The Departed Fairy

The fairy has left the building...

[wonderlandleighleigh]

Today I saw someone notice the pro-Israel throughline in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and it made me think about a few things.

1. Shit has been hinted at since season 1. Overt in season 5. Yeah. Midge and her family, like many Jewish families in America, especially during that time, were Pro-Israel*. I admit, when I watched the season 5 scene set in what I presume was the West Bank, I cringed.

It didn't line up with my worldview and what I hoped would be Midge's. But I kind of knew. Because...

2. Midge's politics have always been about what benefits and suits Midge. While she can be giving and caring, we know she also has the frequent capacity to be deeply self-centered. So it wasn't surprising that she was accepting an award in Israel. It suited her wants and needs. This is pretty common for ASP characters. Is it a good thing? I don'tthink it is.

3. The fact that no one pointed this out with season one, when Noah and Astrid talked about their many trips to Israel, is indicative of a gentile audience who didn't start thinking about Israel at all until October 7th. So welcome, I guess, to the existential crisis I keep having.

4. The Lenny of it all: the real Lenny had a deeply ingrained sense of justice (something irl Lenny shamed other jews for lacking. Which i feel in my guts sonetimes), and was very to the left for the era he lived in. He criticized Israel for not speaking up when the Rosenberg's were executed in the 50s (I assume because he was against the death penalty). It makes me wonder about how that would have looked had we gotten more time with fictional Lenny in season five, and the friction that may have popped up when bumping against Midge's indifference.

Anyways. The existential crisis of being Jewish in this moment in history continues. Please do not yell at me in the comments.

*I've stopped using the word Zionist because too many people are just using it to mean "dirty jew" and have a way to argue that that's "not what they meant." 🙃

[markwatneyandenesemble]

the marvelous mrs maisel + memes

[theycallme-thejackal]

LENNY BRUCE + looking at midge

[envyingrams]

I love it a ship between 2 grumpy, bitter, sour, and salty assholes. They aren’t just soulmates... they’re saltmates. 🥰

[queen-of-hobgobblers]

Excuse me sir, that's my emotional support toxic fictional ship

[thempregguy]

category of blorbo called "technically i like them but fanons obsession with them to the exclusion of other characters pavloved me into having a negative reaction whenever i see them"

[emptyblissdotmp3-deactivated202]

[luckydiorxoxo]

Thoughts uploaded! Thanks @helenasmirkedno

[pine-farr]

Chris Pine for Esquire.

[always-rolling-my-eyes]

[riosnecktattoo]

somebody get Chris Pine outta there lmao

[buckys]

CHRIS PINE laughing at memes of himself

[fibro-memes]

[wonderlandleighleigh]

It feels like every other week, someone makes a post, lamenting that the fic writers for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel missed the point of the show and we focus too much on the Midge x Lenny romance and not enough on Susie/Midge or Midge's success without a man.

And I feel like I need those people to understand that if we've missed those big points (we haven't. It's just that Midge x Lenny are fun and real life is hard and this is a hobby), then they have maybe missed the other big points of the last season:

1. Midge failed in every aspect of her life but comedy. Sophie was a cautionary tale she did not heed. "All Alone" was a cautionary tale turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. She drove her children away, which means it is unlikely she has a close relationship with her grandchildren. Her best friend is 3000 miles away. She has a string of failed marriages. She has celebrity "friends" who likely don't know her as a real person.

Midge has comedy and a half-hour phone call with Susie every day. That's not a happy ending. For a woman that so valued connection and family for the whole series, that's fucking sad. If she had ever expressed a desire to be alone, it wouldn't be. We know it's not what she wanted. It's sad.

2. The season 5 flashforwards are, largely, about unexplored, unacknowledged grief, and the narrative tries to make it seem like no big deals. Lenny dies in '66. Rose dies in 'in the mid-70's. She loses Abe, and likely Noah. Moishe and Shirley. Joel dies in '04. Again, she drove her kids away, whom she did love and tried hard for even if she wasn't mother of the year. We dont get to explore her falling out with Susie in any real way and the grief in that. The grief of so much failed love. We never get to explore any of those things with Midge. The narrative intoduces these ideas and then moves on, asking us to shrug those things off, but how do we do that? Surely Midge wouldn't, and didn't, but we're asked to just keep it moving, as if these things don't deserve more time.

Instead, we get to see a whole season of boring late night drivel along with these underdeveloped snippets of future we're asked to shrug off because "Midge did it!! She doesn't need a man!!!!!!"

And in the meantime, she ends the series with...nobody. nothing but Susie's disembodied voice over the phone.

And if the entire point of the show was for Midge to end it lonely in her fame, what the hell was all of it for?

I'll stick to my fic.

[visenyaism]

like a fool i have always forgiven the dc metro system every time it fucks me over because the stupid sexy 70s brutalist aesthetic is just too swag i am sorry

[visenyaism]

except you. you are a testament to american hubris and were never supposed to exist

[visenyaism]

I am so sorry to do this to you but I actually have to talk about it because it is a very specific and weird story. So pictured here is the longest escalator in the western hemisphere and it’s specifically western hemisphere because at the time of construction it was the cold war and usa government was in a dumb competition with ussr government to see who could build the longest fucking metro escalator which would prove….something, i guess. usa lost and the 3 longest escalators in the world are in St. Petersburg. so this and the st. petersburg one are all actually in fact freaky long escalators

[wonderlandleighleigh]

There is a special place in my heart for the DC metro. It is a mishmash of locals, business commuters, kids coming in to hang around from the counties, and tourists.

And sometimes you get lucky and Shit like this happens on the DC metro:

[postdespair]

[boccher]

she fecundate my coitus until I conclude

[duchessvongooseberg]

socialism is when you have fun sex

[fcntasmas]

nothing unsettles me more than like a good fic on ao3 with no opening notes and no end notes. nothing but story. who are you? where are you writing from. are you ok. who hurt you

[theonion]

Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure

[labassecour-deactivated20180423]

Would that I could turn back the hand of time and warn the onion staffer who penned this piece. “Is it worth it,” I would ask. “Is it worth it?”

[j3ssk1mo]

truly a cultural reset