#hi hello I was looking for a specific shot to screencap and then this scene happened
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— episode 50
#cqledit#Wei Wuxian#Lan Wangji#wangxian#The Untamed#mdzs#myedit#hi hello I was looking for a specific shot to screencap and then this scene happened#and I figured 'actually yea let's go do this as a warmup'#bc I feel like I got rusty with editing lately#dear god.... they are So In Love
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Im the anon from yesterday who asked about your favourite win x team scene :)
Your favourite kiss scene?
Your favourite cuddly scene?
Your favourite romantic scene?
Your favourite “tease” scene?
I like to know peoples opinions so i hope this isn’t too hard for you to answer :)
Hello, Anon! Sorry for the delay! I wanted time to collect screencaps and the energy to write a lot of feelings. <3
This is a beautiful ask. A phenomenal ask. I applaud this ask.
LET'S BEGIN.
• FAVORITE KISS SCENE
I genuinely can't choose between two of them. From the same episode.
FIRST UP:
Team's heel is the star of this shot. Prem is a genius. Even if he didn't do it on purpose, his subconscious is a genius. I know some people didn't like this wide shot and wanted to stay rammed up on their faces, which I totally understand, but I love the wide shot because it introduced me to my good friend Team's Popped Heel.
ALSO.
FUCK?
The panting as they change angles? GEE. ZUSS.
Okay, fine, this one is my favorite. Like, holy shit, to bring this out in episode two was brilliant. There's no, like, "Team was so shaken by his first time, he doesn't know what he really wants." Nope. This is clear attraction.
(The BU specials honestly worried me when I first saw them in 2021 because of how hard they leaned into the weird heteronormative Nooooo I Don't Want to Have Sex with You for I Am and Have a Pure and Chaste Bottom angle, so watching this kiss at, like, 2am while I was in Japan for work reassured me that they weren't going to show Win as, like, some predatory bisexual and Team as stereotypically reluctant. Team's just as into Win.)
That kiss is legendary. They just look like they'll die if they don't make out next to the pool on camera. (Moment of silence for Dean.)
BUT I ALSO WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS KISS:
Not just "the locker room scene kiss" because 1) they kiss a lot while they're back there, and 2) this one specifically. Look at Team! You can't see his lips (because Win is on them) but you can tell that he's smiling.
And whyyy?
'Cos Win's a menace. <3
I love this whole scene because it doesn't exist in the novel! After their one-night stand in the novel, WinTeam don't kiss again until much, much later. Including this scene really establishes the nature of their physical relationship that, for me, made the upcoming struggle between True Intimacy and Casual Sex all the more turbulent and realistic.
I mean, you've got Team biting his lip, the wrist-pinning, the panting. They're viscerally attracted to each other. This isn't just Win pursuing Team like he does in the last scene of episode one; this establishes interest from both of them. Team followed him in episode one, but he didn't give it much thought there. And he looks kind of like, "……Well, fuck it, I guess."
In episode two, he thinks about it much longer, and his expression is
much more determined. He wasn't caught off-guard this time. Win asked for consent, he got it, they kissed, and then Win gave him space to decide if he wanted more. Team could have easily left! He already had his backpack, and he had his own car to get home.
Win, my Green Flag Son. <3
I think this was one of the more challenging scenes for Prem based on comments he made early in filming, and I can honestly see why. Kisses are difficult to film. You have to think about technical aspects like what the camera can see while balancing the authenticity of what you're doing, and you're working with another person, so even if you're doing fine, your partner might not be. Like, I'm obviously biased toward WinTeam and BounPrem, but I genuinely think this episode has the most realistic kissing I've seen in any series. Because they both look starving for it. They don't just mash their mouths together and wait for the scene to cut. The heavy breathing, where they're looking, all the little details create a really nuanced atmosphere to the scene.
I don't know that I'd call New a great director from an audience's perspective (especially if he was the one in the editing room for this series), but he's undeniably fantastic with actors. Filming a scene with this much raw honesty and physical passion could have been wildly awkward, but Boun and Prem are both visibly comfortable and that allows them to show the best of their abilities. Award-winning kiss, mwah.
• FAVORITE CUDDLY SCENE
OKAY SO. There are so many? SO MANY OF THEM in Between Us. And I'm very grateful for that because cuddling is my favorite. So it might be surprising that in the vast array of options I picked something so quick, but it's this:
It's only seconds long, but there's something especially soft about WinTeam asleep together on Valentine's Day. Win's arm around Team all bundled up because Team runs cold, Team tucked into Win's side, the two of them all peaceful before Tul ruins their night. :'(
Also, like, poor View. Win probably called him like, "Go next door, our brother is unconscious," and View just like, "How…did you know? HIA, ARE YOU PSYCHIC."
Like, it's the implication that this is their new normal. They know what they are to each other now, and they're happy and safe with each other. I'm going to cry I love them so much.
• FAVORITE ROMANTIC SCENE
Maybe it's an odd choice for this category but honestly, this scene:
For multiple reasons!
Because I think it's the first time Win actually decides to rely on Team, which is something Team's made clear that he wants.
Because I think it's the first time they're acting as true equals on an emotional level. Team wants to know Win better than anyone, and this is Win letting him see what he hides from literally everyone else in his life.
And I think my definition of romantic has changed as I've gotten older, but to me there's nothing more romantic than trusting your moments of fragility and vulnerability to someone.
• FAVORITE "TEASE" SCENE
Hands down this one:
Because as much as I love cuddly, sweet WinTeam, at their core they're a feral pair of loud dumbasses. <3
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Hello friends! I made a post a looong time ago about how back when the Noragami anime aired (the first season), in 2014, we did not have Yukine’s backstory like we have now; despite that, the scene we got in the anime where Yato named Yukine and received all his memories, was all relevant. That really amazed me; I know mangaka and writers plan this stuff in advance, but certainly not all of them, and it would have been easy enough to retcon or change things (and there are some scenes here that indicated things may have been changed).
So in appreciation and curiosity, I went back and screencapped all the brief scenes the anime gave us, to compare them with the corresponding manga panel/chapter. However, a tumblr picture post only allows 10 pictures and I ended up with 13, so I’m gonna pick the most interesting ones.
Not included here is the very first scene, which is of a cat looking back at the camera. Yukine has not been shown to have a cat in his past life, nor was there any indication of a cat in his family (at least as far as I can remember) so I’m gonna go ahead and comfortably put this in the “symbolism” camp, as it could be a stray cat or anything you want to interpret it as, really.
The second scene, also not pictured, was of luggage. This clearly relates to his sister and mother moving out. Again, when this aired back in 2014, we would have had no idea what this luggage could have related to!
The third scene, pictured, is more curious- two hands shaking. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to guess that the extended hand is their father’s-- but who’s the one reaching out to him? Yuka? Could this be the dad making a deal with her about keeping Haruki? But that’s not what happened, right, it was the other way around...Could be that the hand is actually Haruki’s. Unsure. Could correspond to volume 23, chapter 91, pictured below the anime shot.
Scene 4, pictured, is CLEARLY Yuka and mother leaving, with Yuka looking back. BACK IN 2014. WHEN WE KNEW NONE OF THIS, NOR WHO THEY WERE, ETC ETC.
Scene 5, not pictured, is just a pair of shoes on the ground. This could be anything; not quite sure what the symbolism is meant to be here.
Scene 6, also not pictured, is just Yukine huddled by himself facing a wall. Could be anything also, but more likely just him enduring his dad’s abuse.
Scene 7, also not pictured, is a broken mug on the ground, liquid spilled out of it. Could be a sign of the father breaking stuff in his anger.
Scene 8, pictured, is the letters- the letters!!!! Again completely relevant and traceable to the manga! Specifically it’s the dad stepping on the letters, which does not have a direct equivalent manga panel, but the one I put under it is pretty damn close, from volume 25, chapter 96.
Scene 9, pictured, is most curious. This is an arm, likely Yukine’s, with bandages surrounding it. This was likely meant to tie in to the reason his sword form has bandages, but it was never expanded upon (and I doubt it will be in the last few chapters we have lol). I do wonder what the intent was, though-- maybe a mark of his abuse by his dad. We’ll never know!
Scene 10, pictured, is a lot of empty cans of alcohol. Clearly related to his alcoholic dad (though I guess it was never confirmed he was ALCOHOLIC for certain, but definitely a heavy drinker lol). Again not a 1-to-1 manga panel correspondence, but a pretty close one came from volume 24, chapter 94.2!
Scene 11, not pictured, is a wallet with some money strewn around. Probably to symbolize the financial situation of the dad, which was to say, not great lol
And scenes 12 and 13, pictured, are likely Yuka turning back to look at Yukine, presumably-- though I do wonder. Given the tie and suit, I wonder if this was meant to be YUKINE/Haruki when he was alive (it does kind of look like him, doesn’t it?), or if Yuka was originally intended to be Yukine’s BROTHER, or something else. Could totally be wrong, could just be an old design of Yuka! I do wonder though.
Anyway I love Noragami. It’s great. This was a silly thing I wanted to do, but it was fun to dig through the screenshots and pause every second haha. I know the fandom has mixed opinions on the anime, but it’s what introduced me to the manga, and I still do really love it. And Bones put a lot of love into it. I really hope we get a season 3 someday (and so does Kaji Yuki, according to his tweets lol). Thanks for reading!
#text post#noragami#noragami spoilers#long post#tw: abuse#lemme know if you need any other tags or tws#the caps are from a website i know its bad but fwiw i do own a lot of noragami manga and stuff#likewise for the anime: i own both seasons on DVD so no worries there even though the caps are from a clip haha#my favorite asshole
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hi ☺️👋 love chu💕 ❤️ I'm really new to gif making too for my favorite shows so I hoped to ask how you make the backgrounds look so smooth in your gifs?I'd appreciate any advice, it's just for practice. thank you if you answer in advance ❤️💕
Hello hello, and big love right back at ya! 💕😊
How exciting that you’re new to gifmaking – it’s so much fun to get to experiment with that and try all sorts of things. I learned a lot from following tutorials or talking with other gifmakers back when I first started out, and I’m definitely still learning new things now.
I think it’s a combination of factors that makes the background in my gifs so smooth? So I’m going to talk about some of those factors and show you a few things and hopefully that’ll help! I use Photoshop CS6 for gifmaking, but I think the majority of this advice also holds up in other versions haha.
First off, I always try to use video files of the 1080p variety. You can gif with videos that have 720p, too, but 1080p will provide a smoother and clearer image because there are more pixels in 1080p. (There’s also 2160p, which is even higher resolution, but I’ve personally found that unwieldy to screencap and 1080p looks very good already!) This is the technical reason why the gifs look smooth: work with a high resolution video and get better results, that’s just how it is.
Another technical thing is the type of scene you pick to gif. When the scene is very busy with a lot of people and objects coming into focus at once (group shots, shots in heavily decorated rooms, etc), there’s very little in the scene that actually fades into the background focus-wise. With close-ups of a single face, the focus is entirely on the face and the background will fade to some degree. This really has to do with how the show’s made, like how the director and camera people and everyone else chose to portray/film the scenes. As a gifmaker, you can always choose to crop some things out of the scene when you want the focus to be on a specific thing – you’re essentially choosing a new focus for the viewer in that case. But yeah, overall, the way it’s filmed affects everything else about the gif.
Now, onward to the actual Photoshop things…
When I gif, I also sharpen the gif itself. This will make some details pop more and help move the focus to where I want it to be most, which is usually either a face or something important happening in the scene. I do think it might affect how you see the background as well – when everything in the foreground is sharpened, the background will naturally have a bit of blurriness to it. I have a sharpening action I use for every gif, but I believe its settings are as follows.
This is Filter -> Smart Sharpen by the way.
First Smart Sharpen:
And the second Smart Sharpen (yes we do it twice!):
Most importantly, I think the way you choose to brighten and color the gif will affect how the background will look. A show like House of the Dragon unfortunately can be very dark, so the urge to brighten it and fix the filters they put on these scenes is immense. 😂 But it’s also really easy to brighten it too much with that urge to see what’s going on, lol, and that’s when the background’s going to look grainy or pixelated! So it’s always a fine balancing act and a lot of trial and error (seriously, the undo-button is my best friend) when working with scenes like these.
There are a few ways you can brighten a gif. My preferred method is with the Curves layer, but I also use Exposure and Gradient Map as additions to that sometimes. Mostly when a scene is so dark that I have to take care not to render it too pixelated by adjusting the Curves, really. When a gif gets too tricky, I use all three. 😂 Below are some basics of each layer, but it’s really about trying and clicking and trying and clicking and trying and… you get the picture, lol.
Curves
The little eye dropper tools I marked with white – grey – black in the picture below are the most important. Select the white eye dropper and click on the section of the gif that’s closest to white (but not fully white). Then, select the grey eye dropper and click on the gif section that’s either beige or grey or at least in that neutral color zone. Finally, select the black eye dropper tool and click on the darkest part of your gif. You should see immediate results, but it tends to take me a few tries to get the best version! It’s not uncommon for me to zoom in on an image to, like, 600% just to see which pixels I should be clicking. This takes patience, haha!
Exposure
Use it sparingly, cos it’s going to be an asshole about how bright it makes some things. My settings typically are:
Exposure: between 0,13 and 0,22 (this brightens certain areas)
Offset: -0,0009 or -0,0019 (please don't forget to add the - to the numbers, this will deepen the black areas a bit)
Gamma Correction: 1,04 (I’ve found it ‘marries’ the light and dark parts a tad more and makes it look more natural)
Gradient Map
Gradient map my beloveddd. It doesn’t always do the thing, but sometimes it really helps me add a bit of color correction or helps me lighten a certain part of a scene a bit more. Be careful with it, though, as using it too much might make the gif a bit grainy/pixelated (and we don’t want that). There are a few different ways you can use it, but my favorite way is the only good thing TikTok ever taught me (I’m old as dirt, y’all) and that’s this in a nutshell…
Add the layer and click on the gradient itself.
Now, this is going to make the gif look scary as heck but bear with me? Select Noise, uncheck Restrict Colors. Click OK. Don’t cry.
Go to the Opacity of your Gradient Map layer and set it to a percentage between 2% and 5%. Dry your tears.
If it’s not to your taste, go back into the gradient map itself by clicking on it again and selecting the nifty Randomize button you see on the screencap. Click and click and click until you find something that makes the gif sing.
Soooo. Very long story short, all of the above is going to contribute to how a gif looks and to how smooth the background is. I hope some of it is helpful to you! 💕 (And if anything’s unclear, please ask!! I know I get a little wordy and technical about some of the giffing sometimes, haha.)
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S414 - ‘EL MAYARAH’ HEALED MY HEART (2/2 aka Karadox Edition)
Well, hello, hello, ladies, gentleman and esteemed NBs. We are gathered here today to witness me, a karadox fan who is too deep, commentate on and (over)analyse the happenings of that delicious episode that is Supergirl 4x14 Stand and Deliver. In the proceeding post, I will be going through many, many frames. So hold on to your dashes cause this is gonna be a hecka long post.
Warning: Again, LONG LONG post. 95 screenshots, guys. I recommend reading this on a computer. MUCH karadox. Including Brainy’s amazing speech, ofc . And the amazingness that was Kara Zor El.
Now, my friends. Where to start? What’s this? You wanted to go to the hand holding? We shall get there in due time. For now let us go start earlier at the 7:11 timestamp that I have. In which Brainy gets given -
The Letter
This is Querl Dox aka Brainy. His eyebrows furrowed as one of their DEO targets was captured. I might say, he’s cautious about what this letter might be. Who knows? It could have been a threat that Menagerie or The Elite might have wanted to pass on.
Nah, it’s a note from Supergirl, and it made him smile.
I mean, it’s a very cute-looking note (I love Kara’s handwriting, mine’s a mess). She could’ve just written ‘from Supergirl’ but nah, gotta draw that logo in. Love it. Go Kara!
“Supergirl left us a present, and a note.” Brainy whips this note from behind his back. He can’t just bring the note normally. No, he’s gotta whip it out like ‘surprise b*tch’. He not only likes to show off in front of Kara, but also likes to show off in Kara’s stead.
“Says: you’re welcome.” Brainy looks like he’s trying to return to a neutral expression here, but his tone didn’t quite hide his smugness. And throughout this scene he still looks like he wants to keep smirking.
Now, we know that Brainy’s on Kara’s side. He’s part of the super-friends, of course. I’m pretty sure that Brainy’s supposed to at least pretend he’s backing the DEO fully. But he can’t help himself from celebrating a victory for Supergirl. His loyalty is always towards Kara, and I like how they keep this consistent even if (well, especially) Kara’s not around.
Alright, now it’s time for Kara to finally interact properly with -
Brainy!
“Brainy!” says Kara. What does that mean? Nothing much, she just turned around when she saw heard the door open and saw Brainy. But after several episodes of no proper interaction, it’s nice to hear her say his name. Yeah, yeah, I squealed, this is how deprived we were.
And then, unprompted, immediately after saying his name, she walks over to stand next to him. Must...not...overanalyse...must....resist....can’t --- AIGHT look she moved next to him. Didn’t need to. Nia’s not moving. Brainy wasn’t talking to her yet. Might one say she subconsciously feels comfortable being next to Brainy?! MIGHT ONE --- okay fine, I’m reaching, I’ll stop. But go on. Rewatch the clip. 23:10 is the timestamp.
Oh yes, this is probably why they wanted Kara to move. To get this angle specifically and reaffirm the #SpouseEnergy radiating of these two. Exasperated dad and amused mum. Look at it. Breathe it in. Rejoice.
Oh, this is just to compliment Melisa Benoist and Jesse Rath, just cause they move super in sync here, almost like you’d see in a cartoon/anime and I just found it pleasing. Moving on.
Alright, the next screencap is where Brainy thinks he’ll never see his ring again and is understandably in a bit of a shock. He looks at Nia and then Kara, then back at J’onn. Kara looks down before looking at Brainy.
Okay, you get the point. If it looks like Kara’s getting closer to Brainy every screenshot, it’s just cause the camera angle is shifting, by the way. Although, if you watch the clip, she is shifting her weight back and forth between her feet, throughtout this whole moment, which I didn’t notice until taking these screenshots, which is some very nice subtle acting from Benoist.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the first time Kara has seen Brainy when he’s emotionally vulnerable (onscreen, at least lol). She wasn’t there when he was rattled by the hatred he got when his image inducer didn’t work (Alex was there). She didn’t see him cry and didn’t hear him talking about his tears of logic (Lena was there). And when he just lost his ring, she wasn’t really there either (Nia was there). Anyway, she and the others are visibly unhappy when Brainy is unhappy. Even as part of a group shot it’s nice to see it, finally. It only lasts a little while anyway, because Brainy swiftly changes the subject.
It’s like an appetizer to the emotional main course we’re getting right after. For that moment when our beloved Brainy says -
El Mayarah - (IT’S GO TIME PEOPLE)
“Ah...yes, it’s the march today...will you all be joining?” He finishes that sentence, looking at Kara. Because we know who he wants to go most. Ahem *cough, cough*.
@fairyroses pointed out that here, after J’onn has said he’ll be there and Brainy proceeds to say ‘Wonderful! ..Kara?’ That this might be the first time Brainy addresses Kara directly as ‘Kara’ when speaking to her. As in usually he’s like ‘Supergirl, we need to....’ etc. Which is strange considering we’ve been shown that he’s close enough to hang out and watch movies at the loft with her and Alex (pre-mind-wipe) but nope we haven’t had an onscreen ‘Kara’. I tried finding one to no avail. So this must be it, then.
Also, look at that raised eye-brow right here. He’s so excited, bless.
‘Yes, I definitely think we should be there’ -
‘HUZZAH’. -- Yep, Brainy is happy that they’re going. Look how excited he is.
With the same energy from 4x01 where Kara says ‘nice work, Brainy’.
Okay, again, look how happy Brainy is. And he’s just looking at Kara with that smile. My actual heart eeeek.
And then his confusion when he realises that she didn’t mean that she was going to march with him. Complete confusion.
‘Uh..’
‘Kara...a..’ (SECOND KARA)
‘A word’ He looks shook the whole time.
He takes a while to actually start talking to her. He looks down again, back at her as if he’s about to start talking about then away again for a tiny moment. (also whoops got that screenshot mid when he’s licking his lips. Was an accident but...you’re welcome.) I wonder how many thought tracks he’s using to try and get the correct words to talk to Kara about this, because there seems to be some hesitation there.
‘I think it would mean a lot to have Supegirl march today’ - So more obviously I think Brainy says that as a sense that the aliens attending would feel more strengthened by her marching, and of course that everyone could see who Supergirl stood with. But of course, I think he also means this, as in personally, since this is the march, that he organised.
“I wish I could, Brainy, but I think it’s more important for me to patrol. In case anything gets out of hand.”
Kara’s genuinely sorry here, and that glint on her glasses makes her seem even more remorseful (yay angles), and I like how she makes it clear that she wants to support Brainy and the march, but is putting her duty to protect as Supergirl first.
“They won’t. I am American Alien. Hash-tag, American Alien.”
So, Brainy didn’t feel the need to tell the others that he himself organised the march. I think he assumed they would all be up for going, without saying. He reveals this now, to reassure Kara that as the organiser, he would be able to keep things under control. I also like how confident he is here, with his ‘they won’t’.
“You..you organised it?” - and now it’s Kara’s turn to be surprised.
“When I lost my Legion ring, I realised how much I depended on it for strength and confidence. I thought it was what made me a hero.” Oooof there you go, there’s that vulnerability that Kara has not been shown to have seen before. “But not having it these past few days made me see, it wasn’t the ring that gave me strength.”
“It was fighting.” *breathe* “alongside all of you.” - @kara-querl mentioned that she thinks that Brainy wanted to just ‘alongside you’ at first, but changed his mind. Which I could totally believe. But I also think he might be remembering fighting as a Legionnaire back home as well.
I think a reason why we didn’t see his realisation is that 1. well, airtime 2. He’s been showing that he gains strength from fighting alongside others over the past few episodes. That’s why he was so adamant on getting together a superhero team - trying to convince Nia to join them when the DEO fired Supergirl, and then being more eager about it after Alex’s mindwipe. Going to J’onn with money to try and get him to join their team. He wanted to gain their strength for Kara, but he also needed their strength too.
“helping to make the Earth a better place.” Oof and look at Kara’s face. I think she’s getting just as emotional over this as we are. I also love how she just listens to Brainy. She doesn’t interrupt or even try to, which is excellent. Pefect communication skills.
“In times like this change won’t come from someone with a Ring, or a cape. It will only come when each one of us answers the call to stand up and be heard” Brainy is not asking for Supergirl, the symbol and is not going as Brainiac 5, the legionnaire. He wants them to go, purely as themselves.
“El Mayarah” - OKAY CUE ME LOSING MY SH*T RIGHT HERE. especially after making that post about wanting inside codes/jokes in Kryptonian for them, I’M He uses Kryptonian, trying to convince her and not any old plain Kryptonian but her god dang House of El family motto. This is not about just trying to convince Supergirl, this is trying to convince Kara Zor El.
So Kara has been listening carefully and holding eye contact with Brainy this whole time (thank you), and when he says ‘El Mayarah’ she looks down immediately. How long has it been since she’s been specifically an El? A while. And even though she loves being Kara Danvers, and that’s who she is with Alex right now, Alex doesn’t know the Kara who she first met, the one she first met as Kara Zor El.
“Stronger together.” I love love love how he reiterates this 1. cause lol I’m sure a lot of viewers forgot what it meant 2. He just says the meaning again in the language of Earth, the one sh’es adopted, calls home, and is trying to protect.
And here Brainy follows her eyeline when she looks down, coaxing it back up as he says ‘stronger together’. I’M SOFT.
He takes another breath and breaks eye-contact and looks away. Yup, that was a lot. A lot of emotion right there. He needs a break. I need a break. [we’re just about to hit screenshot 40 WOW I do need a break]
I like how Kara’s still looking at him, nice. Thanks. Also Nia just streching in the background, not interuppting yet. Dad and Mum are having a Serious conversation, gotta keep busy and not make eye contact, duh.
“Just because we’re superheroes, doesn’t mean we forget who we are.” - Beautiful. What a beautiful speech. Brainy always seems to be there to help remind Kara of what’s important. 3x10 - with her as Kara Danvers, and now 4x14 with her as Kara Zor El. He’s there to support her not only as the hero, Supergirl, but all sides of herself, all sides of Kara.
She takes a breath here, and I think she’s definitely conflicted . She follows with a , I’m sorry Brainy...the risk is too great.”
BRAINY DOES A LITTLE TINY SHAKE OF HIS HEAD. Like he has more eto say but is also still shocked. And then Nia says she’s ready.
(OKAY YOU GUYS TOOK SO LONG. CAN WE GO PLAY PATROL NOW? PLEASEEE?)
And here Brainy is still in disbelief and worried, like look at this face and oh my god --- I took this screenshot and then just had to replay the clip - HE’S FIDDLING WITH HIS FINGER WHERE HIS LEGION RING USUALLY IS. THE THING HE DOES WHEN HE’s FEELING ANXIOUS. Lord help me, I’m done.
“Supergirl may be a symbol...” -- ooof they look so pretty there.
“but more importantly, she’s a citizen of Earth. Like the rest of us”. And he does this little shoulder raise at ‘like the rest of us’...my heart. He’s trying to appeal to her as people who both are not from Earth, but call Earth their home. [sidenote: ohoho ARE YOU EXILED FROM COLU, HUH BRAINY? IS THAT REBOOT BACKSTORY, I HEAR? sorry, moving on]
Another long pause before the “Remember that” --- ahhh he still looks so soft, end me.
NOPE. NOW I’M DONEKARA’S FACE AS SHE WATCHES HIM LEAVE. SHE’S SHAKEN BY THE SPEECH AND I THINK SAD THAT SHE’S LETTING BRAINY DOWN. AND HERSELF DOWN AS A CITIZEN OF EARTH.
Phew. That was long. A long but beautiful secton. ALRIGHT. LET’S KEEP GOING, SHALL WE? LET’S HEAD OVER TO -
THE MARCH -- IT’S TIMEEE
“They’re not like you - you’re a superhero.” --- I’m starting here because I think it’s important that he doesn’t say ‘you’re Supergirl’ he says ‘you’re a superhero’, because Brainy’s whole speech’s bottom line was “Just because we’re superheroes, doesn’t mean we forget who we are.” That they’re not just superheroes.
And I think here, she fully understands what Brainy meant.
“No, you’re wrong, I am just like them.” --- so in otherwords, she’s a superhero but more importantly she’s a Citizen of Earth, just like them. This episode is not just great for karadox but great for Kara’s character development because her identity as Supergirl was so at stake, that she’s put that above all else and now she remembers what she needs to be doing. I’M SO PROUD. Rip rewatching this part made me a bit teary wow what is this. KARA I LOVE YOU.
Hmm...is Brainy the first one to look up? MAYBE SO. im not sure but shh
THERE SHE ISSS. SHE.
Everyone’s in awe.Also, Brainy’s fingers are steepled here, when they weren’t before. (Excitement? Perhaps? idk, hm)
AWE I SAY. AWE.
“Supergirl.” HE’S HAPPY. LOOK AT THAT. LOOK AT HIM. AHHHH.
“It’s Kara Zor-El.” KARA ZOR EL OF THE HOUSE OF EL. WITH HER GOD DANG ROBES. ‘ In times like this change won’t come from someone with a Ring, or a cape.’ -- SO SHE CAME AS HERSELF.
“Citizen of Earth” - Just to reiterate -- ‘ more importantly she’s a Citizen of Earth’. She says this. While maintaining eye contact with Brainy the whole time she lands and joins the march. His speech helped her make this decision directly, and she’s letting him know that it did. Her smile in this screenshot and the one above. HER SMILE. BLESS KARA.
And now J’onn says ‘nice to have you with us’ - and they automatically hold hands. Oof and my heart, Papa J’onn. The father figure we all deserve. And...ohhhhH...hmm see Brainy is still holding his hands in position and maybe they made him do that...
To make it clear that it wasn’t automatic. So that Kara has to offer her his hand. Look at her smile. He’s still just looking straight at her. ALSO LOL J’ONN IS LOOKING. HE SEES.
AHAHA LOOK AT BRAINY JUST STARING DOWN. ‘oh yes, I should...hold the hand’. And kara’s smile like ‘yes, yes, it’s okay’. AND LOOK J’ONN IS SMILING AGAIN AHA. He ships it is proud too. hmm I wonder if J’onn was secretly listening to their convo the whole time...or hm maybe Brainy voiced how he felt that Kara wasn’t coming to the march to J’onn before it started. I gots to know
THERE
IT
IS.
alksdjaslkjdalsjdlaskdjlaksjd
wow wow wow wow wow
STRONGER TOGETHER INDEED.
1. the alien march is stronger together
2. MY SHIP IS SO STRONGER TOGETHER BECAUSE THEY ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER TO BE THEIR BEST SELVES.
Brainy takes his hand and Kara tightens the hold on it. THANK YOu. THANK YOU.
See, the reason they gave this close up, I think, is to
1. reaffirm the themes of togetherness in this episode
2. FEED ME THAT GOOD KARADOX FOOD THAT I ORDERED.
Kara is just taking a breath here but lol I still laugh at how much it looks like the Distracted Boyfriend meme.
“Thank you.” *turns to Kara* “Both”. So much direct eye contact this episode.
THIS IS THE PUREST OF SMILES. KARA. SMILING AT BRAINY THANKING HER. WHO IS HAPPY TO BE HERE TOGETHER IN THE MARCH. PURE. MY SHIP IS PURE.
And you can’t see it well, or much at all, until she turns but he was smiling too, even if it’s not that clear.
And off they go, to confront Lockwood at -
The Rally
A bottle is thrown over their heads.
“Stay peaceful! - Brainy. Kara is shaken, by the looks of it. And Brainy just instinctively holds his hand out to Kara this time.
Takes a moment after he holds her hand...then...
“Don’t stoop to his level.” - again, supporting each other. He takes her hand this time.
BLESS THIS EPISODE.
So here they’re looking at the people who were here supporting Lockwood and I love how Brainy just looks them straight on. Kara’s also maintaining eye contact in the face of aggression.
The Fight
“Hologram!”
“Then where’s the real Manchester?”
Okay, so I just like how they can switch so quickly to get into the fight. Superhero mode starts exactly now. And just look how smoothly they go about it. I love them.
So here, she says she’s gonna go find Hat.
“Hello, Hat, we meet again.”
*insert fightscene that you can see giffed by @fairyroses here http://fairyroses.tumblr.com/post/183443782018*
“You don’t need a ring, when you have friends.” Throwback to how he gets his strength from fighting alongside the team.
“So where are your friends now?” - jinxed yourself, mate.
Kara literally is only a blur in this scene. And lmao Brainy catches the hat, which I did not realise till I saw the gifset. I’ve included @fairyroses tags here because she says it all and I literally can’t take any credit for noticing this lol. Bless you.
“Nice work, Brainy.” - I am fed well with all the times she has said Brainy today. Compliments today too.
“Now get him to the DEO.” - LOOKING GOOD BRAINY.
“Then help me get as many of these people to safety as you can.” Menagerie was brought in my the team sans Brainy, and now Brainy and Kara are taking down Hat together. I like how she says then help me. Just another confirmation of yes, you are on my team, even if you’re going back to the DEO for a tiny bit for the delivery. Again, stronger together.
“And this was from the time me and your mum took down a villain named Hat together” - is not something that was said, but is going in my future headcanon, thanks.
And yep, that’s the beautoful end of the karadox interactions of this episode, time that I start -
Wrapping it Up
Shh, yes I have more to say, bear with me.
“I know that Supergirl and I have not been on the same page lately, but you know, seeing her out there in that march, hand in hand with everybody else,I was inspired.” - so ‘I think it would mean a lot to have Supegirl march today’ ---- Turns out it also meant inspiring Alex to take action too. Brainy’s speech being the root of convincing Kara and Kara taking that stand. directly inspired by Brainy grabbing Kara’s hand that second time, kthx
“Yeah.” - Kara agrees, and then makes a funny joke about roughing Ben lockwood up lol. She did tho.
“No, *laughs* no, you know I followed my beliefs, not the rules..and it felt really good to take a moral stance.”
“Yeah, I think everyone at the march felt that way.” - Kara was glad to have gone to the march and she felt better for it. Oof look at that smile. Look at how good she thought the march was.
“It just goes to show to show, no matter who you are. Alien, human, superhero. Every action counts. And every voice matters.” ---- again, throwing back to Brainy’s speech.
“In times like this change won’t come from someone with a Ring, or a cape. It will only come when each one of us answers the call to stand up and be heard”.
So everything ties together nicely, in -
THE END
Thanks for bearing with me, which I assume you have if you’re all the way down here.
To summarise:
Brainy and Kara make an excellent team and they both are each others’ strengths, and help each other grow. They are stronger together.
#supergirl#brainiac 5#karadox#querl dox#kara zor el#my post#kara danvers#my text#supergirl ramblings#my ramblings#karadox ramblings#cw supergirl
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In Snowpiercer episode 4, Sean’s murder is solved, Josie visits 3rd Class, Andre visits 1st Class and Melanie pulls out her bottle of poisoned sake. Andre and the writers go with the “Lolita made me do it” murder defense to explain why a trained soldier killed several people.
This is a disappointing development for Snowpiercer. No matter what layers and nuances the show might add to the scenario later, a young woman has been publicly blamed for provoking the crimes of her abuser. This is an abuse tactic in and of itself.
Recap
Jinju provides tonight’s opening monologue. As she speaks, she prepares a meal of sushi for herself and Bess, starting with gutting the fish and ending with the two lovers toasting each other over beautifully presented food.
Meanwhile, Erik finishes slaughtering Nikki and lovingly examines his handiwork. Presentation also matters to him. He takes care of his appearance, and Sean’s corpse was certainly presented in a very specific way. Nikki’s is as well.
Poor Nikki Genet. The actress spent all that time in the makeup chair and her character’s life was snuffed out before she could share her secrets. Snowpiercer is a big ole fridge.
The dead, bloody fish are juxtaposed with the dead, bloody woman (after Bess was juxtaposed with the cow in another episode) and then the two women eating the fish. Meat eating is equated with cannibalism and women again. This time violence against animals and violence against women are overtly linked. Hello, Vegetarian Ecofeminism.
Jinju”s voiceover: “Adapt. That’s what humans do, isn’t it? Our great leg up. We roll. We hack. Knuckle down and change. Even Snowpiercer is an adaptation. That was classic Wilford. While the world froze and the other mega-rich tried to hole up in bunkers or upload their consciousness, Mr Wilford dusted off his train set. Snowpiercer is his system. Systems resist change, even without their maker. I’m just a scientist. I’m here to save the world. Not change it. I know our chances at surviving are slim at best. All I can do about that is provide small moments of happiness on Snowpiercer, 1,001 cars long.”
I forgot to mention the knives. So many bloody knives on this train. Jinju’s knives and Erik’s knives and the butcher’s knives. Two of those three are definitely murderers. I think Jinju is indirectly a murderer by creating and cooking the suspension drug and the kronole. I suspect that one of the ways she’s found to spread a little happiness is by making and selling kronole.
We return from the opening credits to nighttime in Melanie’s cabin, where she’s working at her desk. Ben knocks and enters. He tells her she’s working too hard and he needs her to take better care of herself. The train depends on her too much for her to overwork herself into illness. Melanie appreciates his concern. He also wants her to ask for help more often.
He means he wants her to learn to delegate more responsibilities, but she asks him to peel her tangerine instead. Control freaks never change. As they share the orange, he asks if she’s found a workaround for the lost cow methane. She has. She’s going to replace it with goat farts (goat methane). They joke that her MIT degree is really paying off. So is her degree from Yale Engineering School.
Later we’ll discover they’re wasting human methane down on 3rd Class.
Melanie has a map of the world on her wall and has written notes on her wall, all around the map, but I can’t make them legible. The map is some kind of polar projection perspective, maybe of Russian origin. The opening credits show Snowpiercer’s track following the outline of the continents (screencaps of opening credits in commentary section). This map makes it easier to see how the continents could be connected by tracks at their closest points.
Roche wakes Andre up to deal with Nikki’s murder. Melanie gets the call telling her that Nikki is dead.
Jinju and Bess linger in bed after spending the night together. Jinju wants Bess to walk her to work, but Bess feels weird about it, because there’s a stigma among Thirdies about dating uptrain. Bess thinks that Jinju doesn’t understand, because 2nd Class can swing in either direction, socializing with 1st or 3rd Class, while the other two classes are segregated among their own kind.
Jinju says they need to put aside old differences, like being from Detroit and San Francisco, and new ones, and start over in what’s left of the world. Then she gets the call from Melanie telling her that Nikki is dead. She answers using her official title, Agricultural Officer.
Melanie finds Klimpt sobbing on floor. After a few words of sympathy, she charges him with redeeming himself by discreetly moving Nikki’s body, then helping with the autopsy in order to obtain essential postmortem data.
She says, “Do you understand what I’m asking you? Will you do that for me, Henry?”
That sounds like she’s asking him for more than observations about how Nikki was murdered. She wouldn’t sound so secretive about forensic data for the case. Does this have to do with “the other work” she mentioned to Jinju?
Andre heard their conversation, but doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he asks Melanie why she didn’t make an arrest last night, when he gave her the killer’s description. Melanie says she was waiting until morning.
Bess realizes that the borders between classes have been closed all night, since the fight. Andre says that the killer is from 1st. He must have left the fight early to follow Bess and Nikki back to the Drawers, then gotten stuck downtrain overnight when the borders closed. He wouldn’t have had time to get uptrain. Melanie agrees that he must still be in 3rd.
Erik has been in the 3rd Class dining car for hours. When the restaurant switches to breakfast, he moves on, leaving a couple of 1st Class drink tokens behind.
Grey, Ruth, Roche and Till take over the Night Car to develop their strategy for searching for Erik. Roche is either equal to or in charge of Grey. Right now, he’s giving orders to the jackboot commander. Grey and Ruth try to get Andre sent out of the room when Melanie brings him in, so that he doesn’t pick up more details about the train.
Andre argues that he should be involved since he’s the one who obtained the killer’s description. Grey doesn’t want him going to 1st Class either. Andre and Melanie agree to question 1st Class together once the others are busy with the search for Erik.
Andre: “You have to clear that with Mr Wilford, or is that your call?”
Melanie lets Grey know that she decides whether Andre is allowed in 1st Class, not him, and tells Ruth to wake up everyone from 1st who was at the fight. Ruth doesn’t like the idea of upsetting the Firsties. Andre can’t believe she’s more worried about the comfort of the Firsties than finding the serial killer.
Grey will start at the Tail end of the train and Roche will start at the front of 3rd. They’ll do a thorough search and sweep, meeting in the middle at Ag Sec. The subtrain is still closed to all non essential personnel, but Grey will send an extra unit down anyway.
Roche sends Till and Oz to start the search. She’s shocked that Oz hasn’t been suspended for dealing kronole, but Roche maintains that they need everyone for this operation, so she and Oz will have to work out their differences on their own. (Her real problem might be that he ran from the Tailie rebellion, leaving her to be held hostage.)
Commander Grey, with his baton placed like a firearm to signal that he’s a predator on the hunt.
Note the optical illusions caused by the decorative trim at the top and bottom of the image. Miss Audrey has animal furs nearby. She’s dangerous in her own way.
Miss Audrey, dressed in widow’s weeds, makes her entrance down the grand staircase. She shoots Andre a look and he follows her into a private room to speak alone. But alone is never alone on the train, so this is still a coded conversation.
They speak in a padded room. Y’all know padded rooms are normally reserved for the severely mentally ill, right? Maybe some people need the private room experience more than others. Maybe on a super emergency, wearing a straight jacket so they don’t hurt themselves, type of basis.
Once they get in the room, Daveed Diggs and Lena Hall have so much chemistry together it’s ricocheting off the padded walls. It makes me wonder if the characters knew each other before the train. The way the scene is staged and shot is classic film noir, which generally means things are being hidden from the audience and probably from at least one of the characters, though I tend to think these two are co-conspirators hiding their plot from everyone out in the club.
The two circle and pace around each other as they speak, testing whether they can trust each other and whether one or the other is going to attempt to assert dominance, since this is the first time the two leaders have been alone. They’re on Audrey’s territory, but Andre is a man, physically larger and currently has Melanie’s ear. He could be a spy and he could assert physical or sexual dominance. He does neither and shows Audrey respect instead by showing her he values her opinions.
Remember this moment later for his conversation with LJ. He works to earn Miss Audrey’s trust and respect.
By the end, they’ve found at least a temporary sense of balance and trust, so they stand face to face and speak intimately. She gives him a bit of information about Melanie- that she never visits the private rooms. That means Melanie’s needs for intimacy are being met elsewhere, revealing a potential source of information, blackmail and a hostage if it comes down to it. Audrey also tells him that she’s sure there aren’t any leaks among her people. She agrees that Nikki’s death has the Thirdies riled up, but tells him he still needs to move cautiously toward engaging them in a full on revolution.
When Melanie enters, Audrey snaps at her to distract her from wondering what they were talking about. It’s a gutsy move toward the boss who allocates supplies and assigns people to jobs. Maybe Audrey has more on Melanie than she admitted to Andre. Or maybe the Night Car and Audrey are just that essential to the continued functioning of the train.
Andre: “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Miss Audrey: “If the killer’s from First, they’ll only let you get so far, and there won’t be any justice for Nikki.”
Andre: “How’s Third gonna take that? Both victims are theirs.”
Miss Audrey: “That remains to be seen, Detective.”
Andre: “Now that I’ve got a sense of what you do here, I thought you might have a take on it. You know people, high and low. You know their secrets.”
Miss Audrey: “Strict confidentiality. It’s assured in the Night Car.”
Andre: “I appreciate that. Melanie Cavill ever have a session?”
Miss Audrey: “That would be confidential- if the answer wasn’t no- she’s never shown herself like that.”
Andre: “Maybe now she’ll have to. Think Nikki’s death could be a catalyst?”
Miss Audrey: “Catalyst for what?”
Andre: “From what I hear, a lot of workers are pretty fed up.”
Miss Audrey: “You need to step carefully Detective, but, many of us do want change.”
Melanie knocks on the door and enters: “We’re waking First. Audrey, I promise I’ll do everything I can…”
Miss Audrey interrupts her: “Cut the BS, Melanie. You have my support, Detective.”
Miss Audrey leaves the room.
Melanie: “I’m holding the subtrain.”
Andre: “Not a lot of downtrain faith that the powers that be actually want to solve this thing, now that the suspect’s from first.”
Melanie- “I want it solved. And it doesn’t matter which class the suspect is from. Let’s go.”
He tipped Melanie off that he knows she’s Wilford, so she isn’t even bothering to hide that she’s in charge anymore. It must be a scary relief to be honest for once. She says she’ll make sure the murder is solved, but that doesn’t mean she’ll make sure anyone other than Erik, who’s not really a Firstie, is taken down. Or that she’ll delve into the reason why Sean was killed, if she can simply say that Erik was a serial killer who chose random victims.
The Tailies examine the blue chip and discuss what to do with it first and how far forward it will get them. They decide to have one of the sanitation crew use it to leave their breakroom during lunch. One of the Tailies who made the apprenticeship program early on, Astrid, now works making their nutritional bars. If they can make contact with her, they can set up a communication system and contact Andre.
Since Big John is becoming too sick to work, it’s decided that Josie will take his place and use the chip. She’ll blend in more easily than one of the more familiar guys on the crew. Lights wraps Josie’s arm with a cloth bandage, hiding the chip inside.
When the jackboots call for the sanitation crew, Josie joins them. They give her the eye, probably looking forward to the show when they make the crew strip naked and hose them down with cold water. They do this before the sanitation work, possibly trying to stop the Tailies from bringing parasites forward into 3rd, but maybe just as a humiliation tactic.
Melanie walks Andre through a corridor lined with some of the most valuable paintings in the world. Andre is openly disgusted by the greed and hoarding this corridor shows. It’s clear that the lower classes aren’t visiting the museum.
Melanie: “Layton, I was born on a dirt farm in Eastern Pennsylvania. I came from nothing. I know a thing or two about class. That anger that you feel, when you look at all of this? It’s justified. Let’s use it. Whoever the killer is, First is going to protect their own, so you be their worst nightmare from the Tail. I’ll do the rest.”
He takes one more look around, then follows her into the First Class dining car.
At first I thought Melanie might have made up her rags to riches story, but watching how fiercely she says the lines, I think she was serious. She hates the Firsties as much as most of the rest of the train does, but they are part of the order of the train and thus a necessary evil. It would be too disruptive to force them to change, so she tries to keep them under control. I don’t think she was as upset by the loss of the cows as Jinju, since she replaced their functions quickly and the train can be repaired.
But that story was unprecedented honesty about herself from Melanie. It feels like a spider weaving a web to trap an unsuspecting fly. Miss Audrey was right about being cautious. There is an unprecedented level of theatre going on for the rest of the episode, amongst Melanie, Andre, LJ, her parents and the side players. Each has their secrets and goals and is steering the conversation accordingly.
There aren’t many people in the dining car, but a breakfast buffet has been laid out. Andre stalks in, announcing that he doesn’t care who any of them are, but he knows one of them has a thing for chopping off 1st Class male appendages. LJ springs to attention the moment he enters. Now she laughs out loud. She’s been waiting for someone to become her parents’ worst nightmare for the last 7 years.
Andre eats from a serving utensil and speaks with his mouth full. He complains to Ruth that some of the fight spectators are missing. York complains that getting them out of bed for this is uncalled for. “No one from 1st Class has ever been charged with a crime.”
York doesn’t see the irony in his statement.
Andre tells York that he should thank Melanie for his luck so far, but Mr Wilford is taking a different approach this time. Melanie confirms it when Andre points to her.
He asks where the bodyguards are. No one answers.
He asks Ruth how many arms she’s taken in the Tail. When she doesn’t answer, he tells her- 14. That would 13 in the Year 3 Rebellion and Suzanne’s in episode 2. He asks her again, this time in a more serious tone of voice, “Where are the bodyguards?”
Hospitality Deputy Ruth, while wearing her uniform, says in all seriousness, “I didn’t invite the help.”
LJ: “Erik didn’t come home last night.”
Melanie: “He didn’t?”
Robert (Lilah may be the Queen of 1st Class, but Robert is still the King, where the buck stops and the hammer falls.): “No. He asked to leave the fight early and when we came back, he wasn’t here.”
Sharma: “You knew he was missing and didn’t tell us?”
Melanie: “Tell Roche Erik’s a suspect.”
LJ: “He has his gun, too.”
Robert and Lilah: “LJ!”
LJ: “What? I saw he had it with him last night.”
Andre: “He has his gun? There are no guns allowed on the Snowpiercer.”
Sharma: “Our security was allowed to keep their sidearm.”
Andre: “The rest of us were disarmed to keep you safe. I’m going to need to see Erik’s quarters.”
I’m not clear how much of what Andre, LJ and Erik do for the rest of the episode is preplanned and I don’t know if Andre really didn’t know about the guns or not, but he uses this as a turning point. Erik’s been wearing his gun in a thigh holster and visiting 3rd Class all season, so bodyguards with guns should be common knowledge on the train, all the way back to the Tail.
This is my interpretation of what we’re shown.
Lilah refuses to allow Andre into their car. He certainly won’t be searching through their things. She demands to speak to Mr Wilford, on behalf of everyone in First Class. LJ is extremely amused by her parents discomfort.
Melanie looks uncomfortable, but she goes to the phone and pretends to call Mr Wilford. Ben answers and realizes that they’re pretending he’s Mr Wilford again, so he plays along. Melanie explains the situation to Ben/Wilford. Lilah stands her ground until Melanie holds out the phone to her, then she backs down and agrees to let Andre into the Folgers’ car, as long as Melanie is present.
Melanie tells Ben that his services aren’t needed after all. He says, “I miss you, Mel.” She says, “Thank you for that.”
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Erik walks through the Chains, throwing off observers, until he finds the storage space he uses as his hiding place when he needs a break from the Folgers. He goes inside and puts his gun on a crate that also has candles on it.
The sanitation crew, which today includes Josie, Santiago and Last Australian, is brought into their horrifically toxic break room for lunch. It’s so filled with methane from the human waste they work with that the jackboot who escorts them wears a gas mask. It’s awful for them, too, but they’ve grown grown used to living in unlivable conditions, so they push through it. The crew has hidden anything they could scrunge in the cracks and crevices of the room. They pull out pajamas for Josie to change into from her sanitation uniform. It’s the middle of the night, so they figure the pajamas won’t be so noticable. The chip works, so she’s off to find the 3rd Class dining car and Astrid.
In the Folgers’ car, Andre tosses Erik’s sleeping area, rifling through the pages of every book and dumping out every container, then dropping them on the floor, like every TV cop ever. Though he’s quiet and polite as he works, Lilah and Robert are still put out. LJ offers him a beverage. He declines.
Andre notices a framed photo of Erik when he was a Marine. He asks what else they can tell him about their bodyguard. Robert says all they know about him is that they hired him to keep them safe and he did. LJ adds that he saved her life, but Lilah tells her, “It’s not pertinent.”
Wow, he lived with them for 7 years and the adults are going to play it like he was someone they barely knew and had no feelings about. Cold.
Andre finds a flat, squared off tool with a sharp edge. LJ says that it’s a J-hook, used for beekeeping. Erik found it and showed it it to her. She has a defiant look now. Ruth realizes that it’s from Snowpiercer’s old hives. Melanie explains that they used to keep bees until they died from colony collapse 3 years ago. Then the beekeeping supplies were packed up and put into storage. Andre asks them to send Till to find the crate the J-hook came from. While Melanie calls Till, Ruth takes Lilah and Robert into the living room to discuss their strategy for making sure this doesn’t affect the family’s reputation.
Josie sits down with Astrid as she’s eating a bowl of porridge in the dining car. Astrid is thrilled to see her. Astrid is in Food Processing, where she cuts and loads the bars, but she doesn’t have access to ingredients. She tells Josie that Andre is working as a detective, trying to solve a murder.
Josie explains that they want Astrid to make contact with him. She knows that Astrid could get sent back to the Tail for helping them, but they need her. Josie gets distracted by seeing the sun and the mountains outside. Astrid calls her back. They agree that they are OneTail. Astrid gives Josie her bowl of porridge.
Andre finds a stash of Erik’s photos and notices that he doesn’t come from a privileged past. LJ says he had a tough childhood. Andre asks LJ if she thinks Erik is capable of these murders. She replies, “Maybe. He sure wasted those rioters who tried to grab me on the way to Snowpiercer.”
Andre: “Is that when he saved your life?”
LJ: “He joked about being cold-blooded. Born for The Freeze.”
In the other room, Robert and Lilah assure each other that Erik’s actions don’t need to reflect badly on them. And Erik’s actions certainly weren’t their fault. But Lilah is concerned about the resulting track talk.
Robert: “Over the years, we learned that as a private soldier, Erik did things. That’s what he’s for. Not psychotic murder.”
Lilah: “It can’t come off like we have sheltered a monster.”
It seems clear who the monsters are. But we’re just getting started. It’s not enough to dehumanize the man they lived with for 7 years into a killing machine meant for their personal use. They intend to throw their daughter under the bus, too.
Meanwhile, Andre asks LJ if Erik ever got aggressive or weird with her.
He must have had some amazing sensitivity training back at the police station that led to him using that kind of specific language with a young woman whose best friend and bodyguard has turned out to be a serial killer. With Melanie the judgy ice queen sitting next to him.
Where’s the guy who was so effective with the Tailies after their rebellion? He takes the opposite approach with LJ, poking at her wounds so she’ll shut down and reveal as little as possible rather than making her comfortable so she’ll talk.
In addition to the other complexities of this situation, he doesn’t want her to reveal anything to Melanie that would compromise the revolution. I believe Erik was working for all of the sides on the Train: He was Melanie’s spy and hitman, the Folgers’ bodyguard and drug runner and an occasional rebel Tailie agent as well. Since LJ was with him so much, she knows much more than she even realizes she knows. And she clearly knows a lot.
LJ glances over at Melanie, then moves to the other side of the room and asks if they really don’t have windows in the Tail. Two can play the embarrassment game, Detective. She opens a shade, letting the light pour in, watching for his reaction, in the same the way he and Melanie are staring at her, watching for her every reaction. In the same way she’s been stared at as a Firstie every time she’s gone downtrain for the last 7 years.
But maybe it’s also an invitation to let some light in on her family’s life and on the activities of First Class.
Before she opens the shade, Andre tells her that most of the people in the Tail haven’t seen the sun in 7 years and asks how that makes her feel. She says that they didn’t have tickets.
Touché. It’s unfair to put the weight of the political system of the train on a child, especially one he doesn’t know, and that political debate has nothing to do with what’s happening to her family right now. It’s his issue, which he’s forcing into this moment because he’s not really investigating a murder. He’s prosecuting a war.
And Melanie is standing right there.
Andre has no idea who LJ is inside and he’s not giving her any reason to show him. If anything, he’s encouraging her to hide behind the walls Erik built around her. Andre doesn’t care about LJ at all, and she can see that. He only cares about what she can do for him. He’s another man who’s interested in using the Firstie princess, like everyone else on the train.
LJ didn’t choose to get on the train or to be a 1st Class passenger. She was forced into her situation and is now trying to cope with her own lack of power or options for the future. She’s just lost the only friend she had who’s showed her loyalty and who wasn’t ancient by her standards or separated from her by class. Everyone else is much older or younger or in the lower classes, and they won’t accept her, as Bess told us earlier.
Where does that leave LJ? Erik was her abuser, but he was all LJ had, in many ways. Her parents are terrible and she probably hates them. Her life is a dead end. Like everyone on Snowpiercer, she has very good reasons to be depressed and even suicidal.
Melanie reminds LJ that Andre asked about her relationship with Erik.
Andre: “Did he tell you things or ask you to keep secrets?”
Andre is asking LJ this to determine whether she knows details about the murders, but these are also standard behaviors for abusers, especially pedophiles. A yes answer would almost certainly mean that Erik was having an inappropriate relationship with LJ, and that he pushed her to keep it to herself.
Andre is toying with LJ’s emotions, trying to box her into a particular corner.
LJ goes wide-eyed, then shifty-eyed, then glances at Melanie and moves to sit down. She doesn’t look straight at either of them the whole time. Finally, she refuses to talk about it. It’s clear the answer is yes, he asked her to keep secrets.
Andre uses a nod of his head to ask Melanie to leave the room. She joins Ruth and the Folgers, asking about LJ’s relationship with Erik. She picked up on their abusive sexual relationship.
But she left LJ alone in the room to be questioned by a strange man anyway. This is a terrible scenario for getting the information they want from LJ. Now she’ll be triggered rather than feeling more comfortable speaking about her abusive, traumatic memories. Normally, you’d want to bring in a young, warm female officer like Till, who LJ could relate to more easily, to do the questioning, not a large man who’s purposely been using threatening techniques.
I believe Andre wanted LJ to be triggered, so that she’d be disoriented enough to go along with his plans for her without thinking them through.
Astrid leaves Josie in a corridor near the breakroom. After they hug goodbye, Josie turns around and sees Miles, now renamed Christopher, walking past another mysterious server farm with a strange woman. He’s telling the woman that his mother would understand. They disappear into a room and don’t notice Josie.
Santiago is panicking in the breakroom, since Josie’s time is almost up. She slips back in with seconds to spare. Her friends help her with a quick clothing change. When the jackboots return to send them back to work, they don’t notice anything amiss.
Bess and Oz are sent to the Chains to search for Erik in the beehive storage closet. He’s still there when they find the closet, but he escapes through the ceiling and leads them on a chase throughout the car.
LJ tells Andre that Erik, who is mixed race, hated his white dad, but he brought some of his father’s old records on the train. While she’s putting one on the player, a cat jumps on the couch and startles Andre. He hasn’t seen one in 7 years. LJ explains that Erik saved Snowpeter’s life, too.
Smuggling the cat on board shows that Erik doesn’t torture animals, one sign of someone who is a psychotic, unfeeling killer. It also shows that he cares about more than the upper classes, unlike most of the Firsties. Since the cat was smuggled on by one of the lower classes to save his life, rather than brought on as a Firstie’s pampered pet, he’s symbolic of the ticketless passengers and shows LJ’s true feelings about them as well.
Andre might still take Snowpeter’s presence as a symbol of 1st Class excess, if he’s never had a mouse problem. We know there are rats on the train and if anything survives the Freeze, it’ll be the mice, rats and cockroaches. Cats are essential.
She plays Bobby Vinton’s Sealed with a Kiss and slow dances as she sings along: “Though we’ve gotta say goodbye for the summer, baby, I’ll promise you this, I’ll send you all my love in letter, sealed with a kiss.”
For the rest of the scene, she acts in a sexualized manner, something we haven’t seen from her before, in actions or dress. She thinks Andre wanted to be alone in the room with her in order to perform sex acts, like he did with Zarah in the Night Car, and Erik and did with her. (The train is a small town with a large rumor mill.)
So, she puts on Erik’s sex music and dances for Andre like she did for Erik. Erik may even have been prostituting her out, with or without her father’s blessing, on their trips to the tail. The “Blue-Eyed Firstie Girl” would draw a good price.
LJ brings up the Tailie cannibalism story. She thinks it’s a good story, because it makes everyone scared of Andre. She’d eat someone to make everyone scared of her, the way they are with the Tailies.
She totally called him on that story. That’s exactly why he told it to Till and Pelton during Sean’s autopsy. Till has been busy creating the Legend of the Tailie Detective, just as Andre planned.
Andre thinks about what she said for a minute. She’s given him an opening he can use to to exploit her for his own purposes. He makes his decision.
“I know this song. So did Nikki Genet.” He tells her he recognizes what she’s saying. He’ll insert her into his official story of the crimes Erik committed.
LJ: “You know, you’re a lot cooler smashing the system than you are being Wilford’s dick.”
(This is about more than just the murders. Erik wasn’t just a hitman with a flare for gruesome crime scenes.)
Andre (chuckles): “Well, maybe we can do both.”
(He understands that. Next he offers his plan and where she fits in it.)
Andre, holding out the J-hook: “Erik ever tell you what he did with this?”
By asking her what Erik did, he’s admitting he knows she’s innocent and putting the ball in her court for a moment. This is her chance to back out and tell him straight out that she had nothing to do with Erik’s crimes. Or they can build a story that includes her in the murders, so that Melanie can’t sweep Erik’s death and all the others under the rug.
LJ gets a sly look on her face. She understands what he’s doing.
Cut to Lilah saying “Never.”
Lilah acts like a mother for once and confesses LJ’s innocence for her, but it remains unheard.
Lilah tells Melanie that Erik practically raised LJ.
He cared about her in his twisted way and probably didn’t involve her in the murders or describe them to her. If she was the Bonnie to his Clyde, it was only after she was extensively groomed. The episode makes the case that Erik wasn’t born a killer either, he was turned into one by the abuse he suffered as a child, his military training and experiences and the oppression he suffered.
Robert insists to Lilah that they tell the truth, because it will come out anyway. He admits that “Erik and LJ are close”.
Robert: “I can’t say no to her. It’s these times. Morality is a moving target.”
After blaming Erik for following orders when told and/or paid to commit violent acts, Robert now admits that he gave a violent adult man permission to have sex with his young teenage daughter under his own roof. Then he blames his teenage daughter and society for his inability to say no.
Robert is a sociopath.
He generally lets Lilah take the fall for him in public, though it’s clear he’s the one with the ultimate power. He attempts to keep his hands clean and his reputation flawless at all times, and when he can’t, he claims he was led astray due to his compassion or some other understandable flaw, while others were the real wrongdoers.
Jinju visits Anton, a tailor in the Chains, to pick up a gift for Bess. Erik wears a hoodie and wanders the Chains anonymously while Bess and Oz search. When they spot him, he steps into Anton’s shop and grabs Jinju. Anton is shocked to see a gun. Erik tells both hostages to be quiet.
Andre tells LJ that they took him out of the Tail against his will to solve Sean’s murder. He doesn’t care how the case turns out. But Erik screwed up by castrating his victims, since that turns a cold-blooded contract kill into a crime of passion. And, according to Andre, castration is a punishment that women lay down on men.
A quick google search will tell you that this isn’t true, but, once again, this is fiction. Layton is sending this story in the direction he wants it to go, just as Melanie and Ruth spend their days doing.
He told LJ they could smash the hated system together, so she’s listening for what he’s offering. She could punish a man named Wilford if she goes along with Andre’s version of events.
Andre: “That wasn’t [Erik’s] idea was it? He was probably just controlling the victim for somebody else, right? So, are we playing your song?”
He holds the J-hook out to her with a small smile. She looks at it for a long moment, then makes her decision and takes it. She continues dancing.
He just asked her if she’s willing to go along with his version of events. By taking the J-hook, she agreed. She doesn’t completely understand the implications of what he just implied.
Andre: “S**t, if I was a blue-eyed Firstie girl, I’d be playing for time, too. Erik’s going down in a blaze of glory, right?”
I’m not completely sure about what he means about playing for time. He must be implying that she’s trying to put off being arrested for as long as possible, hoping she’ll get off, the traditional meaning of the phrase.
But it’s clear that’s not what she’s doing. She’s already turned Erik in and told them where to look for him. That’s the opposite of playing for time. I don’t think Erik planned to go down in a blaze of glory, though I do think he plans to shoot the electrical junction box, so maybe his death is also planned. This episode doesn’t give us all of the information we need to understand what’s happening during the questioning and manhunt.
LJ: “He’s not going to the drawers.”
Andre: “So, no one tells… And you finally got to feel something… When he held those men down for you.”
No one tells… Both Nikki and Erik die in order to ensure their silence. LJ revealed he hadn’t come home after the fight so that he’d be part of Andre’s investigation before the jackboots murder him, rather than after he’s dead when the case will quickly be closed. She also makes sure that he’s killed rather enduring whatever it is they’re doing to people in the drawers. LJ and Erik may have had a suicide pact saying they’d rather die than go to the drawers.
And you finally got to feel something… I’m not sure about this yet- I think he’s giving her something to use in her trial, but it could be what he really thinks of her. She’s not numb inside at all, instead she’s putting up a good front, but anyone who resents her only sees the front, not the fragile bravado. At a trial that’s meant to crucify her and First Class, acting like a spoiled, numb Firstie who killed Thirdies for sport would make the lower classes even more angry, which is Andre’s goal. It’s also a good mask for LJ to wear to help her get through the upcoming ordeal. He probably already guesses he won’t be there for it, but she doesn’t.
When he held those men down for you… She hasn’t seen the bodies up close, so she needs to make sure her story fits the forensic story they tell. He’s giving her the information she needs.
She’s a little overwhelmed by how intense this all is. Then they look at each other with a glint in their eye and the deal is sealed. They play a little game, where she pretends to try to bribe him to let her go, but she’s really offering to actually get the Tailies stuff if they can figure out the logistics.
I believe that she and Erik were drug runners who were taking the kronole from 1st/2nd to 3rd Class, so this isn’t actually as naive an offer as it might seem. (They were getting noodle soup at the 3rd class lunch counter, remember?) She knows the bodyguards, the kronole network and is wealthy. She can use that.
She offers to get blueprints; he counters with guns. We don’t see the end of that conversation, so whether or not they make a deal is left a mystery. But she points at his crotch, where he kept items that Zarah smuggled to him. Maybe she wants to trade sexual favors for whatever she can get him. Maybe she’s telling him others have made that kind of deal, as we’ve seen multiple times.
LJ having access to guns isn’t a surprise. Access to blueprints suggests there’s a sympathetic engineer. Is Ben a double agent?
Back to the manhunt for Erik. Things are getting real. Roche and Grey have pulled the bulk of their men toward the Chains. He has Jinju and Anton sitting on the floor of the shop at gunpoint. He says, “She said this was coming?” Jinju asks him, “Who? Your girl?” Strange that she would jump to that assumption. When Jinju says that, Erik elbows Anton in the head and picks up Jinju, taking her out of the shop with him.
He puts himself in plain sight at the end of the car and lets everyone get a good look at Jinju, train chef and chemist, plus Till’s girlfriend. He fires a shot into the crowd to make sure he has their attention- this part was preplanned. Then he drags Jinju through a set of doors and through 2 cars full of server banks.
Seriously, is every other car a server farm? What are they for? While that would explain their perpetual battery issues, shouldn’t the heat they generate easily heat the train?
When they get to the other end of the car, he opens a hatch to the subtrain. They get down to the next level just before the brakemen and jackboots catch up, led by Till.
Erik takes Jinju a little way down the track, stopping next to a sign that says “Subtrain 778”. He has her stand on the opposite side of the track from him while they wait for law enforcement to catch up. She asks his name, but he doesn’t answer.
When the jackboots reach the ends of the cars to either side of him, he has Jinju turn around and kneel. He tells the jackboots to drop their batons. Then he shoots at an electrical junction box that’s above Jinju’s head. The bullet ricochets off the box and hits Erik in the arm. It leaves a hole in the box with something venting out. Methane? Steam?
Once he’s incapacitated by the bullet, Grey has the jackboots advance on him. He puts up a good fight, but he’s no match for their axes. They hack him to death, then keep hacking until he’s in pieces. Roche calls Melanie to give her the news.
Melanie is still in the Folgers’ car. She’s on the phone a long time and has a strange look on her face. When she tells the Folgers that Erik’s dead, LJ bursts into tears. As Lilah holds LJ, Andre nods to Melanie that she should arrest the Folgers’ daughter.
Andre: “Erik was a dog who did what he was told. And Lilah Junior told him to torture and kill two 3rd Class men.”
The Folgers are outraged. LJ attacks Andre, but the jackboots subdue her.
Seriously? The first murder must have been when she was 12 or 13. She’s quite the femme fatale in the making. LJ thought she was admitting to acting as Erik’s accomplice, whose only crime was the castrations, which would be close enough to cannibalism to make her seem formidable to the train. She’d serve a short sentence in the drawers and then get out, like Nikki. But she wouldn’t be murdered, because there would be no reason to.
By saying that Erik held the men down while LJ committed the crimes, Andre made her the one who was culpable and him the accessory. Andre didn’t tell LJ whether he’d say she or Erik committed the murders. She should have kept her mother, an attorney, in the room during the questioning, in order to avoid this very thing.
As Voice of the Tain, Melanie announces that the killer is dead and another suspect has been arrested. Order has been restored and justice will prevail. Andre asks if she’s in charge of making sure justice prevails.
She offers to buy him a drink in the Aquarium Bar. They toast each other with sake and she asks him what he thinks Wilford’s secret was. He says he just wants to go back to the Tail. She tells him she can’t let him do that. He’s seen too much. And she knows he’s figured out her secret.
He passes out from drugs in the wine. She makes sure he doesn’t get hurt on the way down, then tells him she’s sorry.
Well, as long as she feels bad about it.
Last Australian passes out nutrition bars in the Tail, with the charm of any professional maitre d’. He finds a metal capsule from Astrid hidden in one and brings it to Josie. The message inside says, “Layton’s missing.”
Melanie oversees Klimpt as he preps Andre for the drawer. She tells Klimpt to keep him off book and undamaged.
Commentary
Andre is nothing if not brave. He goaded Melanie into putting him in the drawers with Pike and the other Tailie rebels and she played into his hands. But who would be willing to voluntarily undergo the drawers after everything we’ve watched Nikki go through for the last 3 episodes?
Grey had Erik thoroughly killed so that the story can circulate and become a legend which appeases the masses. We saw Oz weaving a similar story about the rebellion of episode 1. But if 3rd Class isn’t worked up about getting justice over a Firstie murdering Thirdies, they won’t join Andre’s rebellion. He needs a true Firstie on trial.
Is it me, or does Ruth seem to be looking fresher and happier each day, while Melanie looks more frazzled as Snowpiercer’s order becomes harder to maintain? And Ruth is always making sure she keeps Robert, the kingpin of First Class, happy, no matter what. When the military coup happens, does she have plans to become the new Melanie?
The holes the butcher made to breach the cattle car window looked alot like the bullet hole Erik made in the electrical box. Will the holes in the cattle car window be discovered and used to frame someone eventually?
I can’t imagine that Melanie, Miss Audrey and Zarah are supposed to sisters or even related, but they sure look like they should be. Somebody got Zarah called up out of the Tail and into the Night Car. Meanwhile Melanie and Audrey snipe at each other like two people with a history that goes far beyond a business relationship, especially if we’re to believe that Melanie doesn’t visit the Night Car. There’s some bad blood between them, and Melanie’s guilty enough about it that she lets Audrey speak in openly negative terms to her in front of Andre. Of course, that could be one of the reasons Andre has to go in the drawer at the end of the episode…
Speaking of 19 Century mourning practices (I will later), the hair of the dead was often collected and made into artwork or jewelry as a keepsake, much as we keep the dead’s ashes and sometimes make keepsakes with cremation ashes. Klimpt has been seen with passengers’ hair several times now. Could he be collecting samples for this purpose, since there wouldn’t be a crematorium or cemetery on the train? There might not even be photographs or any way to paint portraits, other than for 1st Class.
In her opening voiceover, Jinju mentions that many of the wealthy uploaded their consciousnesses. Shends by saying she just wants to provide some happiness on Snowpiercer. Nikki said being in the drawer wasn’t like sleep. This makes me wonder if the server banks hold uploaded consciousnesses and the people in the drawers are having their consciousnesses uploaded and experimented on. Did Nikki go to the San Junipero of Snowpiercer’s server banks?
That would add a new wrinkle to Melanie sending Andre to the drawers. Maybe she’s actually showing him another aspect of the train before she brings him in on her rebellion against 1st Class. Server farms suck up an incredible amount of energy. If they hold wealthy people’s minds and much of Snowpiercer’s battery power goes to power servers, it would be an injustice most people aren’t even aware of. “The other work” might be the search for a way to create fast growing human clones and then develop a way to download minds into them.
Jinju’s opening statement, in addition to her scenes with Klimpt, also lead me to believe she’s the one who makes the kronole.
Snowpiercer’s Distortions
This episode is full of optical illusions, mirror images and visual distortions. If you didn’t understand that nothing is as it seems on Snowpiercer before, the scene in Melanie’s cabin should have told you all by itself, between the skewed view of the world (map), the outer layer peeled off the fruit by a different person from the one who was meant to eat it (Eve gave Adam the apple, kids), the reversed image of the name of Melanie’s Ivy League school.
Then there was the way Melanie was up all night, alone, to figure out how to save humanity using goat flatulence. All of those heroes running around all episode, trying to catch a serial killer, and Melanie is busy being the real hero in the dark of night, figuring out how to use goats more efficiently. SO emasculating to the poor jackboots and their leader.
Both Ben and Melanie appeared in the mirror, suggesting he might have a double life we don’t know about yet, maybe just as her boyfriend, maybe something beyond that. Miss Audrey and Andre also spoke to each other while pacing in front of a mirror in a padded room. Contradictions upon contradictions. How are we to ever find the truth with those two?
There were reflected images everywhere in this episode, too many to analyze what it might mean for every character. They’re all spies, they’re all being spied on, they’re all using the black market and the black market is using all of them.
Widow’s Weeds and Proxy Wars
A note about Miss Audrey’s mourning outfit, which she’s wearing complete with the weeping veil, to make sure we know she’s in mourning dress: The custom of wearing of all black, or widow’s weeds, during a long period of mourning, often for a year and a day after the death of a husband or close relative, was at its height throughout the 19th century. It’s particularly associated with Britain’s Queen Victoria because after her husband died in 1861, she wore her widow’s weeds for the rest of her life, another 40 years. In the US, widow’s weeds are also associated with our Civil War, when so many died on both sides and many widows and children were impoverished because there were no men left for them to remarry.
Make no mistake, Miss Audrey is wearing that veil as a symbol of rebellion, to remind Melanie of her failures, and Melanie knows it. Miss Audrey is wearing a 50s/60s version of widow’s weeds, when she’d be mourning her Korean and Vietnam War dead- two Cold War proxy wars in which innocent young men died for the political struggles of the powerful and wealthy.
Similar to the way Sean, Nikki and Erik are dying for Melanie and the Folgers’ Cold War on Snowpiercer.
If you understand Miss Audrey’s outfit, you can solve Sean and Nikki’s murders, understand the kronole drug war and decode what happens to Erik and LJ in this episode.
More on the Power Structure on the Train
First, a little more of my theory of what’s happening on the train: My current guess is that the Folgers are the drug kingpins who ultimately finance and control the kronole trade, and probably other black market businesses, but Lilah and Robert don’t get their hands dirty. York is the COO who takes care of the daily drug and gambling operations, maybe more, such as prostitution, blackmail and protection for all of those independent small businesses in 3rd.
Erik and the other bodyguards are drug runners and possibly in collections for gambling debts and protection money. Jinju is the kronole cooker. She’s probably its inventor. Klimpt was covering for her, but he’s also heavily involved in the black market and probably in the drug market. He may actually be the one to hand kronole off to a courier, as he said.
That makes a minimum of 3 factions on Snowpiercer- Melanie’s official Authoritarian State, The Tail, and the First Class Business Empire. There’s also the military and the 3rd Class, with its independent economy of artists and small businesses. Roche seems loyal to Melanie and Grey seems loyal to the Folgers. Grey also seems like he might be using the Folgers until he can seize control of the entire train in a military coup. Roche seems like his loyalty is real. For now, we should probably count the military as a fourth faction which can act independently, split in two or side with one of the other factions.
The same is ultimately true of 2nd and 3rd Class, since they are made up of individuals. Most of 3rd Class might side with the Tail, but they like to eat and have heat, too. Melanie provides that and there’s no evidence that the Tailies have thought through how they’d keep the lights on after their rebellion. They have to show they have engineers and ag workers on their side and can keep the train running, in good repair and continue to produce food, not just provide social equality, before people will fully support them for the long term. Otherwise, they may manage a rebellion, but the people may want a return to Melanie’s or Grey’s order soon after.
The Night Car is the final faction. It’s still a mysterious place, but if even 1st and 2nd Class use its services, it will make up for its small size with power and influence in the underground economy. The treatment and behavior of Miss Audrey seems to suggest that this is true. Audrey has made it clear from the start that she’s on the side of revolution, but she prefers to move slowly and carefully. She might not like having her hand forced by Andre.
Even without the Tailies’ rebellions, there is constant tension, which rises occasionally to Cold War status, between the other factions in the rest of the train. Sean, Nikki and Erik all fell victim to this. Andre knows much more about the front of the train than we were led to believe at first, but it’s not clear how well he understands these political nuances.
His goal is apparently to smash the entire power structure, rather than to actually work with any of the leaders he’s seemed to make alliances with in order to restructure the system so it’s more just. Out here on the planet’s surface, you can theoretically smash the system and still get food and water and other resources while your country is in complete disarray.
Snowpiercer, on the other hand, is a delicate system that may go into a death spiral if not carefully handled, or so we’ve been told. There are still a lot of secrets, like what those endless banks of servers are doing. Are they full of people who are waiting for the thaw and new, cloned bodies? Are they the real, resource sucking 1st Class who contribute nothing to Snowpiercer’s survival?
Or do those servers hold the sum total of all human knowledge, including the genome for every living thing which had its DNA sequenced before the Freeze? When Melanie calls Snowpiercer an ark, is that what she means? Does the train hold the possibility of cloning lost species?
Beyond the servers, maintaining the health of the living things, including the plants, animals and people, on the train under such harsh conditions, for such a long time, would be next to impossible. Anyone who’s ever gardened or kept tropical fish can tell you that living things don’t do well outside of their natural environment. It’s hard work to maintain an artificial environment even when you can order what you need from Amazon.
There’s a reason Jinju and Melanie are the two most stressed people on the train. I believe Andre’s heart is in the right place, but because he’s been sheltered in the Tail, I’m afraid he’s not taking all of the variables into account and will kill the experts he needs to keep the train alive. Revolutions often succeed, only to have their countries fall into years of chaos or fascism. Andre might underestimate the power held by the Folgers and Grey, who will work together to seize control. They do understand how the train works and they’ll simply enslave the people who are essential to its survival.
Misogyny, Oppression and Child Soldiers
In 2020, it’s not okay to use the “Lolita/Eve Made Me Do It” defense, especially when Lolita/Eve is being framed to benefit a man. Even in war. By using LJ as a pawn, Andre proves that he’s no better than Melanie. I suspected that they were essentially the same character and that his warmth was just another tool in his arsenal. This proves it.
Andre and Melanie have the same fatal flaw. They both want to save people as an abstract idea, but in practice, they are willing to sacrifice or betray any individual in service of their goal. The end justifies the means, whether the means is a child of the enemy or their own spouse.
Perhaps even their own child. The Folgers have crossed that line. It’s not clear yet whether Andre has gone beyond using the idea of Miles and used Miles himself. Like LJ, Miles has certainly volunteered to be used as a child soldier for Andre’s cause.
Winnie has already been used in the rebellion. Suzanne took responsibility for sending her tiny daughter into battle and took the punishment for her, which was the right thing to do. Winnie was blatantly used because of her size. It’s not clear how much she even understood of what she was doing and she’s too small to defend herself from enemy soldiers.
The Tailies are desperate and crossing lines, while Andre is bragging to Melanie that his people are better than that. They’re not. They’re as oppressed as people can possibly be and they work hard to make their lives better in a variety of ways. But they aren’t a utopia and they aren’t better people than the ones in the front of the train.
Everyone has lines that they won’t cross. I guess cannibalism isn’t that big of a deal to Andre, since he brags about it. The exploitation of children for sex and war is my line in the sand. Andre crossed that line and I can’t look at him the same way now.
The Folgers are much, much worse, since they aren’t fighting wars against deprivation and oppression. They are just sociopaths who sacrificed their own child for profit and their own convenience.
But I’m worried that Andre and the writers look at LJ and see a spoiled rich girl who’s never wanted for anything and dares to complain about her petty problems when put alongside the overwhelming problems of the Tail.
My issue is, why is it a competition?
The Tail’s problems are extreme, and should never be forgotten, but their existence doesn’t mean that LJ doesn’t also have a dead end life, monstrous parents and a serial killer, pedophile boyfriend who began sexually abusing her when she was too young to consent, with her cold-blooded parents’ permission. That’s a horrific existence. No one should have to live with their rapist and his gun in a train car. LJ was fighting her own war, and she finally won, only to be drafted into Andre’s war.
Miles had people who loved and educated him, even in the extreme deprivation of the Tail. LJ had psychopaths who used her, but she had enough to eat. She did not have a healthy childhood, anymore than Erik did.
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Images Courtesy of TNT.
Snowpiercer S1E4: Without Their Maker Recap- Sean's murder is solved, Lolita gets blamed, Josie visits 3rd Class, Andre visits 1st Class, & Melanie pulls out her bottle of poisoned sake. The Revolution approaches. OneTail #Snowpiercer In Snowpiercer episode 4, Sean's murder is solved, Josie visits 3rd Class, Andre visits 1st Class and Melanie pulls out her bottle of poisoned sake.
#Alison Wright#Daveed Diggs#dystopia#Jennifer Connelly#lena hall#metacrone#post apocalypse#recaps#review#science fiction#Snowpiercer#Susan Park#Without Their Maker
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any chance we could get a meta on dick/Kory in the newest teen titans movie? Pretty please
You know what nonny, why the heck not, I was filled with such utter delight at their interactions and scenes together that I got no trouble gushing about it for a few paragraphs.
Long-ass post and lotta screencaps, as per usual.
I was actually really trepidacious about Judas Contract when it was first announced. Like, I thought there was no way it was gonna work with their chosen line-up and they were obviously gonna bring Deathstroke back from the dead and it would be lame and they were gonna keep stringing us Dick/Kory shippers along with the barest minimum of quality ship tease they could get away with.
I still don’t think everything worked about the movie. (Raven was pretty much just as useless as she was in the comic version, Slade had none of the humanizing motivation behind his actions, and let’s not talk about their ass-backwards origin for Jericho.) But it was surprisingly both semi-accurate to the source material and Actually Decent and fixed a few things that bugged me about the story and HOLY CATS THE QUALITY ROBSTAR CONTENT.
LIKE, THEY WERE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HAPPY SUPPORTIVE HEALTHY COUPLE AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF???
I will go into detail now. :)
So we open with the Titans puttering along and Dick is being Mr. Stick-Up-His-Butt and then the alien brawl draws their attention.
And we begin the beautiful Dick/Kory goodness with one of my favorite tropes ever, Love At First Sight!
Or more accurately, That Look Of Utter Awe And Adoration And “Wow Wow Who Is That I Feel Tingly All Of A Sudden She’s Shiny”.
We’re like, not even a minute in and the music goes all soft and romantic and there’s slow camera pans and the boy is already a goner just look at him.
And thus, the film establishes right away, “These two are a Thing. They are OTP. Enjoy! :D”
As with the 2003 animated cartoon, Robin is pretty much immediately on Starfire’s side and feels really protective over her right off the bat. (Pardon the pun.)
He orders the Titans into action. And Kid Flash lampshades the fact that Robin is clearly thinking with his… ahem… “little grayson”.
Robin fights the Gordanians holding onto her, freeing her. She shouts at him about the portal and he orders Speedy to blow it up.
As the wind pulls at them, sucking the Gordanians up, Robin grabs onto her wrist and oh my gosh it is just so cute and romantic and aaaaaaaaah!
A Gordanian grabs onto her ankle and pulls her away and Robin disconnects his grapple line to go save her.
AND THEN THEY CRADLE EACH OTHER AS THEY CRASH BACK TO THE GROUND AND KORY ANGLES HERSELF SO THAT SHE HITS FIRST.
BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, HER SMOL NEW FRIEND LOOKS TINY AND BREAKABLE.
She rolls right on top of him and plants the iconic language learning kiss on him.
AND THEN THIS NERD SMILES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE FILM STARTED AND COMMENTS, “USEFUL.” WHEN KORY EXPLAINS HOW SHE CAN LEARN LANGUAGE VIA LIP CONTACT.
WE ARE THREE MINUTES IN AND THE LEVEL OF EPIC TRUE LOVE OTP IS KILLING ME.
His face omg he is so BESOTTED. He’s barely known her five minutes and she’s already getting started on relaxing his seriousness and helping him be more himself and less Gruff McAngsty Mini-Batman.
And since Kory still looks sad and uncertain, Dick is quick to reassure her that she’s welcome there on Earth, and welcomes her to to team. Quintessential RobStar right there.
Everything about this opening is just framed and shot so romantically. The camera angles and focus, the staging, their expressions. Every single animation choice is a deliberate HEY HELLO THESE TWO ARE IN LOVE YES?
And lo, I am slain. For this is ship tease of the highest caliber thank you more please.
To my everlasting delight, there was more. LOTS more.
Dick and Kory being a highly effective Battle Couple, watching each other’s backs and keeping each other safe.
Dick and Kory flirting under fire and playfully teasing each other. (Making it clear to all that they are disgustingly open about their relationship.)
Dick being respectful of Kory’s leadership and not wanting to upstage her, and reassuring her doubts when the team gravitates towards him.
Dick worrying about Kory specifically when Deathstroke attacks.
Kory being devastated when Deathstroke brags about having killed Dick, refusing to believe it’s true, and having faith in him to rescue them.
Dick asking Kory to move in with him, in front of their “kids”.
WHICH IS FRAMED RIDICULOUSLY LIKE A PROPOSAL FOR LITERALLY NO OTHER REASON THAN SHIPTEASE???
Dick and Kory hugging.
Dick and Kory training.
Dick and Kory dancing.
Dick and Kory canoodling on their couch.
BASICALLY DICK AND KORY BEING LOWKEY MARRIED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE FILM.
There’s just SO much that’s just the essence of what I love about these two–the mutual care and concern, the bolstering each other up, the kickass tag-teaming in battle, her undying faith in him–and then it’s just added to by them being so healthily intimate and mature and adult when it comes to relating to each other. She feels free to express her doubts and insecurities to him. He compliments and encourages her. They tease each other. They talk through their issues. They snuggle and kiss and are gross in front of their “children”.
Their relationship is so open and natural and comfortable and THIS IS BASICALLY EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED???!?!
Hello yes, I was not expecting this level of OTP, but clearly someone on the writing team for this film KNOWS and GETS the heart of Dick/Kory and why people love their romance because it is aaaaaaaalllll over this film.
They don’t even have any stupid plot drama arguments it’s just aaaaaaaaah!
*heart eyes forever*
OH AND THE KIDS SHIP IT TOO??? LIKE, EVEN DAMIAN WHO DOESN’T LIKE ANYONE IS ALL, “I APPROVE GRAYSON.” WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK.
I’m kind of being incoherent and rambly and not very analytical right now but just… THESE TWO. THESE TWO and how they are written in THIS MOVIE is basically exactly perfect and exactly how you should write established couples and I would just like writers everywhere to TAKE NOTE THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.
They aren’t forced into stereotypical roles, they aren’t squished into unnecessary UST or other tensions, they don’t butt heads, they’re just supportive and playful and adore each other and care about each other’s feelings and talk out their problems AND ARE SO RIDICULOUSLY HEALTHY TOGETHER AND MAKE EACH OTHER SO STUPIDLY HAPPY.
I just love them so much askfjhakjghjhg.
Excuse me I need to go cry and watch the movie again.
But seriously, there is literally nothing wrong with Dick and Kory in this movie, they are happy and adorable and perfect and are basically Mom and Dad to the Titans and it is WONDERFUL.
My babies.
#robstar#robin#starfire#dick grayson#koriand'r#dc animated films#meta#meta: ship appreciation#the TT universe ships robstar
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