The bemusing Mrs. Maisel, and sundry
Dec. 13th, 2019 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enemyofperfectWednesday things come late this week because December is dreary and so am I, but apparently that hasn't robbed me of things to say. ^_^
READ
DC Comics: The View From Jade by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
lowflyingfruit, which is 70k of Jason Todd being pissed off about being sent fifteen years back in time, terrorizing (and occasionally murdering) random gangsters, and accidentally befriending a much tinier Dick Grayson. I know even less about DC comics than I do about Marvel, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this left me wanting Dick whump in the worst way.
So now I'm partway through Second Generation by the same author, which features the fallout of apparently canon noncon (!) as well as the introduction of Dick's twin baby daughters. It's interesting the way it is and isn't my kind of thing -- the combination of rape recovery and kidfic, where Dick desperately loves his kids while hating the events that led to their existence, is something I don't remember ever wanting but really appreciate now that I'm reading it.
But the fic's portrayal of Dick as struggling to understand that he was in fact assaulted, although incredibly valid and worthwhile, is unsurprisingly not the incredibly specific thing I'd been hoping for. See, Jason's view of Dick as perfectly polished and on top of things in The View From Jade left me wanting a situation where Dick is perfectly aware that his consent has being violated, but since he had no better option at the time and doesn't want to upset anyone afterwards, he's doing his best to just roll with the entire experience despite the trauma.
Fandom is large and contains multitudes, however. Maybe I can find that somewhere else?
Detroit: Become Human Philosophical Zombies bywheatear, which is pretty much just 3k of Kamski being a jerk to Connor supposedly in the name of scientific curiosity. It's fun!
Marvel Cinematic Universe: The first four chapters of So Foul and Fair a Day byviolsva, which is a lovely medieval spy AU with Clint/Bucky attraction brewing and some great Clint & Natasha once she shows up. The last two chapters have yet to be posted, but it's been great fun so far!
WATCHED
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1x01, "October Country". It's nice to see Michelle Gomez again. Other than that, it's a charming enough pilot, but (spoilers) the main character to catch my interest was the charmingly butch and/or transmasc friend... who was promptly attacked and partly undressed in a clear hate crime. Offscreen, at least, but yikes. I'm not sure I won't watch more, but I haven't felt like it so far, I guess.
The Marvelous Mrs. through episode 1x07, "Put That On Your Plate!".
I saw this recommended a time or two on tumblr, I think, and then I saw a commercial with Susie being her amazing self and I immediately fell in love, so that's why I started watching, and I think I can say that Susie is definitely the reason I'm still watching now?
This is kind of a weird show for me. Partly I think it might be the different pacing of a show designed to be streamed and binged -- even though I'm only watching one episode a day, they all kind of blur together in my mind. Partly it's how stagey it is, how much it isn't trying for realism in the traditional sense -- it's the kind of show where two conversations in two different rooms will be interleaved for dramatic effect in a single shot, if that tells you anything. But also partly it's because I can't figure out where the show's sympathies are.
Spoilers, fat negativity, and disordered eating in the paragraph ahead.
In the first episode, the eponymous character talks about skipping solid foods for a week to fit into her wedding dress and about the pleasures of having a fat roommate her boyfriends would obviously never steal; measures herself on a daily basis to make sure her proportions remain ideal; and expresses her self-worth more or less in terms of the desirability of her breasts.
So, that's definitely a thing. But at the same time, it's a show about a 1950s housewife who decides to go into stand-up comedy, so there's absolutely room for this to be setting the stage for her eventually finding freedom outside the demands set on her physical appearance, right? Well, I wrote that, and then I realized there's only one more episode left in this season, so I guess it's probably not happening before season two at best. Make of that what you will.
Anyway, mostly I'm really just so happy that Susie exists -- a short, stocky, brusque, driven, passionate woman nearly always wearing suspenders, on my TV, stealing Midge's fries and struggling with the concept of having friends. The range of female characters considered marketable is still so narrow, and it's so good to see one who crowbars her way out of the mold. So yeah, probably I'll keep watching for another half a season at least. Tune in next week, I guess?
I've also watched a couple of recent Philosophy Tube videos -- Queer✨, which is about coming out and queer theory and, briefly, mouthfeel; and The Trouble with the Video Game Industry, which mostly made me want to learn more about dialectics, damn it.
It's also thanks to those videos that I've acquired two new songs to listen to endlessly on repeat! The music video for "My Type" by Saint Motel is annoyingly mesmerizing -- a bit male gazey and heterosexual, but I'm fascinated by the lead singer's ability to lip sync his own vocals while looking emphatically not like someone who's singing. Cheerfully dtf lyrics here!
As for "Born Depressed" by Drill Queen, I basically just love it to bits, I guess. So confident and brash, yet relatable! I'm sad that the group seems to have vanished after one EP. But you can find this song's boldly defiant lyrics here!
READ
DC Comics: The View From Jade by
So now I'm partway through Second Generation by the same author, which features the fallout of apparently canon noncon (!) as well as the introduction of Dick's twin baby daughters. It's interesting the way it is and isn't my kind of thing -- the combination of rape recovery and kidfic, where Dick desperately loves his kids while hating the events that led to their existence, is something I don't remember ever wanting but really appreciate now that I'm reading it.
But the fic's portrayal of Dick as struggling to understand that he was in fact assaulted, although incredibly valid and worthwhile, is unsurprisingly not the incredibly specific thing I'd been hoping for. See, Jason's view of Dick as perfectly polished and on top of things in The View From Jade left me wanting a situation where Dick is perfectly aware that his consent has being violated, but since he had no better option at the time and doesn't want to upset anyone afterwards, he's doing his best to just roll with the entire experience despite the trauma.
Fandom is large and contains multitudes, however. Maybe I can find that somewhere else?
Detroit: Become Human Philosophical Zombies by
Marvel Cinematic Universe: The first four chapters of So Foul and Fair a Day by
violsva, which is a lovely medieval spy AU with Clint/Bucky attraction brewing and some great Clint & Natasha once she shows up. The last two chapters have yet to be posted, but it's been great fun so far!WATCHED
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 1x01, "October Country". It's nice to see Michelle Gomez again. Other than that, it's a charming enough pilot, but (spoilers) the main character to catch my interest was the charmingly butch and/or transmasc friend... who was promptly attacked and partly undressed in a clear hate crime. Offscreen, at least, but yikes. I'm not sure I won't watch more, but I haven't felt like it so far, I guess.
The Marvelous Mrs. through episode 1x07, "Put That On Your Plate!".
I saw this recommended a time or two on tumblr, I think, and then I saw a commercial with Susie being her amazing self and I immediately fell in love, so that's why I started watching, and I think I can say that Susie is definitely the reason I'm still watching now?
This is kind of a weird show for me. Partly I think it might be the different pacing of a show designed to be streamed and binged -- even though I'm only watching one episode a day, they all kind of blur together in my mind. Partly it's how stagey it is, how much it isn't trying for realism in the traditional sense -- it's the kind of show where two conversations in two different rooms will be interleaved for dramatic effect in a single shot, if that tells you anything. But also partly it's because I can't figure out where the show's sympathies are.
Spoilers, fat negativity, and disordered eating in the paragraph ahead.
In the first episode, the eponymous character talks about skipping solid foods for a week to fit into her wedding dress and about the pleasures of having a fat roommate her boyfriends would obviously never steal; measures herself on a daily basis to make sure her proportions remain ideal; and expresses her self-worth more or less in terms of the desirability of her breasts.
So, that's definitely a thing. But at the same time, it's a show about a 1950s housewife who decides to go into stand-up comedy, so there's absolutely room for this to be setting the stage for her eventually finding freedom outside the demands set on her physical appearance, right? Well, I wrote that, and then I realized there's only one more episode left in this season, so I guess it's probably not happening before season two at best. Make of that what you will.
Anyway, mostly I'm really just so happy that Susie exists -- a short, stocky, brusque, driven, passionate woman nearly always wearing suspenders, on my TV, stealing Midge's fries and struggling with the concept of having friends. The range of female characters considered marketable is still so narrow, and it's so good to see one who crowbars her way out of the mold. So yeah, probably I'll keep watching for another half a season at least. Tune in next week, I guess?
I've also watched a couple of recent Philosophy Tube videos -- Queer✨, which is about coming out and queer theory and, briefly, mouthfeel; and The Trouble with the Video Game Industry, which mostly made me want to learn more about dialectics, damn it.
It's also thanks to those videos that I've acquired two new songs to listen to endlessly on repeat! The music video for "My Type" by Saint Motel is annoyingly mesmerizing -- a bit male gazey and heterosexual, but I'm fascinated by the lead singer's ability to lip sync his own vocals while looking emphatically not like someone who's singing. Cheerfully dtf lyrics here!
As for "Born Depressed" by Drill Queen, I basically just love it to bits, I guess. So confident and brash, yet relatable! I'm sad that the group seems to have vanished after one EP. But you can find this song's boldly defiant lyrics here!
