There is a light that never goes out.

My introduction to Veronica Mars came in the midst of my father’s death. I watched episodes in hospital waiting rooms before it happened, and holed up in my room afterwards. I found a lot of comfort in the strength that the characters provided. The scene of Logan at his mother’s funeral - maniac and trying to find the humor in it - is exactly what I felt at my father’s. I, like Logan, made jokes and tried shrugging it off. I was certain that this was some sort of cosmic joke, and I was on the receiving end. Veronica’s personality shaped most of who I was in high school - my dad passed away two weeks before I started. Her snark, intelligence, and resilience inspired me so much then. I found a wonderful community with fans of the show, and to this day as a semi-adult I love and adore so many people I met through the show.

When the movie was announced, I was ecstatic. I remember rushing to a bathroom stall at my high school so I could eloquently keyboard-smash about it with my friends, donating to the Kickstarter, wearing my t-shirt, going to the theater with my friend to watch it and livestreaming it the night of its release with my online friends. In a sea of horrible feelings and helplessness, Veronica Mars helped me feel empowered and supported.

That’s partly why all of this stings so badly and feels so much like a betrayal.

He was abused by his father, his father slept with and then proceeded to murder his girlfriend. His mother commited suicide and her body was never found. He was accused of murdering Lilly. He was accused of murdering Felix. Busts in on Cassidy attempting to kill Veronica on the roof, watches Cassidy jump off the roof. His dad gets acquitted and then quickly murdered, as well. Tries to help his ex girlfriend through her addiction and self loathing, only to end up accused of her murder too. 

Also, the one thing that I struggled with was why people were so upset when she turned down Logan’s proposal. Humbly, I’m so happy being married with two kids. I love the white picket fence that I’ve got. But I’m Voltaire about the fact that’s not right for everyone. I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to death for your right to say it. Not everyone wants to have kids. Not everyone wants to get married. Veronica does not want to get married, right now. She is not ready, and that is her choice. And I didn’t love that people were like, “Why can’t she just marry Logan?” Well, because she doesn’t need a man to fix all her problems. She hasn’t had good examples of marriage. She’s not ready to commit. The true test of feminism is whether or not you’re gonna agree with her, or whether or not you think she should have something different because society states she should. So, it was interesting to me to see so many people upset about that because I thought we had distanced ourselves from John Cusack with the boombox outside our window being right for everyone. It’s not a love story that’s wrapped in a perfect bow. It’s okay for Veronica to have complex feelings about marriage because she’s being honest with herself.

I’ve avoided posting or discussing articles by cast/ crew which which I don’t agree, because everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But I feel this statement is a deliberate PR misdirect ploy, meant to reframe the backlash as ‘fans being silly’, and KB keeps repeating it in every interview. So, to refute:

1) No fan I know is mad that Veronica turned down Logan’s proposal initially. Pretty much everyone thinks the choice was in character. Veronica’s first line in her first scene, season 1, was something along the lines of ‘I’m never getting married’ and she stated it as an absolute.

2) Veronica DID want to get married and commit in the end, though. You know how I know? Because she did get married. To Logan. By her own choice. In a scene which KB presumably remembers, because she filmed it.

3) How is it distancing the show from ‘John Cusack with the boombox outside our window’ to promote the new season’s theme song with…John Cusack Rob outside KB’s window? This season’s promotional material was 100% tropes she claims they eschew. Which makes their PR a beyond-cynical bait-and-switch con, designed to trick fans into watching something sure to upset them.

Fleabag (2016 - 2019) - cr. Phoebe Waller-Bridge

My daughter: mom, you're going to be a grandma!

Albarran Cabrera   —–   Instagram

The Mouth of Krishna

2019,  #722 Pigments, gampi paper and gold leaf.

Day 1: Favorite Character:  Logan Echolls

I love Veronica more than words could ever express, but Logan is my HEART. 

Everything he does makes perfect sense to me, because I was also a fiery, passionate teenager who lashed out and self-destructed spectacularly whenever I felt rejected or unloved.  

The aching sympathy and compassion this character inspires in me gave me the ability to bestow that same grace upon myself.  He’s come a long long way since high school, and so have I.  

Every series starts out with “a Logan” - there’s a reason Veronica calls him the obligatory psychotic jackass - and OUR Logan comes by it more naturally than most. 

His home life is a nightmare amalgamation of physical trauma, emotional warfare and neglect. He’s deprived of parental love, but showered with material possessions, which, alongside his father’s celebrity, are supposed to make him “better” than everyone else. At the same time, he’s regularly being gas-lighted by his father.  If he wasn’t such an entitled brat, Aaron wouldn’t be obligated to beat the shit out of him. His parents are in and out of town, presumably, leaving him in the care of “the help” (those same people his mother dehumanizes). Nobody protects him. The dominant messaging is ‘don’t make us look bad’ vs. ‘be a genuinely good person’.  

If a “How to be a Bully Handbook” existed, it would be Logan’s nightly bedtime story. 

Every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass. Decades later, most of them still are.  For every CEO raping the environment and destroying the economy to funnel money into their million dollar bonus checks, for every politician hysterically screaming over a woman to keep her from reading a letter, every Supreme Court justice who just really likes beer and sexual assault, there’s somebody who knew them in high school. Somebody who could say “They’ve always been this person.”  That’s how it works.  Bullies grow up and find new ways to bully.  

Nobody watching early season 1 for the first time would be surprised to hear that Logan was still the psychotic jackass fifteen years later.  Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all.  

The true surprise is that he ISN’T.  

Logan chose to reject that path. He rebelled against seventeen years of parental programming telling him he was both unworthy of love and better than everyone else. The glittering pageantry, the fame, the notoriety, the insincerity. He rejected his father’s example of hurting others to make himself feel better. 

And he did it all on his own.  

At the worst point of his life, when he’d lost everything - both parents, his lifelong best friend, the girl he adored. At a time when the town wanted his head and an MC gang wanted him dead, nobody would be surprised if Logan only wanted to spiral. To drink, to get high and numb the pain and forget about everything he’d lost. Or worse.  

Instead, he….went to high school.  

He kept going to high school, he did his homework, he graduated.  All on his own. No parental figures. No mentors. No help.  Sure, there were some backslides, some foibles.  It wouldn’t be realistic if there wasn’t.  But he’s extremely self-aware. He acknowledges his mistakes, learns from them, reassesses, and keeps moving forward. 

He chose a career where he was almost guaranteed to fail.  For every 1000  applicants to the Naval Academy, 3 will become fighter pilots*.  Logan beat the odds, put in the time, focus, and dedication required to achieve his dream when so many others fail.  

Logan Echolls is indomitable. 

He’s decent and kind. He’s loves joyfully and whole-heartedly, despite his near-constant heart break. He’s not afraid to be vulnerable, even when his vulnerability has been weaponized against him in the past. He’s fiercely loyal, regardless of the loyalty shown to him. He’s nurturing when he’s never been nurtured. He’s a stabilizing influence when his upbringing was anything but stable. 

Logan Echolls is a brilliant, snarky, world-weary, force-of-nature in orange. 

He’s the most layered, fully-realized character I’ve ever encountered, and the fictional love of my life.   

But Logan. Logan always made me extremely proud. Despite everything, I could never stop loving him. He lost so much, continuously. Still, he tried. He fought against all the odds. He never stopped believing in love, even when he got none. He learned from his mistakes, from other people's mistakes, from the world around him. True, he is an exception maybe. Most of the times, people like him don't end like him. But what a a beautiful exception he is.

January 1930

Mary had read this page of her book at least five times; every few minutes, she glanced at the clock and her attention was drawn away. Where was Matthew? It was after midnight, and he was by no means a night owl. She had been sitting in their bed for the last hour waiting for him to come up, but his presence still eluded her.

However, she hardly even needed to ask the question, because she had seen the stress of the past few months wearing on him, and she had hardly seen him outside of the library.

Tired of waiting, she tiptoed down the stairs, past the bedrooms of her children, and came to the door of the library.

Sure enough, there he was, pouring over the estate ledgers, papers spread out all over the desk. The light was low, and he squinted to make out what was in front of him. He looked exhausted, Mary thought, and she was silently grateful that it was a Friday night, that he would not have to go to work early the next morning. But he wouldn’t stop working in some capacity, she knew. What was a weekend, indeed.

He didn’t turn even when she came through the library door, so absorbed was he in his work.

“Darling,” she said softly, moving toward him. He looked up at her, and gave her a sheepish shake of the head, to which she responded, “Come away from that.”

He sighed, taking her hand in his as she came up to his desk. “I can’t, I’m afraid. I’ve got to figure out another way to reduce expenses which Robert might accept. He doesn’t seem to understand how vulnerable it all is right now, with the market crash in America and the increasing irrelevance of grand estates like this I just…”

“Who would have thought fifteen years ago that you’d be so concerned over the future of the estate?” Mary said, reflectively. She wasn’t sure whether she approved of such change or not; she did love Downton, but she didn’t want her love of her home to overwork the man she loved more than anything else.

Matthew sighs and glanced at his lap. “I want this to be there for our children. They don’t need the grand and opulent style that once came with this, but I want them to have security and the best opportunities possible. But that means we need to cut more expenses to make this sustainable in the long term, and if I can’t get Robert to see…”

He was interrupted by an unexpected kiss. Mary was practically on his lap, her lips pressed to his, her eyes closed. He closed his eyes as well, unable to remember what he had last been speaking of.

“Shh…” Mary said, pushing back a piece of hair that had fallen into his face. “You need some distraction from that.”

Matthew looked as if he was about to give in, but his words still would not concede. “No, I need to focus so we can implement as soon as…”

She took his face in her hands and kissed him passionately, intensely, and with the love and desperation of missing him as he was.

As they broke apart, slightly breathless, she caressed his cheek. “I love you, and I so admire everything you do for the children and for me. But you can’t work yourself to death over it. We’ll work on it in the morning, together. But for now, come to bed. Because there’s more where those kisses came from.”

Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Do you consider me so easily distracted?”

“Not as easily as you should be; I have to work hard to pull you away,” Mary said, smiling as he stood up and turned off the desk lamp.

“Perhaps you need to work harder,” he said with a smirk. His stress, in the moment, was beginning to melt away.

I said it more than once but Skam Italia gave me a huge present with Ele.

You think with all these remakes you get same story over and over again, but you’re not. I was never a big fan of Noora tbh. Don’t be shocked haha and don’t kill me, please. I mean I liked her season, I was very involved but I was never THAT in love. I staned another character who till this day I will believe every remake fell to understand. But I’ve found something else. And I will be forever grateful for it. I will be forever grateful for Ele.

I fell in love with this girl in the one of the most contraversial periods for her in this fandom. When she was most struggling with herself I’ve never felt so close to another character. You say being alone is hard, but for someone who does it for extensive period of time being alone is the only way to live. It’s the only way to keep yourself safe. ‘Cause from the distance first thing you notice is how much power people have to hurt you. And you don’t want to lose sight of it ever again. You understand that even when you were out there you were always and be always utterly alone. The one thing you can count on is yourself. You become more sure of own thoughts and own views. Of own actions and words. You can’t afford not to, it’s the only ground underneath your feet. It’s not a healthy way to look at the world but people are different and everyone finds own coping mechanism. And as Ele would never judge Edo for choosing to be alone. I would never judge her. ‘Cause as she understands him I understand her. And while I’m grateful for Edo too there will never be another character so close to my heart as Ele with all her human flaws is.

I’m not saying goodbye. But I am saying thank you. Thank you, Skam Italia! Thank you, Benedetta! Thank you even, TimVision.

Italian now is my next languege to learn. And if you remmeber this video of mine below it also won’t be the last. So stay tuned ;)