I do read it as supported by the text, because the times when he's arrogant in the real world, the response to him is judgey, and we get that he's a real boy, deep inside.

When he's arrogant in training, it comes across as paired with being decisive, and it's too close to flashbacks of great privation, and it goes unusurped. It is possible the text is subtle and there's a long term payoff but...no, I don't feel it coming.

As for Vampire Diaries I actually, literally felt sick tonight. I am stupid, this should have happened before, but they killed the black hunter a couple eps back and they killed the black hybrid today, and they continuous Negro death parade as well as the absolute moral void at the centre of the show (it's a vortex of self-indulgence and short term satisfaction) and I just feel grungey.

I'm sufficiently fidgety that I just liked having something between 8 and 9 on Thursday, but seriously--fuck you.

And of course I shouldn't have ranted on IO9 too, because all of the "Racism? U MAD?" I'm sure to get...1 so far.

Whatever. They don't need to introduce and kill black characters like that, because *they* have no balance, and the genre doesn't have balance, and the US doesn't have balance. There is NO reason they can't have black characters be the ones that stick around longer. Bonnie's supposed to be in the core group, but how often is she even *with* the core group?

Yeah, they keep introducing black characters and then making them peripheral at which point they get killed off.

It's too bad they didn't kill off Luxe's nemesis from Secret Circle.

ETA: I kept on cutting them slack but you're right: they've used up all their breaks and need to do something.

OTOH, you can totally watch Last Resort (or as I keep wanting to call it "Lost Resort") in the same time frame).

I'll try catching up on that.

Grr. Just...grr.

Hand in hand with killing the two last black guys is: THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG. I know Tyler yelled at Caroline about Chris, but Connor was trying to fucking save lives. I am also way past the inverted moral compass. I was watching around it, thinking it was just a show not about heroes, and all shows don't need heroes, but by now I think it's a show where the protagonists are the bad guys, but the text doesn't damn them for it.

It's true - the protagonists have no big picture. Maybe ultimately, Jeremy is our future hero. He is a hunter and if he actually escapes from his sister and her boyfriends . . . he could have a chance to team up with Bonnie and kill enough vampires to find that cure.

Connor was clearly a nutbag. I don't want to make it look like holding hostage is the way the good good guys do it. But that town is infested with monsters, and at this point? There are humans on the bad guys side too.

And I have no idea what's the deal with April or how old she is. That just got more confusing, not less.

Yeah, April's age makes no sense. . . but I can't decide if that is a ridiculous oversight or some sort of plot point.

I like Last Resort well enough. Mostly to see Andre Braugher pwn everyone else on the screen, including (not least) Scott Speedman, who just isn't up to Braugher's weight class.

... but I forget, where are we supposed to talk about that show? Natter? Even though it's a geopolitical AU?

Uh, I don't know.

Although, it clearly is a fantasy of some sort.

I'd think here would be the right place for Last Resort. It's either AU or in the future.

My main problem with Last Resort is that I can't seem to follow the politics on the island , except that it's run by a bad guy and it may have untold mineral riches. The older I get, the more I want everyone to wear name tags.