listen. there’s nothing “boring” about ships that are stable and built on mutual trust and respect. there can be angst and drama and all those juicy bits without the characters being absolutely abysmal to each other all the damn time
This is a *really good* article that both handles anatomy concerns and presumes zero background makeup knowledge. Well done.
It’s amazing that the cover photo is showing both older women and people of color, something that the media consistently ignores regarding the trans community.
concept: a TV show runs for a decent number of years. More than four. The characterizations stay consistent. The writers don’t do anything wildly inappropriate like excuse rape or abuse. No one you’ve invested hours upon hours of your life into has their story reduced to a “shocking” death scene that has no meaning beyond that shock value. The quality of the storylines don’t take a sudden, strange spiral downward. When it ends, you leave it feeling bittersweet. Sad that it’s over, but glad you got to experience it and take a journey with some people who you came to care about.
Leverage.
You are thinking of the show Leverage.
Concept: four criminals (hacker, hitter, grifter, thief) and an honest man (an ex-insurance investigator, and the mastermind of the group) band together and pull Robin Hood-esque cons on rich people and corporations who take advantage of middle and lower class people.
Run time: five seasons.
Gorgeous development of the five main characters, two women and three men. One of the women is in her forties and acknowledged as crushingly beautiful by literally everyone and brilliant with people. The other one is in her twenties and Word of God (the creators) says that she’s on the autism spectrum and she’s insanely talented and you will adore her because she is adorable. One of the men is an ex-military ‘retrieval specialist’ who low-key just wants to cook and protect his people and will honestly murder you if you hurt a kid. The resident computer genius is, direct quote, “a 24-year-old with a smartphone and a problem with authority.” Also he’s black and the racism issue is brought up when their marks are rude to him. He’s literally a tol puppy who just wants to play with his toys and his friends. The dude in charge is just flat-out brilliant and kind of an asshole and kind of a mess and it’s hard not to like him.
Anyone who tries any shit with the women pays immediately and dramatically–one dude straight gets stabbed with a fork when he comes onto the younger one (Parker), and she vaults out a window. She’s my hero. One of the men, Eliot, is an acknowledged womanizer and he treats every woman he sleeps with like a queen and is ready to fuck you up if you even kind of insult any of them. Also, he is canonically great in bed and all of the women are totally good with the one-night-stand thing. The other woman, Sophie, uses her sexuality like a finely-tuned instrument when she’s conning people, and she’s never judged for it.
All of the main characters are treated amazingly well. Parker’s backstory is acknowledged to include child abuse in foster homes, and she’s never treated as broken or crazy (the closest anyone comes is that two of the others affectionately call her crazy when she does death-defying stunts). The mastermind–Nate–got into this shit after his son was diagnosed with cancer and his very wealthy insurance refused to pay for his treatment, leading to the son’s death. His grief, and the alcoholism he fell into as a result, is handled with a grace and gentleness that breaks my heart every time. All of them have complex backstories and relationships and identities–Sophie, who uses about a billion aliases, has a whole plot about having to figure out who she is under all her fake identities.
The stories are as glorious and thrilling in the fifth season as they are in the first–in fact, I would say the fifth season might actually be the best. There are two interracial relationships canonically onscreen for quite some time (Sophie/Nate, Parker/Hardison), and Word of God states that the popular OT3 Parker/Hardison/Eliot is confirmed by the events of the final episode.
The only complaint I have about this show is that it’s not longer.
Anonymous asked: Okay so I too am Frank Castle trash and Karen Page trash and I was wondering if you have any thoughts on Frank/Karen because I don't think that was the ship I was supposed to walk away from Season 2 with and I'm really glad to know it wasn't just me.
My thoughts range from ‘realistically, nothing can and should happen because Frank is too fucked in the head and also I think Karen would have some reservations’ to ‘wait this is Daredevil of the endless ninjas, why am I attached to realism’
So what I’d like is if there was some kind of connection, maybe at first without contact. It’s just, Karen writes articles about the Punisher and they are… not unsympathetic. And Frank reads them, and he’s very aware that she’s maybe the only person in the world who thinks of him as a person rather than only the Punisher. And to his mind that becomes the connection to his humanity he can’t quite break away from. It becomes important that Karen would be okay with what he does. He researches his targets carefully. Doesn’t take as much savage joy in killing scum. Tries to do it neatly and dispassionately. And maybe sometimes when his research turns up people or situations that are just ordinarily bad, not utter pondscum, he drops the files at the office of the Bulletin with Karen’s name on them.
She’s important to him - her opinion of him - long before he is on her radar in quite the same way, I’d like to think. But at some point she’s like… dude I’m gonna need more info on these files. Can’t communicate it to him other than a ‘citizens are invited to contact the Bulletin with more info’ line in an article. He drops a phone for her.
And then there is coffee in diners and a lot of glances and unexpected smiles and maybe down the line more than that
wayne enterprises almost certainly has clothing as one of their retail subsidiaries and i like to imagine it getting really profitable just because bruce spends so much time listening to models bitch at parties. all of their product lines have names like “It Has Real Pockets” and “Not See-Through” and “Full-Length Sleeves” and “Secret Elastic Waist”. the marketing department is like “okay obviously these are all working titles” and bruce is like “no. leave it. that is what it’s called.” and they try to talk him out of it but he owns a helicopter and you can’t argue with a man who owns a helicopter. they sell so fast. the women of gotham are well-dressed and comfortable and always have somewhere to keep their phones.
You know what, I’m moving to Gotham. I’ll start carrying a crowbar and get hella life insurance. It’s worth dealing with the occasional serial murderer for clothes with pockets.
