There is a interpretation of Alex’s characterization that suggests her murder-anyone-who-hurts-Kara mentality would remain consistent, even under that circumstance.
But that being said, and as much as I felt for Kara, I did so LOVE that particular conflict.
The relationships most vulnerable to collapse are those that don’t yet know how they’d react to conflict that calls for one or both parties to confront and resolve the issue at hand. People hurt people. It going to happen in every relationship because none of us are mind-readers and toes will get stepped on, feelings will be hurt, selfishness will flare up. The response to such a conflict is the important part.
I like that Alex messes up. That she’s not perfect, even when it comes to loving Kara. I like that they misstep and hurt each other, because then we get to watch them confront and deal with those issues. We get to watch them prove there really isn’t anything in this world they can’t overcome, nothing that can tear them apart.
Alex can embody the mentality of, “I’ll murder anyone who hurts you,” without being a hypocrite because when she’s the one hurting Kara, she recognizes it and takes those steps to genuinely find a resolution in the aftermath, and she rarely ever hurts Kara the same way twice.
Now. That being said, when people hurt Kara and don’t care about Kara’s genuine feelings enough to resolve the issue, that’s when Alex starts cracking skulls.
Hey all, big happy news! I’m going to be part of the writing team for season two of Jessica Best (@idiopathicsmile)’s The Strange Case of Starship Iris!
For those of you who are like ‘um okay what’s a starship iris,’ Starship Iris is a sci-fi podcast full of scrappy found families out to Fight the System, jokes about the gender binary, and saving the day with applied linguistics.
Doesn’t that sound awesome? Spoilers: it is awesome.
Eight of the first season’s ten episodes are up on Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, however you like to listen to things. It’s part of the Procyon Podcast Network (procyonpodcasts.com, @procyon-podcast-network), which is making diverse, eclectic audio drama content for fans, by fans.
If that’s got you excited (I’M EXCITED) and you want to see more Starship Iris content like fan art, behind-the-scenes details, or vignettes about the crew and world, check out @iriscasefiles, the official Starship Iris tumblr, or @thevoicefromthestars, which is run by the fantastic Ishani Kanetkar, who voices the sarcastic and pathos-tastic Arkady Patel.
Jess Best and Starship Iris also have a Patreon (patreon.com/starshipiris), which gives you access to episode scripts annotated by the cast and crew, additional vignettes, and behind-the-scenes podcast episodes. I’ve been a Patreon backer of the show for awhile now, and it’s totally worth it.
Also if they reach (if we reach??) the next stretch goal for Patreon funding, then they (we???) will create three “mini-episodes” in between seasons one and two. I am particularly excited about this possibility because I may have written one of those mini-episodes as part of the application process. I’d love to see it made.
But go listen to the show, folks. It’s free. It’s beautiful. It warms my heart and I bet it’ll warm yours.
You kiddos have no idea how groundbreaking this was. Like there’s a reason THE lesbian website for a billion years was called After Ellen. She changed everything.
oh man you know that feeling that’s like kind of an ache right between your heart and your stomach? like nostalgic knowing of pain? that’s how the scared look in Ellen’s eyes makes me feel.
Look at her hand too and how nervous she is. Every gay and lesbian person knows this feeling, because we know there are assumptions and consequences and there’s no telling how someone will react.
And let no one forget that she suffered consequences for this. It wasn’t just a moment of cathartic unburdening and then business as usual.
Right, she lost her first TV show. She worked hard to get up to where she is today.
Ellen lost her TV show and didn’t get offered another job for the next 3 years. All while facing harsh critic from most of the world. Not to mention that Oprah, who immediately said yes to playing her therapist in this episode, got her own fair share of disrespectful and mostly racist comments. All over this one episode on a sitcom. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that over 40 million people watched this episode to see the first openly gay character on television.
This is history and it better fucking be in the history books for next generations.
Question of Smoke 