♥️

however

i can't get over the vest being the first thing yelena bought for herself. how, in the scene where she shows it to nat, nat is clearly underwhelmed by it. it's just a vest. but then yelena explains why it's so important, and then natasha says it's cool. and yelena says, "i knew you thought it was cool", which as a little sister myself, am almost certain translates to "big sister approves of my vest, time to rejoice". and it strikes to the core of yelena's feelings that their family was real and nat really is her big sister and she just wants her big sister to like the vest she bought because it's the first thing that's ever truly been hers, both physically but also as something she chose. her childhood was fake (as natasha keeps insisting) so all yelena has is this vest and the opinion of her not-sister who she still thinks the world of.

and then

at the end of the film, yelena gives natasha the vest. and i truly believe that she's able to do this, to part with her symbol of freedom and autonomy, because she's healed. her family was real, it was real to every member of it. and the red room, the organization that took her mind and personhood from her, is finally destroyed.

yelena looks at her big sister who says she's her big sister, who is insisting that she's going to face this next threat alone, and she's like, "this is a person in need of a cool vest". but maybe she's also like, "this is a way to prevent her from forgetting me again". but also maybe she's really like, "my big sister might need a reminder of her own autonomy, but also that she has a someone who always has her back."

anyways. i noticed how much of this is applicable to darkling/darklina stans.  because those who view the darkling’s lines as romantic are falling prey to the point: the darkling as a whole is engineered to seem romantic, but only at first. we’re supposed to go wary of him -> in awe of him -> idolizing him -> realizing something’s fishy abt him -> wary of him again -> denouncing him, but so many people got stuck on idolizing.

& it scares me the way that some of you defend him because it sounds so much like the way people discredit abuse survivors. pulling out unrelated strawmen like “he’s immortal” or “he’s literally not human”, as if that’s not part of this abusive power dynamic in the first place. “oh but it’s just fiction” is even worse, because if you can’t even recognize this textbook definition of abuse & exploitation, then how are you going to support and uplift abuse survivors in real life?

like, the darkling is a litmus test just like midsommar is. if you find his lines to be romantic—as they’re specifically engineered to seem romantic while creating an unhealthy power imbalance—then maybe you’re so easily susceptible to that rhetoric. or maybe you won’t fall for it yourself, but you still lack the critical thinking skills to recognize when it happens to someone else. 

kaz: i’d burn down the entirety of ketterdam for you, but go on

inej: and i’d hunt down anyone who so much as upset you-

Computer: Password is too short

There is nothing

And I mean

Nothing

Absolutely

Nothing

At

All

That is s o f t e r

And g e n t l e r

But also undeniably more v u l n e r a b l e

Than

Kaz

Fucking

Brekker

In this moment:

"Wait. Is my tie straight?"

Extra soft kanej from a scene in Crooked kingdom

“He heaved a flat of wild geraniums into the canal over the protests of the flower seller and grabbed the clothes Matthias had stashed there earlier that morning. He swept the red cloak around Inej’s shoulders in a rain of petals and blossoms as she continued to strap on her knives. She looked almost as startled as the flower seller.

       “What?” he asked as he tossed her a Mister Crimson mask that matched his own.

thinking about dani running into the lake after viola and taylor singing “i’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones” (but also jamie following her there. jamie who is always there to meet her)

thinking about dani saying “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us” and taking viola and all her centuries of pain inside her while jamie stands horrified at the shore, and taylor singing “oh, goddamn / my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand / taking mine, but it’s been promised to another” (but also thinking about jamie holding dani afterward as she shakes and can’t stop repeating the words, knowing dani has just promised herself, her mind, her body, her soul, to the lady of the lake)

dani describing the feeling of viola inside her like a dense, overgrown jungle with a beast that’s waiting for her, dani waking up realizing that viola’s in control, and taylor singing “oh, i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland” (but then thinking about jamie and dani building a flower shop and a home and a life together, a life neither of them ever dreamed they could have, about them putting down roots, about dani literally hiding a ring in the roots of a plant. about dani’s hand on jamie’s shoulder as she sleeps.)

jamie at the lake the first time watching dani the moment she invites viola in, and taylor singing “i wish to know / the fatal flaw that makes you long to be / magnificently cursed.” jamie telling the story to the children and talking about how selfless dani was, how she chose to take on this curse to save everyone else. (but also dani’s face every time jamie tells her, over and over, that she’s here to stay. the shock of it, that jamie would take this burden on as well when she doesn’t need to)

jamie staring into dani’s eyes, one blue and one now brown, knowing that viola is always there, always watching, and taylor singing “he’s in the room / your opal eyes are all i wish to see / he wants what’s only yours” (but again thinking about the beast in the jungle, about dani saying “she’s waiting, and at some point she’s gonna take me.” thinking about mixing up love and possession)

jamie reassuring dani that they have so many years left together, even as dani tells her that one day viola will inevitably take her, and taylor singing “i’d live and die for moments that we stole / on begged and borrowed time / so tell me to run / or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become.” thinking about what could have been if they had been able to change the ending, what they could have become if they had been able to learn to coexist with viola.

thinking about how hard they all fought, all three of them, just to survive, to make it through every single day of their lives together, and thinking about taylor singing “it’s a war. it’s the goddamn fight of my life and you started it”

thinking about that final image that jamie sees of dani at the bottom of the lake, sinking into a bed of plants that are almost swallowing her, and thinking about taylor singing “my house of stone, your ivy grows / and now i’m covered in you.” and then thinking about the life that jamie and dani built together. about jamie saying people aren’t worth the effort, but dani is. about moonflowers growing in vines that climb up an iron gate.

Sometimes you make art that just makes someone’s shitty day a little bit easier to bear. 

And that?