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pendularium · 2 years

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Catch-22 the 2019 TV show is fine, but it's not Catch-22 the book.

SPOILERS: for Catch-22 (novel and 2019 show) CW: discussions of/mentions of death and war

It was love at first sight.

The first time I read Catch-22, I fell madly in love with it.

As a novel it was strange, confusing and funny in a way that no other books that I had read were. It was entirely unique, and I found its depiction of war, brutal, bloody and insane, to be moving in a way that most war novels just weren't for me.

And did I mention that it's really funny? I have re-read this book at least once a year since I first read it, and I have laughed every time. This book changed me in a way I still can't really verbalise - as with all media we consume, this book is a part of me. A big part. And while I can't relate to the specific anxieties within the book, a fear of death and the feeling of being both sane and insane is one that is deeply familiar to us as people. As is tragedy.

And this book is tragic.

It's sad and funny and hopeful and blindingly brilliant, and deserves far more people ranting about how great it is.

I first heard about what was to be the 2019 adaptation in a taxi on the radio, half asleep and being driven through the British countryside, endless fields of wheat and rapeseed blurring together in the dim twilight. I heard the hosts talk about the show, about how George Clooney was in it, and I remember thinking, I have no idea who that is. Why my lack of knowledge of George Clooney is what I remember best, I truly have no idea, but that's what it was.

I then forgot about the show for several years, until, three days ago, I went on All 4, googled 'good shows to watch on all 4', and Catch-22 came up.

So I watched it.

And I was. Disappointed.

The show isn't bad. I do need to stress that. It's an enjoyable show about a likeable main character, but there is something different about it that makes it not Catch-22. That something sat with me throughout my initial binge, an uncomfortable presence sitting on the sofa next to me, and telling me that something just wasn't quite right.

And I think it all struck me in the final episode, when Yossarian, naked (literally) and alone flies away into a sunset, muttering "release".

The only thing that I could think of was how utterly hopeless the show is. In the book, Yossarian gets out. The book ends on a bizarre, hopeful and funny note:

'So long, Chaplain. Thanks, Danby.' 'How do you feel Yossarian?' 'Fine. No, I'm very frightened.' 'That's good,' said Major Danby. 'It proves you're still alive. It won't be fun.' Yossarian started out. 'Yes it will.' 'I mean it Yossarian, You'll have to keep on your toes every minute if every day. They'll bend heaven and earth to catch you' 'I'll keep on my toes every minute.' 'You'll have to jump.' 'I'll jump.' 'Jump!' Major Danby cried. Yossarian jumped. Nately's whore was hiding just outside the door. The knife came down, missing him by inches. and he took off.

The book ends with Yossarian running away, free at last from the military, from Cathcart's endless raising of the missions and from the deaths of all his friends. Orr is maybe alive, and there is hope, and humour, and the hope has overcome the tragedy lurking beneath the text.

It is, I think, easy to overlook the hope in Catch-22, to simply take it for a funnier and more surreal 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. To take the misery and the death and the absolute trauma of it as all there is, because it is, in a very real way, all consuming. Even the ending, which is defiantly and unapologetically hopeful, has a reference to Nately's death, in that his 'whore' is only trying to kill Yossarian because Nately is dead.

Therein, I feel, lies the main difference between the show and the book. Catch-22 the novel is hopeful, despite the tragedy, and Catch-22 the show is hopeless, because of it.

The way both Catch-22s treat the tragedy of the situations is also different. This is, I feel, most evident in the case of the deaths of Kid Sampson, McWatt, and Nately. Kid Sampson's death in the novel is shocking and memorable, for very different reasons to the show. In the book it is almost bloodless, not unbloody, but the blood is simply not the focus.

Kid Sampson's two pale, skinny legs, still joined by strings somehow at the bloody truncated hips, standing stock-still on the raft for what seemed like a full minute or two before they toppled over backward into the water finally with a faint, echoing splash and turned completely upside down so that only the grotesque toes and plaster-white soles of Kid Sampson's feet remained in view.

This scene is shocking and awful. It's the sort of scene where the reader has to pause and re-read it just to make sure that is what just happened. Kid Sampson's death isn't the first in the book, but it is a very memorable one, in part because it happens on Pianosa, where they are meant to be safe, and in part because of Heller's description. The long run-on sentence and focus on the legs perfectly encapsulates the shock of the situation, and make it a shockingly quiet moment in a loud book (n.b. most of the death scenes are). In contrast, the show's depiction of kid Sampson's death is bloody, gratuitous in it, and is crippled by its lack of breathing room. In the show, we are given a glimpse of Kid Sampson through McWatt's canopy, before the canopy is drenched in blood. The scene is blood soaked, and it is not shocking in that. One of the early scenes in the first episode is of Yossarian, drenched in blood, walking away from the camera. Another is of a fellow bombardier blown from his plane who smacks against Yossarians plane, smearing blood all over the glass. The legs, which are so malevolent and purposeful in what they represent in the book, so blood-free, are relegated to a bloody side role in the show. They are a bloody mass of bone and sinew and flesh present in the far left of the screen as the camera focuses on the shocked face of one of the characters. The watcher barely has moments to process that before Kid Sampson is forgotten and we move on to McWatt, watching him fly into a mountain, and neither death is given room to just be, in all their awful glory. In the book (or at least in my book), it is almost two full pages after kid Sampson's death that McWatt finally crashes his plane. The reader is given time in a way that the watcher isn't, and although both are fast paced, moving swiftly on, there is a greater sense of time in the book, in just the passage I quoted above, than in the entire part of the show dealing with it.

McWatt's death carries it's own set of problems with it, problems shared with Orr and Aarfy, but most notable in McWatt. Heller has a habit of giving characters very specific idiosyncrasies, which both help the reader understand and identify them, but also make every reference to them that is serious absolutely heartbreaking. With McWatt, this is, I feel, most noticeable. Throughout the book, Heller associates a specific phrase with McWatt (if you've read the book you're probably already saying it to yourself) with 'Oh well, what the hell.'

'Oh well,' McWatt would sing, 'what the hell.'

This is repeated throughout the book, and tells us about McWatt as a character, and is used by Heller to teach us to respond to the phrase with an immediate, Pavlovian, thought of him, only to destroy us with:

a great choking moan tore from Yossarian's throat as McWatt turned again, dipped his wings once in a salute, decided oh, well, what the hell, and flew into a mountain.

When I first read this I put the book down. I had to. I liked McWatt. And I really just couldn't process this for several seconds. I sat there, the book on the table, thinking oh. There is a sudden and immediate contrast between the phrase, the phrase that conjures the image of cheerful, fun, sane McWatt, who is a brilliant pilot and gets a buzz out of flying low over the tents and scaring the men, who Yossarian loves as a pilot because he does insane manoeuvres and keeps him alive, and his short, abrupt, clipped end. Heller doesn't linger on McWatt. He kills him in the most brutal and emotional way possible in so few words, and then moves on.

The show does not. The episode ends, not with Cathcart raising the missions as in the book, but with a slow zoom out from Pianosa, the camera viewing the bloody raft where Kid Sampson died, and the burning crash site of McWatt's plane. This lingering, while (finally) giving the scenes the time they needed to be digested, undercuts a different message of the books. Cathcart, and by extension, the military, don't care. They send out impersonal letters, dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs. (a plot point in the book), and don't care about the lives of the men, and that is why they are part of everyone conspiring against Yossarian.

In the book, the worry is that Yossarian will die, that he will be unable to get out in time, that his superiors are conspiring with the Germans and the Italians and everyone to kill him.

''Who's they?' [Clevinger] wanted to know. 'Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?' 'Every one of them.' Yossarian told him.

Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up in the air to drop bombs on them.

That was the secret that Snowden had spilled to him on the mission to Avignon - they were all out to get him; and Snowden had spilled it all over the back of the plane.

This is missing from the show, where everything is all at once bloodier and milder. The incompetencies of the higher-ups in the book, the obsessions with parades and bomb patterns and having more missions than the other divisions, sucking up to Dreedle and Peckham, Peckham and Dreedle competing with each other, and Milo rising above everything - above morals and ideals and mission counts and the law. These are all missing in some regard from the show. Milo's bombing of Pianosa is framed in a much more polite way. It happens and then nobody brings it up again. Nobody dies, or is wounded, Milo evacuates the areas. In the book,

Men bolted from their tents in sheer terror and did not know in which direction to turn. Wounded soon lay screaming everywhere. A cluster of fragmentation bombs exploded in the yard of the officers' club and punched jagged holes in the side of the wooden building and in the bellies and backs of a row of lieutenants and captains standing at the bar. They doubled over in agony and dropped. The rest of the officers fled towards the two exits in panic and jammed up the doorways like a dense, howling dam of human flesh as they shrank from going farther.

In the book, Milo's bombing of Pianosa, and the eventual acceptance of this by America, is framed as part of the uncaring machine. They are all, even Milo, out to get Yossarian, and out to get every one of the soldiers. In the book, this is loud, bloody and chaotic. It isn't personal, as in the show, but in the book, the impersonal nature of it extends to who is killed and injured, and nobody is spared.

When I talked this over with a friend who had also read and enjoyed Catch-22, they said that it seemed like the creators had sanitised the more explicit anti-military and anti-war themes of the novel, painting it not as a struggle of the little guy to stay alive in a world that wants to kill them, but as a story about how a little guy wasn't suited for war. And honestly? I agree. The story glorifies the military by making them not the incompetent fools of the book, but as a scary and somewhat incompetent organisation. And this does glorify them. By making them seem scary, they are made to be powerful and impressive. This is perhaps best seen with Yossarian's attempts to avoid going to Bologna. In the show, they are disciplined, shouted at by Cathcart in a moment of genuine impressiveness and authority by the otherwise cartoonish Colonel who asked why they hadn't bombed the Vatican. They are singled out and humiliated in front of all the men, and the military, with Cathcart standing as its head, is, for an impressive and memorable moment, a force to be reckoned with. The message is clear. Being scared is understandable, but cowardice is not. Taking the military for fools with a broken radio is not.

You may remember that a little while ago I was talking about Kid Sampson's death, and I mentioned the shocked face of a character. I don't know who that character was! I'm guessing Dunbar or Nately, but I really don't know. That was a recurring theme for me in the show. There was so little characterisation, and so little time spent on the characters that they simply were not memorable. In a show where the costuming can't be especially creative - they're all in the same uniform - characterisation and letting the audience get to know the characters is extremely important, otherwise they will just forget them. In the book, the characters are not forgettable. Heller uses the little idiosyncrasies and his descriptions of the various characters to create a large and memorable cast. That was missing in the show. I knew who Kid Sampson was from the book, and I could identify him because of the book, but I swear he had not come up before in any sort of memorable way in the show. McWatt's actions seem strange in the show - in character only in that he has little character. In the book it is well established that he is an amazing pilot, and one who frequently flies low to buzz the men. Him showing off and buzzing Kid Sampson makes sense in the book. None of the characters are well formed except the more cartoonish and 2D ones, Yossarian, and Nurse Duckett, who serves as his love interest in the show.

The show also just isn't that funny. A lot of the jokes in Catch-22 are so good because of how subtle and dark they are, because of how surreal and contextual they are. The entire bit with the tomatoes never fails to at least make me smile, and I did not have that same experience in the show. The best part for me was the scene in one of the early episodes where Cathcart berates the men for failing to blow up a building, before being informed that that is Vatican City, and that it's neutral ground, and he has to do an abrupt about-face and begin congratulating the men for not blowing it up. That is one scene in show. And while there were other parts that made me smile, nothing else was really actually funny.

This isn't everything that can be criticised about the show, and how it fails as an adaptation of Catch-22, but this is most of what I picked up on on my first watch. There is much more I could talk about, and more depth that I could go into on everything, but I simply don't want to. The show isn't bad. It's just not Catch-22.

I don't especially want to spend ages talking about a show that I thought was just fine - who am I - HBomberguy? The reasons that this show invoked such a reaction in me, a person who is normally quite casual about adaptations - if it works, it works - are in many ways deeply personal. An adaptation is not a copy after all, and some things have to be sacrificed when translating a work from book to TV show. Catch-22 is not a book that easily makes a film. It is long and convoluted and, quite honestly, has too many characters and perspectives to be an easy film or show to make, and while it would make an easier show than a film, the 2019 show makes a close adaptation harder for itself by being a mini-series.

This is not to say the book is perfect - no piece of media truly can be, and Catch-22 certainly isn't. But Catch-22 the book is better - or at least different - from it's 2019 adaptation, and I think that needs to be acknowledged more than it is. As I said in the beginning, Catch-22 deserves far more people ranting about how great it is, and this show is not one I would go as far to recommend. I enjoyed it (mostly), but it's a like, rather than a love for me. This show would not make me want to read the book, because the show doesn't stand out, and it definitely doesn't stand out in a way that would coin a phrase and bring it into daily lexicon. I knew what a catch-22 was, and had used it casually in conversation before I ever knew of the book, and this show just wouldn't do the same. Overall, as an original piece of media, the show would be decent - one I'd maybe tell others to watch, but as an adaptation it pales in comparison to the book, and thus simply isn't good enough to get above a 3/5 from me.

#catch 22 #opinion #review #pendularium #my essay #longish post #long post #Catch-22

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myrskytuuli · 3 years

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Sorry if you've answered this before but I really enjoyed your post on how Harry Potter is a colonial fantasy, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on what told Hagrid fulfills in the colonial narrative? Bc I have a basic idea but I feel like I'm missing some important connection

Wow, what a fun ask!! Thank you so much for sending this :)

First of all, doing literary analysis will never yield real "answers" so saying that one character definitely fulfills one trope or another is just something that cannot be done, if one actually cares about literary analysis. However, the whole point of literary analysis is to tell one's own opinion on the subject, and in my opinion there is a certain continuation of trope usage in how Hagrid and some other characters are used in Harry Potter novels.

Western colonial literature has a long history of using a character who works as the main (white explorer's) servant and sometimes a confidant. Probably the most famous example of this type of character is Robinson Crusoe's Friday. In Shakespeare's Tempest we have both Caliban and Ariel, as both a villanous and virtuos example of this character. This type of character is saved by the white (almost always male) protagonist, and in return, the character becomes the protagonist's loyal and grateful servant-friend. Almost always, the danger this character had to be saved from, are their own people.

An evolution of this character could be argued to appear in Collin's Moonstone in the form of Ezra Jennings. No longer explicitly subserviant, Ezra is nevertheless employed by a white british man, where no one else would take him, and therefore becomes a loyal friend and servant of Dr Candy and his friends, with no needs, desires or wishes of his own.

A character like this can help establish the protagonist as a merciful, kind and decent person, in contrast to the villains, who would abuse the loyalty shown and given to them.

What postcolonial theorists critique in this trope, is the fact that the friendship between these character is never equal, and that the usage of this trope fails to consider the systematic abuse of imperial system, relegating all relations between the colonial subject and the coloniser to interpersonal conflicts, where being kind to one colonial subject frees you from the sins of the empire. This type of character also cannot be written from their own POV and therefore have their own rich, inner life worth examing and relating to.

Now, in Harry Potter we can firstly establish that there is colonial subject-coloniser tension inherent in the way the world is constructed. The creatures are subject to the law and authority of the Ministry of Magic, without being recognised as citizens with political rights by said ministry. The Ministry of Magic allows the centaurs to have some land. (OOTP) The Ministry of Magic doesn't allow goblins to use wands. (GOF and DH) Creatures are several entire demographics, who have to obey a rule of law set by a government they have no representation in.

Albus Dumbledore is textually said to be a great champion of creature rights, even if what he has actually done for creatures is never elaborated on. During the books, the only actual things he is shown to do relate to individual acts of benevolance towards non-humans. He allows Remus Lupin to attend his school as a student, saving him from life of misery. He allows Hagrid to stay and work in Hogwarts, after the legal system fails him. He takes in and employes Firenze, after he is banished from his herd. He takes in and shows kindness to Dobby and Winky, after they have been freed and left without a home.

All of these characters have few things in common. One, they are in a situation where Dumbledore's kindness is their last saving grace. Two, they are non-humans. Three, they all become intensely loyal and grateful towards Dumbledore in exchange for his kindness. Four, the rest of their people are either actively hostile or unsymphatetically indifferent towards them and their plight.

Therefore, I think that Hagrid, and other non-humans that Dumbledore has saved, serve as very evolved versions of Robinson Crusoe's Friday. A character there to prove that the character comfortably sitting atop the imperial system, is still a good man, and champions for the well-being of the lower castes, without having to compromise his own position.

Other's might have different and better analysises, but this one is mine.

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liskantope · 2 years

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Lately I've been reading up on the history of the English/British monarchy, hoping to perhaps eventually turn it into an area of very specific knowledge of the caliber of that which I have for the American presidents. Learning about the reigns, revolts, revolutions, and overthrows of various Medieval kings really gives me a certain perspective of history prior to the democracy age as being dense with bloody conflicts that seem strikingly pointless and disconnected from actual societal issues or political philosophies. History has never been my strong suit, despite my growing interest in it as an adult, and so my perspective on this is probably very naive. But it does seem that despite how discouragingly awful so many of today's military and political conflicts are, they carry at least have some semblance of higher moral purpose and concrete social cause, in a way that the march of politics and war in the 1000-1500 period did not. And I'm seriously beginning to understand where Scott Alexander was coming from in his rebuttals of Neoreactionary ideology (back in the days when Neoreaction was an ideological presence on the internet) when he went after their support of monarchy as the best form of government.

The impression I'm getting of monarchy in Medieval times is that those at the pinnacle of power spent all their non-leisure time playing politics with the current nobility in a game based entirely on wealth and family and that they were constantly under political attack and being kept in check by others in the upper echelons of society and (very indirectly, to a far, far lesser extent) by different factions of the people: my once-held conception of monarchy as being insulated from the wishes of the rest of society was far too naive. But unlike in a reasonably-functioning democracy of today, the grievances of various political factions were solved in extremely inefficient, somewhat arbitrary, and incredibly violent ways. It's starting to seem that quite a number of the English kings were forcibly deposed and that even when their political powers were going strong, they always had targets on their heads and were constantly trying to put down various armed rebellions against their rules. (It reminds me of a slower and perhaps less extreme version of what I discovered when I went on a jag of looking up each of the Ancient Roman emperors, most of whom seemed to die young after extremely short reigns which were often cut short by poisoning or stabbing -- it's like everyone wanted to be emperor really badly only to discover that it's a brutally short life of misery.) Political factions went to battle over the proper line of succession -- essentially a set of arbitrary rules -- whenever a king died. European countries constantly went to war with each other for little purpose beyond determining who controlled what land and which monarch had the better claim to the throne of the other country (they were mostly related by blood or marriage anyway). War between countries back then come across to me as basically just different nations flexing their muscles at each other to determine which was superior.

I haven't reached the Reformation period yet, so even religion doesn't seem to play much of a role in any of this, although I suppose that's going to change starting around the 1520's or so.

I know, I know, I'm naive for not recognizing that things haven't actually improved in the intervening centuries and that political battles and wars are basically about the same meaningless things today and only pretend to be about actual ideologies, concrete social/economic policies, and nuclear threats.

#history #medieval period in europe #monarchy #war #ancient rome #scott alexander #nrx

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happywithoutthehooch · 3 years

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They f**k you up, your mum and dad,

They may not mean to but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

Then add some extra just for you.

Philip Larkin - This be the verse

I love poetry and in my agst-ridden teens and early twenties, this was a personal favourite. Parents are very useful when it comes to deflecting your own personal problems.

This is a picture of me and my mum not long after she gave birth to me.

I lost my mum to suicide when I was 8. She suffered badly from post-natal depression and never seemed to recover. Despite numerous stays at Warley Mental Hospital, medication, therapy and electric-shock treatment, mum never learned to regain her happiness.

I now know she'd had a tough time growing up with two alcoholic parents. She was raised by an "ayah" - or nanny - in her early years as the child of a British family in post-colonial India. When her Scottish parents returned to the UK, they had to look after the kids themselves, by which time they were deep in the grips of alcoholism. So the example of parenting set to her was lacking to say the least.

I lost my mum just a few months before I lost my paternal grandmother - Nana Banana as we called her - to drinking and smoking-related illnesses. My paternal grandfather died of liver failure aged just 42 before I was born.

Why am I telling you all this? Well for years I used my family history - or the Scottish gene in particular - to explain away my behaviours.

I had decided that alcoholism was not only in my cultural heritage but also in my DNA and an integral part of my identity.

I'd decided that my mother's battle with mental illness would also be my own, that our our fates were intertwined and I too would kill myself by the time I was 38.

What a load of old bollocks! I'm 39 now and still here. I've had struggles with mental illness and addiction but I am now choosing to fight them.

Instead of using my mental health as a reason to drink, I use it as my reason to abstain.

I can now see that the chaos and misery of addiction was always a choice. If you can choose to pick up the bottle, you can choose to put it down too.

We are not our parents. Change starts with accountability.

#drinking #alcohol #recovery #alcoholfree #recovering

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bellemarchetti · 3 years

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𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲: Liliana Camille Rodriguez

𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀: Lili/Lil/Cam/Millie

𝗔𝗴𝗲: 25

𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗵: January 15, 1996

𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Spanish

𝗦𝗲𝘅𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Heterosexual

𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗼𝘄𝗻: Madrid, Spain

𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀: Los Angeles, California

𝗢𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀:

• Former researcher and professor at Washington University in St. Louise.

• Former Chief Scientist and Head of Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.A

• Current Forensics Specialist at the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department)

𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐅 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘

It is every orphan child’s dream to have parents that would shower them with love and care that they needed. Zelda has always longed for one. Her parents were law enforcement officers, and she was deprived of having a family after the shooting incident that happened years ago. She was seven years old that time, and most of her peers were adopted at the age of three. She felt jealous whenever a child from their orphanage would be fostered while she’s left all alone in misery. Zelda always thought that her potential adoptive parents wouldn’t like her to be around and that she would grow old in the orphanage.

This inferiority made her timid with the people around her. However, the chilly month of December 15th of the year 2003 was a day in her life where everything had changed. A woman named Rebecca Rodriguez together with her husband, Armando, visited the Loving Hands Children's Home Orphanage in Los Angeles, California.

༆ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊

“Good day, Miss Lita. May I take a look at the orphans?” A lady who looks to be in her mid-thirties strode gracefully inside the shelter’s entrance and flashed a bright smile that lit up the whole room.

“Surely, Mrs. Rodriguez, let me tour you around,” the headmistress approached her nicely. Upon strolling around the orphanage, the woman’s gaze was affixed to the girl with a petite physique whose frizzy hair was tied in a bun. Her teeny-tiny hands were busily scratching some leaves, her curious eyes were prudently examining its components. The young girl frantically hid her face under her palms as she noticed the woman paced in her direction. Calming her down, Rebecca offered her hand and spoke to Zelda with a sophisticated accent.

“Hey, Sweetie, it’s okay; I don’t bite.”

Zelda freed her flushed face and she carefully scanned the woman in front of her — from head to toe. She noticed that the woman has a long torso with an exquisite waist and lengthy legs that were modestly covered in silk pants.

“What are you doing, young lady?” Ignoring the woman’s remarks for a few seconds, her prying eyes focused on Rebecca. Avoiding eye contact, she finally snapped to her senses. “I-I’m inspecting... as to why these leaves are colored green, and the others are brown.” She replied with apparent shyness in her brittle and croaky voice. The headmistress hastily interrupted their conversation.

“I’m sorry, Madame. Zelda is quite shy and weirdly curious with a lot of things.”

“It’s alright, Miss. I would love to chat more with her. Do you mind if we talk to her somewhere private?”

“In our headquarters, Madame.”

The headmistress led them the way. Inside the four corners of the office, Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez interviewed the sweet little child. “What do you want when you grow up, young lady?” Armando asked with compassion in his eyes. The child was stuttering with her usually frail voice before she could even respond. “T---to be a scientist, Sir.” Rebecca nodded in awe with her ambition. “Well then, we’ll be your parents, kid.” Zelda’s orbs grew wide as she could not believe what she just heard. With her astonishment, she immediately raced towards Rebecca and clasped her arms on the woman’s waist.

Long story short, the couple decided to adopt Zelda and treat her like their own. daughter. The documents were fixed, and they flew together to Spain. With joy in her eyes and exuberance in her heart, she was welcomed into their humble home in Madrid. Finally, after years of waiting, she found a family of her own. Parental figures whom she can finally call “Mamá” and “Papá."

After being adopted into a wealthy family, she is no longer named as Zelda, but she is now Liliana Camille Rodriguez. She flourished to be a fine young woman with the aid of her parents and together with the perks of having foster brothers named Jacob and Oliver.

𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓

She took her primary and secondary education at the King’s La Moraleja British School in Madrid. Later on, she ventured her undergraduate studies in the United Kingdom at Nottingham Trent University and earned her degree in BSc. Analytical Chemistry together with a course in Forensic Science. She also pursued her master's degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of St. Andrews. She graduated with flying colors and has contributed to a lot of researches that would primarily benefit the scientific community and the society.

Her career led her to jump from places to places, and since her field is mainly focused on Science, she became a College Professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis. She’s also the former Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics of the said university.

Lili have always wanted to impart her knowledge to aspiring students, especially in the field of research. She firmly believes that Science would help them discover wonders and help create solutions and innovations that would be useful for the future. She’s also affiliated as the Chief Scientist & Research and Development Head at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, working at a University and being a department head at various laboratory and research institutions doesn’t seem to be her calling. Making use of her knowledge in Forensics, as well as searching for clues about her biological parents' death, she decided to be part of the LAPD. She carries out analysis and helps in solving heinous crimes even with the most ambiguous evidence there is.

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄, 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒:

She is an accommodating individual, well disposed, and loves to offer help as well as showing her bright smiles to the people she meets on her way. She is also evidently shrewd and somewhat uncanny. She easily confides with individuals and loves making jokes, even at her own expense.

She stands tall around 5'6", with dark hair and earthy-colored eyes. While most scientific researchers would wear proficient clothing related with their job(such as sterile jackets, basic PPEs, and so forth), her closet appears to be more casual. At first glance, no one would speculate her of being a researcher. Aside from her badass forensic quirks, this lady is also a hot and sassy chick.

➪ 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: She is an accomplished scientific researcher with her advanced knowledge and skills in chemistry. Her insights can mostly be applied in different crime cases, especially on homicides.

➪ 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭: She is a skilled blackjack player and a magnificent card counter. Her capacities have gotten her restricted from at least one casino in Las Vegas.

➪ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: She is talented with guns.

➪ 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤-𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠: She is a gifted lock-picker, which according to her, she learned in mid-school because of her brothers. Lili was one of the boys.

➪ 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐥: She speaks both English and Spanish.

༆ Storyline and (generally or a few) scenes will be based on Netflix's Lucifer arrangement/How To Get Away with Murder/Breaking Bad; Liliana Rodriguez's character and abilities are inspired mostly from Ella Lopez's personality.

References: https://lucifer.fandom.com/wiki/Ella_Lopez

P.S. This might be updated from time to time and I'm just posting this here as a reminder for me to write about her. 🤣

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