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[gjorr]

So I’m rewatching Shameless for the millionth time and here are some popular fandom opinions that I disagree with/don’t like:

I absolutely hate the whole “Monica ruined Frank” stance that some people in the fandom have. I get it, some of you don’t like Monica (I do so I might be biased lol) but making Frank seem like the innocent one in that relationship just because of a few throwaway lines about him going off to college before meeting her and his first time doing hard drugs being with her takes away from how shitty Frank is on his own. Especially since we’ve met Frank’s mother and have a vague idea about his childhood/upbringing (the emotional and physical abuse + the implied incest), not to mention we’ve seen how Frank and Monica interact. That man is her biggest enabler, he literally encourages her to stay off meds because he likes her manic.

I’m not that passionate about this one but I’ve never liked the whole “Mickey was a virgin and/or strictly a top prior to Ian” belief that some gallavich fans latch on to. You can tell based off of the way he interacts with Ian (the flirting, the way he initiates sex) in seasons 1-3 that that’s a man who has experience. He knows what he likes and how he likes it. You don’t just bottom randomly for a boy from school that you barely know on a regular Tuesday afternoon.

When it comes to Lip vs Fiona, while his delivery is horrible, 90% of the time whenever they have a serious argument I always find myself agreeing with Lip. He was right about how Fiona should have kept an eye on Monica when she came back in season 2, he was right about how she shouldn’t have used all her money (that they needed to pay their bills) to promote the club in season 3, especially since she had no experience. He was obviously right about the Liam cocaine accident, and to a certain extent he was honestly right about Fiona’s laundromat storyline in season 7. She really bought this random laundromat without any prior knowledge about its state and she would have probably gone completely broke if Kevin didn’t decide to help her out .

I like characters like Karen, Sammi and Jimmy/Steve and I’m tired of pretending I don’t. They’re an absolute dysfunctional mess but they brought so much entertainment to the show. I would honestly much rather have horrible but memorable characters on my screen than flat/plain ones, and I’ve always felt that the core of Shameless is its ability to have their characters be deeply twisted and deeply sympathetic at the same time (for example, Jimmy was pure chaos, but the chemistry and connection that he had with Fiona/the Gallaghers was magnetic). I also spent most of the show feeling oddly sympathetic towards Karen and I firmly believe that just like Veronica in season 5, she was going through postpartum after giving birth and she shouldn’t have been forced to keep the baby she didn’t want. Similarly, Sammi started the show so sweet and kind. Yes, she was chaotic in her own way but her willingly dropping everything and taking care of Frank who she had just met in season 4 was beautiful. I honestly think that the reason she gets so much hate is because her ratting out on Ian started the big chain of events that lead to Ian and Mickey’s breakup. (an even more controversial opinion to add on to this is that imo their breakup actually made sense and was bound to happen with how many issues both of those boys (especially Ian) had - the problem with gallavich is how they were written post breakup)

Hear me out on this one, but I honestly feel that if the Debbie/Matty storyline was actually well written and treated with a bit more care it could have done a great job reflecting the importance of sex education (specifically the lack of knowledge about consent, diseases and protection) among kids in poor neighborhoods. Instead of doubling down by having Lip tell Debbie that any guy would enjoy being raped by her, having Debbie talk to someone who’s been sexually assaulted and having her understand the consequences of her actions would have made Matty/Debbie easier to stomach. About 90% of watching Shameless is about witnessing the most disturbing/deeply fucked up storylines that never properly get acknowledged and wondering if it was done on purpose in order to reflect reality or if the writers just don’t care (from male SA to pedophilia etc).

This is the least important one lol so I’m putting it last, I never fully bought the throuple. It genuinely felt like Kev and V never got past their issues in season 5 and only added another person to their relationship. It was so obvious that Veronica was head over heels for her while Svetlana was manipulating them both. (and this is not meant to be hateful towards Svetlana, at her core she is a survivor and that will always be her main priority). She also oddly felt so much more dimensional when she was paired up with Ian & Mickey and become a lot more comical as the show went on.

[gjorr]

List of supernatural characters we should have seen more of:

John Winchester - It feels like the entirety of season 1 was the build up to us meeting this man and boy did he live up to the hype. Probably a hot take but I actually loved the whole “man gets so consumed with revenge and the idea of protecting his family that he actually hurts and neglects his family in the process” thing. Just the tragedy and toxicity of it all. Something about him doing everything to keep his kids safe while also being the world’s shitiest dad (I also love that 90% of the other hunters couldn’t stand him lol)

Azazel and Azazel’s children - Arguably one of the best storylines in the show. I hate to say this but I actually loved Azazel, he was just the right amount of eerie and funny. The psychic kids were all so neat and it would have been nice if we explored their pov a little bit more, especially Ava and Jake whose switch up always felt very sudden to me. Sam also deserved to have someone that he can relate to 

Jo and Ellen (and Ash) - I remember starting season 2 and being so excited about the introduction of more hunters. While it felt like season 1 focused on the loneliness of being a hunter, now we were exploring the concept of there being a community of them working together and looking out for each other. Ellen was great, Ash was great. Jo had a fuck-ton of potential as this bratty, naive girl desperate to prove herself as a hunter not fully aware of the dangers, but was unfortunately stuck as Dean’s love interest. She was also a great foil to Sam (the boy forced into the hunter life by his father desperately trying to leave vs the girl who insists on this life despite having a mother who tries to stop her)

Henriksen - The police being an actual real threat for a while was great. They could have dragged that on a little bit longer instead of having Sam and Dean magically get out of every situation. (I do love Jody and Donna tho)

Gordon - He was such a nice addition to the show because he truly challenged Sam and Dean’s perspective on the creatures that they hunt by having the most black and white way of thinking. Just his introductory episode alone is incredible because what do you even do when someone that you love has been turned into a monster (do you wait for them to do something bad, do you kill them immediately, is redemption and forgiveness possible when the monster can’t control itself?)

Bela - Literally the baddest bitch in this whole show. The female Dean Winchester if you will. The concept of introducing her as an antagonist and presenting her as this evil woman only to than reveal to us at the end that she was a SA survivor who only made a demon deal to protect herself from her father and is desperately trying to win her soul back by stealing and selling things.. Her ending is truly the most misogynistic writing ever. 

Ruby - Yes I am aware that we had 2 seasons of Ruby, but her story always felt unfinished to me (how are you gonna have her call herself “the most loyal” and not explore her devotion to Lucifer). Season 3 Ruby was also written in a morally ambiguous enough way that I actually found myself trusting her, so I will forever morn the potential of her character as an antihero 

Uriel and Anna - All of the angels were so intriguing honestly. Uriel was essentially Castiel’s foil as they both rebelled against god due to their beliefs but one did it because he loved humanity while the other one did it because he hated humanity and supported Lucifer’s beliefs. I also loved how for Anna it wasn’t about either of those things. It was about her desire to live her own life freely without being bound to someone else’s orders. It was about her questioning god and seeking a family in humanity. She was so great, which is why I found her ending so rushed 

Linda Tran (Kevin’s mother) - What an absolute baddass. She bitch-slapped the king of hell, she hired a witch off of ebay, she kidnapped a demon put him in a truck and took him to Sam and Dean so that they could use him to find her son after he was kidnaped by Crowley, she literally sold her soul to keep her boy safe. I’m still mad that the writers didn’t know what to do with her so they had her rotting in a dungeon for a whole season

[gjorr]

I feel like Alana Bloom got so much shit from the Hannibal fandom during season 2 that her ACTUAL villan arc in season 3 is just not talked about enough. She could have easily died at the end of season 2 and her story would have been about yet another female character that got too dangled up with her male love interests until it actually got her killed. (Oh look at her dumb ass insisting on seeing the good in people and falling for Hannibal). 

Except season 3 is when she actually became her own character. The concept of this kindhearted woman being so traumatised by Hannibal’s betrayal (or reveal however you would call it), to a point where she becomes consumed by revenge and actively works with Mason Verger (one of the worst men alive) in order to catch Hannibal is so neat. And then once she has him, she is not even satisfied with that so she keeps him as HER prisoner constantly gloating about her power over him, willingly putting herself and her own family in danger by keeping him alive. And that’s not even touching on the messy Alana x Margot relationship (like Alana clearly loves herself a broken bird and Margot happens to be the most recent one).

Unfortunately I will always find the Will x Hannibal x Alana x Margot dynamic compelling 

[gjorr]

My most controversial Magnificent century opinion is that I actually enjoyed the Isabella storyline. Like yes, obviously it’s extremely historically inaccurate and you sorta have to throw your logic out the window when you watch it, but that also applies to most things in this show. 

I always found it weird when people complained about how spoiled Isabella was when I thought she was quite reasonable given the circumstances she was in. The whole thing would be a literal horror movie from her perspective lol (A Spanish princess gets kidnaped by Turkish pirates and sold off to the sultan, who keeps her as a prisoner and constantly plays different mind games with her, including telling her rescuers that she’s dead in order to get her to submit to him, all while the sultan’s crazy wife is trying to have her killed because she thinks that it’s HER who’s trying to seduce him). 

Anyway I think the reason why this storyline works it’s because we’re essentially watching Hürrem’s arc at the beginning (a young girl taken from home and forced into slavery under the ottoman empire) except this time it’s Isabella who is in Hürrem’s position while Hürrem is in Mahidevran’s. The whole thing is so compelling because you sympathise and root for both women as  both are victims of the empire and are desperately trying to survive. Hürrem threatening (and later murdering) Isabella doesn’t just come out of jealousy but also out of the desperate need to stay as Suleyman’s favourite in the harem (which oddly enough also makes Mahidevran’s previous actions a lot more sympathetic as well). This is also a great arc for Suleyman, because it really brings to light how he truly feels about Hürrem in comparison to every other woman in his life. He does love her, but it’s a twisted, deeply fucked up kinda love from a man who sees himself as second only to god and views everyone in his harem as his property. From his pov this was never about Isabella (he doesn’t even seem to care about her death), it was about him testing Hürrem to see how far she would go and finding it amusing that she would kill people for him. 

[gjorr]

A bit of an Attack on Titan rant

So I’m binging through Aot once again and I get to the rumbling arc which is just so poorly written. I don’t want to criticize Isayama too much because he has been very open about how much he struggled when it came to writing the ending. But good god, everything feels so rushed and the whole concept of the rumbling doesn’t even make sense.

Like yes sure the Eldian empire slaughtered and conquered people for 2000 years, that’s deeply fucked up but the current oppressors are Marley. Ignore the past for a second, Marley has actively been colonizing people for 100 years. They are at war with plenty of countries and you mean to tell me that no one, not a single country would want to ally with Paradis in order to fight against Marley. Things such as ceasefire and global diplomacy just don’t exist in Aot? Everyone and their mother in the world is against this one small island even tho the people on the island have had no wars and no conflict with anyone for 100 years. For a story that is so incredibly grey the general conflict in the final arc (and the world building in general) is so black and white.

And that’s not even scratching the surface of how some fans completely missed the point of Aot and turned into Eren fanboys. Eren and Zeke’s plans are both immoral (Genocide of the whole world vs slow genocide of one race). Like it’s so incredibly tone deaf in today’s political climate with all the very real genocides happening all over the world, for fans to watch this anime about the inevitable conflict of war and how it leads to nothing but suffering, and come to the conclusion that characters like Eren and Floch are 100% in the right. 

I sometimes wish that Eren had succeeded in killing all of humanity outside of the walls, only for it all to be for nothing because the people on Paradis would eventually start fighting each other. That’s probably the only way to really show the constant cycle of never ending war and violence. Like, the writing is very messy, but the intention of war and oppression constantly being repeated is so clear (Marley was oppressed for years only to finally gain their freedom and then turn around and oppress other people, the people of Paradis were wrongfully mistreated for 100 years, only to finally gain the upper hand and start mistreating other people instead). I hope not all of you missed the very real parallels of ethnic cleansing when Floch started killing volunteers who had come to their country to help because the Yeagerists wanted to rebirth the Eldian empire. 

[gjorr]

Some of y’all don’t ship Arthur and Gwen because you ship Arthur with Merlin. I don’t ship Arthur and Gwen because I ship Gwen with Lancelot (and I kinda ship her with Merlin a little bit too lol).

Like I just never got over the Lancelot and Guinevere episode in season 2. The two of them talking through the bars of the dungeons that they were imprisoned in. These two people in these horrible circumstances. These two people with no money, no prospects, no titles to their name, no living family, desperately trying to help each other. From Lancelot rescuing Gwen to Gwen giving Lancelot the hope to live. The understanding and connection that they share (also the way it mirrors Merlin and Freya’s situation a few episodes later). 

Lancelot asking Gwen to live for him is just not talked about enough. It’s such a bittersweet line, because to die for him would be easy (both of them are commoners, their lives hold no value in the grand scheme of things), but for Gwen to actually survive that whole ordeal and to continue to survive any hardships later on as a woman of low social status (and not only survive, but actually strive by becoming a queen) means so much more. Her repeating that same line to Arthur later carries so much weight (like you can just tell it meant so much to her).

No offence to Arthur and Gwen (I love them too) but the prince falling for the peasant trope just doesn’t come close. 

[gjorr]

Interview with the vampire - hot take

Season 2 Claudia isn’t as well written as Season 1 Claudia and I think the writers take advantage of the fact that she’s played by a different actress in order to hide that. 

Like how does she go from being THE smartest character in the show to not being able to notice that the coven can see right through her lies. It literally takes her getting thrown against a wall and threaten by Armand for her to realise the shit she’s gotten herself into. And how does she go from standing up to Lestat (because he was so controlling) and going toe to toe with him to willingly joining a coven that has strict rules and curfews including not being allowed to look the rest of the members in the eyes, having to ask before doing literally anything and having to call the coven leader master MASTER??! This is the same Claudia who called Lestat master mockingly in season 1?? Season 1 Claudia would have gotten to Paris taken one look at Lestat’s painting in the theatre and immediately packed her things and left just like book Claudia wanted to.

I suppose the writers didn’t want to have Louis be the villain by having him both be responsible for Lestat staying alive in the season 1 finale and him and Claudia staying in Paris in season 2 and then getting put on trial, but you can really see how much they dumbed my girl down.

And don’t even get me started on her relationship with Madeleine. I’ll never understand how the writers thought it was a good idea to get the black girl who grew up in Jim Crow’s America to be in a relationship with a white woman who was a Nazi collaborator. That’s a whole other can of worms that I won’t open up.

[gjorr]

This is probably a very biased opinion since I did discover this show when it only had 5 seasons and season 6 was in the process of being filmed, but I do genuinely believe that What we do in the shadows should have ended with season 5.

Not only was it a comedically great season to end the show with but it also gave us nearly perfect conclusion to almost everyone’s arc. The writers should have just had Guillermo stay a vampire in the finale and maybe added a small scene of Colin Robinson remembering that Laszlo raised him (and them talking about it) and called it a day. Maybe I would have liked season 6 more if I binged through it, but come on it really was a very uneventful and slow season with all the same storylines all over again.