it probably means that i refuse to let go
Nov. 19th, 2013 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damkiannaTime keeps passing without telling me it's going to.
I don't even know how to explain how terrible this show is. Aaron: got his chest sliced open, saved bydeus ex machina LITERALLY heretofore unknown nanite powers. Nora: dead for real. Monroe: executed in public and buried in the woods except no, he was only drugged; he's fine. Allenford: dead for real. (Not even just dead for real, but shot point-blank by her white husband, who "loved her". DDDDDDDDDDD:)
The only saving grace is that it cares about the relationship between Charlie and Rachel, and so do I. Every other subplot this season has been EXCRUCIATING.
- Aaron's NiceGuyism is an actual fucking plot point, he NiceGuys so hard that he SETS PEOPLE ON FIRE. I would say "men", except that he also stood back and watched the woman Cynthia's husband was cheating on her with burn to death in that car - because only good women like Cynthia get saved by his powers! And then Cynthia's afraid of him for it, which is ~so tragic~ because he would ~never hurt her~. GAG ME.
- Allenford was introduced as a woman who was in charge of things! And people! High-ranking, smart, ambitious, maybe a little evil! Except, no - actually the treatment of her precious son has made her feel super bad about the people she works for, bad enough that she sent them a letter of protest. And yet she's surprised when they send guys to kill her. And then she ends up tied up and ignored by Neville, tied up and nearly strangled by Jason; and then her loving husband shoots her in the chest. GREAT.
- Monroe is only a psychotic asshole who tried to rule a quarter of the US with a military dictatorship because his woman died! Tragically! In childbirth! Which is perfectly realistic, childbirth is dangerous shit, but that's ANOTHER woman of color dead on my TV screen for the sake of man!sad. Also, Miles's high horse in those flashbacks was such bullshit. Monroe killed that other camp, just slaughtered everybody in cold blood, when all Miles wanted him to do was let Miles steal all their provisions and everything useful that they had! MILES. THAT WOULD ALSO HAVE KILLED THEM, BUT SLOWER.
I can't quite make myself stop watching, because a) Charlie and Rachel! and b) a part of me seems to find frothing with hatred cathartic. But, seriously, I hate this show. A lot.
I care about this more than I care about Revolution, so I'll break it down by episode. Or, well, viewing session, because I consumed this half of the season in gulps.
2.07-2.08 (Beginnings 1 & 2): I was OVERJOYED by the lady Fire Sage, but wow are there no women in the past at all. I wasn't surprised that Wan was a dude, because flashbacks about a lady Avatar when we currently have a lady Avatar would totally be way too much lady Avatar; but both his friends were dudes, basically everybody we saw in the city was a dude. The hunting party was dudes, the crowd of people who got together to steal bread was dudes, all the Airbenders with speaking lines were dudes, everybody Wan met later when they came to burn the spirit forest down - dudes! TOO MANY DICKS ON THE DANCE FLOOR. I appreciate that Raava seems to be a lady Vorlon kite, and that in many ways she is the heart of the Avatar's Avatarness, but jesus. That was ridiculous.
Also? So many questions! How did the system of cities on lion turtles originate? Given that the spirit world was still a thing back then, I'm freely assuming the spirits started out there and then spread into the human world - does that mean somebody else opened the portals even further back in the day? Who was that and how did they do it? What does closing the portals even do? Just keep humanity out of the spirit world? I mean, the moon and the ocean, Hei Bai, the Painted Lady - closed portals really don't seem to keep spirits out of the human world very well at all, unless that's different in a way I don't understand.
2.09-2.10 (The Guide & A New Spiritual Age): Jinora, Jinora and Korra, tiny Korra and Iroh = SO MUCH YAY. YAY FOREVER. I was so excited when I watched 2.10 especially because Korra! Learning not to punch things! I LOVED that keeping calm and being compassionate turned the spirits back into their light-side selves. THAT PART WAS GREAT.
Less yay: so unutterably sick of no one listening to Mako. He's right, the viewers know he's right, and presumably sooner or later everybody else is going to learn that he's right, so this just felt like we were dragging things way the hell out. WE GET IT. HE'S RIGHT. Blargh.
2.11-2.14 (Those Four Episodes That All Came Out At Once): Well then.
I absolutely loved:
- Asami flying a plane in her Amelia Earhart outfit: YES FOREVER. They finally gave her something to do, and it was GLORIOUS.
- JINORA SAVES THE DAY YESSSSSSS.
- Jaeger Korra! That whole part where it was all spiritual Pacific Rim was kickass, and must have been a lot of fun to animate.
- Korra and Mako's for-real non-amnesia no-desk-flipping breakup! I didn't care for a lot of things about their relationship, but that conversation was really sweet, and I like that they were able to talk about still caring about each other but agree that they didn't want to be together anymore. Thumbs up.
I really liked:
- ZHAO IN THE FOG. Great cameo, or greatest cameo. That was such a great touch.
- Bumi calming that one spirit with his flute! That was great. And the possessed mech! I hope that mech worked itself loose of that girder and is still roaming the south pole, haunted by winged bunny spirits.
I'm not 100% sure how I feel about:
- Opening up the spirit portals for permanent. On the one hand, totally reasonable to democratize these things, instead of all spiritual everything being tied up in the Avatar all the time. On the other hand ... the spirit world's fucking dangerous, and some of the spirits clearly are also - do we really want Koh, or that giant Aragog-scorpion, to be able to wander around wherever they want? Especially without preparing the world for it first? As pretty as aurorae and sky-whales and little winged bunnies are, I feel like maybe Korra didn't think this all the way through.
- Korra possibly having permanently lost her connection with the Avatar's past lives. This totally makes sense, given that she might have pulled a new iteration of Raava out of Vaatunalaq's chest instead of getting the old one back; but I don't really feel like it has as much impact as it could, given that Korra didn't spend all that much time communing with her past lives anyway. I mean, she got some help from Aang in S1, but he had to do it with cut-up flashbacks precisely because she'd never reached out to her past lives before - that was part and parcel of the trouble she's had connecting to her spiritual side, and she never got the chance to resolve it before, oops, no past lives now! Maybe this is going to be another piece of her coming to terms with that, if she has to try to fix this? Korra's never had trouble with the bending side of being the Avatar, and now a pretty big chunk of the spiritual side of being the Avatar might be gone - like instead of making her deal with the things she's not good at, the show just got rid of them. I don't know! I loved the spiritual stuff she did do this season, and maybe they're going to build on that and I should just shut up.
I'm internally making faces at:
- That scene with Mako and the police department where everybody who'd ever been mean to him said they were real sorry and they all clapped and he got promoted. -.- I mean, considering what they put him through, fine, but it felt like a scene from one of those fics, you know, where This One Character has been ~tragically wronged~ by ~everyone~, and then slowly all the other characters realize how awful they've been to This One Character, and they weep and put on hair shirts and repent - yeah. I just want to kind of wash my hands of this whole subplot, it frustrated me all season and this kind of tied it up with a bow of let's-never-do-that-again. (Especially since all this stuff with the police seems to confirm my impression from S1 that there are apparently no women cops except Lin. :P)
- The thing with Bolin and Eska. On the one hand ... I'm glad they worked things out to their mutual satisfaction? On the other hand, what the everloving fuck. So people who run away from you, hide from you, and scream at the sight of your image are really just astounded by the depth of their feelings for you? Okay then. Maybe I don't watch enough other cartoons or something, but I felt like they were playing up the "bitches be crazy!" thing WAY too hard early on to pull off this particular about-face. (Especially because Desna being hurt earlier provided both twins with a perfectly good reason to stop supporting their father - Bolin's intervention wasn't even necessary.)
I want to tear my hair out and use it to set fire to:
- Whatever the fuck the showrunners thought they were doing with Ginger. Completely right about how Bolin shouldn't have touched her when the cameras weren't rolling, and how their relationship onscreen doesn't entitle him to anything offscreen? Nope! Saucy minx who just wasn't impressed enough with him until he was rich and famous. OH OKAY. I realize I was probably taking Ginger more seriously from the start than the show was ever going to, but man, I wanted to punch that part in the face.
- How there wasn't one single goddamn Southern Tribe woman in the rebel party that went to take on Unalaq.
So. Yeah. Some mixed feelings overall.
By contrast, I have almost nothing whatsoever to say about Sleepy Hollow because basically I'm just enjoying the ride. (I haven't seen the most recent ep, I don't think.) Are there plot holes? Sure there are! But the more recent episodes have been much less faily than the first couple, and ABBIE. ABBIE AND JENNY. ICHABOD. CAPTAIN IRVING. The end. *hands*
As far as Agents of SHIELD goes, I will say that the episode with no extraction plan for Ward and Fitz only makes sense to me if the whole thing was, in fact, a SHIELD team-building exercise, which I sort of feel the very last bit with Victoria implied. Or, like, combination op-and-team-building-exercise, because SHIELD would absolutely double up. If a team's not going to try to rescue its own members from SHIELD itself, it's not a team! Also, I find it incredibly hard to believe that SHIELD of all agencies would not have better protocols in place for informing a team leader that they're about to be two members down, especially when those members have special skills. So! That's how I read that whole episode - "trust the system, because part of the system is you objecting to the way the system is presented to you and finding your own way to handle shit." Possibly I'm too generous! But through the rose-colored glasses of my personal interpretation: still happy.
Not quite on track for NaNo, but close, and if you added in what I've written for my Yuletide story, I'd be ahead. :D
I don't even know how to explain how terrible this show is. Aaron: got his chest sliced open, saved by
The only saving grace is that it cares about the relationship between Charlie and Rachel, and so do I. Every other subplot this season has been EXCRUCIATING.
- Aaron's NiceGuyism is an actual fucking plot point, he NiceGuys so hard that he SETS PEOPLE ON FIRE. I would say "men", except that he also stood back and watched the woman Cynthia's husband was cheating on her with burn to death in that car - because only good women like Cynthia get saved by his powers! And then Cynthia's afraid of him for it, which is ~so tragic~ because he would ~never hurt her~. GAG ME.
- Allenford was introduced as a woman who was in charge of things! And people! High-ranking, smart, ambitious, maybe a little evil! Except, no - actually the treatment of her precious son has made her feel super bad about the people she works for, bad enough that she sent them a letter of protest. And yet she's surprised when they send guys to kill her. And then she ends up tied up and ignored by Neville, tied up and nearly strangled by Jason; and then her loving husband shoots her in the chest. GREAT.
- Monroe is only a psychotic asshole who tried to rule a quarter of the US with a military dictatorship because his woman died! Tragically! In childbirth! Which is perfectly realistic, childbirth is dangerous shit, but that's ANOTHER woman of color dead on my TV screen for the sake of man!sad. Also, Miles's high horse in those flashbacks was such bullshit. Monroe killed that other camp, just slaughtered everybody in cold blood, when all Miles wanted him to do was let Miles steal all their provisions and everything useful that they had! MILES. THAT WOULD ALSO HAVE KILLED THEM, BUT SLOWER.
I can't quite make myself stop watching, because a) Charlie and Rachel! and b) a part of me seems to find frothing with hatred cathartic. But, seriously, I hate this show. A lot.
I care about this more than I care about Revolution, so I'll break it down by episode. Or, well, viewing session, because I consumed this half of the season in gulps.
2.07-2.08 (Beginnings 1 & 2): I was OVERJOYED by the lady Fire Sage, but wow are there no women in the past at all. I wasn't surprised that Wan was a dude, because flashbacks about a lady Avatar when we currently have a lady Avatar would totally be way too much lady Avatar; but both his friends were dudes, basically everybody we saw in the city was a dude. The hunting party was dudes, the crowd of people who got together to steal bread was dudes, all the Airbenders with speaking lines were dudes, everybody Wan met later when they came to burn the spirit forest down - dudes! TOO MANY DICKS ON THE DANCE FLOOR. I appreciate that Raava seems to be a lady Vorlon kite, and that in many ways she is the heart of the Avatar's Avatarness, but jesus. That was ridiculous.
Also? So many questions! How did the system of cities on lion turtles originate? Given that the spirit world was still a thing back then, I'm freely assuming the spirits started out there and then spread into the human world - does that mean somebody else opened the portals even further back in the day? Who was that and how did they do it? What does closing the portals even do? Just keep humanity out of the spirit world? I mean, the moon and the ocean, Hei Bai, the Painted Lady - closed portals really don't seem to keep spirits out of the human world very well at all, unless that's different in a way I don't understand.
2.09-2.10 (The Guide & A New Spiritual Age): Jinora, Jinora and Korra, tiny Korra and Iroh = SO MUCH YAY. YAY FOREVER. I was so excited when I watched 2.10 especially because Korra! Learning not to punch things! I LOVED that keeping calm and being compassionate turned the spirits back into their light-side selves. THAT PART WAS GREAT.
Less yay: so unutterably sick of no one listening to Mako. He's right, the viewers know he's right, and presumably sooner or later everybody else is going to learn that he's right, so this just felt like we were dragging things way the hell out. WE GET IT. HE'S RIGHT. Blargh.
2.11-2.14 (Those Four Episodes That All Came Out At Once): Well then.
I absolutely loved:
- Asami flying a plane in her Amelia Earhart outfit: YES FOREVER. They finally gave her something to do, and it was GLORIOUS.
- JINORA SAVES THE DAY YESSSSSSS.
- Jaeger Korra! That whole part where it was all spiritual Pacific Rim was kickass, and must have been a lot of fun to animate.
- Korra and Mako's for-real non-amnesia no-desk-flipping breakup! I didn't care for a lot of things about their relationship, but that conversation was really sweet, and I like that they were able to talk about still caring about each other but agree that they didn't want to be together anymore. Thumbs up.
I really liked:
- ZHAO IN THE FOG. Great cameo, or greatest cameo. That was such a great touch.
- Bumi calming that one spirit with his flute! That was great. And the possessed mech! I hope that mech worked itself loose of that girder and is still roaming the south pole, haunted by winged bunny spirits.
I'm not 100% sure how I feel about:
- Opening up the spirit portals for permanent. On the one hand, totally reasonable to democratize these things, instead of all spiritual everything being tied up in the Avatar all the time. On the other hand ... the spirit world's fucking dangerous, and some of the spirits clearly are also - do we really want Koh, or that giant Aragog-scorpion, to be able to wander around wherever they want? Especially without preparing the world for it first? As pretty as aurorae and sky-whales and little winged bunnies are, I feel like maybe Korra didn't think this all the way through.
- Korra possibly having permanently lost her connection with the Avatar's past lives. This totally makes sense, given that she might have pulled a new iteration of Raava out of Vaatunalaq's chest instead of getting the old one back; but I don't really feel like it has as much impact as it could, given that Korra didn't spend all that much time communing with her past lives anyway. I mean, she got some help from Aang in S1, but he had to do it with cut-up flashbacks precisely because she'd never reached out to her past lives before - that was part and parcel of the trouble she's had connecting to her spiritual side, and she never got the chance to resolve it before, oops, no past lives now! Maybe this is going to be another piece of her coming to terms with that, if she has to try to fix this? Korra's never had trouble with the bending side of being the Avatar, and now a pretty big chunk of the spiritual side of being the Avatar might be gone - like instead of making her deal with the things she's not good at, the show just got rid of them. I don't know! I loved the spiritual stuff she did do this season, and maybe they're going to build on that and I should just shut up.
I'm internally making faces at:
- That scene with Mako and the police department where everybody who'd ever been mean to him said they were real sorry and they all clapped and he got promoted. -.- I mean, considering what they put him through, fine, but it felt like a scene from one of those fics, you know, where This One Character has been ~tragically wronged~ by ~everyone~, and then slowly all the other characters realize how awful they've been to This One Character, and they weep and put on hair shirts and repent - yeah. I just want to kind of wash my hands of this whole subplot, it frustrated me all season and this kind of tied it up with a bow of let's-never-do-that-again. (Especially since all this stuff with the police seems to confirm my impression from S1 that there are apparently no women cops except Lin. :P)
- The thing with Bolin and Eska. On the one hand ... I'm glad they worked things out to their mutual satisfaction? On the other hand, what the everloving fuck. So people who run away from you, hide from you, and scream at the sight of your image are really just astounded by the depth of their feelings for you? Okay then. Maybe I don't watch enough other cartoons or something, but I felt like they were playing up the "bitches be crazy!" thing WAY too hard early on to pull off this particular about-face. (Especially because Desna being hurt earlier provided both twins with a perfectly good reason to stop supporting their father - Bolin's intervention wasn't even necessary.)
I want to tear my hair out and use it to set fire to:
- Whatever the fuck the showrunners thought they were doing with Ginger. Completely right about how Bolin shouldn't have touched her when the cameras weren't rolling, and how their relationship onscreen doesn't entitle him to anything offscreen? Nope! Saucy minx who just wasn't impressed enough with him until he was rich and famous. OH OKAY. I realize I was probably taking Ginger more seriously from the start than the show was ever going to, but man, I wanted to punch that part in the face.
- How there wasn't one single goddamn Southern Tribe woman in the rebel party that went to take on Unalaq.
So. Yeah. Some mixed feelings overall.
By contrast, I have almost nothing whatsoever to say about Sleepy Hollow because basically I'm just enjoying the ride. (I haven't seen the most recent ep, I don't think.) Are there plot holes? Sure there are! But the more recent episodes have been much less faily than the first couple, and ABBIE. ABBIE AND JENNY. ICHABOD. CAPTAIN IRVING. The end. *hands*
As far as Agents of SHIELD goes, I will say that the episode with no extraction plan for Ward and Fitz only makes sense to me if the whole thing was, in fact, a SHIELD team-building exercise, which I sort of feel the very last bit with Victoria implied. Or, like, combination op-and-team-building-exercise, because SHIELD would absolutely double up. If a team's not going to try to rescue its own members from SHIELD itself, it's not a team! Also, I find it incredibly hard to believe that SHIELD of all agencies would not have better protocols in place for informing a team leader that they're about to be two members down, especially when those members have special skills. So! That's how I read that whole episode - "trust the system, because part of the system is you objecting to the way the system is presented to you and finding your own way to handle shit." Possibly I'm too generous! But through the rose-colored glasses of my personal interpretation: still happy.
Not quite on track for NaNo, but close, and if you added in what I've written for my Yuletide story, I'd be ahead. :D
