orr plumbing the depths of internet shit-flinging is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious GWEN?!! fUCK OFF SERENA this sequential guilt/murder nonsense smacks of the Caretaker's BS ngl I believe in you fake!Gwen, even real!Gwen has pulled through worse than this not sure how fake!Gwen affects Gwen physically exactly but y'know uhhhh time to turn the computer off maybe Orr somebody help them omg O__O ORR ARE YOU TALKING TO THE EVIL INTERNET DID YOU FIND THE TROLL KING this story is weirding me out slightly because of my friend who is also called Serena fghfdt "please don't mansplain my health to me" hjgj please at least let Orr go have some juice and a bagel oh my god you bitch the MEME???? ...adherents of the repeated meme? <_< "I sort of thought Torchwood got shut down or blown up or something" (both, it's both) no... no conspiracy, they just got shut down and blown up, sorry what happen to her face fake!Gwen noooo he was so nice oh thank goodness she has retcon seriously can you tell us what's with her face though? no? Colchester?!?? Serena I kind of doubt you could kill him even if you tried yyeahhh I thought he might have some deep dark regrets and I was RIGHT sure wish we had Owen right now :( Orr are you here with your weirdly in-depth medical knowledge- oh right they're fucking out cold because YVONNE it IS his first name omg, I'm probably spelling it super wrong then noted: evil cards are best defeated by the power of not giving a single fuck "I'll never, never put you through anything like this again" -Yvonne, a liar god, she really is like Jack but worse wuh oh fake!Gwen's back bitch jesus seriously though what's with her face Tell Us Andy that's three blimeys in a minute oh please do not get involved with her Andy ohey Jack Colchester please be secretly loyal to Jack the whole time ~just imagine~ HMMM good shit, very curious where this is going next yes yes yes... two episodes to go, things should start really kicking off next time >:O I still completely refuse to believe Jack is working fully with Red Doors because again the idea of Jack as a bigot or supporting bigots is Actual Comedy, but I'm very curious why he's cooperating with them as much as he has been... I also don't think he'd fuck with the population on a large scale like that but I'm NOT certain because he's.. him. Sneaky Bastard Jack >:O (please come back)

Ep 11 - Escape Room - (live) that was the Doctor Who theme heehee oh it's a literal escape room wow I've only done one escape room and they didn't even knock me out with a gas chamber, this is real service Yvonne recommended this which means it's gonna be either a test of their abilities that goes way too far or an actual case for them to solve I'm so happy both Rhys and Colin are here OH NO hahaha the traps are controlled by the other teams.... I love escape rooms and Saw/Cube movie type bullshit this is my guilty pleasure so you gotta.... connect the metals?? yeah real easy for you to pretend you don't care much about Rhys, huh fake!Gwen oh it's a wall split co-op game now "h'yer" still makes me happy every time this is such a funny scenario to attempt to depict in an audio medium listen to them GIGGLING going from giggling about to minor yelling rage is so typical of Gwen and Rhys hhgk a "whom" correction? really Colin? I suppose he IS married to colchester.... of COURSE colchester is wearing a cardigan under his jacket HAHA this old chestnut it's weird how it's hard to comment on an action-filled episode even when the action is only happening through sound and description so colchester is being tested on his connection to colin, rhys is being tested on his submissiveness? holy shit colchester I know this is probably not real or something but my heart is beating so fast right now RHYS the old god...... not fake!gwen, right? lol "i did all I could" you sure fuckin did is this a Sorvix thing, I do remember there were some that were still faithful to their god that fucked off beebee............ I keep thinking back to Rhys's scream, that was so horrible, well done Kai Owen oh the silver lever not working is NASTY rude god, I'm so mad at fake!Gwen, bring regular Gwen back >:( the regular-ass office/escape room door foley is so incongruously funny in this extremely tense situation RHHHYYYYSSSS NICE ONE COLCHESTER "don't forget who sent us here" I sure haven't >:( NEVER SAY THAT OH MY GOD GWEN oh wow where did you find him I've had the connection in my head between fake!Gwen and the old god for a while now but now I am even more  s u s p i c i o u s last episode to go :U

Ep 12 - Herald of the Dawn (live) OK SEASON END HERE WE GO so I had to explain to my american friends what dogging was a couple of months back, their reactions were an experience ....god is coming, or god is.... ? context is important when you say that on a dogging site WAIT WAS ORR DOGGING oh ok these are the airport peeps oh no Orr please don't- I know you can't help it but please don't oh they're trying not to but Oof oh hey Jack LOL Jack's unmistakable call of gHAAAUUUUGHH non-Torchwood characters going out of town for an episode is always suspicious, means big stuff is gonna happen to the town, often yay Brigadier Kate reference that was a HELL of a Rift sound do it again Crisis Number Two: Dead Doggers - available direct to video aw even Yvonne has to acknowledge Andy's adorableness I just noticed I wrote 4 things starting with "oh" in a row earlier what is "in the drag queen sense" Andy HA I KNEW FAKE!GEWN WAS INVOLVED IN GOD STUFF "Torchwood? bugger." you just CAN'T resist the opportunity for a dick joke can you Jack whoo boy the hatchmother and Yvonne together..... wow I forgot all about Tyler for a hot minute there so he IS feeding Jack info... sneaky boy oh yeah gimme those bibbles, not enough bibble-bibble-bibble in this season oh NO he IS involved with Yvonne AN DY "Shut up! here's a poppet" is Peak Andy I do not trust this guy idek why it just feels weird that Jack would send someone else instead of himself SEE I KNEW IT bloody scorvix Colchester omg who are Three Sol gfhgjh so Red Doors are pretty rubbish huh HAHAHA oh man, I love Colchester so much the Rift is NINE levels down?? was Torchwood 3 always this deep???? HOO boy that Rift sounds angry "somewhat" blew the place up.... it was a bloody crater, you understating bastard also please be ok omg wow even Colchester can tell Gwen's off now I can't believe I just listened to a live foosball match "a chat-shaped chat" ok, I take it back, that might be Peak Andy pfffffff they're lagging behind Yvonne and Three Sol, amazing there's like three different plans from three different parties conflicting and it's very good Ianto's handwriting..... Close! That! Rift! ha HA! j'accuse, fake gwen! Orr did you... not think to mention you couldn't read Gwen before? COME ON GWEEEEEN I MISSED YYOOOUUUU gee Torchwood 3 how come you get two Gwens? "Gwen... was more important." :( :( :( sad Jack voice..... uh. Orr? bye? "don't give me one of your Torchwood "ahh"'s!!" dskgfhfg don't you- OH MY GOD JACK can you ever NOT oh. OH. ORR ARE YOU GONNA. TURN INTO THE GOD. WHAT Gwen comes back, immediately is welsh complainin and calling them out on their BS. I MISSED HER SO MUCH wuuuugh feels heck yeah love yourself Gwen hnnng feelings, but if anyone deserves a retirement it's Gwen byeeee beautiful Gwen Cooper <3 <3 <3 also Rhys, ya sweet bugger yeah the Rift didn't stop being a thing that was happening or anything I wonder if Ro will heckin eat Yvonne after all that all i can think about is Ten's rant about being sick of meeting gods; good gods, bad gods, demi-gods... ON THAT NOTE, ONWARDS TO SEASON 6: GOD AMONG US aw Nicholas Briggs was the executive producer? that's neat also shoutout to that one person credited in the role of "god-botherer” hppft

[thelocalrebel]

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

Call me a Star Wars nerd: my childhood was literally me speeding to the library every week to borrow the Jedi Apprentice novels, before I graduated to the Expanded Universe (now called Legends) of the Thrawn Trilogy and the New Jedi Order, to name a few. Not just novels, but comics too! Unsurprisingly, games that have a special place in my heart include both Knights of the Old Republic games (not The Old Republic MMORPG) and years on, I still write fic about that era and get emotional over a 13 year old game.

But I couldn't love The Last Jedi (TLJ) no matter how hard I tried. Sure, there's space battles and blowing-things-up that's iconically Star Wars, but one thing (amongst others) ruined it for me. Despite the franchise crowing “diversity” and being “progressive”, TLJ falls back on tropes that should belong in the Stone Age. If I listed everything skeevy about TLJ like the lore and plot inconsistencies, I’d be writing a thesis, so here’s four points to consider. Spoilers abound.

1) For Some Reason, The Narrative Now Centers On Kylo.

This was my absolute biggest issue with TLJ. Here, we see Kylo being woobified and treated like a boy in the narrative despite him being a grown-ass 29 year old adult. In numerous instances, Kylo’s Tragic Backstory™ is emphasised: being neglected by his parents, his Uncle Luke wanting to murder him, Snoke grooming him to join the Dark Side, him struggling with his insecurities ft. his explosive tantrums - all of which subtly nudging us to empathise with him. Aka, highlight that despite him being involved in the Star Wars equivalent of a militaristic fascist organisation carrying out genocide and literal slavery AND being the one responsible for murdering Jedi students at Luke’s Jedi Academy, we must feel sorry for him. That he just needs to be understood. So he can be redeemed.

Seriously. If Luke “There Is Still Good In [Vader]” Skywalker thinks Kylo is irredeemable, I’m tempted to believe him.

But back to my point. Kylo’s story is suddenly the crux in TLJ moreso because other characters have been mangled - character-wise - simply to prop him up. Most damning is how Rey, of all people, suddenly decides that Kylo is worth saving despite him murdering the first father figure she had and ever wanted (Han), mortally wounding the first person who saw her worth coming back for (Finn), and mind-raping her in their first interaction in a torture room - in the span of, what, two weeks? Fine, perhaps this is Rey being flawed - tying in to how we shouldn’t hold representations to perfect standards, especially for marginalised identities. But really? Even with all such instances imply? Because to me, this simply reinforces that stereotype where a “Virtuous But Naive (White) Woman Saves Angsty (White) Boi From Himself”; a norm that reflects real-world instances of women doing tons of unpaid emotional labour while absolving men of the responsibility to improve themselves or even take responsibility for their own actions. So yes, it’s misogynistic. In TLJ, Rey exists solely to redeem Kylo. And that doesn’t sound like the Rey from The Force Awakens (TFA): you know, the Rey with an arc not revolving around a man? (I don’t want to discuss the implications of the Reylo pairing and what it normalises - there’s too much, and this isn’t the place). In that, Rey stops being angry; an essential character trait she displays when faced with danger and the unknown, because women can’t be angry, right? Otherwise, “they’re dangerous”. Hence, Rey’s character is watered-down for Kylo’s benefit.

As if mischaracterising Rey wasn’t enough, they had to brutalise Luke’s character too. Luke Skywalker, the compassionate pacifist who believed that even the vilest of individuals could be redeemed, suddenly decides that the best way to deal at all with Kylo is to kill him? Seriously????? (It’s not just canon that disputes this characterisation of Luke - even the Legends books dispute this. And Luke changing his mind last minute doesn’t count). Sure, the bitter, jaded, and depressed Luke we see in TLJ is believable, given recent events and him self-flagellating over such events - but his decisions prior? Inconsistent. Or, just to fuel Kylo’s Tragic Backstory™ (which wasn’t even elaborated much. How did he fall? How was Snoke responsible? Where did Snoke come from? Just marvel at the wealth of lore that could’ve been explored). In the process, the Luke who used love and forgiveness instead of violence (i.e. toxic masculinity) to be a compelling hero, was sacrificed.

But hey, all’s fair in propping up white male characters and their manpain, right?

2) Fake (White) Feminism

What riles me up more is hypocrisy. Because once you peel off TLJ’s supposed “progressivism”, you realise that diversity is actually horrible representation built on racism galore. So feminism here is just performative.

Generally, Vice-Admiral Holdo’s scene with Poe is seen as a case of a Strong Woman™ shutting down Mansplaining directed at her, where Poe is supposed to learn how to trust his superiors and become more “level-headed”. (Star Wars advocating for “blindly trusting authority”? Gosh. Wonder what the Rebellion was doing in the Original Trilogy then). Plot hole aside, it works, if you can ignore how Poe is mischaracterised using racist tropes of the irrational, hotheaded, misogynistic Latino; which, incidentally, is not the Poe depicted in the comics and TFA. (Same thing with the Leia scene at TLJ’s beginning - TFA Poe wouldn’t blatantly ignore orders and kill off most of his squadron just to destroy a capital ship; TFA Poe would be deathly afraid of sending his squadron to their deaths.) On the other hand, if we consider how Poe wasn’t mischaracterised, then this scene is a case of how people of colour tend not to believe white women in positions of authority due to a history of racism, or how Poe wouldn’t easily trust someone he was unfamiliar with. So, what’s going on here? Simple - A male character of colour is demonised just to prop up a white woman. “Feminism”, y’all.  

Okay, you might think: as his commanding officer, Holdo’s not obligated to tell Poe anything. But if Poe manages to mutiny with a number of Resistance personnel, then perhaps this is a case of Holdo not leading effectively? Hm? Anyway, miscommunication without sufficient buildup as a plot device is contrived and does a disservice to the characters involved. It’s not representation when it’s done at the expense of someone else, especially another marginalised identity. (Holdo deserved so much better).

Also, you’ll notice how most - if not all - of the leading ladies in TLJ are white. Pretty intersectional film, don’t you think? This is compounded by how TLJ barely passes the most basic of feminist tests - like Bechdel and Mako Mori - despite the quantity of non-white male characters and calefare abound. Ladies only ever talk about male characters, save that brief conversation between Leia and Holdo when they weren’t being condescending about Poe, and unfortunately exist just to further another male character’s arc (Rose, Rey, Holdo, Phasma…).

Plus, notice how Luke’s Caretaker aliens on Ahch-To are femme-coded...a la cis-heteronormative gender roles, thus assuming that aliens conform to a gender binary, or even have genders. I’m not lying - it was intended. How...colonial.

3) Just. Racist. Bullshit.

As mentioned, TLJ’s progressivism masks a deluge of racism. Though I’m neither Latinx nor Black, watching certain TLJ scenes left me thoroughly uncomfortable.

Did Hux and Leia really need to slap Finn and Poe respectively? Did TLJ really need to make their male characters of colour (MoC) comic relief and recipients of violence - with Leia stunning and slapping Poe, Rose tazing Finn, Phasma/Hux wanting to behead Rose and Finn (with Phasma and Hux being literal space nazis)? All of that despite Poe and Finn having recently recovered from either torture or mortal injuries? And Finn himself dealing with the trauma of being a First Order stormtrooper, emotional abuse being one such after-effect? Clearly, the pain of non-white characters is acceptable fodder for jokes, but not that of white characters - Kylo’s scenes certainly weren’t. Some of them actually had plot. Interesting contrast.

Furthermore, did TLJ have to sideline their PoC characters, least of all their MoC leads? As mentioned, Poe was mischaracterised to prop up a white woman and Finn used as comedic relief and generally denied narrative attention despite being a lead...because Kylo apparently deserved more screen time. Yeah, Finn went with Rose to Canto Bight to find Maz’s master codebreaker, which, if I’m not wrong, are called slicers. Personally, I liked the subplot - it’s a nice allegory to reality, where the military industrial complex, capitalism, and the rich go hand in hand in slowly destroying the world, aside the message of how rebelling isn’t just about fighting baddies, but fighting for people. Like inspiring the “little people”; civilians and those uninvolved in the fighting. And in the process, exploring how war affects them. (One thing though: freeing/focusing on the Fathiers instead of the child slaves on Canto Bight?)  

Then you realise that apparently, Rose Tico was created not because they needed a Rose Tico in TLJ - rather, having Finn and Poe pull a buddy-cop act on Canto Bight didn’t have the conflict that introducing a female character would. Sigh. Rose Tico, plot device. Just like Paige Tico - her death, albeit heroic, used to drive Rose into Finn’s path. Therein lies the anti-Blackness and anti-Asian aspects of the Canto Bight arc. Arguably, through their detour, Finn learns who exactly the Resistance fights for and moves past his “selfishness” of looking out only for himself and Rey - thanks to Rose’s guidance throughout their trip, which, as TLJ panned out, was eventually unnecessary and contributed little to the overall plot of “Will Kylo Finally Forsake The Dark Side?”. It’s Rose’s educating of Finn that simultaneously makes her a racist portrayal and a plot device as a Wise Asian Walking Encyclopedia to help teach a Naive Black Character about the Grim Realities of Life that Finn survived and escaped from - was he not a former stormtrooper captured by the First Order when he was a child? Perhaps Finn wasn’t adequately socialised to civilian life, thus his wide-eyed reaction to Canto’s glitz, but why wouldn’t Finn, who grew up in a traumatic and manipulative environment and recognised it for what it is, not see through Canto’s facade? Plus, Finn’s supposed development isn’t about himself; it’s about making him prioritise the needs of others over himself as if he hasn’t been doing that an entire movie ago.

Don’t know ‘bout you, but that sounds like bad writing. Bad, racist writing.

4) Centrist Reasoning

Finally! One last section to discuss. Hope everyone’s still here.

In keeping with the times, one of TLJ’s messages that stuck out was cynicism, moral ambiguity and that absolutes don’t exist. I agree, because life is never so clear-cut - but TLJ somehow simplistically portrays that. On Canto Bight, Rose tells us to “save what you love, not fight what you hate” (...despite saying she wanted to “put a fist through [the town]” just a while ago). When DJ mentions how weapons merchants sold to both the First Order and the Resistance, it’s said in a manner to somehow excuse them, or even give them a pat on the back; as if playing both sides somehow cancels the obvious self-interest driving their business decisions - but that’s assuming it’s a valid comparison in the first place. How is the Resistance, in any way, comparable to the First Order? Personally, this is just shoddy reasoning that conjures up nonexistent ambiguity. A reasoning that, when extrapolated to today’s socio-political climate, fails to clarify the power disparities between various groups in society by assuming a false equivalence. In other words, an erroneous comparison. Because however appealing it sounds, we can’t equate a fascist military organisation responsible for genocide and other inhumane practices with an organisation dedicated to thwarting it, for the sake of everyone.

You know what’s a better idea? Using Canto Bight or the First Order, through Finn’s past, to contrast between righteous anger versus mindlessly lashing out, often via violence (which, incidentally, adds nuance to the Light vs Dark Side of the Force debate). Because righteous anger, given its origins in a history of marginalisation and trauma, would be a way of ‘righting’ such wrongs despite the ‘wrongness’ associated with violence as a method. It’ll introduce moral complexity and gray-area dilemmas that TLJ craves without disregarding the sociopolitical implications of social movements and resistance. (Like, they could’ve explored the fact that the Resistance was essentially killing brainwashed First Order soldiers forced into fighting, but oh well).

So, four points to consider. But honestly? I'm only just scratching the surface. There's more nitpicking/meta online if you wish to delve. But honestly, TLJ could’ve been so much more. They had rich source material and endless ways to spin off the buildup that TFA created. And yet.

That’s why I’ll remain bitter about TLJ, and what it could’ve been.

tl;dr if you’re looking for a film that isn’t fake-deep on diversity, doesn’t contain senseless cynicism, or fulfills its narrative potential by avoiding copious plot holes and general bad writing, TLJ is not it. (psst, Rogue One did it better).

Further Reading

[loudlytransparenttrash]

It's hard being a 16 year old who wasn't indoctrinated into the left dogma. Otherwise I'd probably be a racist and a bigot towards people that have never done anything to me. So I'm thankful that other such as yourself understand this, so thank you for existing - A Hispanic/Native American teen who's against bullshit

Heyy thank you so much for reaching out, message me any time :) 

Feminists and the like love to tell everybody how “educated” they are because they’ve listened to and read a whole bunch of nonsensical propaganda and take it as truth and everybody else should be “educated” the same way they have been. 

Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation, false narrative and incorrect statistics spread by people who get paid to spread it, and whose jobs depend on it being true, eg feminist columnists, women’s studies professors, politicians and celebrities. Even more unfortunate are the ones who mindlessly believe it without question and let it radicalize their freethought, happiness and individuality. 

You’re the perfect and rare example of a young person having the bravery to go against the only views that are considered acceptable and you’re thinking for yourself, it’s really commendable of you and a great example to set for others in similar positions. 

I made a post about this last year but I think it’ll apply to you and others who may read this before going to college:

Things you really need to know before starting college

Colleges throughout the United States and many first world countries are becoming carried away with eccentric gender politics. Being prepared for this is vitally important.

Many new students will be subject to special training sessions and introduced to a new vocabulary with terms like trigger warnings, othering, microaggression, male privilege and safe spaces which I am sure you are already aware of since you are reading this on tumblr. You will also at some stage witness outside speakers being called out, abused and boycotted for breaches of sensitivity.

Colleges are changing their mission; truth seeking is being replaced by the more sensitive goal of making everyone, especially female students feel validated and any ideas that get in the way of this mission usually are not tolerated and even viciously shut down. Here’s some things to expect:

If you are a conservative, no one is that concerned with your feelings. You’re going to face a challenging intellectual environment and according to a recent UCLA study, there are nearly 5 times more liberal professors than conservative professors on college campuses. Your views are going to be tested every day but saying that, most of your teaches will treat you respectfully.

Your ideas though will face critical scrutiny and you may end up revising or abandoning some of them. But that’s a good thing, it’s what many liberal students are missing. What is not good is plenty of “educated” students and a few professors will see you as the embodiment of evil. If you express your opinions vigorously, some classmates will likely complain to school authorities that your very presence makes them feel unsafe and they will say some really nasty things about you. There is a bright side though. Even the schools overrun by the new orthodoxy, you will find great friends and allies, male and female, professors too - whether they agree with you or not.

If you are going into college liberal, idealistic and a woman, you face a different set of risks. You are going to find a large and excited group of gender activists - students and some professors - eager to recruit you to their cause. They are going to present you with shocking statistics on sexual violence on campus and theories about an oppressive patriarchy and they’re going to tell you how mistreated and traumatised you are.

It’s going to seem new and exciting to you and maybe a way to make new friends and fight injustice at the same time and you’re going to be tempted to sign up. You can do what you want but just be aware that most of the victim statistics you’re going to hear are either completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated. And the theories about women’s oppression, they’re twisted and surreal and are there to make you feel like you need these people to hold your hand.

As for trigger warnings and safe spaces, these are infantile, the opposite of empowering. It’s the fashion on many campuses to treat women as delicate flowers and fragile little birds but no, most of you are strong, tough and resilient, capable of empowering yourself without your hand being held by these people.

The gender activists you will encounter are going to tell you not to listen to or not to take the word of those who encourage you to think for yourself and be open to real facts and statistics and that’s true, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t take ANYBODY’S word on these matters. This is your future. Your feminist foremothers fought and battled and won the right for you to be educated and on par with men. They knew you were tough and they wanted you to have the opportunity to put that strength to use. Please don’t waste it by falling captive to a pointless ideology or indulging in victimhood. Take serious classes, health care, science, engineering. Avoid courses that luxuriate female oppression. If you are serious about “the wage gap” then be serious when it comes to choosing your course.

If you are a liberal and idealistic man, you face an even greater risk. You probably think of yourself as open minded, well intended and progressive. But many on campus will not see you in this way.

Today many college women practice gender profiling and it’s the fashion among these activists that judge men by the worst members of their sex and women by their best. So many attempts to exonerate yourselves or your friends will be dismissed as mansplaining.

To save yourself from excommunication, you will be asked to engage in a fair amount of self-flagellation and male bashing but do not do it. Have some dignity for crying out loud. Don’t become the guy who sends out tweets like Arthur Chu: “As a dude who cares abt feminism sometimes I want to join all men arm-in-arm & then run off a cliff and drag the whole gender down in sea.”

Today’s campus manias aren’t going to last. Sooner or later the age old virtues of higher education will reassert themselves and bring back free speech, intellectual diversity, open inquiry, vigorous competition of ideas and mutual respect.

If you are a strong, independent thinker yourself, you can play a part in this intellectual renaissance. If not, don’t say you weren’t cautioned.

[yobeautifulfreaks-blog]

Idk

lol was this just some weird experiment, am i just testing myself to see just how much of a race traitor I am? that despite all my talk of equality and “embracing my sexuality” and all that, I’m just another doormat for the patriarchy. And it fucking makes me so mad!

I’m angry that Lawi often just sees me as the trope-ical woman: Dumb and should not be allowed control over anything she does. Lawi treats me like an idiot, he mansplains everything. ITS NOT A CRIME TO ADMIT THAT YOU”RE WRONG in fact you’d look like less of a jackass if you didn’t just spew unfounded information .

I do wonder, and I’m tempted to put him through the same treatment. I want him to wake up. To empathize. I swear its as if he can empathize with everyone but me. SO yes, I want to yell at him, I want to call him out on all the dumb mistakes he makes. 

But here’s the catch, I can’t I don’t want this relationship to become just a wierd foiling competition. I’m afraid he’ll leave me and then I’ll be without him. \

I bet anyone who reads this blog is probably just confounded by why I’m still he’re “making it work” with someone who is allergic to making an effort. My sister would literally kill him same with my brother. 

The truth is, I love him. I know I can have anyone o owant but I want him. he’s an incredible person, he’s so selfless and hes kind(to other people apparently). He’s a huge coward. He’s afraid of taking event he smallest chance on himself, on us, on life. And i’m bored. I’m fucking bored of being shat on, and I swear I’m not going to sit around and watch movies for the rest of my life. I want to have great adventures, and I want to be with someone who is interested in sharing those adventures.  

No relationship is perefct. Even Felix and Muhabi are constanly fighting but they’re honest with eachother and they love eachother so much. I wish Lawi wasn’t afraid of showing me love. Showering me with love. How would that feel, if you were in love and everything I did was just recieved with love

I guess I’m confused. Because I see a great bright future for us. I don’t want to give up on us, but i will not be spoken to just any how, especially not by my life partner.

When I was a Kid I would witness the way my parents talked to eachother. My mother hardly seemed to talk to my father and in my teens my father stopped trying, he started cheating and disrespecting her in more ways than I can even recall. Eventually she left him. she stated her own life and is who she is today. 

My point is, it shouldn’t get there. I always wonder how love between two people can turn in to something so ugly, so grotesque. 

I’m not going to let my relationship with lawi get there. Even enter that area code. Lawi and I are going to treat each other with respect, so that our children can see what it looks like to respect someone else’s right to live. I want my children to recognize the beauty that intrinsically exists in every life form. 

But I don’t know, I guess Lawi isn’t even thinking of them righ now. I’m thinking them, i can feel them i my womb, just squirming to be concieved. Though every month when my period confirms that i’m not pregnant(to my utmost jubilation), I have to celebrate because some part of me cant handle the fact that Lawi is going to father my children...I mean looks wise he’s not bad. But fucking personality wise...gah snooooooooze

yes. I’m going to admit it, I’m fucking bored of his fucking attitude, I’m nored of his small ass pretty much nonexistant dreams. I’m fucking tired of his cowardice and how uncomfortable he gets with my family. I’m fucking tired. 

And if he can’t make something different happen, he’s going to have to fucking try again. 

[topmixtrends]

STRANGULATION IS A FORM of torture that often comes at the hands of a misogynist. It’s mostly inflicted by men on intimate female partners. It’s less obvious and more insidious than cat-calling, social media trolling, and mansplaining, since the effects can be slow to impact the victim; the signs are subtle unless a doctor knows what to look for, and victims are often afraid to speak up. This is also one of the reasons why it tends to go underreported and misreported. In her first book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Kate Manne unpacks strangulation and other forms of keeping women down.

“Silence is golden,” she writes, “for the men who smother and intimidate women into not talking, or have them change their tune to maintain harmony. Silence isolates its victims; and it enables misogyny.” 

I connected with Manne, a professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, via email to talk about misogyny, sexism, and breaking the silence.

¤

SKYE C. CLEARY: Why does misogyny manifest in cat-calling, social media trolling, mansplaining, and strangulation?

KATE MANNE: Rather than seeing these behaviors as disparate, we can see them as symptoms of a common social ill, unified by their common misogynistic function: that of policing and enforcing patriarchal norms and expectations. This includes not just putting or keeping women down when they threaten or challenge male dominance — as in many cases of strangulation — but also maintaining or reinstating male dominance via subtler controlling behaviors.

Take cat-calling, for example. If he sets the evaluative terms — by commenting on women’s bodies or ranking her attractiveness within earshot — then that’s a form of social control. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you pass or fail the test. It’s a potent reminder that he gets to judge you, and he gets to define the terms — and to broadcast the results for all and sundry, oftentimes.

Of course, it’s only human to react appreciatively to people’s appearances, to experience more or less unbidden attractions, to have sexual fantasies, and so on. And that’s not what I’m objecting to. That can all be perfectly benign, within reason, depending on umpteen contextual factors and subsequent behavior. The question is more: who may tell a total stranger to smile, that is, to arrange her countenance to be more pleasing to him? Many more men do this to women than vice versa, and that says a lot about a sense of male entitlement that is prevalent in our culture.

Sexism, you argue, is “the branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order, and misogyny [is] the system that polices and enforces its governing norms and expectations.” What makes a person a misogynist rather than a sexist? And why is it important to know the difference?

Sexists truly believe that women are “naturally” inferior to men in masculine-coded domains, such as math, tech, science, and philosophy, and less worthy of historically male-focused spotlights of collective attention in, for example, political leadership positions, comedy, some sports, and certain kinds of writing or commentary — often, the most prestigious. This ideology of supposedly natural sex differences undermines the presumption that stark gender imbalances in these domains and roles is evidence of biases operating to systematically keep or push women out of them.

In theory, a sexist might be open to learning they are wrong or, more subtly, that there’s currently little compelling science that can demonstrate “natural” sex differences of this kind — given the lack of a control group of people not exposed to patriarchal social forces. A misogynist is typically someone who inchoately wants to keep women out of masculine-coded domains and for women to continue to give men, and society in general, the bulk of feminine-coded forms of labor, such as social, emotional, moral, and reproductive services. And he — or she, in some cases �� tends to be prepared to threaten and punish non-compliant women.

A misogynist who is not really sexist deep down may be in denial — clinging to sexist ideology as a form of wishful thinking — or anxious and angry. But a “tell” is that he will be happy to have women serve in traditionally masculine-coded power positions if she is loyal and deferential to patriarchal authority figures. Donald Trump is hence a brazen and virulent misogynist but is not particularly sexist — or so I argue in my book. And he’s self-centered and narcissistic to the point that women most reliably inspire his aggression when they challenge or threaten him directly, rather than violating broader social mores.

Of course, in practice, sexism and misogyny have a high co-morbidity in individual agents. And, when it comes to maintaining a patriarchal social order, both tend to play crucial roles.

Women have been treated as the second sex, as Simone de Beauvoir wrote, for most of history. So, is misogyny getting worse, or are we just noticing it more now? 

I think of misogyny as something that can be latent. I suspect certain forms of it are liable to manifest when the patriarchal status quo is threatened. So, ironically, genuine feminist social progress tends to beget eruptions of misogyny in the form of backlash. It’s an intertwined vicious and virtuous cycle, since that backlash also tends to inspire more feminist consciousness-raising and activism in turn. It’s pretty clear we are seeing both in the United States at the moment.

To what extent do you think the rise of Trump is white male disappointment and revenge against feminism?

To a very large extent. It’s important to recognize that misogyny and its associated ills — something I’m tempted to call “sympathetic attention deficit disorder” — can lead to “punching down” behavior. Consider the intense and irrational meanness that prevails within conservative circles toward refugees, immigrants from what Trump has charmingly termed “shithole countries,” undocumented people, and marginalized Americans in need of basic health care and welfare benefits. There’s both a denial that the care is needed, and an extraordinary resentment toward those who are doing okay or positively prospering. To me, that’s plausibly a symptom of a kind of deprivation mindset with regard to the caregiving labor that has remained very much women’s work in the conservative imagination, in particular. Indeed, women in general continue to do a great deal more of this work than their male counterparts in the United States to this day. The sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild has shown that, though women have entered traditional male professions more and more, the “second shift” problem of unequal distribution of domestic drudgery has been disappointingly enduring. True, norms of fatherhood have been shifting in a salutary direction. But I see surprisingly few calls for men to give moral, material, and emotional support to women in het — or so-called straight — relationships, and more broadly.

Esther Perel, who I have also interviewed for LARB, suggests that one of the main problems of the 21st century is that we are facing a crisis of masculinity because, she proposes, “We have the permission to ask what it means to be a woman, but men have not been given nearly the same permission to think about personal growth.” Is this exacerbating the problem of misogyny?

I’m a fan of Perel’s, but that sounds a little “himpathetic” to me, to invoke a term I use for the disproportionate or excessive sympathy of which privileged men are often the beneficiaries. As Lilian Calles Barger put it to me recently in conversation, “there is always a crisis of masculinity” — primarily white masculinity, I am tempted to add. I will be more sympathetic when white men stop hurting, blaming, and lashing out at others due to their pain and shame. It’s not as if feeling pain and shame is unheard of for the rest of us.

You propose that white women tend to enable misogyny for reasons of self-preservation and “strong norms of loyalty.” This is not only morally damaging to themselves, but also disproportionally harms more vulnerable women, such as nonwhite and transgender women. This makes sense in light of the fact that more than half of the white women who voted in the general election voted for Trump. Can you talk about why so many white women act as gatekeepers of the patriarchy, and the effect that it has on more vulnerable groups?

Recent Pew statistics show that white women who are married will have a white male partner in a very high proportion of cases — around 90 percent, and even higher than that in non-metropolitan areas. Now observe that white men in these areas are disproportionately likely not only to be Trump voters, but to have relative legal, social, and moral impunity to enforce norms of loyalty within intimate relationships, by means of threatening, controlling, and sometimes violent behavior. That makes a considerable proportion of white women subject to a system of powerful incentives and punishments, risks and rewards, which can make it hard and costly to challenge or disagree with the white supremacist patriarchal status quo. Of course, that doesn’t excuse privileged white women’s complicity, but it does point out that white women are often both oppressed by white men and oppressors of more vulnerable women — those who are nonwhite, queer, trans, and/or disabled — among others.

Another factor is that if white men are resentfully hoarding and enforcing women’s feminine-coded care work, then their — again, on average — white female partners are liable to be exhausted, to have so-called “compassion fatigue.” It’s a bit of a euphemistic expression and, to reiterate, I don’t mean to be offering excuses, but rather explanations here. To that end: If, as a woman in this position, you’re not consciously questioning or challenging the social norms that mandate you to give enormous amounts of moral, social, and emotional labor to him, to your family, and to your local community, without asking for or receiving much reciprocal care in return, then perceived outsiders who ask for or are suspected of feeling entitled to such care will tend to be unwelcome. That makes it a case not of “punching down,” exactly, but similarly directing resentment outward, or inadvertently taking one’s frustrations out on less powerful people.

How did you come to write about misogyny?

“Misogyny” was a word that first came on my radar in October 2012 when Julia Gillard — then prime minister of my home country of Australia — used it in a speech before parliament. She called out Tony Abbott — then opposition party leader — for his sexist and misogynistic behavior. Although Gillard’s speech went viral, the original occasion for her anger was lost on many people: Abbott had demanded Gillard call for the resignation of one of her ministers, Peter Slipper, who had sent text messages likening women’s genitals to mussels (shucked, he helpfully specified) and calling a female colleague an “ignorant botch,” thanks to the Freudian intervention of auto-correct. But Gillard did not want Slipper to resign; to her mind, he was still a serviceable minister. And she was not sanguine about Abbott “lecturing” her about how to be a feminist. So what began as Gillard’s response to Abbott’s moralistic demands and mansplaining became a speech about sexism and misogyny.

When Gillard’s speech became news, I realized that “misogyny” wasn’t one of my words. Indeed, I couldn’t remember ever having used it myself, nor could I find a precise definition of it in analytic feminist philosophy. It’s also a word that would have been useful to me earlier on in life. I had been one of three girls to attend a hitherto all-boys’ school, the year that it integrated, for my final two years in high school. The experience was not pleasant, to put it mildly. It was a confusing, demoralizing mess of seemingly disparate behaviors and isolated incidents, in a general atmosphere of male hostility — as well as institutional indifference to that hostility.

As I thought about Gillard’s case and others, I came to suspect a pattern. Girls and women subject to misogyny can be, and often will be, put down in whatever ways are salient or ready to hand — via more or less brazen expressions of visceral disgust, moral disgust, contempt, and indignation — such as Abbott’s “hypocrisy” accusation toward Gillard — by disparaging our intellects, our strength, our competence, our moral characters, our accomplishments, our voices, our bodies, our whatevers, our wherevers. A woman may be subject to lewd sexualization on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and called an unf*ckable c*nt on the other days of the week. There will be various levels of post-hoc rationalization of the hostility, which need not be overtly gendered in quality.

The common theme is downranking and humiliating women who step out of line, or have ideas beyond their station. Misogyny is not usually about the way misogynists somehow “see” women; nor is it about disliking or hating any and every woman, or even women generally. Women may be liked just fine until they stray from the designated path, invade male spaces, or threaten to take masculine-coded perks and powers away from comparatively privileged men. Overall, on my account, misogyny is hostility certain women face because they are women in a man’s world — a historical patriarchy — not because they are represented as women in a misogynistic man’s mind.

So the title “Down Girl” refers to this down-ranking of women.

Yes, I wanted to get both at the indefinitely many ways girls and women can be degraded by these misogynistic “down girl” moves, and the fact that — sotto voce — it can be tempting to forestall being taken down by lying down, playing dead, or sort of groveling before one’s master — whether in an enthusiastic or hangdog manner. That is almost always unwitting and can encompass inculcated habits of body and mind that are painful and difficult for girls and women to break. But I still think it is worth it; having one’s will bent to that of dominant men being inimical to freedom.

Breaking the silence is a great first step to highlight the issues, and many people are speaking up, such as with the #MeToo movement, but how do we build on that?

I like the way you put the question, because I think the #MeToo movement has been highly valuable, and needs to be built on in a “Yes, and…” improv spirit. This is as opposed to the more or less contemptuous reactions — sometimes by self-described feminists — finding fault with the movement rather than identifying ways to expand it, or pointing out correctly, but hardly surprisingly, that it alone is far from everything we need to make feminist social progress. These forms of naysaying are predictable forms of backlash. I think we can make this and similar movements stronger and more expansive by paying attention to the women who originated them, in this case the Black feminist activist Tarana Burke. She intended the movement to center on less powerful and multiply marginalized women and, if I’m reading her right, to encompass forms of misogynistic domineering and belittling behavior that need not be explicitly sexual, but are similarly experienced as bodily domination and humiliation.

Since misogyny is not only about hating women, but smothering and intimidating them with the aim of controlling them and their narratives, how can we even begin to talk to people who think women should not challenge men’s dominance?

I’m not altogether sure we can. But I generally write not to persuade people of moral conclusions if they’re in fundamental disagreement with broadly feminist and egalitarian principles and values. I write for people with largely shared moral values, to try to change our collective moral priorities, to help us to recognize patterns, and — more than anything — to challenge some of the false moral conclusions we swallow with the Kool-Aid of patriarchal ideology.

What further steps can we take in our everyday lives, given that what’s required is a “moral and social overhaul,” which will come at a cost? Do you think we should assertively and constantly challenge the status quo, being “more radical, if acerbic,” as you say, or should we take a subtler approach of picking our battles and making incremental changes?

I think people have to fight these battles if, when, and how they can, and the best way to go about that depends enormously on social, personal, and material variables. I generally try to be self-critical and open to standing corrected for my own moral mistakes, but not too judgmental of others. We all screw up. We all have different styles, temperaments, skills, and sensitivities when it comes to mustering resistance. And it takes many kinds to dismantle a patriarchal village.

In your conclusion, you say, “So I give up. I wish I could offer a more hopeful message. Let me close just by offering a post-mortem” — because even trying to change this seems impossible or self-defeating. Can you talk about whether there is any hope of overcoming misogyny? What will it take?

I’ve realized with the wisdom of hindsight that that was overly coy writing on my part. The phrase “give up” was meant to be the operative one — a sort of liberating declaration that I’d done all I could for the moment, and was obliged (if unwilling, for many months) to step aside and let others decide what to make of my words and ideas, if anything. If I had it to do over, I might write something more like this instead: “So I give up for now — with the emphasis on the ‘I’ and the ‘now.’ I hope and trust that others will have more to offer by way of solutions moving forward. But liberation for, and as, women means not only breaking our silence when we have something to say that may cost a privileged man or boy in terms of pain, shame, or reputation. It also means an entitlement to say one’s piece and then, despite all that remains to be said, go quiet again; to finish.”

¤

Skye C. Cleary PhD is a philosopher and author of Existentialism and Romantic Love.

The post It Takes Many Kinds to Dismantle a Patriarchal Village appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2I1r25u

[thedungeonra]

My thoughts on THE LAST JEDI

It’s Christmas Eve-eve and I’m working 2nd shift.   It’s finally calmed down a bit so this seems a good time to talk about my difficult relationship with STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.

I overall dislike the film, both as the 8th episode of the Star Wars Saga/9th film overall in the entire franchise and as a film on its own merit. But there was a lot I liked about the film.  A lot I LOVED about the film.  Which perhaps makes it more frustrating.  Were TLJ as categorically bad as say, HIGHLANDER 2: The one where they’re from the Planet Zeist, I would actually have a much easier time disliking it.

But first, what exactly is my history with Star Wars?

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was the first film I ever saw in a theater.   My older brother took me.  I was all of 4.   I saw STAR WARS on TV later on and it was not until RETURN OF THE JEDI that I connected the dots that it was the same film.  You gotta remember that for my generation, what you call, “Episode IV: A NEW HOPE,” was just STAR WARS to us.   I loved ESB.  And collected what little merchandise was available in early 80s rural Indiana.

I’ve seen EMPIRE STRIKES BACK more than any other film.   I have a son, college-age right now, who grew up with the prequels.    We had our various lightsaber battles, and played the video games together and bought the toys.  It was great!

I don’t hate the prequels in the en vogue way that GenXers seem to hate them.  Jar Jar doesn’t bother me all that much.  Nor does Jake Lloyd’s Anakin.  I still fire up the DVD from time to time for the Podrace and Darth Maul duels.  And Qui-Gon is one of my favorite SW characters.  

I really enjoyed ATTACK OF THE CLONES because it feels like Ewan really had fun playing Obi-Wan.  And SITH… well… it’s not great.    I think the last two minutes of ROGUE ONE makes up a lot for the last two minutes of SITH.  It’s the Darth Vader we’ve wanted to see for decades.

And I loved FORCE AWAKENS. I really dig all four new leads. I was bummed that Luke had nothing to do and I felt Han got a really bittersweet ending (as did Harrison Ford finally get the exit he wanted from the franchise).  I thought the structural similarities between IV and VII were a feature, not a bug.   And I’ve been all for VIII since.

 Until.  The trailers for VIII began.  Something felt… not quite right.  And yeah, feel free to insert your, “I feel a great disturbance in the Force) joke here.  I couldn’t get excited for anything I was seeing in the trailers.  

Even seeing Luke in the cockpit of the Falcon felt like the grapes of Han’s, “Chewie, we’re home” to prunes in my mouth.   I assumed Luke would die in this film.  And after we lost Carrie Fisher much too soon, it was hard accepting that IX would be without Luke, Han and Leia.  I waited for the crowds to thin a bit and saw TLJ on Tuesday after opening weekend. 70mm IMAX at the Indiana State Museum, if knowing that of trivia is fun for you.

Now, then.  I’m not a film critic and this is not a film review. I’m just a middle aged Star Wars lover and film nerd.  

 But before we get into what I disliked about it, let’s start off on a positive note!  Firstly, I do understand and respect that Rian Johnson had essentially 4 basic audiences for this film, none of whom view Star Wars the same way.  Baby Boomers what saw STAR WARS in college; we GenXers what grew up with the movies; Millennials who grew up with the Preqs; and kids today whose first Star Wars theater experience was THE FORCE AWAKENS.  That’s a heavy burden and if anything, I feel like they failed in trying to appease to these 4 quadrants of the fandom.

I loved the opening battle sequence.  It’s maybe the best star war in Star Wars.  It looks and sounds great.  There is great conflict and drama.  It has this amazing gut punch with the last bomber.  Just superb.

I still really just love the four new leads.  Those are all rich characters.

I’ve seen a lot of people grousing about Rose and specifically, the entire casino sub-plot.  Rose was great!  In a movie where people are all over the place on the emotional spectrum, Rose felt like really the only person whose emotional responses actually made sense in their given contexts.  And she delivers the theme of the film at the end, which I did enjoy.  

And the space casino heist? Are you kidding me?  James Bond in space.  Loved it.  I felt the animal cruelty and slavery beats a bit too on the nose, but that’s just a taste thing.  I think my very first reaction on the twitters was something to the effect of, “a great space casino heist film wrapped in a shitty Star Wars story.” Beneicio Del Toro was certainly memorable.  I thought they were teasing a new Han Solo-ish scoundrel but instead, he’s this great foil to Finn.  I DJ shows back up again either in IX or in Rian Johnson’s spinoff films.    

My only real quibble with the casino scene was that Justin Theroux’s high stakes gambler/slicers should have been Lando, right?  You can’t put Billy Dee Williams at a Sabacc table for 30 seconds?  Also seeing how the owner of the ship DJ stole sells to the Resistance and the 1st Order, having him still Lando’s ship would have been a nice touch.   In the absence of the Rebellion and Han, Lando is not the best version of his self. Anyway, I’m not here to write a different movie.

I also really liked Laura Dern’s Admiral Holdo and I enjoyed how she shut down Poe’s mansplaining.   I don’t understand some of the choices made with Holdo, but  more on that in a bit.   Holdo crashing the Mon Cal cruiser into the 1st Order fleet while at lightspeed was insanely cool.  That’s the stuff we only ever imagined in the old Star Wars RPG; never thought I’d see something like that on screen.

Didn’t mind the Yoda cameo. Don’t understand people who say, “bro, that should have been Obi-Wan, bro.”  I don’t agree, but whatever.  Yoda seemed perfect to me.  

I don’t think it’s the best lightsaber fight in Star Wars, but seeing Kylo Ren and Rey fight together was really cool.  Was great to see the combat training the actors have done get a few minutes to shine.

BB-8.  Big fan.  I don’t understand why BB-8 didn’t get a moment to take out BB-9e while in that 1st Order Chicken Walker.  Would have been a quick scene and very satisfying.  Oh well.

The big ground assault on the rebel base at the end was great. That’s the ground battle I expected from the trailer of ROGUE ONE that didn’t seem to be in the movie.  I wonder if there’s a connection?

All of the performances were superb.  Carrie Fisher especially.  

The film was a series of several, often disconnected moments, that I thought were really good.

Now the bad stuff.  I find it insanely annoying and not a little condescending to allege that people who do not like THE LAST JEDI are obsessive fanboys who cannot let go of the past.   Or that we don’t understand the goals and themes of the film.  I get it.  Conceptually, I’m on board.  I’m VERY ready for the formula of STAR WARS to be reinvented.   I don’t need to see rehashes of Sith vs Jedi, Empire vs Rebellion, Skywalker vs Skywalker.  It’s tired. I know.   Dudes wanna fly off half-cocked into conflict when they should listen to the counsel of wiser women.  I KNOW.

Just… be good at doing those things.

So here’s what I hated:

The film doesn’t actually move the story forward.  The movie ends with the same status quo as the beginning:  

the 1st Order has the New Republic Resistance on the ropes and is assaulting their base.

Rey doesn’t have a teacher.

The 1st Order is exactly as effective with Snoke cut into pieces as it was when he was alive.

The Resistance is exactly as effective when a demoted Commander leads a mutiny against a Vice Admiral as it was with General Leia in charge.  

This film sets on fires many dangling plot points set-up by JJ in VII only to return the story to the same position.

And so on.  You get it.  It’s the illusion of change.  

I hated every scene with Luke Skywalker.    Man, just one huge bummer after another.   And again, conceptually, I can by that he’s at least a Grey Jedi now and believes both the Sith and Jedi are wrong in the possessive perspectives on the Force.  I can buy that he went off to Ach-To to cut himself off from the Force and die.  I can buy that he, in a moment of weakness, could not figure out how to save Ben Solo from the Dark Side and was tempted himself to take the quick and easy path.  He did, after all, cut Darth Vader’s hand off in the Death Star II Throne room.

But all of those things were executed in a clumsy way that seemed to have little regard for the character. It was a gigantic bummer.  Would have also been nice if someone had bothered to tell Luke that his best friend died at the hands of his own son.  Maybe that’s what Chewie told him?  Or Artoo?  But I dunno.  It’s not clear and they gave Mark Hamill nothing to work with in those moments.  

I absolutely hated his hero moment at the end.  Why set up Old Logan Luke who doesn’t want to face down the entire 1st Order with a laser sword in the 1st Act if he does it but not really in the 3rd Act?  There’s a wishy-washy desire to have things both ways in this film that drives me nuts.

Also, Luke on Denouement Planet was the clunkiest “misdirect” of the entire film.  I’ve only seen the film once and at my first viewing, it was obvious to me that this was not actually Luke.  

A) We’ve just seen three different flashbacks of Jedi Master Luke from his New Jedi Academy days after RotJ. And Denouement Luke looks exactly like Jedi Master Luke and not the Wild Man of Borneo from the first two Acts.

B)  the movie makes a big deal of showing us that the slightest disturbance to the surface crust of that salt pan will reveal the red dust underneath (which was a rad visual element).   And when Kylo Ren sets his foot in Sith Action Pose, we see the red underneath.  Whereas Luke is clearly NOT disrupting anything.  

C) How dumb is Kylo Ren that even though he just destroyed Anakin Skywalker’s blue lightsaber 10 minutes before landing, Luke is somehow wielding it?  I think there’s an argument to be made that Luke intentionally chooses a younger visage of himself (of the last time Ben Solo saw him) and is also using his own legacy against him (Anakin’s lightsaber) to put him off balance. But the film does not convey this.

All combined, these three elements rob all the underlying drama tension from that conflict because it’s obvious he isn’t there.

The dialogue was troublesome for me.  I legit sat there, stunned, at the end looking for a Diablo Cody writing credit. Remember how I loved the opening battle? Everything but that bit with Poe and Hux.  It was funny the first time.  The, “Holding for Hux” part after Hux did his nefarious monologue.  But they kept hitting that same beat.  Over and over.  I would have not batted an eye had Poe called Hux, “homeslice” in that moment. Thus, Diablo Cody.  

Also, Snoke’s “spunk.” line. Lolwut?  Though I had a chuckle and thought to myself, “… and wriggling” after Andy Serkis said, “raw.”

Why do they keep wasting Gwendoline Christie as Phasma?  Have they not seen GAME OF THRONES?  Are they unaware of the jewel in their crown?

The editing.  This film needs a good once-over to trim about 20 minutes out.  Do we need to see Luke milking a Watto-Cow or spearfishing?  Did we need to see Luke’s X-Wing parked underwater when it’s just an unnecessary head-fake?  As much as I did enjoy the casino bit, it felt over-stuffed.  

The wishy-washiness. Oh man.  This is the ultimate dealbreaker for me.  Look, I don’t mind Rey is the daughter of a couple Trump voters from Jakku with no connection to the Skywalkers.  The scene where Kylo Ren tells her, “You don’t even belong here. No one cares about you but me.” is fantastic.  I loved it. I love their relationship and I hope to all the cinema gods they stick to their guns and don’t reveal that Ben and Rey are just Jacen and Jaina Solo lite.  

Don’t waste our precious film time in VII making a huge mystery deal out of who Rey is and who her parents are in VII just to reveal in VIII that she’s nobody from nowhere one-hundredth of her name.  And don’t especially get pissy at me because I’m frustrated that you wasted my time on a non-mysterious mystery.  That’s false drama, breh.  And a really hacky way to “deconstruct” a story.

If you’re going to really deconstruct what we know about this story and these characters, then do it.  “Flip you. Flip you, for real.”  Don’t try to have your space cake and eat it too.    

Luke is done with this mess and isn’t going to show up and play the hero.  Until he does.  But not really.  

Kylo Ren has good in him, but not really.

Rey has darkness in her, but not really.

Now, this is not the same thing as a character arc.  I don’t lump this in with Poe being a brash self-centered pilot at the beginning but a real leader by the end.  I’m for that.  

I’m talking about if LAST JEDI were broken into numerical values, for every 1 there is a -1 and the story of the movie feels like a sum of 0.

Now, there are a lot of nitpicky things I’ve shared with the people in my life (most of whom are glad I’ve turned my focus to the internet).  Like, “what’s the deal with Snoke?  Who is he and what does he want?”  That’s just subjective, “season-to-taste” stuff that grates on me but I don’t feel objectively bad.   “Who is Snoke and what does he want?” was not a focal point of the previous film.  

Samey-same with Holdo not sharing her plan.  Finn’s plan actually not accomplishing anything.  If they knew they were being tracked and had two jumps left and a 6 minute window, why not prepare the transports, jump the old rebel base, unload the transport and jump again in 5 minutes?  That kind of thing.  You know, things people call, “plot holes” on the internet that are not actually plot holes.

Leia Force Flying through space after the bridge exploded.  Just looked dumb.  If there was any excuse for Leia to bust out a lightsaber, this was the moment.  That would have been choice.    Tangential to this: the unceremonious death of Admiral Ackbar.

But those are digressions.

I would probably like this story much more if it were the last half of FORCE AWAKENS rather than a movie all unto itself.

That said, I think this petition to remove TLJ from the canon of SW films is idiotic.  This film is going to make a billion dollars by New Years and Disney appears to be giving Rian Johnson his own spinoff franchise. So yeah, this movie isn’t going anywhere.  

I also think its real low class to jump on twitter and be a raging dickmunch to Rian Johnson.  I’ll never understand why people punish creators for being easily accessible.   Or to people who loved the movie.  I’m not here to convince you that you shouldn’t love THE LAST JEDI or tell you you’re a dumb-dumb if you did.  I simply find it difficult to like for Star Wars movie reasons and movie-movie reasons.

I actually look forward to Johnson’s spinoff film because he seems much more comfortable with new characters.  I think he’s a person like Zahn who will add a lot of new hated and loved characters. But unlike Zahn, I don’t think he has a steady hand with legacy characters.

So that’s it.  6 pages on a Word document later (assuming you stuck around).  Feel free to hit me back on the twitterbox to tell me how both right and wrong I am!

May the Force be something or other.  But probably not.