#this episode committed two war crimes against my girl

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

willow!!! had!!! my!!! hair!!! it was super thick and floofy!!! she looked like she broke 8 hairties a day!!! she looked like every time she forgot to vacuum her room the floor would get covered in hair clumps!!! she looked like if she turned her head too fast she would wack whoever's standing next to her with her braid!!! and now??? now she looks like goh from pokemon adventures,,,,,,,,,,,

[gemsofgreece]

Hello, may I request some comedy/light drama etc. recs from the golden age of Greek TV?

Okay, then *cracks knuckles*

(For anyone who didn’t read the first answered ask, the “golden age” of Greek TV is 1990 - 2010)

I don’t know if you are the Anon who had asked the 2010 onward shows because they didn’t mind the subtitles. If you definitely need subtitles, I am afraid there are only two shows you can watch right now:

Είσαι το Ταίρι Μου (You’re My Soulmate)

Romantic comedy / light drama (2001 - 2002). Vicky and Stella are two very different friends who are Greek immigrants in Australia. Vicky is stunning and men go crazy for her but she has many insecurities. Stella is not conventionally attractive but she allows nothing to bring her down. They both fall for the same handsome rich Greek, Nikos. It’s no brainer who wins - Nikos is a womanizer and falls immediately for Vicky. The interesting part is what happens next - when Vicky’s insecurities make her come up with a crazy plan / prank that will unleash hell over these three, Nikos’ entire family and a couple of friends living in Athens and change their lives forever...and everyone will then get what they deserve... or what they are brave enough to claim. Overall just a hilarious and clever comedy, with great acting and memorable characters you end up loving and an ending that isn’t a cliche. Here’s the link to watch with english subtitles.

Στο Παρά Πέντε (In the Nick of Time)

Mystery / Crime Comedy / Light drama (2005 - 2007) One of the two most famous Greek comedies. Five totally different people happen to be witnesses to the murder of a politician. Before he dies, the politician asks them to find who did it and take revenge for this and other crimes they have committed.  These five unassuming people become friends and start solving the mystery together like hilariously amateur detectives. In time, they will find out that there’s something more that unites them besides their friendship...and maybe not everything happens accidentally. Here’s the link to watch with english subtitles. This one is being subtitled right now.

So bad news: only two shows with English subtitles. Good news: They are the best of the best, so no problem.

But if subtitles are not necessary, let’s proceed with the rest I love in no particular order:

10 Λεπτά Κήρυγμα (10 Minutes of Scolding)

Comedy (2000 - 2003). The life of Leonidas Alivizatos, an untamed only child with divorced parents. The story is basically the endless ways Leonidas find to escape the limitations his parents put to him and the shenanigans he does with his best friend Telis and his girlfriend Marilena that drive his family crazy. Fun fact: My generation, we all had at some point a crush on Leonidas...right?

Singles

Romantic Dramedy (2004 - 2008). The show has four seasons although it’s the first one that mostly had a lasting impression on me. The story revolves around the social, professional and romantic lives of six young single people: Maro, a sensitive hopeless romantic, Rania, an angry cynic who hates relationships, Lila, a sex crazed cheerful woman, Orestes, an average I’d say young man who has his eyes on Maro though, Arthuros, Orestes’ best friend and a socially awkward man with a dark family past and  Loukas, a divorced father who seems to be quite the catch. There’s something special about the first season, it had an atmosphere, a style that I loved. The music was great too. I still remember the episode with the Reaper nightmares and that green light. In the following seasons, half of the cast changed.  Y’all Greeks here do you remember the title song? I love it.

Δεληγιάννειο Παρθεναγωγείο (Deligiannis School for Girls)

Comedy, Drama (2007 - 2008). Summer 1939. The events of the series evolve at the last period of the Greek Regime, the Greco-Italian War and the Nazi Invasion of Greece. Mimis Metaxas in the headmaster of the School and trapped in a miserable marriage. His father-in-law invites Agape, his niece, to teach at the school. Mimis falls desperately in love with Agape but of course he keeps it a secret. Agape is a free-spirited woman and it is soon clear that she is a Communist (or at least leaning toward left ideals) and Mimis tries to balance his job as the Headmaster of the school, his sad marriage, his love and the historical events happening in the country with his need to keep Agape protected at all costs and under full secrecy.

Κωνσταντίνου και Ελένης (Constantine and Helen’s)

Comedy (1998 - 2000). Okay, this is officially the best Greek comedy to date. After it ended in 2000, it has been on TV repeatedly and continuously to this day. For twenty years non-stop. It still  has bigger viewership than new current shows. An old aristocratic childless man writes two wills right before his death in which he gives his big residence. The one will is for Constantine, his aloof and conservative nephew who is a professor of Byzantine History in the University. The other will is for Helen, the only daughter of his beloved poor gardener who is a potty mouthed waitress. Constantine and Helen arrive at the house the same day and they are both determined to inherit the house and they can’t wait until the court date. The story revolves around everything they do to get rid of each other and their friends who are just as crazy as they are. There’s an interesting story about this show: they had done some tests and pilots and they were convinced that nobody was going to watch their show so the show became low budget and the actors were free to go batshit crazy. This ended up creating this hilarious masterpiece that is being rewatched by million Greeks to this day.

Οι Μεν και οι Δε (Them and the others)

Comedy (1993 - 1996). Dionysis Dagas, a famous lawyer who defends criminals lives with his wife Vana, an aristocratic lazy woman, in their apartment in Kolonaki. In the apartment right next to them Timos and Nana Stamatis come to live, unemployed and a jewelry artist respectively. Timos and Nana attempt numerous times to take money from frugal Dionysis and in general a big war starts between them as snobby Dagas are the exact opposite of the hippy Stamatis.

Σαββατογεννημένες (Born on Saturday)

Comedy (2003 - 2004). A sexist and all around horrible man named Savvas wins 7 million Euros at the lottery and as he learns it he has a car crash and loses his memory. His three ex-wives, the Greek language teacher Keti, the actress Bia and the tourist shop owner Soula, all very different and hating the guts of each other and Savvas, team up to find the lottery ticket before Savvas' memory recovers. But in order to achieve that, they have to act a lot and they have to take care of incapacitated Savvas themselves.

Το Καφέ της Χαράς (Chara's cafe)

Romantic comedy (2003 - 2006 and 2019 - now). Chara Chaska, an Athenian unmarried mother decides to start anew and takes her daughter with her to go live somewhere close to nature. They go to a village in Mountainous Arcadia, named Kolokotronitsi. What Chara doesn't know is that the village is extremely traditional and backwards and governed by the conservative and misogynist mayor Periandros Popotas. Popotas and the villagers will start a big war against the newcomer, especially when they find out she wants to open a modern lounge cafe and is not married. Chara has only few supporters there but soon she will also have the interest of her biggest enemy. The show has been revived since last year, as the continuation of what happens many years later but I haven't been watching.

Dolce Vita

Romantic comedy (1995 - 1997). Christina Markatou is the mature rich widow of a tomato factory owner and now she runs it on her own. Christina visits her daughter Dorita in Italy where she studies and upon her return to Greece she unexpectedly has a one night stand with young Antonis Kaloudis. What they both don't know is that Antonis is Dorita's fiance and travels to Greece to meet her family. After the initial shock, Antonis realises he prefers the mother but Christina tries to resist. The love though is too strong. Christina begins seeing Antonis, full of regrets and self-loathing, and tries to hide the affair from her daughter, the nosy housemaid Aspasia and the absolute terror that her mother-in-law is, Olga Markatou. Is there any chance for happiness?

Εγκλήματα (Crimes)

Black comedy (1998 - 2000). Alekos and Flora have always been in love but never got together and got married to evil Soso and kindly Achilles respectively instead. Alekos finds Flora and they start an affair. Soso finds out about the affair quickly and tries repeatedly to kill Alekos. All the crazy things that happen start from all of Soso's murderous attempts and affect the lives of the aforementioned as well as their close relatives who are as crazy as the main characters. Will Soso achieve her biggest ambition to become utterly evil and kill Alekos and whomever else stands in her way?

Σ' αγαπώ, μ' αγαπάς (I love you, you love me)

Domestic comedy (2000 - 2002). The hilariously realistic life of a couple, Dimitra and Thodoris (the actors play with their real names). The actors had such great chemistry that they were chosen as the voice actors for Greek Marlin and Dory in Finding Nemo (also with great success).

So, these are my favourites but there are many others I like or that are very popular but not my cup of tea. Any other Greek is welcome to recommend their own faves.

[thevictorianghost]

I don't understand how zuko is consdered the dark and broody badboy type. When he acts like that, it's usually the affect of abuse he suffered as a kid (which is not an a excuse, but is a reason for why he gets angry and depressed) when he's being himself he's awkward, adorable, dramatic nerd with good ninja skills. I mean this is the boy who can't lie to save his life. Who gets embarrassed when his uncle asks about his date.

If you where to ask me, I see katara as more as the badgirl type( at least in a seeking justice type of way) she blew up a factory, she freed prisoners and led a revolution, she's down with trouble when it comes to helping people and when nobody else is getting in trouble( which explains why she mother hens everyone else. Nobody else is allowed to leave her. Only she can cause trouble) katara is like a mixture of that plus mom friend.

Also don't understand how together zutara is the dark and broody ship. They're definitely passionate, but they're also the biggest bunch of adorable dorks in the world. Badasses, but still adorable dorks.

Thank you for the asks @darkcrowprincess !

I agree 100%.

The people who say Zutara is a good girl x bad boy ship... actively regress Zuko’s and Katara’s respective arcs and just... their characters in general. It’s a very “one size fits all” way of thinking about these two characters. And I think that’s just sad. 

As you said, Zuko is not a bad boy. 

Okay, his character development was a bit shaky in the first half of season 3. (Like everyone else’s, honestly, even though I think that’s thanks to meddling by Bry/ke to make the movie happen, and I say that knowing I adore The Painted Lady, The Puppetmaster and Sokka’s Master. I’ll admit I really hate The Headband, The Beach and Nightmares and Daydreams and prefer to skip those episodes.) Anyway. 

Zuko grows out of that “emo phase” (though it’s not really an emo phase, as you said, it’s a reaction to his trauma and insecurities) by confronting Ozai during the eclipse, following his story arc established since season 1, and ONLY THEN does he join Team Avatar. Katara may have given him that push in the right direction in Ba Sing Se, but she had nothing to do with his character development after that. 

Funny how, when people say “Zuko had the best redemption arc in cinematic history!” they seem to change their minds as soon as Zutara is mentioned?

Zuko grew up on his own. 

Katara didn’t change him.

Speaking of Katara, as you said, she’s not just a good girl. She’s more than that. She’s tridimensional. To think of her only as the good girl is to put her on the same pedestal A/ang does (I’m sorry if I seem really anti-A/ang lately, I don’t hate him, I just dislike him and his lack of character growth in season 3). She’s always been a leader and a fighter for justice, especially in Imprisoned, in The Desert (where she takes the lead of the Gaang to keep them alive), and in The Painted Lady. She’s not the “I’m just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life” empty shell that a lot of YA main female characters are.

Plus, there’s the fact she can actually bloodbend and she uses bloodbending against a war criminal (which was justified, in my opinion) in The Southern Raiders. Though I would have preferred a more nuanced way of looking at bloodbending, especially since waterbenders are proud healers, but I still love The Puppetmaster episode. 

Katara is driven, she’s the mom friend who fails at being funny (whereas Zuko is the more strict dad friend type, yes I do love Momtara and Dadko), she takes charge, she fights for what’s right but she’s also willing to cut a bitch if she has to. She’s good and bad at the same time. 

Katara is multifaceted.

To think of Zutara as good girl x bad boy ship makes it seem like a Twilight knockoff. Or, worse, it makes people think it’s like Rey/lo.

(I don’t know if you like Twilight or if you ship Rey/lo. If so, I’m sorry. I’ll be bashing that ship from now on. Just a bit.)

In The Last Jedi, Rey was stripped of everything that made her interesting so that she could become this “good girl” who decides to redeem Mr. “I-killed-my-father-without-hesitation-I-love-to-commit-war-crimes-and-I-am-part-of-a-Neo-Nazi-allegory-organization” Ky/lo Ren. 

And even after KR actively rejects her offer and Rey rejects him, and even after he NEVER EARNED his “““redemption arc””” and became this broody bad boy who has no line of dialogue before he dies, they still had Rey kiss her abuser in The Rise of Skywalker.

I’ll say it once, I’ll probably say it again. 

Zuko and Katara are not Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. 

And Zutara is not Rey/lo. 

The good girl x bad boy idea is superficial and shows a lack of understanding when it comes to Zuko and Katara as characters.

[bisexualoftheblade-old]

how many wips do you have? like what are they all, and not the number of wips in a fandom? what are all the names?

okay. fuck you. fuck you so much. fuck you.

i’m putting this under a read more cut no one else deserves to see this shit. a lot of these are requests, and for those i will just write out the request itself

Shadowhunters:

domestic polycule fluff with tem, jessa, and will because im not a coward

Supernatural

- hehe hoho i request destiel hehehe

- request 61/? cai cai cai cai i need you to rewrite the destiel scene but yk. GOOD. not like i'm in the know about the spn fandom or anything, it's been years for me. but DO IT

Bright Sessions

- caleb/adam grisha AU

- mark bryant vs. united states aka sue the AM

- caleb/adam college fluff

Umbrella Acaademy

- request 31/? i want a ben and klaus drabble please spare me some brotherly bickering

- AND SO BEGINS NIGHT 4 with request 13/? oooh oooh can i get a raymond and allison playlist??? i think their vibes together would SLAP

- hi there night 2 is technically morning 3 but who's counting not me anyway request 5/? can i get a ben moodboard? gotta rep my tua bb

Percy Jackson

- request 9/? can i get a percabeth moodboard or quote edit?? like god they're the og couple goals take me back to high school cai

- For the 100 follower things :D Jercy getting caught in the rain

- request 29/? a drabble about literally anything to do with pjo. i’ll be happy with anyone and anything i’m love these children

- *somersaults in like I’m a real fancy acrobat* hello ello ello may I request some camp half blood chaos possible involving *does a flip* ✨side characters✨ <3

Penumbra Podcast 

- request 52/? drabble about the penumbra podcast. this is for ren bc ren likes it and i don't actually know anything about it. juno? i think? that's the one ren likes. write it for ren

- Tpp ghost hunting / buzzfeed unsolved au

- sad juno smut

- final resting place fic go brrrr

Marvel

- request 6/? i'm going to my roots y'all can i get a spider-man playlist? if not a playlist then i'd honestly be happy with literally anything involving spider-man

- request 15/? i'm going crazy this is recorded evidence of me actually losing it ANYWAY can i get a quote edit for something from iron man? literally anything that man says is gold so cai's choice :D he deserved better in endgame i'm still bitter

- request 42/? do another spidey thing that differs from the other spidey thing

- request 73/? you have Opinions. rant about infinity way and/or endgame. go.

- request 74/? quote edit for deadpool!!

- spideytorch relationship character study

- peter parker as a tired grad student monitoring the young avengers (send help)

Six of Crows

- okay listen i wasn't going to request anything bc i worry about you but also? if you want to/have the time hit me with a playlist for our girl nina zenik

- request 43/? fuckin give me the ending anya should have had. she is alive and with her new son and having a great time

- request 45/? inej moodboard?

- request 47/? will you make literally any meme of your choosing for six of crows?

- request 48/? write a drabble for kaz, my favorite bastard

- okay so i don't actually like nina or mattias that much but i still wanna hear about your thoughts (and also see if you'll change my mind)

- kaz brekker turning 18 fic. birthday party, everyone singing, whole shebang. i need it stat

- religious trauma fic aka i started shipping kaz/alina/inej and i can’t stop

- kaz trauma soup (he has D.I.D. and you can’t prove me wrong)

- my two redacted fics for @grishaversebigbang​

- wesper fake dating

- six of crows bright sessions crossover: everyone gets therapy

TMA

- uhh... s1 gang having a nice time? melanie getting to have some Pride™️? some "fun" horror thing?

- request 7/? spare steph and jason bonding? please sir? spare some for a humble child such as myself?

- okay so this was meant for night 3 but i had midterm shit SO this is honorary night 3 let's DO THIS request 8/? i want a moodboard of extremely out of context magnus archives shit like i mean confuse the FUCK out of me i don't go here i know Nothing about it

- request 11/? OKAY so i need tim stoker meeting tim drake now i need my timmy to meet your tim plus i want to see character differences no i'm not trying to create a tim stoker in my head so i can read a's fic while NOT thinking of tim drake whaaaaaat you're crazy

- request 18(i think)/? i need a quote edit of every time within the first like. 15 eps of tam where jon is like “sounds fake but go off” thank u bb

- request 40/? i challenge you to write a tma drabble based only on the episodes i've heard. i'm currently halfway through episode 23

- Jon being lovingly bullied into taking a break. I'm aware this has been written a million times but it is one of my favorite things.

- spiral!sasha AU

- extinction martin go brrrrr

- high school era timsasha. they've both been friends for years, and everyone always asks when they will be a couple. they decide to fake date, to prove everyone wrong and show what a bad couple they would be. turns out that's a bit trickier than they thought

- after sasha comes back, tim is broken. he can't let go, scared that if he looks away for even a minute he'll lose her again. sasha suggests shibari as a way for him to give up control

- sasha pov mag 19 au, sacrificing herself to save the others, knows that if she gives herself up to the not!them it will let the others live

- this is the "tim finds a polaroid of sasha" trope

- early archives days,, long nights in research,,, clothes sharing,, somft. late nights and falling asleep at their desks warm and safe in the other's presence

- two parts: timsasha as kids, each picking a constellation that is "theirs". just soft kid antics. tim at sasha's grave glancing up to see their constellations

- continuing your job’s a joke (you’re broke)

DC Comics

- TIMSTEPH HADESTOWN AU,,,

- my redacted fic for @batfam-big-bang​

- request for you to get a decent amount of sleep? serious answer, dickkori, SAL's Venus

- request 4/? timsteph morning after 👀 mayhaps?

- a concept: nonbinary stephanie brown

- teehee hi mom, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but can i request damian angst for your accomplishments 100 followers?

- hi you can ignore my first request if you want, or you can ignore this one. but bls possibly write some bikini ra’s? -the bikini bitch

- request 27/? jay is asking through me for a jondami playlist but tbh i also want it so win win yk?

- "I don't know how to help you but I can help you find someone who does" with bruce and jason? im just craving bruce being a good day to jason for once

- “I am putting you in time out because you need to understand the consequences of your actions.” with steph and jason as dumbass disaster bi best friends pretty please?

- request 32/? timsteph patrol date!!!

- request 33/? timsteph *gala* date? mayhaps??

- request 37/? tim drake drabble but make it Edgy cai

- request 39/? drabble of a prank war between tim and damian

- joyfire cuddly fluff please? or like just any outlaw fluff if joyfire isnt your thing (feel free to add every member of the outlaws, dont feel like u gotta stick with jason, kori, roy i love them all)

- barbara and robin! jason fluff? bonding over books or something?

- request 62/? i need a drabble about the chaotic trio jason, tim, and steph i'm love them ty

- request 63/? batfam x mcu crossover. batfam meets ironfam. give me ALL the cliches. ALL OF THEM

- request 64/? young justice x young avengers - jay cuz idk SHIT about the young avengers

- request 66/? jondami moodboard pls and ty

- request 67/? timsteph moodboard!!!!!!

- request 69/? HEHEHE kinky 😏 i would v much like a timsteph drabble of the almost first time. does that make sense? like i don't want you to go all the way NSFW cuz i know that's against the rules and i'm a rule follower. but like they *almost* go all the way. this could be fade to black or some shit i don't care just make it a lil steamy and have Fun

- i request damian angst! all of it

- hmm... maybe i request? jondami?

- mayhaps,,,,some batfam,,,,,committing crimes? ily be gay do crime <3 - lu

- How about a ficlet with Steph and Cass?

Found Family Bingo Prompts

- no powers au

- tunnel

- first day

- join the club

- hurt/comfort

- experiment

- playing favorites

- hold on

- possession

- 10 o’clock

- singing

- road

- snitch

- curfew

- timer

- fantasy au

- zombie au

- dreams

- campfire

- are you okay

- movie night

- games

- scared

Miscellaneous

- a request: Write A Drabble, Coward

- is it too late to request a moodboard for me?

- request 20/? i’m going off book because i’m in a Chaotic Mood™️ can you just absolutely vibe check me like go off cai demolish me

- request 21/? i formally request that you pick a favorite cai. i don’t care what that favorite pertains to, just pick a favorite something

- request 23/? roast me

- request 24/? can i have a buzzfeed unsolved spoopy playlist but spoiler alert it’s not spoopy bc shane doesn’t believe does this make sense it has been a Day™️

- request 25/50 i want a jake and amy fic make it Soft cai i’m love them b99 is so good

- request 28/? i know nothing about the lord of the rings so make something that will confuse the shit out of me

- request 34/? malvie and jaylos moodboards 😈

- request 35/? a moodboard for the bbb mods!! perceive all of us!!!

- request 36/? moodboard for the tua mods too???? mayhaps??

- request 41/? doctor WHO? idk but i want a drabble of him and the one character i know from doctor who which is rose

- request 46/? make an alignment meme with our group, have fun!!!

- request 49/? i want you to kin assign me a character from every fandom you can/want to. go feral

- request 50!!!!/? this is a special request. the most special request. can you make a bastards tbh playlist? i want our vibes encapsulated. i want us in music form. i want to hear those songs and be like "that's me and cai" and smile.

- requests 51/? i know jack shit about good omens. explain it to me in the most confusing way possible. make me know less by the end than i know now

- request 53/? can you write a mel aesthetic? i'm Curious

- request 54/? give me a list of book recs cai i want some good book recs pls

- request 56/? edit a picture of US together too

- request 58/? oooh can i have a disney edit? like. hm. i just really love disney and i want anything to do with disney. like a quote or an aesthetic or an aesthetic edit i just want disney.

- request 59/? i would v much like a recipe for carbonara. i've never had it but it sounds fucking delicious

- request 60/? ooh hey can i get a makeup tutorial? i know you like makeup, i'm shit at doing makeup. teach me

- request 65/? i need the most emo playlist you can make that vibes with dear evan hansen thank you

- request 68/? i want a superwholock moodboard. this can be serious, with the actual fandoms in mind, or literally what the era felt like. the insanity. the horror.

- request 70/? ooh ooh ooh do you have a good bread recipe?? i wanna get that bread

- request 71/? i want a playlist with the vibes of summoning a demon. please don't ask questions. i don't have answers. and if i do, no i don't.

- For the requests, how about writing something based on a friend?

- request 75/? MMMM i want literally anything to do with natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812

- request 76/? i want some healthy recipes. help a girl out

- a feral bbb quote or two?

- you perceive my plant but now I dare thee to perceive mine own visage

- okay this is a two for one request. 1. you did the bee movie script so now we need a shrek two script edit 2. sleep please

- Pansexual mb for my lil queer soul?

- my (probably) final request is just for you to ramble about something, i don't really care what

- HI ILY CONGRATS AS WELL CAUSE IM LATE BUT CONGRATS. could i request a pirates of the caribbean (or just pirates) or whatever you what to do, free range.

- mood board for the beluga whales who got brought to the animal sanctuary in Iceland please?

- 100 follower request: Moodboard for my stuffed cow Oaky?

[sokkastyles]

Zuko and Katara and Motherless Children

There’s a lot of discussion about how the loss of their mothers is something that brings Zuko and Katara together, and another interesting aspect of this commonality between them is that in between this scene and “The Southern Raiders,” in which Zuko helps Katara confront her mother’s killer, Zuko finds out from his father that his mother is still alive.

And this is something that differentiates Katara and Zuko’s trauma over their mother, and an important part of Zuko’s understanding that the fire nation was the oppressor in the war. Because just like how Zuko didn’t really know about the horrors of the war, Zuko didn’t know what happened to his mother. It’s another dark cloud in a childhood full of dark clouds that he spends the beginning of the series actively denying. In “Zuko Alone” it is implied, but not stated, that she is dead, and Zuko’s fever dream in which the blue dragon threateningly tells him to “sleep, like mother” right before devouring him and his shocked reaction to his father’s confession that she is still alive tell us that Zuko also thought she was dead, although he may not have consciously thought that until he voices it during his confrontation with Ozai.

I think that during his imprisonment with Katara under Ba Sing Se is when Zuko starts to consciously have this realization that his mother is probably dead and that his father is responsible, as before he was incapable of placing blame on his father, the primary person from whom he seeks approval. He connects Katara’s comment that “the fire nation took my mother away from me” with his own experience, implying both that she might be dead, like Katara’s mother, and that she was “taken away” by the fire nation. This scene is important because it’s one of the first times that Zuko is verbally acknowledging both what his nation has done to others and what it’s done to him, personally. He doesn’t react with his previous defensiveness (”you have no idea what you’re talking about”) and he doesn’t make excuses for his nation or himself, but rather he apologizes to this girl who is his enemy, who he has chased and fought against for two seasons, and that’s what helps Katara to empathize with him, too. Katara sees Zuko as a human being for the first time, and Zuko also sees her as a human being, after previously dismissing her and her tribe as nothing more than peasants who were beneath notice, all while they were being systematically terrorized by his people.

Then when she confronts him again with the death of her mother in “The Southern Raiders,” blaming him for his betrayal at Ba Sing Se, he accepts his guilt and tries to make it right, but he’s not just trying to fix things between him and Katara personally or compensate for what his nation has done to her. He also is, I think, on some level, trying to do something for that little boy who also lost his mother to the fire nation. This is part of why he connects so personally with Katara’s need to confront this man. Zuko did confront the person responsible for taking his mother from him, but instead of getting closure he got more questions. Zuko learns from his confrontation with Ozai that his mother is alive. Then, later, Katara mocks his asking for forgiveness by tasking him with the impossible mission of bringing her mother back to life. Katara’s mother isn’t coming back but Zuko can help her confront the person responsible. Zuko can’t take direct revenge on his father (as that is for the avatar to do) but he can help Katara get hers. His own mother might be out there somewhere and he doesn’t know where, but he does know where to find Yon Rha.

“Your mother was a brave woman.”

Even though Zuko has now renounced his ties to his nation’s imperialistic ideology, he once again could have taken an opportunity to defend the actions of the soldiers tasked with raiding Katara’s village when Katara tells him this story. Zuko now knows that things aren’t black and white, he could have rationalized what had happened, said that those soldiers probably thought they were doing good, as he previously told the gaang that he thought that he was good before. At this point, Zuko hasn’t gotten Katara’s forgiveness, so it would have been easy for him to make a connection between the fire nation soldiers and himself, to try to make Katara see that he was misguided. But he doesn’t do that. He listens to her story and he tells her that her mother was brave.

“Your mother did vicious, treasonous things that night. She knew the consequences and accepted them.”

These are women from opposing nations, both of whom gave up their lives to save their children - even if it meant leaving behind another child as well. I think this is why Zuko seems to take it pretty personally when he and Katara confront the captain of the Southern Raiders. He pushes the guy to admit he remembers Katara, and then gets angry and accuses him of lying when he says he doesn’t, then attacks him. This is almost the reverse of Ozai manipulating Zuko by dangling the truth about his mother in front of him long enough to attack him. So I definitely think Zuko is projecting here. He does the same with Yon Rha, and even though he accepts Katara’s choice to spare him, it’s not before shooting one last look of utter contempt at the guy:

What’s kind of interesting about this is that Zuko could have been Yon Rha in another life. If Zuko had not been banished he might have been a soldier, he might have even achieved a high rank in the fire nation military, given his status. Zuko at the beginning of the series also takes his ship to the Southern Water Tribe with the intent of capturing a bender. But in the end, both Zuko and Katara are just children who lost their mothers to the same vicious machine. There’s a lot of discussion of this episode that centers around whether Zuko and Katara should have gone on this journey and whether they would have crossed some kind of moral event horizon if they had gotten revenge on Yon Rha. I’m of the opinion that the guy would have deserved it, even moreso if he had still been actively committing war crimes in the name of the fire nation, as Zuko had initially thought. In fact, if that had been the case, I would argue that it would have been a moral duty for them to stop him. But that also doesn’t mean that it isn’t meaningful that Katara chooses to end a cycle of violence that began before either she or Zuko were born, and that Zuko, who once was a tool in that same machine, is there to help her. The wonderful thing about this episode isn’t just that Zuko helps Katara heal, she also helps Zuko in a similar way, and in the end they’re both children of war who will inherit the world that their parents made and fought for.

[battlestar-royco]

here is part 2 of my sci fi recs masterlist! again, i could’ve gone on with even more recs but i decided to draw the line here. this set for the most part errs on the darker side, thematically, visually, conceptually etc. i personally find it super thought-provoking and intriguing but that’s just me. i highly recommend reading the tw under the cut if you’re thinking of watching, especially the matrix and space gothic slides. please view at your discretion <3

part 1/2

If you like WLW (um idk why I only made this slide based on identity; it just kinda happened lmao but I think it works):

Siren: (tw: parent loss, grief, thalassophobia) a mermaid surfaces in a cove town looking for her lost sister. Polyamorous relationship between a man, a black/indigenous woman, and the mermaid!!!! Environmentalism! As a person who has thalassophobia, I didn’t find this too hard to watch. There aren’t that many underwater scenes, thankfully.

Black Mirror: San Junipero: (tw: grief, but otherwise none that I recall; it’s pretty lighthearted) two women meet in a beach resort in the 80s and fall in love. Interracial wlw!

Orphan Black: (tw: suicide, infertility, rape implication, VB, language, drug use) a woman realizes she is one of several clones and uncovers an elaborate corporate conspiracy. This is one of my personal favorites with great rep of complex women of all ages and bodily autonomy. Several central queer characters and a black male secondary character!

Starfish: (tw: grief, a few jump scares and brief monstrous imagery, blood) after the death of her best friend, a young woman breaks into the deceased’s apartment and discovers a chain of music tapes that could save the world. Weird, subtle, and experimental. Not to sound like a surfer but you kinda have to allow yourself to be in the vibe. The main character and her friend were definitely a thing imo.

Annihilation: (tw: body horror, VB, disturbing imagery) a team of women scientists explore an anomaly that rapidly mutates genes. There are canonical and coded wlw and multiple (light-skinned) POC in this but the rep is short-lived. I put it on because although it should’ve been more ambitious with the casting, I think it breaks *some* ground for Hollywood sci fi with the all-woman team and more than one WOC. Wack ending though.

Mad Max: Fury Road: (tw: rape implication, violence) I think everyone knows about this one but: in the apocalypse, a woman breaks 4 younger women out of a harem. A badass car chase across the desert ensues. A bit light on plot/worldbuilding, but sooooo cool-looking and very thematic!!!!

If you liked STRANGER THINGS:

It: (tw: VB) don’t actually watch this lmao I’m serious. It’s really stupid, and not in a funny way. But I do think Stranger Things was inspired by this story overall. The modern It films are better but they’re also really kjslsklskls stupid? Stephen King in general is obsolete imo.

The Thing: (tw: VB) an alien that can take the form of others wreaks havoc on a scientific facility in Antarctica. It’s dark and vibey, but I feel like it’s just Alien in Antarctica with truly terrible special effects tbh?? Others feel differently. It’s also classified as sci fi/horror, so stay away if you’re easily scared! Not too good on representation.

Super 8: (tw: some language) a group of preteens witnesses an alien-caused train crash as they’re filming a home movie. Not diverse but I definitely think it inspired a lot of sci fi for the 2010s, ESPECIALLY Stranger Things. Not too scary either!

ET: (tw: it’s been a really long time since I watched so I don’t remember but it’s rated PG) I think everyone knows what this is about!

Alien: (tw: VB) truckers in space discover a deadly evolving alien. One of my favorite movies of all time! I love the aesthetic and the mood and worldbuilding so much. Ellen Ripley is one of the first Final Girls in the horror genre. I personally found this more of a sci fi than a horror movie but I’d say stay away if you’re nervous!!

Terminator: (tw: VB) a deadly android is sent to kill a woman who’s destined to birth the man who saves the world. Terminator 2 is way better imo because it centers on Sarah rather than the dudes saving her and trying to kill her. But it’s still worth a watch, you know, for the culture.

If you liked CONTAGION:

War of the Worlds: (tw: blood) pretty straightforward aliens come to Earth to take over. Sorry to rec another T*m Cruise movie but I really like the alien design and the apocalypsey feel of this one. Baby Dakota Fanning is in it too!

Falling Skies: (tw: VB, body horror, rape) alien invasion yada yada but the alien lore gets more interesting as it goes on. It’s kind of cheesy and yeah maybe I did discover it by looking up the iCarly boyfriend (and what about it??) but it’s nice to have on in the downtime. An Asian woman co-stars.

Knowing: (tw: blood) school students unearth a time capsule that contains a sheet from a girl who predicted all the tragic world events between 1959-2009. This is NOT a good movie but it’s SO hilarious to me because of the acting and contrivances. Fun to group-watch!!!!

10 Cloverfield Lane: (tw: VB, emotional abuse) a woman wakes up in a bunker to a captor who tells her that the world has fallen to alien apocalypse. I think this movie elevates the original Cloverfield in pretty much every way. Again, super tense and moody. The conflict revolves around whether or not the captor is being truthful.

Train to Busan: (tw: extreme VB and disturbing imagery) a man and his daughter are on a train when a zombie hops on at the last minute. It’s Korean with an all-Asian cast; Choi Woo-shik co-stars. I definitely wouldn’t watch if you’re scared of blood and gore. It’s very gross and violent.

12 Monkeys: (tw: ableism, violence) a man from the 2030s is sent back to the 1990s to prevent the plague that will end the world. I think the aesthetics of this are really cool but otherwise it’s not a favorite. But I think it appeals to people who like apocalypse and time travel stuff!

If you liked THE MATRIX:

Strange Days: (tw: rape, sex, nudity, VB, racism, police brutality) memories can be saved to hard-drives and sold on the black market for exorbitant prices. Very problematic and triggering presentation of rape, but young Angela Basset stars and there’s a condemnation of police brutality that’s still relevant 20+ years after its release.

Upgrade: (tw: ableism, VB, fridging) a disabled man installs an AI in his spine to help him move and investigate the murder of his wife. The premise is glaringly ableist and I feel weird even recommending it tbh but it’s got great visuals and a few good twists.

Altered Carbon: (tw: VB, weird interracial body switching, uhhh I haven’t finished this one IDK) in a society where human bodies are interchangeable, a man wakes up in a new body after 300 years of his mind being dormant. A Latina woman co-stars, two Asian characters in a subplot, a few other POC here and there as well. I think season 2 stars a black man.

eXistenZ: (tw: VB, anti-Asian racism, general weirdness? IDK it’s hard to describe. There are guns made out of bones and weirdly sexual visuals.) after someone tries to assassinate her, a video game designer and her bodyguard must play through her virtual reality game in order to save the only copy of the game.

Minority Report: (tw: VB, eye removal/insertion) all crimes are predicted and criminals reported before they are committed. The main character is preemptively accused of murder. This one is really white but it was one of the first movies that got me into sci fi. Early 2000s Colin Farrell <3.

If you liked WESTWORLD:

Humans: (tw: uncanny valley, objectification) androids are household helpers and public assistants throughout Britain until one day they start developing consciences. It hits a lot of the themes of Westworld without all the unnecessary pretentiousness, “edginess,” and “grittiness,” and it stars Gemma Chan and Colin Morgan!!

Blade Runner 2049: (^) an android is ordered to find and kill a human/android hybrid. It’s not without its issues but it’s one of my favorite movies of all time, right up there with Alien. So beautiful, so thematic, so thought-provoking (to me, anyway. I know a lot of people thought it was way too slow).

Ex Machina: (^) a man is invited to a private estate to help test the intelligence of an android. It’s kind of predictable imo but you know Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno are in it so we have to stan, and so is Domhnall Gleeson, for the SW fans! I like how isolated and quiet it feels.

I Am Mother: (tw: blood, gaslighting) after an extinction event, a young woman is raised by a lone android in a human repopulation facility until one day a woman knocks. It starts off slow and a bit generic, but I’m obsessed with the 2nd and 3rd acts of this movie---good acting, dialogue, and fantastic visuals. It has that same isolated feel as Ex Machina with only three characters, all of which are women/woman-coded!!!

If you liked ALIEN (space gothic):

Battlestar Galactica (2004-2008 reboot): (tw: genocide, war, colonization, VB, uncanny valley, rape, infidelity) space opera that follows humanity as it fights the ever-evolving and powerful enemy of their own creation: androids named Cylons. Um? I  L O V E  THIS SHOW SO MUCH and I truly do think it’s everything sci fi should be. There is a really unfortunate Miss Saigon-esque romance plot in season 1 and a lazily-written love triangle involving a black woman in season 3, but otherwise it’s one of my all-time favorites and I highly recommend. It’ll spin your mind and tug your heartstrings for years.

Black Mirror: Men Against Fire: (tw: genocide, war, nudity) soldiers in the near future protect citizens from mutant zombies, but one soldier starts experiencing strange hallucinations in the field. This is such an underrated Black Mirror episode starring a black man. There’s brief objectification of a black woman but it’s very anti-military and it has an interesting sterile aesthetic that reminds me of Alien.

High Life: (tw: rape, black holes/space anxiety, very disturbing) prisoners are given the option to join a space expedition and serve as experimental subjects en route to a black hole. Please please stay away if you are triggered by sexual violence of any kind. There’s almost no physical violence in this movie but it’s psychologically haunting imo.

The Faculty: (tw; VB, drug use) high schoolers discover their teachers are being possessed by an invading alien race. I LOVE THIS MOVIE LMFAOOOO. The cast is SO wild---Elijah Wood, John Oliver, Usher, Salma Hayek, Josh Hartnett??? And I’m probably forgetting more. The combination of the cast, the terrible dialogue, and shitty special effects is PEAK comedy imo. But bear in mind it’s bloody!!

Prometheus: (tw: body horror, VB, uncanny valley) a crew of scientists heads on a deep space mission to find the aliens who created the human race. A prequel to Alien, but I kind of view it as its own thing. Despite the plot holes, I love this movie too! It was one of my sci fi gateways and the visuals are stunning. It’s pretty gory though so if that’s not your thing stay away.

Life: (tw: extreme VB) a lesser Alien, but it provides all the space gothic tropes (jokey crew, shots of space, really pretty spaceship, everyone dies, creepy alien) with a well-known cast---Gyllenhaal, Reynolds, etc.

The X Files: (tw: a few episodes contain 90s racism, sexism, queerphobia etc but you can skip them) a lot of people have watched this so I barely have to explain, but it’s one of my favorites. Two FBI agents investigate multiple aliens and get involved in government conspiracies along the way. A good gateway!

A Quiet Place: (tw: child loss, VB, tension) I think most people know what this is about too. Alien apocalypse with aliens that hunt by sound. The daughter in the family is deaf, and so is the actress who portrays her. The representation of deafness was critically acclaimed.

[medea10]

My Review of Sarazanmai

How did I get into this anime? I heard “things” about this anime. 2019 was a weird time to be alive apparently. You know, before 2020 happened! As much shit as I give 2020, at least they didn’t give us kappas eating people’s asses.

Yes, I just said “kappas eating people’s asses”.

Be afraid. Be very afraid!

Kazuki Yasaka is a young boy who must carry around a box wherever he goes and follow specific directions day-by-day. Toi Kuji is a delinquent that breaks into cars and commits other crimes throughout the city. And Enta Jinnai is a childhood friend of Kazuki…He’s there too! These three boys have been chosen by the kappa prince, Keppi to help restore the Kappa Kingdom to its former glory. Kazuki, Toi, and Enta can now transform into kappas by being eaten ass first by Keppi and then shit out. Yes, I said eaten ass first and shit out by a kappa! These boys then must eat the inner-most desires of these kappa-zombies that are causing Keppi trouble. And these inner-most desires are located…in the ass. But there are those from the Otter Empire that cause this trouble for the kappas by turning folks into kappa zombies and causing havoc in the real world.

I would not expect any less of a mind-rape anime from the great Kunihiko Ikuhara.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Even playing a kappa, Junichi Suwabe still finds a way to give me an erection.

Okay, let’s try that again and not make it sound disgusting, Medea.

Right! Let’s talk licensing. FUNimation is the licensors of this fine product. Seriously? Eating ass is fine, but you frown upon the likes of Interspecies Reviewers? Yes, there is a dub to this and believe it or not, I pretended it didn’t exist. Not because it was bad or anything! It’s just that this anime had the likes of Mamoru Miyano, Kouki Uchiyama, Rie Kugimiya, and Mr. Sex-in-a-Voice Junichi Suwabe. Let me state that my infatuation with Suwabe is like John Oliver’s infatuation with Adam Driver.

That…totally doesn’t help my case! Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Kazuki is played by Ayumu Murase (known for Minami on Yuri on Ice, Luck on Black Clover, Asuto on Inazuma Eleven: Aries, Madoka on Shounen Maid, and Shinichi on SAO)

*Toi is played by Kouki Uchiyama (known for Yurio on Yuri on Ice, Soul on Soul Eater, Rui on Demon Slayer, Ikuya on Free!, Benedict on Violet Evergarden, Midnight on Fairy Tail, Yuu on Charlotte, and Ichijou on Nisekoi)

*Enta is played by Shun Horie (known for Kazuya on Rent-A-Girlfriend)

ENGLISH CAST: *Kazuki is played by Alejandro Saab (known for Leon on Pokemon Journeys, L’Arc on Shield Hero, Kuga on Food Wars, Yamazaki on Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, and Takezou on Kono Oto Tomare)

*Toi is played by Ricco Fajardo (known for Koutaro on Zombieland Saga, Itona on Assassination Classroom, Karim on Fire Force, Natsuya on Free!, and Kyousuke on Danganronpa 3)

*Enta is played by Justin Briner (known for Deku on My Hero Academia, Yukito on Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Shou on Fire Force, Luck on Black Clover, and Ryouta on Danganronpa 3)

SHIPPING: Well…we got our BL kiss by the third episode. That’s quite early for an Ikuhara anime. Ooh boy, Enta loves him some Kazuki. He REALLY loves Kazuki! There’s a lot to be said of a boy that would sniff and fondle items owned by his lover and kiss his unconscious lover. I can understand why Enta would care for Kazuki. I mean after hearing that he’s truly his first friend after a childhood of traveling around and not making many friends, you want to feel for this kid. Key word here is “want”. But this boy goes too far sometimes and his jealousy does get the best of him to a point where I’m just saying, cut ties with the megane brat. But Enta ends up screwing things up again by taking a bullet for Kazuki and throwing all that anger out the window.

And then we have Reo and Mabu! God damn Reo! We’ve got shark teeth, an arrogant attitude, homosexuality, and the voice of Mamoru Miyano. This is just a Rin Matsuoka of a different color! If Reo and Mabu’s otter dance isn’t a dead giveaway, they totally love each other. To a point where they would sacrifice each other for the one they love.

POLE-DANCE ALERT: I don’t know why I always find random pole-dancing moments in animes so alluring. I guess I can blame the likes of Grell from Black Butler. But this moment was so random that it came right the fuck out of nowhere. Then again, this entire anime is an enigmatic brain-fart that it was only a matter of time before a kappa prince starts randomly dancing on a pole.

There we go, Medea’s love for random crap will never die!

ENDING: Throughout the series, Kazuki, Toi, and Enta were gathering these dishes in order to get a wish granted by Keppi. And each time they’ve gone up against a big bad otter, Reo and Mabu are usually the ones to bring out the kappa zombies. But everyone has a plan for using the dishes of hope for their own wishes. Enta wants to use it to stay with Kazuki so the two can remain the golden duo. Reo and Mabu want the dishes to be with each other and save one another after an incident nearly killed them. And Kazuki originally wanted to use the dishes for his baby brother’s own sake, but changes to wanting to help Toi (who ends up leaving with his older, criminal of a brother). And shit goes crazier than what I’ve just mentioned. Enta fucks up by stealing the collected dishes and really fucking up his relationship with Kazuki! Toi ends up leaving town with his criminal brother.

Reo and Mabu, the otter cops shoot Kazuki, but Enta takes the bullet and is hours away from dying. But then we learn that Reo and Mabu were actually kappas who worked under Keppi. It’s just that the otters have been manipulating these two. Mabu is just a hollow body created by the otters because of some accident that happened prior to the events in the anime. The otter gives Mabu a mechanical heart to keep him alive, but in order to stay alive, he cannot say he loves Reo. Unfortunately for these two, Mabu ends up saying he loves Reo and dies right in front of him and vanishing from his memories. Reo is then shot by Toi who comes in at the last minute.

Toi’s back. We all knew it wasn’t going to last. His older brother got shot dead the episode before. So Toi is going to use the dishes to resurrect his brother from the dead. This leaves Kazuki in shambles as he was going to use it on Enta before his body expires in like 10 seconds. In the last minute, Kazuki used the dishes on Enta and he’s going to live. End of story right? No, we still have a demented otter on the loose. And the otters have a dark Keppi that he’s been storing for just this sort of moment. And now it grabs Toi and Toi accepts. He wants to erase his existence from Enta and Kazuki’s lives. Problem is if he does that, Toi erases giving Kazuki the ankle bracelet that’s been a staple in Kazuki and Enta’s relationship when it comes to soccer. But the boys were able to connect, destroy the otters, bring the memories of Mabu and Reo back, turn Keppi into a kappa prince, and save the town from OTTER-destruction.

Yeah, if you watch this series, you’ll hear a lot of puns involving otters. I mean when you’re not smothered in sexualized otters and kappas.

The ending credits show Toi getting sent to juvie for three years. And it’s quite sad to see his dejected face while the ending song blasts. When the lyrics literally say “stand by me” it gets quite sad. Three years pass and Toi’s out of juvie. He goes to the bridge and jumps off. Keep in mind this is an Ikuhara anime, Toi’s not gonna die. Enta and Kazuki jump in and join Toi and welcome him back to society.

Good lord Ikuhara-san! I didn’t think you could out-gay an anime after the likes of Yuri Kuma Arashi. But good fuck, you found a way! This anime was…INSANITY. Pure insanity! Then again, this is the same director that did Revolutionary Girl Utena, Yuri Kuma Arashi, and Mawaru Penguindrum. Yes, connection and desires are a big take in not only Sarazanmai, but a lot of the other animes Ikuhara does. It’s just that Sarazanmai is the strangest acid-trip of them all. And that’s saying a lot because Yuri Kuma Arashi has sexy bears that say “Shaba-da-doo”. ALSO VOICED BY JUNICHI SUWABE! But people getting turned into kappas by being eaten ass first by another kappa and stealing spirits inner most desires, conveniently stored in their asses is some wonky-ass crack-fest. Recommendation wise, I would say watch some of the other animes Ikuhara has directed to get your feet wet in what you might expect in this kind of anime. After that, pop in a few Bakemonogatari episodes just for good measure. And after you do all that, take some CBD gummies and let-a-rip with Sarazanmai.

If you want to watch Sarazanmai, Crunchyroll and FUNimation have it available for streaming.

Okay, what’s next for my FUNimation list?

Okay, boobs! What are we talking here? Are these boobs flat as an ironing board or crimes against nature like in Eiken?

Oh, this can’t end well.

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 8 Review/Remix

RWBY finally comes back from a 2 month break, and what does it do? It scares us all half to death and then obliterates the other half with insane new story concepts and body horror imagery. Gods I missed this show~...

We return to this chaotic mess with the scene you might be expecting the least, Qrow and Robyn in their prison cells. Qrow is awoken by the sound of ships and explosions outside, and find that his three block mates are similarly left sleepless. Jacques is particularly nervous, probably because he assumed Whitley would be here to bail him out by now. Qrow picks up on an incoming sound that sounds... different, and indeed a wall is blown down in a fiery explosions that starts sending down rubble. One section of the Hard Light cell walls have been taken down, but before anyone has time to act Robyn notices a crow vehemently cawing at her before some rubble comes down above her. And... that’s the last we see of Robyn or Qrow this episode. He transformed to be a smaller target for debris and she might not have made it out quickly enough even with his disguised possible warnings.

Back to more pressing matters, we take the perspective of... the Dragonborn in the opening of Skyrim?? Wait, no, it’s just Nora regaining consciousness to see Klein has given her an IV and is saying she’ll be on the mend real quick. So that’s some good news after a few months of worry, and hey! The fan theory was wrong, she didn’t go blind from the lightning! Before we can even dwell on her wellbeing for too long, Blake opens the door for Ruby Weiss and Whitley to carry in Penny’s unconscious body. As Blake points out, Penny is leaking a green fluid most likely comparable to blood. They set her down on a cot near Nora, and Whitley is pissed about getting his clothes stained again in the span of 48 hours. But I think robot fuel/blood is at least easier to wash out than red wine. Ruby of course wants to know if Klein can help Penny as well as he has Nora, but his wheelhouse of expertise does not cover advanced robotics. The saving grace is that Pietro made her so close to human so Klein has some idea what can actually be fixed, starting with sewing up the gash in her abdomen. A thunderous rumble is heard in the distance, and suddenly the lights go out. Whitely complains about this too, but it is rather valid. Nothing quite seems to be going right, even Atlas’ power grid is against them... Ruby gets a call from May, and we learn they parted ways so May could go regroup with the Happy Huntresses and save her city. They compare notes and it’s made clear a bombing run took out part of the city’s power, though less clear is who was doing that bombing, Atlas or the Grimm? Ruby apologizes for their current inaction while they tend to Penny, but May reassures her that this may end up being more productive than trying to find something worth doing outside the city. Great googly moogly, it’s all gone to shit, and there’s very little difference a few more huntresses can make to the Mantle efforts. Ruby is left in overwhelmed despair, there’s so many problems and she doesn’t know how to solve all of them. Klein butts in with a sneeze to say she should take it one problem at a time, focus on the most immediate and possible to achieve and work outwards. For one thing, it’d help a lot of they had lights and power. 

Willow surprises everyone by showing up in the doorway to let them know about a backup generator on the edge of the estate property. She’s still the lady of this house, and she has enough self respect to not lie around getting drunk in the dark. Whitley greets her with a mix of disinterest and distain, and she notices Klein has returned to the manor and offers an off guard greeting. Weiss backs up her mom’s info drop with the fact that SDC executive members indeed have access to backup power sources if the city ever suffered a power outage like this. She doesn’t like that they have that kind of privilege while other folks suffer, but it’s for the greater good this time. This gets Whitley thinking, and my boy has a full Jimmy Neutron BRAIN BLAST! Since Jacques made him heir to the company, and the man himself is possibly dead under rubble, Whitely has full access to the Schnee Dust Company and all its resources. Since Ironwood put down the Dust embargo in Volume 4, their fleet of cargo ships are sitting empty and ready for use in a hangar. As we saw earlier this very chapter, there are automated drones that answer to the SDC rather than the Atlas military. They can use those ships and drone soldiers to give all the people stuck in Mantle a way out to fly away safely. Fantastic work, young man! You make your family proud... well, the family members who don’t commit war crimes for profit. But to do that they need the power back on so he can use Jacques’ computer, so that’s what Ruby and Blake set out to do. Getting inside the small building outside of the mansion is easy enough, and its just the flip of a switch to get the generator booting back up. In the meantime, the two share a genuinely sweet conversation. Blake reassures Ruby that the fact she’s trying to make things happen is all the world could ask of her, and an optimistic attitude like that is hard to stick with for long in this harsh world. Life in the White Fang and with Adam robbed Blake of her own similar mindset, but she truly admires and looks up to Ruby for how great a woman she is. Sadly, like most things, this moment is ruined by a Grimm. While all the lights are coming back on and Whitley gets to work, a bolt of lightning reveals that the Hound is just outside the window behind Ruby... Willow and Klein are casually sitting around waiting I guess, when they hear the loud crash of glass breaking and Willow reflexively reaches for her bottle of vodka. Weiss checks in on her teammates over comms and they tell her they need some help so she makes sure Whitley will have the business handled before she rushes out to save her friends. Ruby is getting tossed through a fresh hole in the wall, and Blake’s attempt to attack it while she regains her footing is just batted away. Blake assures Ruby that it’s just a Grimm, they can handle it as long as she can stay focused. Blake goes on the offensive again while Ruby tries to get her Silver Eyes going, but the Hound swats the Faunus girl away and tackles Ruby before sprouting its wings again with her in its clutches Blake uses the ribbon on her weapon to do what Ren had earlier in the Volume, though she anchors the other end in the ground as a tether rather than ride along as it leaves.

Weiss finally arrives at the scene of this chaos and reports the Grimm sighting back to Klein. Hearing the news of this beastly intruder leaves Willow so shaken she drops the bottle and glass she was pouring herself. Klein tries to reassure and calm her, but she’s too overwhelmed and runs out of the room... just as Penny reactivates with red eyes. Full on hacked now, and  Klein gets shoved to the floor for all his concerns about her being on her feet again. But she barely takes two steps before the real Penny resurfaces and tries to fight back for control of her own body. The struggle is deep enough to summon a whirling wind around her much like Fria had last Volume, but this one is green because Penny. Back outside, Weiss is about to summon something when a couple Centinels burrow up behind her and tear through it. From the looks of it, I think it was going to be the Nevermore from all the way back in Volume 1, so that’s a pretty cool callback to how important that fight was, and the imagery of glowing wings behind her was beautiful while it lasted. The Hound breaks free of Blake’s tether and is about to soar away, much to her dismay, when it sees a bright green glow coming from in the manor, clearly Penny going through her identity crisis. Ruby puts two and two together and realizes why the Hound has been saying “Take the Girl.” The girl is Penny, whose blood is still on Ruby’s clothes so it got a little confused while tracking. She warns her teammates, but the Hound chooses that time to drop her like a sack of potatoes and there goes the last of her Aura. Blake tells Weiss to go back inside and stop the Hound while she handles the Centinels out here, and they split up, but before Blake can reach her leader a new creature erupts from the ground and it’s bigger and more gross than the last bugs. It spits acid that comes up through a tube along its belly, and I’m confident in calling it an Alpha Centinel. Back in the eye of the storm, Klein tries to reassure Penny that she’s okay, which is phrased a little but I assume he means as “you’re in a safe place and your injuries have been treated, you don’t need to defend yourself like this”. The man is just a butler, he doesn’t know what we do about her internal struggle against antagonistic programming and her wrestling with her sense of self. Whatever new orders Watts has given her, she really doesn’t want to follow them. Luckily, there’s someone at her side to comfort her and hold her hand, and that’s Nora. Passing along the comforting words she got from Blake earlier this Volume, she tells Penny she doesn’t have to just be and do what other people expect of her. She may feel like a part of her is making her do what she doesn’t want to, but don’t forget about the rest. She’s more than just that one part of her mind or persona. It’s nowhere near the same situation as Nora’s own identity crisis earlier, but the words have the same positive effect. Penny gains control again and the wind barrier subsides. Weiss reports in that the Hound is heading inside and she’s on her way to intercept, and gets the bad news that Willow fled the room to go who knows where. Well, we know now cuz we see it, she went to what I assume is her own bedroom (god forbid she and Jacques still share a bed after 8 years of the most sour their marriage has been). On her vanity there’s another bottle or two of booze, and her Scroll. She wants to retreat to what she knows best, but hesitates and then gets spooked by the shattering sound of the Hound breaking in through the window above the front door.

It picks up on Penny’s scent from the blood stained on the floor, but by the time Weiss charges in through the front door it’s gone. The next five minutes of the episode have major horror movie vibes, and I love it. Weiss slowly looks around the foyer for any sign of the beast, when Willow screams over her Scroll to look out above her and indeed the Hound drops down to backhand her into a piano. Instead of staying to attack her, it goes to follow Penny’s scent again and leaves Weiss to check in with her mom after that sudden warning. Biggest triumph thus far, Willow threw her bottle against a wall and instead pulled up the feed from her series of surveillance cameras around the manor on her Scroll to track the Hound. It’s near Winter’s old bedroom, and Willow doesn’t seem to understand that it’s tracking a scent like a bloodhound. Maybe she just doesn’t encounter Grimm a lot or they’re just usually not this competent and singularly focused. She recognizes the direction it’s heading next with great horror, and what we see next gives us that same dread. Whitley still has blood on his clothes, and he dismisses Willow’s warning cuz he probably doesn’t think she has anything to say worth hearing after his years of dealing with her drunken state. He’s almost done setting up the automated orders, when he hears the door starting to open and angrily snaps at what he assumes is Willow coming to check on him since he didn’t answer the call. But he is dead wrong and hides behind the desk immediately, because it is indeed the Hound come to potentially kill him. He’s doing his best to hide, but it expands its vocabulary to tell him it knows he’s here. Just as it’s about to round the corner, an Alpha Boarbatusk charges in and pins it to the wall. Weiss isn’t the only Schnee in the house who can summon, and Willow will not let her son die this day. He’s about to bolt out of the room while it’s preoccupied with the summon, but turns back to hit Yes on the computer and get the evacuation plans started. Good job kid, you did more to save Mantle than your father and Ironwood combined. The two sprint down the hall with the Hound in hot pursuit, but get some respite from an ice wall forming between them and the Grimm thanks to Weiss arriving from the opposite direction. She’s out of breath, but assures them she didn’t forget about either of them, most likely as a callback to the conversation she and Willow had last Volume about Whitley being left behind when Weiss and Winter sought independence. The unarmed Schnees express their gratitude and retreat from that wing of the house, and Weiss prepares her summons for combat with the beast breaking through the ice.

Back outside, Blake is struggling with the Alpha Centinel and complains about how gross it is. She avoids its scythe blade-like arms with some clever use of elementally charged shadow clones and begs for Ruby to wake up and give her some backup. But that can’t last forever and eventually it holds her by the neck ready to slice. Before it can, though, Ruby wakes up and bisects it first. She laughs weakly and tells Blake she heard what she was saying. They hear a scream coming from inside the mansion and head inside to meet up with the others. Weiss and the Hound hear it too, and the Hound stops doing its best “Here’s Johnny” impression through the hole in the ice to go chase down this new sound. We see the source of it, and it is in fact Penny losing control of herself again to the new programming. The red eyes stay this time, and she shoves Klein aside once again to stiffly and mechanically walk out to the foyer. As fate would have it, Willow and Whitely are there too, and they naturally question the fact that she’s emotionlessly walking past them when last they saw she was bleeding and unconscious. She responds that she’s going to open the vault, and then apparently self destruct. Not to state the obvious, but we really can’t let that happen so lets hope the power of love will break through to her. Before Penny can even get down the stairs, the Hound arrives to try and grab her and she catches his hand effortlessly, and then the other, so they’re stuck in a shoving match stalemate. The Hound solves this problem by growing a new arm out of its back and using it to grab Penny by the head. It slams her around like a ragdoll, still repeating “Take the Girl”, and holds a claw up to her throat when RWB arrive at the bottom of the stairs. Blake and Weiss are unsure how to intervene, but Ruby goes stone cold serious telling it that’s enough. In the literal blink of her eye, a Silver Eyed blast blinds it and sends it falling out the window behind it leaving Penny to tumble down the stairs unconscious again. They hope and pray the threat is over as they check her body, but the real horror starts now. 

The Hound claws his way back up through the window, and part of his head has been blasted away to reveal a dog faunus with one intact silver eye. In a voice likely not used in a long time, he continues to repeat his orders to “Take the Girl...” Ruby is mortified and shell shocked to see a living person within the frame of this beast unlike any she’s known prior, and I’m sure the wheels in her mind are turning to wonder if Summer Rose suffered a similar undying fate at Salem’s hands... and if that’s what will happen to her if she is captured? He begins shambling towards them and they try to carry Penny away from him but end up cornered. Whitley gets an idea and he and Willow start pushing on the knight statue nearest to them. Just as the Hound, whose human portion I have been inspired by a podcast to call Johnny, is about to grab the girls the statue falls down and crushes him to death. A choir chants in Latin as the Grimm fades away... and for the first time leaves behind a skeleton. Ruby seems shaken to her core as she confirms to the others that that was in fact a person they saw in there.

Ending that side of the story entirely for the week, we go back to the rubble in the jail cell to see Cinder has found Watts and the two make a flying get away. So that’s fun, we’ll have to see if they make it back in time to intercept JRY trying to sneak through Monstra. Until then, I’m gonna sleep like the dead. Ciao!

[vavuska]

What happened from my previous post?

The artist and activist Cristina Donati Mayer made a blitz in the park and posed a young - black - girl doll and hang up a paper: "The monument to Indro Montanelli is now completed. It was not necessary to color the statue, it was enough to add the 12-year-old Eritrean girl whom he abused as a colonialist and fascist soldier on the knees of the old man".

She was later arrested by police for her non-violent art-performance of civil dishobey. Cristina Donati Mayer was identified and set free after one hour.

She said:

"It was not my intention to deface the monument, on the contrary. That statue had, after more than a decade, a fundamental role to rekindle a discussion and a reflection, never made in Italy, on what the Italian invasion and colonization in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Libya: nerve gas on civilian populations, bombings, mass rape, massacres, enslavement of girls and boys, child brides purchased by families, theft of artistic and monumental goods, resources and lands. So we should all be grateful to Montanelli and his monument, which, acting in some cases as a scapegoat, has allowed Italian men and women to know and deal with a horrendous past: the one of wars and colonial aggressions of fascism".

La Repubblica - Link

3 - Italian Laws and Colonial Laws about marriage from 1935 to 1937

Now, I will proof that rape and marriage with a 12 years old girl was not the accepted in the Kingdom of Italy of 1935-1936 and was considered a crime.

The infamous art. 159 of the Rocco Penal Code of 1931 gave this definition of "carnal violence" - that was classified as a crime against honor and morality, not as crime against person and their sexual freedom -:

Art. 159. - Anyone who, with violence or threat, forces a carnal conjunction is punished with imprisonment for three to ten years.

The same penalty applies to those who come together carnally with the person at the time of the event:

1. did not turn fourteen years old;

2. did not turn sixteen years old, when the culprit is the ascendant or guardian, or is another person to whom the minor is entrusted for reasons of care, education, supervision or custody;

3. victim is mentally ill, or is unable to resist culprist because of their condition of psychic or physical inferiority, even if this is independent of the offender;

4. was treated deceitfully, for the culprit was replaced by another person.

After we have verified that Montanelli would be a rapist also with the 1935-1936 laws, we will make a comparison between art 519 C. P. with the articles about marriage in the Pisanelli Civil Code of 1865:

Art. 55. - The man before he is eighteen, the woman before he is fifteen cannot marry.

Art. 100. - The marriage followed in a foreign country between citizens, or between a citizen and a foreigner, provided that it is celebrated according to the forms of that country, and the citizen has not contravened the provisions contained in the second section of Chapter I of this title.

Art. 68. - The King (...) can also dispense with the impediment of age and admit to marriage the man who has the task of 14 years and the woman who has completed 12 years.

In Montanelli case we can't apply art. 68, becuase there is not a royal marriage dispense.

However, in art. 544 Code Penal we would find the institution of "matrimonio riparatore" (rehabilitating or reparatory marriage): according to this article of the code, the accused of crimes of carnal violence, even on minors, would have extinguished the crime in the case of marriage with the offended person.

In our case, we can't apply the awful art. 544 c.p. ("matrimonio riparatore") because the reparatory wedding must be celebrated AFTER and not BEFORE the carnal violece, so we can assume that the marriage between Destà and Montanelli would be null and void because of the nullity condiction of forth section of Pisanelli Code due to age limitation.

QUESTION: Did The Italian Civil and Penal low can be applied in the Colonies?

Yes, according to Royal Decree July 2 1908, n. 325: "The indigenous customary law of the breed applies to colonial subjects and assimilated subjects, insofar as it is compatible with the spirit of Italian legislation and civilization. However, in the cases falling within the jurisdiction of the Court of Assize, the penal laws in force in the Cologne apply. Indigenous customs will be taken into account for the evaluation of the excuse, minority or aggravating circumstances and the customary law for the compensation of the damage will be applied. "

Art. 325. - Ai sudditi coloniali ed agli assimilati si applica la legge consuetudinaria indigena propria della razza, in quanto sia compatibile con lo spirito della legislazione e della civiltà italiana. Tuttavia nelle cause di competenza di Corte d’Assise si applicano le leggi penali vigenti nella Colonia. Si terrà conto delle consuetudini indigene per la valutazione delle circostanze scusanti, minoranti od aggravanti e si applicherà il diritto consuetudinario per il risarcimento del danno. "

The Italians in the colonies will follow in principle of "personality" in the application of the law: "double track rule". The population of the colony was divided into two groups: the first is made up of Italians, Europeans and all those whose "civilization" standard was considered comparable to the European one; the second group was made up of natives (so-called colonial subjects) and "assimilated", foreign individuals with a standard of civilization lower than the European one and equal to one of the native inhabitants of the colony.

Technically, therefore, in the relations between local subjects was applied their tribal or islamic law (sharīʿa), while between Italians and other Europeans was applied Italian Law, however local law was difficult to codify and was mostly oral and customary, so the hegemonic character of the law of the motherland will be affirmed on indigenous customs and practices by jurisprudential way, especially in cases of regulation of mixed relationships. Traditional law was never recognized as a source of law. ("La Colonizzazione Giuridica dell'Eritrea, diritto coloniale tra scienza giuridica, antropologia, etonogrfia giuridica dal 1880 al 1912" by Valerio Panza; "Blood, Land, and Sex: Legal and Political Pluralism in Eritrea" by Lyda Favali, Roy Pateman)

Limits:

in case of conflict between indigenous and Italian law, the latter would prevail.

repugnancy clause: tribal customary law could only be applied if it did not conflict with public order or with the general principles of civilization.

So in the case of criminal law, the most serious crimes were always tried on the basis of Italian law, even if they had been committed by and against "natives".

People tend to forget that the first racial laws enacted in the Kingdom of Italy (Royal Legislative Decree nr 880 of April 19, 1937) punished with imprisonment for 1 to 5 years who carried out sexual acts or married a person of color and prohibited recognition of children born of such uniuni. So there are lots of people in Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia - and maybe now they come here as asylum seekers or migrants - with at least one Italian great-grandfather who could benefit from easy access to Italian citizenship and passport, but who cannot because fascist regime denied them the right to be recognized by their parents as children (L. May 13, 1940 n. 822 "Norms about mixed-race children").

Why did Montanelli - as well as actual and past Italian society - never considere his action as a crime? The answer could be find in the interview above and in his article: he admitted that in Europe what he did would be considere sexual violence, but not in Africa, where little child grew up fast.

Montanelli considered black people not equal to white people: they are uncivilized, barbars, animals.

White Europeans are superior, in Montanelli view, so a white European child would never be considered a "little animal".

(I suggest reading "Shape Shifters: Journeys Across Terrains of Race and Identity", edited by Lily Anne Y. Welty Tamai, Ingrid Dineen-Wimberly, Paul Spickard, in which there is a long essay about Montanelli, with other episodes and exemples of his racism, and about the experience of being an half-italian child in Ethiopia and Eritrea after fascist age)

4 - Institutions of Marriage in the Erithrean Traditional Constumary Law

To understand that "madamato" was not dämòz but a fraud used by colonialist to take advantage of women, I will report what Alberto Pollera (1873-1939) wrote about "madamato" in "La Donna in Etiopia": "The indigenous law allows the search for paternity; indeed this is one of the cornerstones of that right; Italian law prohibits it; and based on this conflict of law, many Italians, taking advantage of the ignorance of the natives on this point, they easily make them concubines, to abandon them when they have offspring."

"La legge indigena ammette la ricerca della paternità; anzi questo è uno dei cardini di quel diritto; la legge italiana la vieta; e basandosi su questo contrasto di diritto, molti Italiani, approfittando della ignoranza delle indigene su questo punto, ne fanno facilmente delle concubine, per abbandonarle quando ne abbiano prole."

("Diritto e razza: Gli italiani in Africa" by Michele Bonmassar)

Albero Pollera was a colonial officer and anthropologist, author of a lot of important African studies on Eritrean ethnic groups and the protagonist of a personal battle against racist ideology that prohibited mixed marriages and the legal recognition of mixed-race children born from Italian colonists.

Pollera, who seemed to have more knowledge of Eritrean customs than many of his fellow colonists, was aware of dämòz marriage and blamed "the Europeans" (when he could more honestly have said "the Italians" ) for not respecting its rules.

"The difference of civilization and education between the European man and the native woman", argued Alberto Pollera in "La Donna in Etiopia", "is too great and there cannot be, therefore, that perfect unity of sentiments that is necessary to give a happy and energetic life to a family"

Alberto Pollega had a life-long relationship more uxorio with an Erithrean woman, named Ghidam Menelich, and had seven mixed-race sons and daughters (If you want to know more about his son Giorgio, the fist mixed-race officer to had an honor medal, I suggest to read "Dangerous liaisons, Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea" by Giulia Barrera). Pollera relationships were formalized prior to his death in 1939, in a religious Ceremony. Pollera’s marriage was particularly remarkable given that Italian law at the time prohibited both mixed-race marriages and concubinage.

I suggest the reading of "Colonialism and National Identity", edited by Paola Bertella Farnetti and Cecilia Dau Novelli, to read the story of Hanna Gonnicè and her Italian husband Ugo Bolsi, the only mixed race couple who actually had a catholic wedding during colonial period.

Another good book I suggest to read is "Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell'Eritrea" by Carlo Conti Rossini, orientalist and author of various studies on Ethiopian and Eritrean language and culture.

Using the information in Carlo Conti Rossini's book, we will see that Montanelli, buying a 12 years old Ethiopian girl in 1935, was not respecting a "local use".

It is true that in Eritrean customary law (Saganèiti, where Montanelli bought the little girl Destà, was in that region of Eritrea called by the Italian colonial literature "Abyssinian Eritrea") there was a term marriage, called dämòz which was made illegal after the liberation war from Italy. However this institute prescribed many measures to protect the bride, which were not respected at all in the times of the Italian colonial domination especially when the man / groom was a white man.

Conti Rossini writes at page 255: "A union of the kind that has been hatched naturally lends itself to abuse, and with easily degenerates. One of its degenerations is the concubinage of an indigenous woman with a white man".

"Una unione del genere che si è venuto tratteggiando si presta naturalmente ad abusi, e con facilità traligna. Una sua degenerazione è il concubinaggio d'una indigena con un bianco".

As I wrote before, quoting Pellega, "madamato" was concubinage not dämòz, it's important to noticed that the same fact was already analized 1916 by Conti Rossini. So we must believe that "madamato" became much more frequent in 1935, the year of the beginning of infamous "war of Abyssinia", which led to those lands also the twenty six year old Indro Montanelli.

Italian colonial domination was never tender with the "natives" and in perfect continuity with the brutalities of the liberal era, it was not less tender during the fascism.

But let us return to the analysis of some aspects of Eritrean customary law. We can read at page 258 of the same book: "It is undoubted that the right to free themselves from marital bonds powerfully influenced to ensure that, at least in legal terms, the position of the woman is, in northern Abyssinia, much higher than that of peoples with the same degree of civilization and also among more advanced peoples ".

"È indubitato che così fatto diritto a sciogliersi dai vincoli maritali ha poderosamente influito a far sì che, almeno nei riguardi giuridici, la posizione della donna sia, nell'Abissinia settentrionale, molto più elevata che non presso popoli in pari grado di civiltà ed anche presso popoli più evoluti".

Then on page 259 we find:"In Abyssinian Eritrea (...) the defense of rights and the interests of the woman is driven, at least by some statute such as that of the Adchemé Melgà to their extremes. Where are typical that kind of costumes, there is evidence that in Abyssinia marriage is not a purchase agreement of the woman".

"Nell'Eritrea abissina (...) la difesa dei diritti e degli interessi della donna è spinta, almeno da qualche statuto come quello degli Adchemé Melgà agli estremi. Ove si considerino così fatte consuetudini, se ne ha una riprova che il matrimonio non è in Abissinia un contratto di compera della donna".

Conti Rossini wrote that Constumary law of semithic populations of Eritrea and Ethiopia was, as later Pollega confirmed, based on agnation - line of descent traced through the paternal side of the family -, there were also important trace of matriarchal organization of society in which women had higher consideration in society than happened in other cultures.

Conti Rossini singled out two basic forms of marriage among the Tigrinya: "The first one is based on a true solemn pact among two kin (marriage for pact or märaqal kidan); the second one is an agreement that states that the woman will go to live with the man under a given payment and, usually, for a given time (temporary marriage or dämòz). A further development of the first one is the religious marriage. But, in general, the religious component is not within the marriage contract, and it is not necessary at all in order to have a perfectly valid and legal union ."

According to Conti Rossini, the solemn marriage or märaqal kidan in Tigrinya—a marriage for pact—"must be considered the true marriage (the other one, I would say, is a sort of simple conjugal union)".

Generally, a marriage for pact was arranged by the fathers (mothers had no authority in the matter) while the designated bride and groom—especially the bride—were still children. According to what Pollera wrote in "La Donna in Etiopia", fathers arranged marriages when their children "were usually not younger than seven years old". The bride went to live permanently with her groom when she was 12, although her marriage would have been finalized earlier and she would have lived with her spouse for some time before.

Normally a girl was betrothed between the ages of 8 and 14 years old, and she is married around the ages of 13, 14, or 15. And her husband can have maximum 5 year more than her.

Among the Tigrinya the bride brought a dowry, but Muslims required the groom to pay a bride-price.

Before a marriage took place, the genealogy of the future son- or daughter-in-law was the subject of much scrutiny by both families involved. Many Eritreans (not just the Tigrinya) assigned extraordinary value to the "purity of blood" —i.e., the assurance that a prospective spouse’s ancestry did not include slaves, minstrels, or outcastes such as blacksmiths and goldsmiths—categories often charged with witchcraft.

"For the slave girl there is no hope of marriage", noted Pollera in "La Donna In Etiopia" , while music players, blacksmiths, and goldsmiths could marry only among their own people. According to Conti Rossini, most goldsmiths were Jews.

Pollera, for instance argued that "in most of Christian Abyssinia virginity is not taken into consideration", while it was considered very important by Muslims.

Predictably, non-virgin girls, women of "impure blood", and women without a dowry constituted a pool of viable candidates for becoming madame. (Dangerous liaisons, Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea by Giulia Barrera)

Except for religious marriages, in Eritrea divorce was possible and seemed to be quite commonplace. But here it should be noted that since divorce did not exist in Italy, Italians might have been inclined to exaggerate its occurrence in the colonies. (Dangerous liaisons, Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea by Giulia Barrera)

If she consented, a divorced woman could remarry; quite often the request for remarriage was addressed directly to her.

The second kind of marriage identified by Conti Rossini is known as marriage for pay or dämòz in it "a woman commits herself, directly or through her family, to live in conjugal union with a man, for a given length of time, and for the payment of a given sum". At this point Conti Rossini noted that superficial observers—especially Catholic missionaries—mistook such unions for concubinage: "It is a mistake. I deem it to be the continuation or, at least, the equivalent of an extremely ancient Semitic [temporary] marriage".

Dämòz was a temporary marriage whose duration was established (from one week to one year) and and imposed a remuneration for the bride. It was made on the occasion of man's travels or for example in occasion of prolonged stays in the markets. It was a synallagmatic contract - imposing reciprocal obligations upon the parties - for sexual services and domestic works regularly recognized by law. The woman could appeal to court if the agreements they were not respected and any offspring had the right to a paternal inheritance.

But dämòz marriage may have been customary only among limited groups of Eritreans or only in neighboring regions. Still another hypothesis could be that contemporary researchers may have failed to report this kind of marriage, or they may have mistaken it for concubinage.

It is also possible that dämòz marriage was commonly practiced during the colonial period, but that thereafter it progressively disappeared due to a trend in the last century toward more standardized forms of marriage.

("Dangerous liaisons, Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea" by Giulia Barrera)

5 - Other forms of traditional marriage not mentioned by Conti Rossini and Pollega

Among the Ahmara existed three differents types of marriage, along with the dämòz:

Qurban. Religious marriage in which divorce was impossible. This kind of marriage was used by nobles and religious figures;

Samaniyya. Civil and contractual marriage, in which divorce was possible;

Shi’i Muslims have a form of temporary marriage which is commonly practiced in modern Iran and elsewhere. It is called mutʿa, but the Islamic law doesn't fully recognize it and women rights are not respected as in dämòz.

6 - Mixed-race unions, children and fascist racial laws

According to the 1931 census, there were 515 mixed-race Italian citizens inEritrea (among a total Italian population of 4,188). Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how many métis children were not recognized by their fathers.

As we seen before, Eritrean customary law, authorized mothers to attribute paternity while Italian law did not. As a consequence, many Italian men, taking advantage of Eritrean women’s ignorance in this regard, easily convinced them to become their concubines, and abandoned them when they had a baby.

Abandoned by their fathers, these children, accorting to what Pollera wrote in "La Donna in Etiopia", were likely to be shunned by their mothers’ families, who felt no responsibility to provide for them. Hence mother and child quickly sank into the deepest poverty. He claimed that indigence, coupled with resentment toward those who hadabandoned them, pushed mixed-race children toward delinquency. (Incidentally, Pollera himself was the father of mixed-race children; he recognized them and provided for their education.)

And what happened to the mothers, the Erithrean women frauded by Italian men?

Pollera wrote: "Abandoned by the European the madama easily and quickly falls into deep poverty, as it will be difficult for her to marry, because nobody wants to bear the burden of another man’s children. She cannot find an honest job, because there are no occupations or workshops, and thus she often falls into the lowest prostitution."

Already in the early twentieth century, between 1909 and 1914, the Italian colonial administration had attempted to curb phenomena of this type through a series of rules incorporated into a special colonial law which aimed to minimize any admixture between colonists (especially colonial officials) and indigenous peoples

I refer to the R.D. September 19, 1909, no. 839 and R.D. December 10, 1914, no. 16. In the first case, article 43 specifies that "colonial officials are forbidden to cohabit with indigenous women"; in the second case, article 42 specifies instead that "the colonial official who contracts marriage with an indigenous woman is considered to have resigned".

During the liberal-era, Italian government had allowed Italian men to acknowledge and support the children they had with African women and children acknowledged by their Italian fathers had acquired Italian citizenship automatically. Moreover, a law of 1933 had created the possibility for mixed-race children unacknowledged by their fathers to obtain Italian citizenship also. This law gave legal force to the practice of assimilating unacknowledged Italo-Eritrean children into the Italian community, which colonial governments had sanctioned in practice since 1917.

In the colonial literature one can also find mention of mixed-race children being brought to Italy where they went to school, but apparently they were rare exceptions ("Dangerous liaisons, Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea" by Giulia Barrera) .

A 1914 Italian law addressed mixed-race menfor the first time, stating that they could not become a colonial official (R.d. 10 December 1914, no. 1510, art. 3.).

This is an indirect clue that some mixed-race men had risen to a position to apply for such offices.

The 1933 legislation on Eritrea and Somalia ( L. 6 July 1933, no. 999. Ordinamento organico per l’Eritrea e la Somalia) dealt more extensively with métissage. The law confirmed that mixed-race children who were recognized by their Italian fathers automatically gained Italian citizenship. It also introduced a special regulation for children of unknown parents. Those whose "physical characteristics ... give rise to the belief that both parents were of white race" automatically obtained Italian citizenship. Those who appeared to be biracial could gain Italian citizenship only if a judge deemed them worthy: they had to prove that they had "a perfectly Italian education", that they were not polygamists and had no record of major crimes, and that they had successfully attended the third class of elementary school (art. 18).

Three years later the new law for the Africa Orientale Italiana (R.d.l. 1 June 1936, no. 1019) effaced this possibility. The notion that an individual’s "physical characteristics" determined personal status, however, persisted and subsequently led to dreadful consequences:

Art. 30. - Il nato nel territorio dell’Africa Orientale Italiana da genitori ignoti, quando i caratteri somatici, ed altri eventuali indizi facciano fondatamente ritenere che entrambi i genitori siano di razza bianca, è dichiarato cittadino italiano.

(...)

Art. 30. - The child born in the territory of Italian East Africa from unknown parents, when the somatic, and other possible indications make it reasonably believe that both parents are of race white, is declared an Italian citizen.

As I wrote before, the first racial law in Italy was the Royal Legislative Decree 19 April 1937, no. 880, (turned into l. 30 December 1937, no. 2590), that was the culmination of a campaign against "the plague of miscegenation" that arose after the Ethiopian conquest in 1935–1936.

The first effect of the new segregation policy was the criminalization of the "madamato" . The law’s only article read:

The Italian citizen who, in the territory of the Kingdom or the colonies, has a relation of a conjugal nature with a colonial subject of the Africa Orientale Italiana, or with a foreigner belonging to a people which has traditions, customs, social and juridical concepts analogous to those of the subjects of the Africa Orientale Italiana, will be punished with imprisonment from one to five years.

"Il cittadino italiano che nel territorio del Regno o delle Colonie tiene relazione d’indole coniugale con persona suddita dell’Africa Orientale Italiana o straniera appartenente a popolazione che abbia tradizioni, costumi, e concetti giuridici e sociali analoghi a quelle dei sudditi dell’Africa Orientale Italiana, è punito con la reclusione da uno a cinque anni" (r.d.l. 19 Aprile 1937, nr. 880, convertito in l. 30 Dicembre 1937, nr. 2590).

In 1940, the "Norms Concerning Children of Mixed Race" (L. 13 May 1940, nr. 822) prohibited Italians from acknowledging the children they had had with Africans and from helping to support them; as for the "mixed-race" children (meticci), the norms assigned them the juridical status of colonial subjects.

7 - Conclusions

Montanelli had 14 years more than Destà, who was only 12 year old.

Considering all the reasons above, I'm allowed to consider wrong who said that Montanelli married a 12 years old Ethiopian girl in the respects of local Constumary law.

"Madamato" was a froud, a way in which white colonialist abused of low-class women, and definitely was not dämòz.

When you buy a 12 years old Ethiopian girl from her father with a shotgun and a horse for 500 lire, you are not marring her in the respect of dämòz. You are buying a slave.

In the 19th century a person was considered a slave if another individual exercised power or control over the slave to restrain his or her personal liberty. In 1935-1936 slavery were illegal according to the Slavery Convention of 1926.

When you talk about "madamato" you talk about rape and slavery.

This is a wrong rapresentation of historical reality of Italian colonialism, a way in which white men, today and yesterday, continue to oppresses women and young girl with the myth of "a benevolent" Colonialism.

...

In the next part I will examine why Montanelli could not be considered a good journalist and some of the atrocities committed by Italians against the african population during it's colonial wars.

[ariainstars]

Skywalker Men - The „X“ Factor in the Equation

Recently I have heard and read quite a few interpretations of the Star Wars sequels; and regarding its conclusion, there seem to be two major theories.

1.  Kylo Ren will pay for what he did and end in a terrible way, making the way free for Rey as the heroine who will save the galaxy, and who maybe also will turn out to be a Skywalker / Solo / Kenobi after all. 2.  Kylo will be Ben Solo again and Rey will be the one who brings him back to the light.

But we know that this is the Skywalker saga. As Luke himself said, “This is not going to go the way you think.”

The two above-mentioned developments are, each in its own way, the most logical and straightforward ones, depending on whether you see the protagonist as Kylo Ren the villain due to his crimes, or as Ben Solo the hero undercover / the victim due to his uncle’s betrayal and Snoke’s manipulation.

But when you are dealing with a Skywalker, you can be certain only of one thing: the unexpected. Because the Skywalker is always the X factor in the equation.

Every Skywalker man is a hot emotional mess. Their impulsiveness is one of the major factors of the saga, urging the plot on. And that’s not wrong in itself: if they make a spontaneous decision reaching out to someone, it turns to be the right thing in the end. It’s when they make things only about themselves that they fail. 

With characters like Obi-Wan, Yoda, Han or Leia to name a few, you usually know where you’re at. Their personalities are well-defined and you can foresee what they will do from a mile away. Han sometimes is spontaneous too, but his actions are dictated by slyness, not by rushed emotions. Being Anakin’s daughter, Leia is hot-headed too, but due to having been raised a princess even if she takes sudden action, she never loses her sense of responsibility and always thinks of the common good.

With a Skywalker, you are definitively always in for surprises. They often don’t do what they are expected to do, whether from us viewers or from the characters around them. 

Skywalkers usually do not explain or justify themselves. They do not speak about these spontaneous acts, which leads both viewers and the figures around them wonder about their motivations and to judge them, depending on whether we or they see them as the heroes or the villains (or, occasionally, as the fools) of the story.

Prequels

Anakin Skywalker’s very existence is a mystery. He is the most powerful Jedi of all and comes from the humblest beginnings. His mother is not even aware of how she got pregnant with him.

It is 9-year-old Anakin who brings the Naboo Battle to a closure, destroying the droid’s control station which was orbiting the planet. All he did was to “stay in the cockpit”.

On his mother’s death, Anakin lashes out for the first time. His anger and grief are understandable, however it is as terrible as it is unexpected that it will push him so far as to kill the entire tusken village.

Knowing the original story we were of course aware that Anakin would marry Padmé; however to the Jedi, this was unthinkable because they would never have guessed that a Jedi would dare to oppose their strict code. Even Obi-Wan did not know for years, until on realizing that Padmé was pregnant he finally put two and two together.

Anakin’s marriage may seem foolish, immoral or romantic depending on your point of view. In any case, it’s crucially important because without this marriage, the two children who will later bring down the Empire would not have been born.

Again, as viewers we did know that Anakin would turn to the Sith. But the Jedi did not see it coming and they could not stop him. Obi-Wan was shocked on finding out that the one who had killed the Jedi younglings was indeed his former apprentice, saying over and over to Yoda that he could not believe it.

On Mustafar, Padmé almost succeeded in convincing Anakin to leave everything behind him and come back with her. It is interesting that she still had the power to do that (thus proving that there still was good in him) despite the horrible things he had done.

Would Obi-Wan have suspected that Anakin would survive Mustafar, a quadruple amputee burning in the lava? Assuredly not. That’s why he left him behind. We can only imagine his reaction on finding out that Lord Vader, Palpatine’s right hand and the scourge of the galaxy, had been built from Anakin’s miserable remainders.

 Classics

Luke proves right away to be a true Skywalker when he learns that Leia is about to be executed. He is in terrible danger on an unknown space station and he has never met the girl in person, but he immediately feels that he has to rescue her.

Darth Vader is Moff Tarkin’s subordinate. But the suggestion to let the rebels leave the Death Star in order to track them down comes from him - a risky tactic that proves to be fatal. Not being a Skywalker, Tarkin would certainly never have come up with such an unexpected idea.

Despite the protests of both his mentors, Luke rushes to Bespine because he feels Han’s and Leia’s distress. To Obi-Wan and Yoda, both straightforward characters, the obvious thing for him to do would be to stay on Dagobah and complete his training. But as usual, Luke follows his heart.

The probably most unexpected plot twist in movie history: “I am your father.”

Not only is the fact in itself totally unpredicted, it’s that Vader does tell Luke at all, in an attempt to keep his son with him. Knowing the truth, Luke can no longer hate Vader. From this moment on, he is lost to the Dark Side.

When the Falcon first escapes, Vader does what everybody would have expected him to do: he chokes captain Needa to death. On its second escape, he just exits the bridge wordlessly. The encounter with his son seems to have shaken him more than he thought.

Why is Return of the Jedi the quintessential Skywalker film, the peak of the classic trilogy? Because so many things happen that no one would have foreseen.

Luke tries to solve matters with Jabba the Hutt diplomatically. Any kick-ass action hero would have entered his cave showing his strength and skills right from the start. Luke only grabs his light sabre at the very last moment.

Darth Vader, the cold-blooded killer, the most iconic villain, is still salvageable? “There is still good in him, Leia.” No one but his son could have realized this unexpected truth.

A decision that is controversial in the eyes of many fans to this day: Luke’s decision to give up fighting.

Palpatine has done his utmost to corrupt Luke, trying over and over to create enmity between father and son. Luke refuses to be separated from his father once more: he proclaims himself to be a Jedi “like my father before me.”

His loyalty is ultimately what brings the Empire down.

Although it costs him his life, Vader destroys Palpatine in order to rescue his son - another spontaneous decision taken at the very last moment, so unexpected that even Palpatine, who knew him so well and for so long, did not see it coming.

Sequels

Adult Luke is normally a calm and self-controlled person. But on sensing his nephew’s power, he is overwhelmed by a sudden moment of panic, and he draws his light sabre because he fears the loss of everything he loves.

Kylo Ren has no qualms killing innocents and torturing prisoners. But as he interrogates Rey, he is surprisingly gentle.

We see Kylo interact with Han on the bridge: his words to Snoke “He means nothing to me” were obviously false, he does feel something for his father. Yet he commits the patricide. He does the unthinkable, believing in Snoke’s words that this will finally end the conflict inside of him pushing him to the Dark Side for good.

Kylo would have had the opportunity to kill both Finn and Rey who are untrained with the light sabre. But he only wounds Finn (despite calling him a traitor, too) and lets Rey go unscathed.

After his terrible deed, we would expect Kylo to now be the ultimate villain. But as we see his face again a few days after the patricide, he is obviously deeply traumatized.

On her visit in the cave, Rey is confronted with her loneliness. The only person who offers her companionship and empathy is the alleged villain.

Ben does not speak with Rey about his intentions. He kills Snoke when he was least expecting it, taking both Snoke and Rey entirely by surprise.

Again, surprise: Luke is not really on Crait, he’s a Force projection. He uses his nephew’s anger against him in order to save his sister and her resistance, and to end the battle on Crait without spilling one drop of blood. A move that is as cunning as it is compassionate.

After the battle, Kylo would still have the time to send someone to go after the Falcon and shoot it down. But despite his assertion to destroy everything he just remains back, crying silently.

Now about the theories for Episode IX.

Being the last of the Skywalker family Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is, again, the X factor in the saga’s equation. Like with his grandfather before him, we know too little about his background to really know what we’re at. We see the sequels more through Rey’s eyes, which is why we tend to mistake her as the protagonist; hence the above mentioned two main theories for the saga’s conclusion.

Kylo is not predictable. He will most certainly make a few decisions no one would have reckoned with. As Lor San Tekka said right from the start, he cannot deny the truth that is his family. All we can do is hope that he will act for the right reasons.

What makes everybody wonder about the Skywalker men, is the same over and over: what do they want after all?

One would expect the protagonist of an action saga, of a hero’s journey, to do what action heroes usually pursue: save the world, kill the villain, get the girl. One would expect a Jedi to always do the right thing and a villain always to do evil. It is admittedly irritating when the protagonist takes unexpected turns over and over.

Knowing the Skywalkers, what I believe they ultimately want is belonging. They are fiercely loyal, but it can literally drive them out of their minds if their loyalty is not requited. And unfortunately, their power often makes people mistrust them, using them at times, but not really requiting their services with trust and appreciation. Snoke’s downfall came due to the fact that he showed his apprentice lack of respect, a huge mistake Palpatine never made with Vader.

Anakin had to give up his mother and his wish of becoming a pilot. He did all he could to suppress his emotions in order to find belonging with the Jedi, to no avail: they never trusted him. When he feared to lose the only ones he did belong to - his wife and unborn children - he lost himself. Only when his son proclaimed his loyalty to him did he turn and find belonging again.

Ben Solo, too, originally had the wish of becoming a pilot. He did struggle to become a Jedi, but he got unsettled when his parents sent him away from home and pushed over the edge when his own uncle seemed to give up on him.

Luke is the exception because he is so deeply human, and so accepting of other people’s humanness, that people can’t help but trust him. Luke is always more a human being than a Jedi. He does employ his powers but they do not define him as a person.

So, if we try to guess how the saga will end, we must not ask ourselves what Rey will do.

Will she kill Kylo Ren, making him pay for his crimes?

Will she save him with love and forgiveness?

I don’t think that’s the right question to make. The question is: what will he do?

Kylo committing some other horrible, unpardonable crime? No actual surprise there after the patricide.

Ben helping / saving / joining Rey? No surprise there either, after all the times he reached out for her.

If the Skywalkers were not the way they are, their saga would not be half as captivating and the plot twists not half as fascinating. Who wants to follow a story where most everything goes as expected?

With a Skywalker guy, the only thing to be expected is the unexpected.

Let’s keep our hopes up and tuned.

P.S. I did write a few meta’s about my own theories for Episode IX, you may want to check them out. Yes, I know, I’m a bloody tease. Guilty as charged. 😉

[astrovagrant]

hello. i am tipsy verging on drunk and just finished nge and i have never hated a show so much while simultaneously loving One Specific Thing about it. i am doing my best to not have typos but basically:

i loved the robots (and what the show Kind Of tried to say about bodies/autonomy in the process) and the convoluted worldbuilding. i hated everything else.

the 'characters' are unlikeable pastisches of actual possible personality types, and the show wastes more time on sexualizing the female characters and completely shredding any possible meaningful arcs they could have in the process than actually doing character building and having a satisfying arc for uh... anyone?

the show frequently gives the many female characters objectively cool roles and then uses them as either fetish bait for shinji (/the viewer), as torture porn, or completely brutalizing and bastardizing who these women Could Be for the sake of, again, male characters

and instead of doing any real writing or character development, they simply occasionally introduce a new development as absolute fact instead of backing it up or building it up, forcing the watcher to just Accept it. and then, in lieu of any real, good character arc, shinji has an immensely shoehorned slideshow of god interrogating/lecturing him into Accepting Himself For Who He Is and Becoming Mentally Healthy in the last 2 episodes. the last 2 episodes. the last? 2? fucking? episodes?

as dissatisfying as that is, shinji is still immensely unlikeable, so i'm not too broken up about it. however, it was immensely frustrating to watch this entire 26 episode show and have asuka be exactly what she was. barely a real character, more an assemblage of bad anime tropes and weird & harmful misconceptions of how teen girls think & feel & act - and then the show repeatedly abuses her, even has a very clear rape analog scene for her in her mech, and won't stop oversexualizing her for Two Fucking Minutes - and for what? is she held by misato as she sobs, told that she is enough, that there are people there for her who will stay there for her while she deals with her pain? is she given any friendship and support from anyone (let alone another female character) and does she learn to take down her walls to heal from her trauma after her character flaws are explored? well, it isn't important to shinji or his journey, so no.

i do not even want to Start on misato and ritsuko. ritsuko (and her mother) specifically rankle so fucking bad, and the fact that misato is a clearly capable adult woman who nevertheless has her personality repeatedly driven into the ground by some faux-freud 'i love sex and being promiscuous it makes me dirty and i do this because i have Daddy Issues' bullshit is so fucking exhausting. why make ritsuko and misato enemies? they were friends for years. why make ritsuko lose her shit over gendo ikari of all people. why make her mother kill herself over gendo ikari, of ALL people. why turn every single female character against each other in the badly written pursuit of male attention. i hate it.

the mechs? the evas? amazing. showstopping. still troubling (this show has a real fetish for mothers dying and becoming Literal Objects/Tools that enact violence and are violently assaulted in turn) - but the show actually had something to SAY for like 2 episodes. shinji having control taken away from him and being forced by his own father to commit war crimes / murder? the dummy plug system and its basis on rei / her clones? that was some actual content that could explore so MUCH, and yet. it was just a ripple on a pond, and passed way too quickly. STILL - that moment of non-consent was treated with adequate horror and fear, and had traumatic effects on shinji. meanwhile! the rape analog scene with asuka was a final nail in a voyeuristic, torture porn-laden coffin series of events meant to totally break her. and there was nothing after that, no 2-episode shitty montage of asuka being Allowed to recover from her trauma. no, instead she simply shows up as her default (badly written) ~tsundere~ self in shinji's own self-improvement montage, with only the most fleeting of nods to the fact that the evangelion situation entirely broke her, and that's only leveraged as a thing for shinji to springboard off of.

this show wastes so much time on saying nothing useful, and then shoves new things down your throat with no prior establishment and expects you to just take it and accept that it is Good. it does this with all of its deeply mediocre character relationships, and then does it with the entire ending to the show.

i'm not bothered by the fun and wacky worldbuilding - secret organizations and global governments racing to implement their own version of the rapture before one rogue and deeply amoral scientist can? sure! fine! mechs that aren't actually robots at all, with souls stolen from humans and technically extensions of extraterrestrial life forms competing with one another to colonize earth? yes, please, i'll take another. but the frankly shitty character writing and deeply lackluster attempts to make anyone anything other than immensely frustrated with said characters is so SO painful to sit through. i spent most of this show impatiently waiting for the next mech sequence in order to not have to think about the fact that all of the female characters exist to serve the main male character's journey at the expense of their minds, bodies, and literal souls.

dead mom who gets absorbed into a weapon of mass destruction, check. dead mom soul-clones that her son (main male character) can feel horny for while she has no autonomy of her own and flatly states that she wishes for death (and also that weird pregnancy bit? hello?), check. angry and horny fellow teen that male protag can be horny for and also she offers the viewers A Lot of torture porn as the show goes on, check. confident and assured female commander who could easily have provided a positive female mentorship for the male protag but instead he's horny for her too and it's revealed that she's just a Dirty Slut who wants to be defiled by men similar to her father because uhh he never loved her enough or something i guess - check! highly intelligent and driven female head scientist haunted by her genius mother's legacy who turns out to jealously want the attention of the male protag's father because he also was fucking her mom (who killed herself over him/his affection btw) - check check check! we've got it all baby!!! every female character that there is! and no, none of them are allowed to be friends! come get yours today!

this show sucked. the final montage episodes had a fundamentally pretty decent message - we cannot live alone (a life lived alone is not really a life at all), and need to accept flaws in ourselves and embrace vulnerability in order to know and accept and love ourselves through the mirror of other people's humanity - but the journey to that message sucked SO much. the Message, nice (or deep or whatever) as it is, is always going to be stained by the fact that women in this show are not allowed to be actual, whole people and must simply serve as stepping stones for a male protag - and the show wastes lots of valuable airtime making sure that you see these sexy, sexy 14 year-old girls in their sexy, sexy skintight suits.

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Carole & Tuesday

A charming SciFi anime focusing more on the cast’s day-to-day lives than some major sociopolitical conflict that requires laser gun diplomacy? Set on a Terraformed Mars with brick and mortar solarpunk aesthetic? I can get into that.

The fact that Carole & Tuesday is a science fiction story came as a surprise, as most of the buzz and promotion that crossed my social feeds focused on the street performance aspects. Then, surprise! Tabletop fast food ordering and pizzerias that grow their tomatoes in house![1] Which is the sort of speculative fiction I’m enjoying nowadays: normal life with the fantastic acting as seasoning to spice up the world around them.

I’ve never paid special attention to music. I listen to music obviously, but rarely in any sort of analytical capacity. It’s pretty sounds that help fill in the background while I write, or to convey emotion in a musical, or to mark the start and end of a show I’m watching. I’ve never sought out music to listen to when looking for entertainment, it’s always a byproduct of whatever media I’m engaged with at the moment. Heck, these days, when I’m too lazy to set my car radio up to play a podcast, I just drive in silence.[2]

I sometimes feel I’m missing something by not engaging with the art form in a more conscious manner, and I only recently became aware that albums are a carefully curated thing instead of a collection of the performer’s most recent songs, so… yeah. Kind of a cultural blindspot.[3]

This tangent doesn’t even end with a neat little note of how Carole & Tuesday had inspired me to consume music in a more deliberate and contemplative manner. The soundtrack includes plenty of insert songs I happily threw on my background noise playlists,[4] and what few albums I seek out are video game and anime soundtracks.[5]

Carole & Tuesday was chiefly directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, who’s name was made with the Jazzy Space Epic Cowboy Bebop and Hip-Hop Samurai Series Samurai Champloo. It was probably inevitable he would produce an anime where music took front stage instead of informing tone.

Carole & Tuesday takes inspiration from Pop, but is unafraid to feature and mix other genres, such as Opera and Rap.[6] What’s really exciting is the decision to have the insert songs performed in English.

Historically, when diegetic music is present in anime, the song is performed in Japanese, and most dubs make the smart decision to leave the japanese audio and subtitle them. I may prefer dubs for my various reasons, but I wouldn’t dare ask for the policy on subbed music to change. Carole & Tuesday took an international view to its production, and thus used the most widely spoken language when no one (reasonable) would begrudge the use of Japanese performers.

Netflix picked up the show as part of their continued haphazard attempts to seize the genre with an attitude out of the early 2000s, and the company tapped to record the English dub did an admirable job matching voice performances believably similar to the singing voices.

Which may be the first time that speaking actors were hired to fit the singers.

The story takes place on Mars in the future year of… 50 years after humanity started migrating to Mars. I cannot find a year cited, which is the smart and wise choice and I am super annoyed I’m not going to be able to make jokes about the production's attempts and failure to predict the future.

50 years after starting to migrate over to the red planet, humanity has terraformed large swathes of Mars into a Solarpunk paradise. Earth is apparently not in a great state as refugees are desperately making their way to the planet, but Earth remains offscreen for the entire run. Fortunately no one has any giant robots,[7] so the two planets aren’t at war. While Mars has been made hospitable enough, the atmosphere does occasionally mess with the genetics of residents.

That’s just background details, however. The story is really about the titular duo. Tuesday is introduced fleeing the mansion of her politician mother, hopping onto a cattle train like Kiki, and riding off to Alba City with only a quitar and robotic luggage to keep her company, where she stumbles upon Refugee Orphan Carole busking with a keyboard. The two have a jam session and decide to become a musical act.

Meanwhile, famed child star Angela Carpenter[8] is setting to transition from a modeling career to an exciting career singing. Her mother pulls strings and utilizes her connections to team up with Tao, a genius of Artificial Intelligence Design who is willing to use his technology to provide Angela with computer generated music and lyrics.

Thus we have the start of a sci-fi John Henry Tale where the battle is not hammer and steel but instruments and voice.

I say ‘the start’ because while the two teams utilize different methods to produce their music, their methods are never weighed against one another. In fact, there’s barely a one-sided rivalry, as Angela is jealous of the titular duo’s ability to enjoy their career, and our two heroes take only a polite, professional view of Angela’s rising career.

Carole and Tuesday are both weighed down by a common problem with anime protagonists: they’re just nice. There’s a certain fear when writing protagonists, especially females, of accidentally making them off-putting that the writers overcorrect and don’t let the hero make mistakes or have much personality, to the point that Carole and Tuesday have very little agency.

Instead, it’s Gus, the ex-rock star manager the duo acquire, that does the leg work and takes risks while Carole and Tuesday just sing nice songs then sit back while the plotlines orbiting their rise to success are resolved by the men.

The show also can’t choose a lane, playing with several story threads that could carry full 24-episode stories by themselves, but instead are dealt with as lightly as possible.

We start with the story of a run-away from decadence and a refugee bringing their world views together, but that instead goes into a tournament arc disguised as a talent contest, then the drama of navigating the music industry, before ending with the presidential run of Tuesday’s mother causing public unrest. Carole and Tuesday don’t make a meaningful choice that affects any of these stories.

Meanwhile, Angela gets a story of asserting her identity while already in public view, facing dangers both external and internal on her journey.

Surprisingly, this is the first show in a while that I didn't resent for transitioning out of the episodic, playing with the premise portion. While Carole and Tuesday were attempting to get their big break, bopping around misadventures trying to get contacts, gigs, and filming a music video, Angela looms in her plotline, building up to the inevitable rivalry.

Angela is introduced just before her mother, Dahlia, starts reworking Angela's career from modeling to singing, hiring Tao, renowned AI designer, as Angela's producer. Angela experiences mild paranoia from Tao's standoffish nature, machinery, and making a holographic simulation of Angela. So Angela had a more consistent narrative during the first arc.

Introductions out of the way, it's time for everyone's favorite trope: the tournament arc! In the form of ‘Space!'s got Talent’ Generic Brand Named into Mar's Brightest. The main duo meets their rival, backstage drama ensues, some very good music is performed, and things are set up to technically give both Carole and Tuesday as well as Angela a win at the end.

With publicity achieved, Gus starts getting to work preparing the girls' debut album and booking appearances, as well as meeting other artists and (briefly) Carole’s father. We learn about Gus’s past client, Flora, who dropped Gus as soon as she found success, then found herself without a support base and spiraled into depression and addiction. Carole and Tuesday remain upbeat and optimistic.

Meanwhile, Angela starts getting harassed by a stalker and feeling helpless and poorly supported by those around her. Tao takes point on stopping the stalker when the police fail, ultimately taking him down before the stalker could pull a Mark David Chapman.

The story bleeds into the final act, as the presidential campaign of Valerie Simmons, Tuesday’s mother, moves forward in prominence. The AI algorithm Valerie is utilizing suggests she take an anti-immigration stance, which the woman follows in an attempt to further her career. Musicians are getting harassed by law enforcement, Tuesday’s brother Spencer is becoming uneasy with being an accessory to the campaign, and starts meeting with a reporter with information that Valerie’s campaign manager orchestrated a terrorist attack to villainize immigrants. Spencer and the reporter argue over how many chances to give Valerie, and agree on Spencer taking the evidence to Valerie, and if she doesn’t back down, then they’ll leak the scandal. Valerie, seeing the crimes committed for her benefit, gracefully renounces her candidacy. It’s very heart warming.

Carole and Tuesday write a protest song, and gather friends to sing it. This protest song has no observable impact.

Meanwhile, Angela learns she’s adopted, and her mother suffers a heart-attack shortly before Angela is set to win a Martian Grammy, and Angela spirals into depression and prescription drug abuse, to the point of collapsing at the end of her Grammy performance, being rushed to the hospital and missing her mother’s passing and funeral. Angela is adrift. She has no family, no support, and is just lonely.

Tao, who was working to sabotage Valerie’s campaign and burning as many bridges as possible after being targeted for refusing to assist the campaign, appears in Angela’s hospital room to drop a bomb: both he and Angela are designer babies, and though Tao must go into hiding now, he does intend to look out for his little sister.

Angela joins the performance of Carole and Tuesday’s protest song.

If it’s not already clear, I feel the story of Carole and Tuesday themselves was pretty lacking.

So, how would I rework this? Step one: we’re either cutting Carole and Tuesday, or combining them into a single character and making Angela the second. With the second option, Angela can maintain her backstory, but take Carole’s introduction of fleeing her family mansion and attempting to strike out on her own, meeting up with Carole and forming an act. To maintain the final arc, Carole would need to be reworked into the abandoned daughter of Tuesday’s late father, making her the half sister of Spencer and something to be hidden by Valerie Simmons’ campaign.

We then intermingle the two plotlines: Gus maintains his managerial position, and eventually convinces Angela to use her connections and mother to get her career jumpstarted, Ms. Carpenter still brings in Tao to write music, and now we can lean more into the AI-written music versus human compositions subplot as well as creative differences, which can lead to an arc where Angela and Carolday split to attempt solo careers, each taking a different manager.[9] Dahlia still has her issues and passes away, Angela her depressive spiral, but now Gus gets pathos by being there to help his client out of self-destruction, and the final number can also be a reconciliation of the main musical duo. The song can even be a combination of AI and human composition.

Carolday, meanwhile, discovers her relation to the anti-immigrant candidate and has to decide if she wants to finally have a family with Valerie and Spencer or stand up for her beliefs and assist a politician in bringing the campaign down. The resolution of the political plot can remain a happy compromise, but Carolday gets a slightly more active role in it.

The animation and world-building is great, and Angela’s arc is very strong. But the writing was too afraid to let either Carole or Tuesday dip into unlikeability that they become props to their own storyline, which is made further unfortunate as their supporting cast that do make decisions are mostly men.

The series is also riddled with a lot of good starts. Many short vignettes or minor details that could be made into full animes by themselves. Show more of Carole and Tuesday’s attempts to break into the music industry while also trying to pay bills and put food on their table. An expansion on the other competitors at Mars Brightest.[10] Heck, expand the roster of the competition and dig more into backstage drama. Carole’s father, who was sent to prison and found his wife dead and daughter sent to another planet upon his release, could carry a story of his own on his back! Valerie’s presidential run and the plight of Earth immigrants given more attention. Heck, even the story of how Earth, the origins of the human species, fell into being a third-world planet people are desperate to leave.

I’d even watch a series about the solarpunk pizzeria that grows their own tomatoes.

The music is really good, however, featuring many artists and styles, and those by our main duo wouldn’t sound out of place on a car radio or licensed on a primetime television show.

It’s a good show, but not an eternal classic. Maybe a second choice for someone digging deeper into anime. However, if its placement on Netflix means it’s someone’s introduction to Anime, that wouldn’t be terrible. Give it a watch if you want something to wind down for bed, or want inspiration for your own speculative fiction.

Kataal kataal.

-

[1] Solarpunk’s neat. [2] Mostly because I lost all my preset stations last time I took my car in for fixing, and I don't actually know any to punch in. Also, I use youtube for music when writing. [3] Also means I’m wholly unprepared to find music when I finally get a podcast project off the ground. [4] The soundtrack is very present on Spotify, which is nice. [5] I am finding myself increasingly intrigued by vinyl records, however. Probably a bit extravagant, and difficult considering my narrow interests. [6] Presumably to annoy fans of both. [7] Bam! Gundam reference! Anyone have Bingo yet? [8] Though I could swear they never use her last name on screen. [9] I’d find it amusing if Angela takes Gus and Carolday teams up with Dahlia, but the rest of my outline works better if Angela remains with Dahlia. [10] Though this one’s not a major loss. Typical tournament arc stuff.

[hellyeahomeland]

“The English Teacher” | Directed by Michael Cuesta, Cinematography by Giorgio Scali

Sara: Not really related to this image specifically, but this week’s episode was directed by Michael Cuesta, whom you may remember as the directing executive producer for the show’s first two seasons. He directed some of the best episodes of the show: the pilot, “The Weekend,” “Marine One,” “The Choice.” I was really, really happy to see that they brought him back for the penultimate episode. That feels fitting and so, so right. 

Related to this image specifically, opening on an image of Carrie literally split in half in the frame feels symbolic. She’s being pulled in two competing directions, her loyalty to Saul fighting with her desire to prevent a nuclear war. 

Gail: When the episode first started I wondered if she had escaped custody and was standing and waiting to have a passport photo taken like Brody in “The Choice” (again, a Michael Cuesta episode). (My tin foil hat has been all over the place lately!) But then it occurred to me that it’s actually the mirror of the opening shot of Carrie in the first episode this season. The close-ups of Carrie in both scenes have a lot in common, especially that we can only see half of her face. In episode one, the other half of the frame was black and here, the other half is white. I think Sara was right when she pointed out in last week’s Director’s Chair about the transition images at the end of “Designated Driver.” Carrie’s life has always been somewhere in between the black and white. 

Ashley: The way this carefully pans down across her face, only to find that she is actually cuffed to the chair, is pretty well-done. We’ve seen her in cuffs too many times this season, and trapped in other ways more often than that.

Sara: This image of Carrie watching the suicide bomb footage on TV really calls to mind the visuals in the opening credits of a young Carrie watching war and terror play out on a television screen.

Ashley: How many times has Carrie seen something awful and life-altering on television? She was in this position in season five when she saw Quinn in the gas chamber. Shocking and devastating and just kinda the life of Carrie Mathison, tbh.

Gail: I agree with both of you, this is a great callback to Carrie in the credits and Carrie in “New Normal.” Carrie’s unconventional methods often come at a high price and this scene is another reminder of that. (And how amazing is Chris Bauer, who plays Carrie’s lawyer?! Sara, he’s even giving you some sweet ‘stache!)

Sara: Love the mustache. 

Sara: Tag yourself I’m Wellington. 

Ashley: We are all Wellington.

Gail: Pretty sure I’ve been Saul all week trying to get my kids to do their e-learning. I’m tagging my son as Zabel and my daughter as Hayes. My husband is full-on Wellington, knowing I’m right but refusing to get involved.

Ashley: The sharp difference between Zabel’s terrible beard and Saul’s luscious beard is one of the best things this show has offered us.

Gail: I love that Saul’s body language tells a story too. He can hardly bring himself to look at Zabel, let alone face him.

Sara: John Zabel is a real fuckin’ slime ball and Hugh Dancy has been so, so good in this role. You can tell he must relish getting to play this evil character, going up against these actors and actors that he’s known so intimately, though entirely offscreen, the last ten years. 

Sara: I love this detail of Saul moving one of his books back just a millimeter or so. It really emphasizes how meticulous he is and also begs the question if he’s going to realize Carrie had them all splayed out on his living room floor. Does he keep them in a specific order? 

Ashley: I WAS WONDERING THE SAME THING. And I’m surprised he has so many of them — he was looking at one volume specifically, so I initially was wondering if his commie shelf was just to hide that particular book.

Gail: No small detail seems to escape Saul’s attention. Such a small movement, but it says so much about who Saul is. And yes, Ashley, some of those books were just decoys! Carrie figured that out as she was sorting the books, which is also a great detail about who Saul is. Saul’s red book collection of asset communication is also his hobby. As Carrie says, the best lies have to have truth in them.

Sara: Ben Savage as young Mandy Patinkin is some of the most inspired casting ever. I know he’s already played a young Mandy Patinkin, but I am still in awe. The flat bill cap was an excellent detail. #hat

Gail: I love how he is wearing a trademark Saul plaid shirt, too!

Gail: Another shot of a character with only half of their face shown. This time it’s a young Saul who already has his fair share of secrets.

Ashley: Spoiler alert, she doesn’t shoot him.

Sara: IJLTP.

Gail: We don’t get this close-up shot in this scene until Saul drops his facade and asks her if she’s reading between the lines... He wants to pull a fast one on the useful idiots in the Oval Office and wants her help to do it (ugh, Tasneem agrees!). From a distance, we see Saul in his office somewhere in the West Wing, playing the part of National Security Advisor, but as the camera moves in for this close-up, we see Saul as who he really is: the smart and strategic spy.

Sara: There were quite a few extreme close-ups of Saul this week. What does it mean in an episode where we learn more about his heroic past than potentially at any other time this series? For me this really put into perspective how much we don’t know about Saul. Carrie alludes to snippets he’s revealed over the years, but even she--presumably his closest confidante--doesn’t know. Saul is the opposite of an open book, pun intended. 

Ashley: Let’s crack his spine open and see if there’s a note.

Sara: This slow push on Carrie as the judge reads the list of charges against her is devastating, and not just for Carrie. It is for the audience too, because we know the truth. It goes without saying that Claire is magnificent here.

Ashley: Listening to all of the things Carrie Mathison is being charged with — specifically because we know the character, we have known her for a long time — is painful. For Claire, who has lived in Carrie’s skin for so long, it must have been torture. 

Gail: Carrie’s lawyer is dressed in red, white and blue while Carrie is dressed for a funeral. I’m sure neither is a coincidence.

Sara: I do not like the context of this shot, but I love the shot itself. IDNLTCOTSBILTSI.

Sara: Linus being the only one in a room full of military brass and West Wing staff who understands that something’s fishy here is a very “of course” moment. I love how they’re framed in shadows here. In a way, he and Saul have both been running a “shadow” government all season, working in the background, out of sight.

Gail: Saul has his own circle of trust now and Wellington’s circle is only bumping up against it, no Venn diagrams here. Saul is playing his cards close to the vest, knowing he is on borrowed time. (See what I did there?)

Sara: I loved the payoff of the Carrie/Jenna relationship this week. Jenna coming to the realization that Quinn did before--nothing is worth the damage they cause--plays like a terrible déjà vu moment. Carrie just sits there, silent, as Jenna walks out. As staff writer Jonathan Redding said, “She was never going to become another Carrie. She can’t make Carrie’s trades.”

Gail: I think Carrie sits silently as Jenna walks out because she can’t argue with her. Carrie herself came to the same realization back in season four. Interestingly, as Jenna has her realization that nothing is worth the damage they do, Carrie is sitting at a dining room table, just like Quinn was when he had his realization in “Gerontion.” Except this time Carrie is the one who everyone thinks is guilty of a crime she didn’t commit. So. Many. Parallels. 

Ashley: Putting Carrie at the dining room table is interesting — she’s surrounded by empty chairs. You can’t help but think of all the people she’s lost, and yet another person is walking away. She’s completely alone.

Sara: ICONIC MOMENT IN TELEVISION HISTORY. 

Gail: Did Carrie swipe a pair of Saul’s glasses from his house? They look similar to asset Anna’s glasses as well. Not sure if that means anything, but it’s interesting.

Sara: Gail, you can read my tin foil hat theory on that in this week’s TCWTW. 

Sara: I love love love this transition that reveals the teacher in the photo is the Russian translator. It’s inspired. 

Gail: Me too! I also love that she is in focus while everyone else is not, which adds importance to her character as well. The first shot of her mirrors the photo of The English Teacher. We don’t see her full face until she talks to Saul directly in this scene, a small detail that reveals who her character is important to.

Ashley: Her shoulders are squared, head cocked, listening — the contrast from the girl she was in the photo is evident even from behind.

Gail: Usually when a character is having an important moment, you see their face and reaction on camera, not the back of their head. Breaking that rule with Anna over and over again throughout the course of this scene is extremely effective. She’s a faceless, non-threatening fly on the wall and surely not the high-ranking Kremlin (and presumably male) official they are worried about.

Sara: The framing of these characters in this shot is amazing. Anna stands in the camera’s focus, head tilted ever so slightly. The other men don’t even notice. You can see how she’s been such an effective asset. Hidden in plain sight.

Sara: Kusnetsov’s book is Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. This is the last novel Dickens ever wrote, which is fitting here. 

Gail: According to Wikipedia, the book explores the conflict between doing what society expects and the idea of being true to oneself. When you set that concept against Andrei’s role as a double agent, the theme takes on new meaning.

Ashley: Nerds.

Gail: Saul doesn’t yet know how important Anna is, but Michael Cuesta and Giorgio Scali are giving the audience a subtle clue here. By shooting Anna from a low angle it alludes that her character is powerful and has influence, something Saul will come to realize shortly.

Sara: We all agree that it was 100% intentional to cast an actress to play young Anna that looks just enough like Claire Danes to make you think, right? I don’t mean that Carrie is the lovechild of Saul and Anna (the timelines don’t match!). More that Saul has a type, no?

Sara: ...And in case we had any doubt that they’re drawing a parallel between Anna and Carrie, we have this transition. This episode is filled with loaded transitions.

Gail: Carrie in the center of the frame, caught in between the dark and light, is an ongoing theme this episode. We see it here again as she makes her way toward Saul’s library.

Sara: There are multiple pans over Saul’s giant collection of red books, most of the titles unreadable and blurred. But where do we land at the end? The camera holds on this book, A Woman’s Vengeance by James Payn. There is almost no info about this book on the internet, which leads me to believe it’s fake. Yet it’s in the public domain. Did they just like the title? 

Gail: I read a little about it online. It was published originally in 1872, volume 2 of 3. I read an excerpt of it on Amazon, and the first chapter is titled “A Good Night’s Work.” Having this close-up shot of these books that follow our introduction to young Anna, Saul’s asset who is clearly a woman scorned, makes this book title (and the title to its first chapter) feel very fitting.

Sara: If the Wikipedia entry about The Secret Agent is any indication, this book is a doozy. Basically everyone suffers and dies at the end and an innocent person is accidentally killed. 

Gail: That Wikipedia page is crazy! It also says that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, loved this book and closely identified himself with the character of the “Professor”... which ties into Saul’s alias, Professor Rabinow. I live for this stuff--always a mark of a good production when the depth of the details matches the intensity of the show.

Sara: The phantom horizontal line on the seven. 

Ashley: That is like the ONE thing that I, Ashley, actually noticed and mentioned first. Give me a shout-out, man, I mean, DAMN.

Sara: Shout out to Ashley, who noticed and mentioned this first! 

Gail: Homeland always gives us the best bokeh. I love its use here. We have a window into Saul’s biggest secret, the details surrounding it are hazy to us at first, and we can’t see the full picture yet--just like this shot.

Sara: IJLTP.

Ashley: I love how old-school Carrie is — she’s so visual, and in her own way, just like Saul. She lays it all out and uses her hands to put it together.

Gail: Her bulletin board, highlighters and thread have been replaced by notecards and old carpet that I’d like to think Mira picked out, but the result is the same as we watch Carrie put all of the pieces together. It’s HIGH RED y’all.

Sara: “High red,” omg. I’m obsessed with the sequence of Carrie assembling the book timeline and figuring out Saul’s method of communication. For me it’s one of the all-time best Homeland scenes. 

Sara: The editing in this scene is exquisite. The use of jump cuts adds to the tension and uncertainty as Carrie herself attempts to splice together these disparate clues into something greater, some sort of truth. 

The scene is almost completely free of dialogue. Claire has to convey Carrie’s journey to the truth here through only her actions. I love the shots at ground level of her literally on hands and knees flipping through the books. There is a sense of desperation and urgency to it that is thrilling.

Sara: The Smile. 

Gail: I see what you did there and I approve. IJLTP.

Ashley: I’m a little surprised that Carrie isn’t a bit more conflicted here.

Sara: Cutting Carrie and Saul together at the moment where their minds finally sync is … quite literal, actually, but it works. In these twin shots of Carrie and Saul I’m struck especially by how Saul is against a light background while Carrie is cloaked in darkness. 

Gail: These back-to-back shots give the impression that Carrie and Saul are on opposite ends of the same book which rings very true to me. The black and white imagery continues here as Sara points out. We see Carrie just barely ahead of the darkness, looking toward the light.

Ashley: Mandy just does things with his face sometimes and it’s amazing to watch.

Sara: Another extreme close-up of Saul as he realizes that Carrie lied to him. 

Gail: Saul’s line from earlier in the season rings in my ears here. “You are vulnerable to him in ways neither of us can imagine.” But to build on my thoughts on his earlier close-up shot, I think it’s an effective tool for us to get a window into what Saul is genuinely thinking and feeling at that moment. The massive implications of Carrie’s involvement in a play being run by Yevgeny are devastating and Saul realizes it in one stunning and heartbreaking moment.

Gail: Anna saving Saul’s life gives so much more weight and importance to who she is to Saul. He owes her his life and, thirty years later, his career, too.

Sara: There is something fantastical about this part of the flashback. The backdrop and extreme lighting looks sort of … fake? It almost looks like they’re on a film set. I’m interpreting this as a reflection of Saul’s memory: we all want to see ourselves as the hero in our movie of our lives.

Sara: Shout out to Gail for realizing this Charlotte Benson character was featured last season with Ivan. 

Gail: I love a good easter egg and a good callback. Details like this and recurring characters like Scott Ryan give their world realism. I stan.

Ashley: This is such a terribly effective moment in the show. We haven’t seen Yevgeny at all in this episode, and yet he’s ever-present; closing on “kill Saul” is so fucking… ugh. Stupid Homeland.

Gail: All of Yevgeny’s shots in this scene are done with a steady camera, which gives the impression (illusion?) of his control of the situation. Have we had a scene where Yevgeny isn’t leaning? My God, he’s even leaning when on Zoom for Spies.

Sara: As Yevgeny reveals the full extent of his play--“Kill Saul”--the camera zooms in on him. Eventually he takes up almost the entire frame. It gives the feeling of stakes being continually raised. And he’s still got that trademark smirk and nonchalance, despite what he’s telling Carrie to do.

Sara: Meanwhile, the camera stays mostly the same distance away from Carrie but pans in semi-circles around her, back and forth, back and forth. It’s an interesting choice as she comes to the realization of what Yevgeny is suggesting. The camera is almost like the wheels spinning in her head as she understands the full scope of the choice she must make.

Gail: As Carrie and Yevgeny go back and forth, each one trying to figure out what the other one knows, the shots start to go back and forth as well, mimicking their dance. In film and television production, there is a term called the 180 degree rule. What it means is that there is an imaginary line running through a scene, from side to side, with respect to the camera. The rule of thumb is that the camera should never cross the line because it causes the viewer to feel disoriented and confused. But when used effectively, we get the powerful effect that it had here in this scene. We (the audience) feel the same disorientation as Carrie, the same unsteadiness that is reflected in the handheld camera that shoots her. As I mentioned above, when we see Yevgeny on the computer screen, he is centered, steady and in control. Quite a contrast between the two.

Ashley: I repeat… stupid Homeland.

Ashley: We’ve seen so much darkness in this episode, mostly related to Saul — Carrie, for her part, has been pretty much in bright spaces. Despite everything that’s happened to her, I believe that this is the darkest point in her life.

Sara: Carrie hurriedly walks out of this vast, empty mansion as the lights dim behind her. The weight and horror of this decision is splayed across her face. The darkness follows her. The question now as we head into this final chapter: can she outrun it? Or will it finally catch up to her? 

Gail: Staying just ahead of the darkness and trying to find the light. Here Carrie is again living somewhere in between.

[mittensmorgul]

300, and other random observations

Last night Mel and I were scouring the episode looking for the expected obvious “300″ to jump out from some random door or building number, or appear SOMEWHERE in the episode the way 100 did in 5.18:

or 200 did in 10.05:

In case it isn’t obvious from this image, this is the 200 Motel:

So I was looking for the 300 in 14.13, and weirdly didn’t find anything quite this obvious. I rambled a bit about my search here on @drsilverfish;s post:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182669346730/14x13-lebanon-some-silent-storytelling-notes-on

But I saw some interesting things in the pawn shop and around Lebanon that I can appreciate, as well as some very well hidden “300″ references. Basically this is just my Jerry Wanek appreciation post, because what a guy!

All screencaps are from hotn.

The one thing I’d overlooked as a HUGE “300″ is the most prominently featured guitar in the shop:

That one right in the middle, raised up above the others, looks a bit downtrodden. It’s missing its strings, first off. While another guitar is labeled “PLAY ME!” this one isn’t playable at all. And yet it might be the rarest instrument in the shop, and with a bit of tlc could easily be worth thousands. It’s a ww2 era Gibson ES300. Between 1942 and 1946, Gibson only produced a few acoustic guitars, since metals for the electric pickups were needed for the war effort. I think this could be one of those guitars. So talk about a big, blaring 300. Unstrung, a product of war, seemingly unplayable, but with care and attention, possibly the most valuable and precious instrument in the shop. Easy to see why it’s given pride of place.

But again, this isn’t an obvious 300. You kinda have to know something about something to even recognize it among all the other second-hand guitars.

(also lol at the giant tv in the background that makes us think of 13.16)

(and lol at the tuba that makes me think of the house of horns or whatever from 6.06. This show has such a bizarre history with pawn shops...)

Under a cut because this got way longer and more rambly and tangential than I intended >.>

There’s a lot going on just at the register:

Roadhouse Monkey, “You break it, you buy it,” and the sign that says “Your baby daddy sitting in jail? Sell your gold and get bail!” with the weirdest assortment of random jewelry pictured on it... and oddly a mala draped around the register itself. Clearly this dude hasn’t been using his mala for meditation practice.

In the post I linked above, I already described their entrance into the secret back room, where everything was “one of a kind” and we immediately saw two identical goblets. Go read that post for more on that. :D

Behind the goblets, it almost looks like a heart frozen in a block of something. But what the shop owner points to is a Hand of Glory, which was the central magical item from 3.06, the plot of which had to do with people who committed acts of violence against family (and the spell they found to banish the ghost killing people forever contained the first use of the word “Castiel” on the show).

He goes on to point out “gris gris bags” and “anointed dove’s blood.” Gris gris bags are protective talismans, which my brain immediately associates with Gordon Walker. He traded his to Bela for the Winchesters’ location in 3.07, and after giving it up, he was turned into a vampire and then killed by Sam. I can’t remember any use for the dove’s blood in canon...

It’s hard to see, but one shelf over is a Jason Voorhees style hockey mask (which is interesting to me because of 14.04 and the horror movie callbacks that were referenced later in 14.13 again at the movie theater in Lebanon playing All Saint’s Day and Hell Hazers). Not to mention as we talked about during 14.04, the original “monster” they were supposed to fight with in 3.10 in their nightmares was Jason, but Kripke didn’t realize they couldn’t obtain the rights to it, so that scene had to be cut. So in a roundabout way we get another reference to that iconic scene between Dean and his demon self, rejecting John’s influence over him. Beside the mask is the first of three Centurion Helmets we see in the episode (actually the second instance is probably this helmet again, but in a different context, in the box the teens steal from the Impala and take into their party house, along with the teddy bear Sam plays with here in a minute).

There’s the spray bottle of Dragon’s Breath, that looks like an innocent bottle of perfume with the squeezy bulb, but shoots out a gout of fire. 

Inside his safe, along with the skull of Sarah Goode, executed during the Salem Witch Trials, is an odd assortment of things, double-locked inside this already secret room:

It looks like a clock of some sort, a brass globe, and a genie’s oil lamp. But it’s the fact he had the skull at all, stolen from a murdered hunter that they knew, meant that he’d been involved with that horrific crime, like the previous references to Bela who traded in these artifacts (and had sold the hand of glory when she’d needed to destroy it to save her own life... I mean this was pretty heavy Bela parallels here), the owner turns the Dragon’s breath on them and pulls out a saber:

It’s called “Chrysaor.” Whether the one from Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” that belonged to Sir Artegal, the Knight of Justice, and had supposedly been used by Zeus to battle the Titans, or to the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa and the brother of Pegasus, or whether it was a nod to Assassin’s Creed (I honestly think it’s the former and the latter is a bonus here...)

This reminded me SO MUCH of Gog and Magog and their Special Swords forged by a god, with the reference back to Zeus and the Titans here, AND to the actual circumstances around how Dean managed to kill them. Because Gog and Magog... just would not shut up. Dean even lampshades the fact this guy stood there with the sword over his head, raised above Sam sprawled on the ground the same way Cas was in 13.14:

But he talked long enough about Cas’s “beautiful death” that Dean was able to stab him from behind, just as he was able to shoot the store owner now, because he wouldn’t stop talking. Forged by a god, touched by God...

Then we see the store’s secret ledger:

I honestly don’t want to know what’s in the “genitalia jar.” But these entries are dated from 1956. How long has this shop been into this sort of shady business? At least as far back as the original MoL was operating in the US (they were annihilated in 1958 by Abaddon). And there’s even a reference to a “Men of Letters membership discussion” in the ledger:

Of interest on the next page is a lock of hair from a victim of HH Holmes (taking us back to 2.06), as well as trinkets associated with Vlad the Impaler and Napoleon, a “bag of sorrows,” and a “razor of the damned.” Among other items of interest.

But here’s the page with the magical pearl:

And nowhere in this book does it say the pearl “gives you what your heart desires.” It says, “a pearl that grants wishes.” So... where did Sam get that additional information? I find it fascinating how things that are written in books are interpreted in a much broader fashion by the reader-- first Dean with the book Billie gave him in 14.10, and now Sam with this entry in this ledger.

Because this has been happening a lot.

For example in the scene immediately prior to this, the kids outside are talking about the Winchesters when they actually drive up. Their conversation is really interesting:

Eliot: People say they’re brothers. All I know is I was standing right here when-- when I heard this BAM! from the trunk of their car. And then, this like, shallow breathing. Max: No way. Flower Shirt Girl: Eliot, you’re creeping Max out.

I have to assume this was when they still had Garth in the trunk of the car, and just :’). Eliot is making some assumptions, but he’s much more terrifyingly accurate than he probably could guess. And Max’s flippant comment in her next scene proves it:

Eliot: I mean think about it. Where do they even come from? Them or their weird sidekick with the trenchcoat. Or what about the kid with the dumb Bambi look on his face all the time? Max: So what, it doesn’t mean they kidnapped Bigfoot or whatever.

And they all laugh, and Eliot calls them dicks. :P

And all of this makes me think of how the show spent the early part of the season teaching us how to read between the lines, to fill in narrative gaps, and to parse the subtext to understand exactly what it was they were actively not showing us.

Like in the scene at the party house where the John Wayne Gacy clown appears, we don’t see Dean thrown by the clown (just as we didn’t see the other boy who was attacked escape from the clown), nor do we see Sam light the fire that burned the cigar box tethering the ghost. But it’s clear that Dean was thrown because we saw him land, and Sam obviously eventually got his lighter to work because there’s the evidence of the flames.

Also, did they bring that old pickup truck from the bunker? Because they should DEFINITELY drive that thing more often. :’)

And Eliot follows his instincts, wanting to know what’s up and witnesses the ghost going up in flames. And he knows what he saw, and doesn’t even question it. When Sam confirms it, he feels so validated. Just like us when we read the subtext and fill in the blanks.

I have no idea how I got here from rambling about finding the 300′s in the episode but here we are.

OH. Right! The Centurion Helmets!

The first we see was in the shop pictured above. We see it again at the Party House in the Establishing Shot inside, nestled in a box with Sarah Goode’s skull, which was the original Macguffin that led Sam and Dean to that pawn shop in the first place, which enabled them to find the pearl to even be able to make this wish at all:

And the second and third Centurions are on the wall of B&E Pizza:

(and the one on the other side of the menu board hasn’t been screencapped yet, but is much more clearly visible than this one because Cas lights it up:

Three Centurions. Each of whom commands a century, or a group of 100 soldiers. So I’m going to use the fact that the show is actively telling us to notice and read between the lines, and assume we’re seeing yet another 300.

Especially after Misha’s tweet joking about it: https://twitter.com/mishacollins/status/1093606706532282371

[xxseekritsxx]

MCU references in the Marvel Netflix shows! Yes, they are canon.

(Disclaimer: I tried to edit the original version of this post to add a new reference to the “Multiple Sources” section since I did not feel like reblogging and wasting an extra part of the post for this. But for whatever stupid reason, mobile Tumblr apparently no longer keeps the original text when you try to edit a post, and I accidentally reposted the original without any text. So I deleted the original post and am doing this again. -_-)

Yes, despite what some ignorant people would say, the Marvel Netflix shows are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They’re self-contained enough to be their own thing, but they are still part of something greater. IF they were completely separate like some people idiotically assume, then nothing from those shows would have pages on the MCU Wiki or be part of the MCU page for TV Tropes, nor would they be allowed to make references to the larger MCU if they weren’t in it at all.

So I have put together a list of references from the TV shows to the greater MCU. I have broken down my list by each show where a reference was made, as well as making a category of references that run across multiple sources at once. Everything is under the cut.

1. Daredevil:

In the episode “Kingpin”, upon learning how the Anatoly brothers and their fellow Russian mobster mooks failed to stop Daredevil so far, Wilson Fisk’s right-hand man James Wesley derisively mocks the mobsters over their failure with this remark: “If he had an iron suit or a magic hammer, maybe that would explain why you keep getting your asses handed to you.”

Among the headlines in Ben Urich’s office (which later becomes Karen’s office after Urich’s death) in season 1, there are articles written by Urich referencing the “Harlem Horror” (the final battle between Hulk and Abomination in “The Incredible Hulk”, which was also referenced during the first Avengers film and comes up again later in this list) and the Avengers saving the day during the Battle of New York.

Adding to the last part of the previous point, the devastation brought to Hell’s Kitchen from the fallout of the Battle of New York is what allowed Wilson Fisk to grow his influence in the underworld and make a profit off of the reconstruction that took place after all the fighting was done.

2. Luke Cage:

When Pops tries to encourage Luke to use his enhanced strength for good instead of hiding his powers, he gives Luke this advice with the following remark: “You should be out there helping people, like them other fellas downtown.” First heard in the Luke Cage season 1 trailer and in the very first episode, this quote is a clear reference to the Avengers (one of multiple made by this series).

A running gag with the young character Dave “D.W.” Griffith in season 1 revolved around him going into the streets selling bootleg footage of the Avengers in action during the Battle of New York.

Misty Knight’s former (crooked) partner Rafael Scarfe made an interesting statement about the redundancy of the police in New York with the following remark referencing Thor: “Unless this sidearm that I’m wearing suddenly turns into some kind of magic hammer, this whole job is irrelevant.”

Cottonmouth mockingly refers to Luke Cage (to the main character’s face) as “Harlem’s Captain America” when questioning Luke on whether the latter truly thinks of himself as a hero.

Remember when I said earlier that the final battle between Hulk and Abomination was going to be referenced again on this list? Since the “Luke Cage” series is set in Harlem, this is where it unsurprisingly comes up again. Locals in Harlem still remember the battle between the super strong monsters years later. I mean, how could you forget something like that easily?

Multiple references to Hammer Industries technology. Despite its founder still being behind bars (covered later), the company still continues to operate. Like SHIELD and others (such as HYDRA, Vulture’s crew, and a criminal couple who ended up working for SHIELD under an agent who would later go rogue-after Sitwell decided to go against his orders from said rogue agent to kill them for possessing a Chitauri gun), Hammer Industries salvaged leftover Chitauri technology from the Battle of New York to make new weapons out of it. In the show, these weapons include the Judas bullets (which are those rounds fired by Diamondback that were able to actually pierce Luke Cage’s skin). The other notable piece of Hammer tech in the show is Diamondback’s battlesuit, which he wore for the final battle in season 1 when he and Luke fought.

3. Jessica Jones:

In the episode “AKA 99 Friends”, Jessica is contacted by a woman who allegedly wants Jessica to use her investigative skills to follow her cheating husband around. However, this turns out to be a ruse. The woman who called Jessica lured her into a trap and attempted to kill her, the reason being that the woman’s mother died during the Battle of New York. Despite Jessica having no involvement in these events at all, the woman who laid the trap views all superpowered people as freaks-basically a much smaller-scale version of the attitudes shared in “Captain America: Civil War” who see superheroes as people that need to be brought to heel and put on a tight leash.

Shortly after learning about both of them having the power of super strength in common, Luke asks Jessica during their dinner if she knows about any other enhanced people besides themselves and the Avengers. Jessica reveals the existence of Kilgrave to Luke in response.

In the first episode of season 3, Jessica is asked to bring a young girl back to her mother following the divorce of the girl’s parents. As she is getting dragged by Jessica back to her mother, the girl asks the title heroine “Would Captain America do this?” when questioning Jessica’s actions.

4. Iron Fist:

When Danny is initially not believed by his friends Joy and Ward Meachum to be who he says he is after Danny and the Rand family were declared missing long ago, Danny is sent to a psychiatric ward. When Danny explains his title and powers to the doctor assigned to treat him, the doctor responds with a scoffing remark about the frequency of crazy people emerging with claims of possessing superpowers having increased since the emergence of Iron Man.

In season 2, we learn that Mary Walker/Typhoid Mary was held captive in Sokovia for nearly two years prior to her being discharged from the Army following her escape.

5. The Punisher:

Believe it or not, there is a connection between the Punisher series and “Agents of SHIELD”. Many of you may not remember this, but back in season 1 of the latter series, Daisy name-drops one of her old contacts from the Rising Tide hacktivist group she used to be part of: Micro. While the Punisher series itself does not return this reference at all, it is still worth mentioning. Micro was part of the Rising Tide group prior to his eventual recruitment by the NSA, who picked him up after learning of his skills.

6. Multiple sources:

Roxxon has been referenced as an Easter egg multiple times within the MCU canon, such as being featured in “Iron Man 3″ when Trevor Slattery murdered a Roxxon executive on live TV while posing as the Mandarin, and being featured in the first season of “Agents of SHIELD”. The company has also been integral to the plots of the TV series “Agent Carter” and in “Cloak and Dagger”. In the latter series, there are some references to the greater MCU:

Peter Scarborough, CEO of Roxxon in the present day, justifies the company’s attempted extraction of Darkforce and Lightforce energy with this remark while being held captive by Tandy/Dagger: “In this day and age, you need to keep up with the Joneses. As well as the Starks and the Rands.” A clear nod to Tony Stark and Danny Rand.

Detective Brigid O’Reilly reveals that she is originally from Harlem and was part of the local police force there prior to moving to New Orleans. In addition, she mentions a friend named Misty-a clear reference to Misty Knight. What makes this nod even better is when Luke Cage season 2 returns the reference when Misty mentions O’Reilly having moved out of town.

In season 2, Tyrone has a discussion with a friend about Luke Cage when the former finds out his friend cannot read what’s on the newspaper about Cage. The article in question is a “Harlem Rumble” piece about Luke, which is also explicitly mentioned to be written by Karen Page.

Carl “Crusher” Creel AKA Absorbing Man has been referenced in the Daredevil episode “Cut Man” as the young boxer Matt’s father Jack Murdock fought in the ring on the same night the latter was eventually murdered for not throwing the fight. The poster advertising their fight can be seen in the background of Fogwell’s Gym where Jack and, later, Matt, would spend time training. Creel himself appeared as a recurring character in seasons 2, 3, and 5 of “Agents of SHIELD”. In the latter series, Creel’s boxer past was referenced as part of his introduction in the second season.

Seagate Prison has appeared in multiple sources. In “Luke Cage” we know the prison as the one where the title character was sent for a crime he didn’t commit and where he received his powers from Dr. Noah Burstein’s experiments. In the Marvel One-Shot “All Hail the King”, it was revealed that Seagate is also the home to Justin Hammer and Trevor Slattery, following their respective arrests in “Iron Man 2″ and “Iron Man 3″. During the One-Shot, Slattery was interviewed by a documentary filmmaker named Jackson Norris. However, the filmmaker revealed that he was actually an agent of the Ten Rings (whom we all know as the terrorist organization who captured Tony Stark in the first “Iron Man” movie). Norris captured Slattery and extracted him from Seagate with the intent of taking the washed-up actor to meet the former’s master: the real Mandarin, who was not exactly pleased with Slattery’s portrayal of him. Slattery’s final fate after this is unknown.

So the next time someone says the Marvel Netflix shows are “not canon” or “completely separate”, show them this list.

[sokkastyles]

I said that I wanted to make a post as a companion to this one about Azula focusing on Zuko, because both the Fire Nation siblings crave authenticity and I was thinking about this in terms of this conversation:

Zuko: Why didn't you tell those guys who we were?

Azula: I guess I was intrigued. I'm so used to people worshiping us.

Ty Lee: They should.

Azula: Yes, I know, and I love it. But, for once, I just wanted to see how people would treat us if they didn't know who we were.

This is during “The Beach” when Ty Lee and Mai are invited to a party by some FN teens and Azula invites herself and Zuko. The teens hilariously tell them that there will be “important people” at the party, not knowing that Azula and Zuko are the prince and princess of the Fire Nation. Zuko asks Azula why she didn’t tell them the truth and she says she wanted to be treated like a normal teenager, for once. In this episode we see Azula trying, and failing, to be the teenage girl she never got to be. 

Although Zuko and Azula both want to be seen and understood for who they really are, to embrace an identity that is authentic and real, and be seen and known by others on a level that is authentic and real, Zuko goes about it in a different way than Azula. Zuko’s search for his authentic self has led him to pursue the identity he’s been trying to get back to for three years, his identity as Prince of the Fire Nation. That’s why Zuko wonders why Azula didn’t just tell the boys who they were. If she did, surely they would want them at the party? They are, after all, the Prince and Princess.

Zuko also has a different relationship to his status as royalty not only because he’s been away from home for three years, but because he’s always been told that he wasn’t good enough, that he had to better, that he had to prove he was worthy of the title he was born with. Of course, it’s all built on a lie, the lie of noble birth, but it’s been so ingrained in Zuko (and Azula, but we’re talking about Zuko now) that at the beginning of the series, he was bitter and angry over what he felt he was entitled to that had been taken from him.

Zuko asking Azula why she didn’t just tell the boys who they really were echoes his revelation of his true name to the Earth Kingdom village in “Zuko Alone.”

Zuko: My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne.

Old man: Liar! I heard of you! You're not a prince, you're an outcast! His own father burned and disowned him!

Here, Zuko’s announcement of who he is has the opposite effect than what he thought, as he failed to realize that the Earth Kingdom citizens he sought to protect would not look kindly on Fire Nation royalty. This shows Zuko’s desire to get back what he’s lost without a real understanding of his privilege and the crimes his nation has committed against the rest of the world. And the old man’s reaction also has the added bonus of reminding him that even whatever hollow meaning he could have taken from his title is ultimately meaningless, because his father banished him.

And thus, just like Azula, Zuko’s identity is fractured into multiples. The first one is Prince Zuko, heir to the throne. The second one is Zuko the disgraced, scarred, banished, exiled. 

There’s also a third which is further broken up into multiples: Blue Spirit, refugee, tea server, that exists in between the two.

Zuko’s narrative is about trying to reconcile these identities into an authentic self, and for much of the series, he is single-mindedly pursuing what he thinks represents his authentic self. That’s why when he finally goes back to the Fire Nation, he tries to be happy with his identity as prince, and embrace it as much as possible. He thinks that telling the guys at the party who he is will impress them (even though it didn’t work the first time), but once he gets there, he feels more out of place than ever.

What’s this? A shot of Zuko’s scar and a mirror, and a guy who represents the kind of guy Zuko could have been if he weren’t who he is? Zuko’s got everything he wanted here. He’s the prince of the Fire Nation, he’s got a girlfriend, his honor restored, and he’s back home, but instead of enjoying himself, he decides to be jealous of this guy. His existential confusion comes out as insecurity over his relationship with Mai, because he can never be sure if he can be himself with Mai, or if Mai even likes his true self. I mean, if he hadn’t agreed to go back to the Fire Nation, if he hadn’t become Prince Zuko again, he would not even have a relationship with her, as he would have been making the journey back as a prisoner.

Zuko’s inability to return to his former identity as prince of the Fire Nation is symbolically represented in his scar. He is permanently marked by the suffering he has undergone, and permanently changed as a result of his experiences. In “The Crossroads of Destiny,” Zuko almost was able to reconcile these two aspects of himself, and to choose for himself which one to embrace. When he meets Katara in the catacombs, he is confronted with what his identity as Prince of the Fire Nation, and the legacy of destruction that goes with it, means to her:

Katara: You're a terrible person! You know that? Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!

Zuko: You don't know what you're talking about!

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through!

Zuko, of course, objects to being characterized this way, and of course his relationship with his identity as the FIre Lord’s son is much more complicated than Katara knows, but she also is right that he has no idea of the suffering that his people have wrought upon the rest of the world. It’s when Katara brings up her personal loss of her mother, though, that he is able to empathize with her.

Katara: The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

Zuko: I'm sorry. That's something we have in common.

Speaking of mirrored images, Zuko throughout his journey has had his own self-image held up to him and examined through the mirror of other people, one of them being Song, the Earth Kingdom girl who empathized with him over his burn scar. Katara is another, someone who, like him, lost her mother as a child. There are two things here that are an essential part of Zuko’s journey, 1) experiencing the suffering of others which pulls him out of his own self-centered perception, and 2) having his own suffering validated by seeing and meeting other people who have suffered in the same way. Contrast this to the way Azula treats other people’s suffering as not entirely real, calling her brother and her friend’s revelations about themselves in “The Beach” performances while also denying that she cares about her own damaged relationship with her mother. Zuko’s realization that other people’s suffering is real and something he should care about goes hand in hand with realizing that he did not deserve to suffer in the ways that his family has made him suffer. It is Katara’s pain over her mother’s loss that reaffirms that Zuko’s loss of his mother was also real and causes Zuko to realize that he is free to choose his own identity.

Zuko: I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.

Katara offering to heal the scar, although well-meaning, ironically sets Zuko back, because it reinforces the idea that the scar is a shameful part of his identity, something that marks him as Zuko the banished prince and separates him from becoming who he truly is. Katara connects with Zuko in a way that is authentic and real, but because Zuko cannot yet reconcile the dichotomy within himself, he ends up making the wrong decision underneath Ba Sing Se, and when Katara says during the fight that she thought he had changed, he tells her that he has, having made a decision about which identity to choose, although he still must take the final steps towards becoming whole by reconciling the two parts of himself personified by the “crossroads” in this episode.

But also essential to Zuko reconciling these two parts of himself is the development in season two of an identity that bridges gap between Prince Zuko and Zuko the banished. This is the Zuko that we see serving tea, working the kind of job that we might expect a normal teenager to work, and beginning to form a picture of himself that is surprisingly domestic. And even though he makes it clear to Iroh that this isn’t what he wants, it’s clear that some part of him craves this. Just as with Azula we see her wishful attempt to inhabit the role of normal teenage girl through going to a party and flirting with a boy, we see Zuko at possibly his most vulnerable and most “normal teenagery” when he is on his date with Jin. And even though it’s Iroh who pushes him to accept the date, we see Zuko reluctantly open up and genuinely enjoy himself.

However, Zuko still cannot experience true authenticity with Jin, as he must hide his Fire Nation identity. He does, however, covertly reveal his firebending to Jin, whose silent acceptance moves him ever so slightly towards an acceptance of his true self. This is ultimately too much for him, however, as once he accepts Jin’s acceptance and reciprocates her feelings he is overwhelmed and retreats, in part because he cannot reveal his true self to her for practical reasons and in part because he isn’t ready to do so on an emotional level.

It is also around this time in the narrative that Zuko sees another reflection of himself. His freeing of Appa is a huge blow to his self-perception, and this causes him to go into a fever during which he has several dreams that reveal parts of his identity or how he sees himself. The first is the image of himself on the Fire Lord throne, devoid of the scar but being controlled by two dragons with the voice of Azula and Iroh. And it’s after this dream that he looks in the mirror and sees himself as...

I’ve mostly seen this scene talked about in terms of Zuko and Aang’s narrative parallels and spiritual link, and it is significant for that reason, but it’s also a reflection of the choice Zuko must make about who he will be. If he is not defined by his identity as either Prince of the Fire Nation or his banishment, or his search for the Avatar, then who is he?

Zuko touching the scar upon waking to reaffirm that he is still himself shows us how much the scar has become a part of his identity. At the end of book two, he flirts with the idea of acceptance, and then with the offer of having it removed, and then when he goes back to the Fire Nation in early book three, he attempts to return to a point before the scar existed, before the fracturing of his identity, but finds that he cannot.

Zuko: During the meeting, I was the perfect prince. The son my father wanted. But I wasn't me.

By going to the war meeting, Zuko returns to the place of his original trauma and discovers that he cannot return to who he was before the fracturing of his identity, and that he, in fact, was never the “perfect prince” to begin with, that that person never existed.

What Zuko eventually comes to realize, through all of these experiences, and through returning to the home of his existence before the scar and finding it no longer a home, is that all of these identities are a part of him.

When he confronts his father on the Day of Black Sun, and then when he presents himself to the gaang, this is the first time that Zuko is being true to his authentic self, both by creating a more whole and positive identity and by accepting the trauma and guilt of his past and trying to atone. Therefore he’s able to create a more true identity and accept his place as Fire Lord without the cognitive dissonance that that identity brought him before.