i mean it's sort of insane (in a bad way) that jason isn't a beloved character. because he is just- very similar to benny! in a lot of ways! they're both thrill-seeking adventurers, they both love to drink and have sex (with other people and sometimes each other,) they're both chaotic and unruly as hell, they're both nearly impossible to make settle or to ground anywhere, they both- they both want to be parents (though, for different reasons,) they're both heroes, they both fuck up and are stupid (affectionate) sometimes, they both blunder into situations they don't understand and make a mess of things sometimes, they both try their best to be good, they're just so similar!
yet jason gets hate. and for what? because he's hypersexual? because he's a really good porn writer? because he copes using sex? like, fucking hell, you can't even cite his and benny's relationship being toxic because benny's just as bad as him! but in a different, not-so-direct way! and i love that for them! (and they are also adorably in love, btw. despite it all. and they try.)
like, ofc benny is loved by the fandom. i understand. i love her. she's possibly the most realistic character ever, she's so human and- and real, with flaws and fuck-ups and hope and a good heart. and we love her. of course we do.
but why not jason kane? because of benny unreliable-narrator summerfield insulting him in her thoughts when she's pissed off at him? because of brax calling him an idiot to (in my opinion) make it easier to use him as a tool and not see him as the person he is? hell, he was the person to offer brax help! he noticed brax's mental decline and he offered to help and he got nothing from it, he got worse than nothing from it, because you can't accept help- you can't accept help if you don't see the person trying to help you as a person and rather a tool! and brax got him killed for being a huge inconvenience to his plans because jason was a fucking hero and he tried to do good! and ofc it's not brax's fault either, his grand plans were ultimately, to him, for good and he just- he couldn't see how anyone could understand and jason was in his way. and. well. he couldn't have something threatening his plans. (people better than me have explained brax and jason, go check out this post by @stillthesunkenstars, i hope it's not a problem if i tag you.)
and- and he loves kids! peter specifically, but like, kids in general too! or did we miss when he stole the mixed-species kids away and kept them all safe from the fifth axis and they all loved him? did we miss that he listens to the kids like they say something worth listening to? did we miss that he tries to be the best dad he can to peter because his own dad was such a fucking piece of shit? did we miss that he genuinely wants to parent peter too, gets a bit sad when peter grows up a bit stops referring to him as 'dad' too (adorable,) he loves peter like he's his own kid!
it's just- people hate jason kane way too much, and just reduce him to, what, Benny's Bad Taste In Men The Example: Shitty Ex-Husband. or fucking something. and in doing so they completely miss his significance, his character, his lovable personality (because he is lovable! why d'you think benny's in love with him?) his plot significance, his narrative role, i could go on and on and on.
brax and jason are kind of sort of like lady macbeth and macbeth. kiiiind of. the everlasting guilt and using/controlling another person to do your sins which you still count as your own.... maybe.
alright so i'm... unsure what the exact definition of a hot take is, but uh, here's some... things? opinions? (edit: also i went completely off the fucking rails here and started ranting big-time. i hope it's okay.)
one that doesn't properly count is that it's genuinely so sad that benny series is less popular than, say, gallifrey or whatever, because it is better in every way. personal opinion. i say as someone who was into gallifrey first. benny series i love youuu 🫶
right, (proper) first of all, i am not a hater. i am a lover. which might sometimes require me to rise to the defence of the characters i love, if that makes any sense. i do not hate on stories because they're "unbelievable" or "the plot is bad" or whatever (unless they have, say, bigotry). what i dislike in stories are bigotry and mischaracterisation (my previous point of being a Lover.)
i did actually like "twilight of the gods"!!! they all go through shit, horrible shit!!! like, alright, fine, i get why people don't like it as an ending to the dellah era. i get that. however, i actually like it!!! (speaking of, i should re-read dellah era properly one day, instead of just rotating "where angels fear" and "tears of the oracle" and "deadfall" in my rereads lol.)
similarly, with "in living memory", people have said that it's a, uh, cliffhanger-y ending and not really too good of an ending to legion era, since the next time we see benny (with the unbound doctor i believe, and i don't have any authority to speak about this era of hers since i... haven't listened to a single one of their audios together. i will One Day.) is another setting entirely. and i guess some people don't like the episode as a finale, but i really do believe that it's amazing!!! i mean, in terms of finales, it does a very good job! the epoch are all defeated! shit's tied up, well, mostly. not really, but i don't like things where it's all neatly tied up with no room for anything else, anyway. and it's the nature of doctor who. the episode ended with the legion era team thinking/saying that they could use the power of the epoch one last time... and i really like that. those sorts of endings/finales, where it's really the dawn of a new era, are really nice to me. they don't have to show the new era they may or may not be walking into. things don't have to be cleared up. i don't really care about the logistics of how benny went from legion era -> unbound doctor era. why do we have to have everything spelled out for us anyway? i like having fun, i like having spaces in between for fics... the episode confirmed that some fanfics are even canon to benny!!! which is so fun :3 it was when gary russell said that she didn't remember anything, and what she did was written off in her head as stories they recorded, novels, anthologies, fan fiction... hehe :3 (and the ending of the episode may have spawned a fic wip for me where benny uses the power of the epoch to... get jason back. because i love him and she does too, she mentions his name as one of the things they could use the epoch for.) so, yeah. i liked the episode as a finale and also as an episode, a lot. like, of course, nothing can be flawless. but this episode is still amazing.
on the same topic, i do really like the legion era. yeah, sure, it's not the best, and a lot of things are left unaddressed, but i really like what we do get to see, and we can draw inferences from that. it's not 100% good, but i do still love it. a lot. the concept of... legion, though very unaddressed and sidelined, is really nice from whatever we get. and i'm working on a more realistic legion era fic anyway, where i address stuff!!! fun.
hm... i guess for characters, i do really love all/most of them. that interpretation of the mirror effect i showed in my fic, plus the stuff i wrote in the notes of it:
i read brax's actions in the mirror effect as him desperately trying to salvage the situation, while not letting anyone know how much of a bad time he's having. and sure, there's some things he wouldn't have liked to say, such as how he knew about what happens there in the first place (when he told jason not to go in after benny, and told him what happens in the mirror worlds, for his own good), but brax did ultimately tell jason when he exited from the lift for the second time (after brax hypnotised him.) i wrote what i think of brax's motives/reasons and whatever was going on in his mind in the fic, so i won't discuss it too much here. but basically, brax wasn't doing what jason, influenced by th mirror world, accused him of. not to such a grand scale. not until later. and i guess this does serve as foreshadowing, from my reading of this episode. brax wasn't in control at all in the mirror effect.
also, brax retconning his reasons for doing All This to jason, because he can definitely justify hurting his friend as being a part of his plan, later. see, to me, cantus was just... brax doing what he thought would help most. "this way, you can be the saviour and protector you've always wanted to be!" <-cyberleader-ing him. "jason, this is your destiny" [as written by brax, to help immensely in his plan. because lbr brax does care, but by cantus he's far gone enough...] like. okay going completely brasjason insane here, That Scene in cantus, jason screaming when the coronet was put on him and brax shushing him??? like that???? WHILE jason's still screaming???? Did Things to me, i swear. "you're only making it harder for yourself..." telling jason to just give in to the cyberconversion so it'd hurt less for him... am i insane? probably. jason, at last, telling brax to keep benny safe. "this way, you'll be keeping us all safe. goodbye, jason... thank you for everything" <-genuinely sounds like he's saying goodbye to his friend!!! like, to brax, he had to do that for his Plans, to keep the Collection and its inhabitants safe, and jason was just the tool to do it. it doesn't mean, strictly, that he doesn't care about jason. rather that jason's more a tool in his plans, a useful tool, and he may even be making them all (himself included) unhappy but it has to be done. for the plan. to save them all from what's coming.
apologies if this doesn't make sense, my head is blurry from... calculus :/ and i completely lost the fucking plot and started unwell ranting.
anyway, bev time!!! i've spoken a bit about her and brax in a post (here), and i am here to add more!!! the thing is, that brax didn't really care about bev (nor adrian) that much, because she came afterwards. benny and jason are holdovers from dellah era, where brax genuinely had friends, let himself care for them properly, without façades or hiding shit. here... bev was kept because she was incredibly useful against the fifth axis, because brax recognised that she could be trained/molded into an assistant for him. to do his work for him, to get him shit for his collection (like jason used to do, but he's graduated from that and onto greater things now) and he can... help her grow, i guess. because in the end, what bev ends up becoming is because of brax. he gave her a home and turned her into what she is. but it's hers now. and, yeah, brax was the only person to trust bev with important shit in the beginning too! but after cantus, it just soured a lot. because brax left. he had a choice and he left. and bev moved in to fill the position of director, and she did it wonderfully!!! i don't think she ever forgave him for just fucking leaving like that. bitterness turned to hatred because look what he did to her friend (jason) !!! plus, the collection's hers now. she's the one who has to cope with his absence, she's the one upon whom it all falls. because benny's off benny-ing, and bev's the one left to deal with real life shit. brax doesn't really care about bev as much as he cares about, say, benny, or even jason. but bev... well, brax gave her a home. and then he left!
another take, i guess, is that benny's a HUGE hypocrite! lmao one time in happy endings (which i re-read a few weeks ago), she was seriously thinking about how she really, really wanted to fuck john watson, just mess him up, and THEN she went 'oh yeah this isn't the same as jason checking out ace's tits. btw. he did worse.' like girl i love you. i LOVE women who have serious problems. benny has this compulsive need to frame herself as Good or Cool (case in point, the sticky notes over her diary entries, writing/retconning herself in as better than she actually was in that situation.) i LOVE her and i believe that characters should be allowed to have flaws!!! and be loved for them!!!! like GIRL, your ISSUES. she Throws Shit At Jason when she's mad at him... girl I Love You<3. let women have PROBLEMS!!!!! >:3
uhhhhhhh i can't think of any else at the moment. OH and also i love stories people deem "unnecessarily dark and edgy" like yes give me. so. yeah! i've spoken way too much lol.
got any takes of yours you'd like to say? :3 i'd love to hear them!
