Misfits fans will have heard, obviously, about Lauren Socha and her racist attack on a taxi driver and how she’s now off the show. (If you haven’t…) I am so disappointed and angry about it…she punched that guy, and told him. “I’ll have your family lifted,” and used racial slurs and…yeah. Her career is pretty much over now I imagine, and I don’t remotely feel sorry for her.
But I still really like Kelly. As in, she’s one of my favourite TV characters ever. So now it’s going to be really hard watching her and not seeing a violent, nasty racist. :(
I watched Misfits season one and two in the wrong order, so my perspective on Simon…kinda went all over the place. In Series Two he’s sort of set up to be the paragon of goodness…he’s an Actual Hero and he saves people and dies for Alisha and stuff. But in Series One…he looks up Kelly’s skirt when she’s unconcious. Comes very close to actually putting his hand up her skirt, too. (I believe he actually touches her leg, than gets scared and leaves). And he spies (invisibly) on the girls when they’re getting changed…he goes right up to Alisha and sniffs her, and she has no way of knowing he’s even there. Plus, well, he didn’t exactly kill Sally (it was a strange combination of accident and self-defense) but he did keep her in a freezer and drop in every now and again to eat ice-cream with her corpse. Which I think we can agree is not healthy behaviour.
I just wish this stuff was addressed, you know? Simon goes from being one step away from the sex offender’s register to being Mr Perfect, and while I know a lot of it is legitimate character development, enough of it doesn’t feel so. Does Alisha know that he uses to spy on her? Would Kelly be so quick to defend him if she knew he almost molested her? I don’t hate Simon, but I think I would like him a lot more if the show had just addressed what he used to get up to. Even a simple “I’ve done a lot of bad things I’m sorry for,” would’ve done.
Although really, very few of the males come off well anyway. Rudy, for a start…I can’t quite bring myself to like Rudy, really, not as a person. As a character he’s hilarious, and I do suspect he doesn’t mean half the stuff he says (like his memorable ‘raped in a good way’ joke) but, well, there’s this:
Rudy: Do I have to wake her up? Simon: What do you mean? Rudy: Like, can’t I just slip it in there or something? Simon: That’s rape. Rudy: Is it really? Simon: Yes.
(Which I suppose shows that Simon does at least understand that rape is wrong, but that’s how you should think, it’s not evidence of good-guy-ism, just evidence of being a regular person.) And Rudy had sex with Curtis/Melissa under very dubious circumstances, too, he must have known that she was drunk and not with it. She was calling him by a different name! Curtis would have been well within his rights to accuse him of rape…
Nathan…he’s incredibly entertaining, but he’s a massive arsehole. An ableist arsehole, too. Annoyingly, although he started off one of my favourite characters, the more I think about him the less I like him, except in a love-to-hate way. Sigh. Curtis on the other hand comes off pretty well. He’s done a few not-so-good things (I think he called Nikki a bitch once?) but on the whole he’s definitely the best person out of the Misfits men, I think.
Now there is actually one defense for Simon’s act of near-sexual assault, and that’s this: It happened at a time when Curtis was messing with the timelines, so there’s a chance it never happened at all. But it still demonstrates that Simon has that unpleasantness in him, and it doesn’t excuse the other things he’s done. I know lots of people like him- and yeah, in S2 and S3 he does do many good things and he does geniunely seem to love Alisha. (And she seems to love him back). Plus- he canonically has mental health issues, and it’s good to see a main character on a superhero show who has them. (But that’s a whole new can of worms, probably one I will open later). But it’s like…he can be either a creepy weirdo (a popular character archetype, I know) or a loving boyfriend/superhero…but not both. Not without making that transition properly. So…yeah. Also I wrote a fanfic dealing with all this.
Title: This One Time
Author: sarah531
Rating: R
Warnings: Sexual assault, talk about rape
Summary: Kelly discovers a nasty truth about Simon.
A/n: Okay, that scene in 1×04 where Kelly’s unconcious in the nightclub and Simon comes along and almost puts his hand up her skirt? I really don’t like that scene, at all. So I wrote this. It has no real resolution.
Favourite characters of 2011 (sticking to ‘active’ characters only- so no Marthas or Eowyns or Skywalkers, alas)
Rory Pond (Doctor Who): Because he’s a brave, loyal, flawed hero.
Amy Pond (Doctor Who): The exact same reasons except also she likes to dress as a pirate.
Mels Zucker/Melody Pond (Doctor Who): It took me a while to warm to River (I like her now, of course) but I liked Mels instantly- I don’t know why. Then I wrote a lot of fanfiction about her incredibly unorthodox childhood, thusly spending a lot of time in her head. Now I really love her.
Kelly Bailey (Misfits): Do I even need a reason for her? She is amazing. Kick-ass, loyal, confident, brave, beat up Nazis, headbutted Hitler.
Shaun the probation worker (Misfits): Obviously I wouldn’t want to spend any time with him in real life, in fact I’d hate his guts, but he was such a slimy, sleazy, magnificent bastard that I looked forward to his scenes most of all.
Marnie (Misfits): I deliberated for about twenty seconds whether to put Marnie or Nathan on the list, but it had to be Marnie, because she’s basically a female Nathan and is awesome.
Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter): I wish I was more like Luna. I’m slowly getting there.
Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter): There are a lot of badasses in the world. He’s the best.
FRYCROFT Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock Holmes): This is the most important man in the British government, who casually strolls naked round his house and flirts with the servants.
John Watson (Sherlock Holmes): Come on, it’s Watson!
Mary Watson (Sherlock Holmes): The unsung hero of A Game Of Shadows. Hey, it was her who actually translated all of Moriarty’s notebooks. And she knows how to handle a gun.
Rapunzel (Tangled): God she’s awesome. Hyper, childlike, creative, clever, and yet can fight when the chips are down.
Jodie ‘Scout’ Allen (Waterloo Road): Not many people know this, but I’m addicted to Waterloo Road. And she was my favourite of the kids. I dunno what exactly it was drew me to her…probably because she was treated appallingly by everyone, including her horrible mother, and came out swinging nonetheless.
Daniel Chalk (Waterloo Road): And he’s my favourite of the teachers. Look at his squishy face. I wish the romance between him and Janeece had worked out, bloke deserves a little happiness. Fun fact: Mark Benton was Clive in Rose.
Miranda Hart (Miranda): Okay, I know that there wasn’t actually a series of Miranda this year, but she did show up on the Michael McIntyre show and stuff, so she’s going in here. Also I want her for the Twelveth Doctor.
Sarah Jane Smith (The Sarah Jane Adventures): This should have been her year.
Title: The Female Assassin
Author: sarah531
Rating: R
Spoilers: For 3×04, aka ‘The Nazi Episode’
Summary: Kelly discovers her unexpected place in the history books.
I started writing a post about Simon from Misfits (I like him and all, but he was a real creep back in series one) but it turned into fanfic. This happens a lot.
Kelly is now pretty much my favourite character in anything ever now.
She was hands down the heroine of this episode- went in all guns blazing and saved everyone. And she’s not remotely sidelined by her growing relationship with Seth: he was the one everyone else had to save. Also, I really like him now, and appear to be offically a Kelly/Seth shipper. Woot!
Shows really need to stop throwing in Nazis for the heck of it, but basically, Misfits did it right, so right- they never shied away from the horrors of Nazi Germany, or the horrors of people standing by and doing nothing. Friedrich even said it, that he did nothing before and wanted to finally take action. Even Kelly’s headbutting Hitler wasn’t entirely played for laughs, I felt…
Curtis got shot and killed, which annoyed me a bit until I remembered he was the only one who didn’t get killed in 2×06. He was good in this- sod it, all of them were. I guess it takes Nazis to bring out the best in people.
Shaun…he’s such a bastard I don’t even dislike him, I’m looking forward to his scenes all the time now. Disturbingly, I think he basically acts like an adult Nathan. (Which isn’t very flattering to Nathan, but c’mon, it’s Nathan.)
Didya spot a bunch of already-dead characters alive in the alternate universe? There was Gary, the ice-girl, and Peter. Nice touch. They could’ve thrown in a Nathan mention though…
Still love Kelly (although I hope all her storylines won’t be dominated by Seth), dislike Rudy a bit now. I know that what he did to female!Curtis wasn’t…I dunno, technically rape, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth. (I know, I know, there’s a joke right there…)
You know, Misfits is kinda anti-men at times. Almost all of them are sexual predators of some kind…Simon nearly assaulted Kelly, the probation worker puts his hands all over young girls, Rudy took advantage of a drunk girl, Nathan…where to start with him. Curtis is the only one who isn’t, but he’s been raped himself. (And considers what Alisha did to him rape, too.) I’m not actually complaining about this, I just find it very interesting…
I liked what Curtis and Emma did to the rapist, he deserved it 100%.
