#and then i realize maybe the audience identifies with that trauma and ALSO needs to mask)
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How do I even articulate this?
Basically I continue to think Klaus is very fucked up but not in the same way that 90 percent of the fandom seems to think (or prefer) and it is the WEIRDEST experience. I'm just constantly like, "oh yeah, I guess that IS how most fans perceive this character."
Does ANYONE else (aside my long-trusted mutuals) get this?
#ooc#my sole consolation is that Rob Sheehan himself doesn't seem to think differently from me)#it's 100 percent a fellow fans thing)#and i have theories about why)#what fascinates me is that i only ever had this to this extent with one other muse)#Gabriel from SPN)#which is interesting bc Gabe and Klaus have a lot of similiarities including classic “mascot” role in an abusive family dynamic)#and being perceived as way way shallower than they really are)#they mask their pain and insecurity similarly with humor and hedonism)#and it's like everyone BUYS it)#meanwhile i'm like “but that's a trauma induced persona y'all”)#and then i realize maybe the audience identifies with that trauma and ALSO needs to mask)#so this is their comfort character that they turn into a safe self projection)#but to me the most counter intuitive part of this is that people need Klaus to be selfish and self thwarting and 'lazy' and 'cowardly' )#Klaus is their FAVORITE and they call him 'pathetic' and seem to RELISH that he's a 'loser' and 'doomed' to relapse)#and they say 'same' and 'me too' and i realize maybe they need this)#maybe it helps them feel less awful about themselves if their comfort character indefinitely fails to recover)#idk)
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TW: addiction, drugs, cocaine
I've got a little noodling thought for the Ephemerality Squad (cc @ranchthoughts @chickenstrangers @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @twig-tea @distant-screaming @clara-maybe-ontheroad @slayerkitty) and for the Only Friends meta fandom, what up, friendos!:
Ranch and @wen-kexing-apologist both know that I LOVED THAT MOMENT when Ray picks up his phone at the end of episode 5, when he's laying in bed with Sand after the whole Boston fight debacle. I've heard the theories that Ray may have seen Top's Instagram post of Top and Mew, or that Ray was looking for someone to text to decompress after the fight, and realized that he had no one to text with (credits to Ranch and WKA for sharing those theories with me!).
But what I'm thinking about that moment is what's inherent in the story of addiction: we are all addicted to our phones, including certainly the OF quartet, Ray included. Our phones give us the tiniest dopamine bump, and then we keep scrolling. Scroll, bump, scroll, like a virtual whippet. We saw Ray hit the bottle after the fight, but he likely checked his phone for another kind of hit as well, even while Sand was laying next to him, in embarrassment and sadness.
So there's the quickest hit, the ephemerality of the fast high. BUT: if you are an addict, and you don't address your addiction, then -- addiction is permanent. It's sticky, and it sticks with you -- that's the inherent meaning of the word.
I really like this play against the fleeting nature of the hit, and the permanence of unaddressed addiction. It reminds me of other comparative plays against the fleeting of time vs. what's permanent in the lives of the quartet, including the impact of intergenerational trauma on Ray and his experiences with his late mother. It's like -- what we're watching is this quartet (along with Sand and Nick) unknowingly existing in their aloof lives, thinking they have total control over every aspect of their lives, while they are dragging these invisible boulders behind them.
(Whenever I think of intergenerational trauma, I think of PatPran, and how those two took their intergenerational traumas by the gullets and addressed the traumas in their own unique way -- in order to be together and move on with their lives. The quartet in OF? They're not even close to being there yet, emotionally unto themselves and/or with anyone else. They haven't even identified their traumas yet -- and, whoa, they are OLDER than PatPran were when PatPran were in college in Bad Buddy.)
I've been thinking of how Only Friends compares to Gay OK Bangkok, and I think it's still too early in the OF run to go completely on an OF/GOKB comparative analysis (I think I really need to wait until OF ends, because GOKB had an open-ended ending that hit just perfectly for where each character was landing in their lives at that particular moment). I'm kind of hoping for the same sort of ending for OF (I know, I'm going against the grain of the kinds of endings most folks are hoping for for OF), for a couple reasons. Remember: GOKB gave us a viewpoint into a group of queer men in Bangkok, an almost-identical set-up to OF.
First: I think Aof Noppharnach and Jojo Tichakorn were absolutely brilliant with their open-ended endings of GOKB as extremely AUTHENTIC to where each character was landing throughout the course of the series. Growth happens over a lifetime -- not always over the course of an episodic series.
But also, in regards to OF: OF is introducing to us a set of problems and perspectives that in real life, would take YEARS to address, like addiction. I talked about the behavioral stages of change in my last meta on episode 5, and I think this slice of ephemerality falls right into this category. By the end of Only Friends: do we think Ray (and Top, even) will concretely drop their addictions? Is that something WE want as an audience? Is that something that we think -- maybe even condescendingly, let alone fearfully -- is "good" for these young men? Do we think that their ending their addictions is realistic for the course of this specific episodic series?
I am OBSESSED that Only Friends is forcing us to reckon with these inherent biases we may have about these permanence-problems that the OF characters carry. I saw some hand-wringing about Top doing coke in episode 4, and I admit that I was actually pleased by Jojo depicting a VERY real slice of urban queer life (and also, just everyday life for millions of people) in that moment.
And I'm also just very curious to see what the show does by way of reckoning with the time it takes for young people like the OF quartet to wrangle with these long-standing issues in their lives. So much of this show hews very close to a number of realities -- and growing up vis à vis the emotional and physiological boulders we carry is an extremely real story to tell.
#only friends#only friends meta#only friends the series#this was a tad of a ramble i hope it made sense#but the way jojo and team are playing with TIME in this show continues to just fascinate me#tw: addiction#tw: drugs#tw: cocaine#ephemerality squad
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"Actually, Nahida only takes a smaller form because she's the youngest archon--"
So you're telling me she identifies most with a child body.
"Well, no, see she's just short-"
But you just related her form to her age and how she percieves her age
"Yeah, but she's so mature-"
Because of the trauma. Literally as a result of her trauma. Maybe she could've aged differently and chosen her form as such should she have been given a proper upbringing, but that doesn't change the fact that as of now she Views herself as a Child and Projects The Body Of One.
---- I'm sorry, I can't - with Sigewinne being revealed, I've been seeing more shit sexualizing children and I'm Tired. Lets just put it to rest, okay? Tall body models? Typically adults, no exceptions come to mind. Medium body models? Some young adults and some teenagers.
But characters with the Smallest Model? It's not just short. Look at their proportions. If they were just short, they'd still have similar proportions to the previous models, but they don't. Their heads are largened with softened features and their body shape matches other child models in the game. An argument for body type also doesn't work given Genshin isn't exactly inclusive and such logic would only apply to one of the three model categories. They are children. Stop fucking around with your "AcTUaLly" - It doesn't matter. You are attracted to CHILDREN and need HELP. If not help, then to be on a list. Either check yourself and improve, or at least quit making excuses so the rest of us can ignore you as we so please whilst also redirecting younger members of the community.
Not to mention, those that plea and cry that their "waifus" aren't actually children and are just short adults, typically don't have that reflect in their content created and consumed. Maybe I'd take y'all a little more at face value if y'all actually y'know, drew and wrote what you supposedly believe. Hell, it'd still be a problem if it were Jean or Lisa being sexualized, but drawn and written blatantly as children.
Also, anyone that may want to say "oh, you don't believe in short people" - I DO. I AM a short person. A short asian person who has been infantalized and not treated as an adult. But I have also been a child who was sexualized. And now both intermingle in my life. I am sick and tired of it all. It's all just shitty excuses. Thirst after literally anything else. Work out whatever you have going on with consenting adults instead of projecting it onto public media that has an audience of varying ages Including Minors. Additionally; Venting, coping, and exploring darker topics via fiction is NOT the same as GLORIFYING and INDULGING. That line should be Very Distinct.
(one last point: some people say characters like Dori and Sigewinne are a salesperson and nurse respectively, adult professions, yeah? Well friendly reminder, Barbara is ALSO a nurse. Fischl is an adventurer, and she's no older than 16. We are going by FANTASY LOGIC in which children can wield weapons and explore nations with little to no supervision! The given profession of any character as well as their attire means nothing in that kind of world.)
i'm sorry you've had to go through such things, anon :///
but i agree with you; it's a problem that definitely extends outside of genshin but for some reason, ppl seem so desensitized to it and shrug it off as 'oh waifu go brrrr' which is quite irresponsible imo
i'm a big proponent of 'fiction is fiction and you can think whatever you want as long as it doesn't harm anyone', but in this case, these things DO harm ppl; they harm all the very young children who play genshin and partake in fandom discussions
it's very important for everyone to realize that even if a piece of media is fictional and thinking/saying/doing certain things won't hurt the characters, your actions will absolutely set an example in real life, very possibly harming the younger members of the fandom
the line is quite gray sometimes, in fandom circles, and it might be hard to tell what's 'okay' and what's 'not okay', but i think most ppl have a good sense of what's simply enjoying a character vs sexualizing them
and hence, it becomes our responsibility to call out the things that are disturbing and potentially harmful. even if the original person who did those things won't change, you've at least spread awareness to others and let them know that [whatever the thing was] is unacceptable
katheryne from liyue
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About Bakugo, I actually think his original characterization is partly why his arc doesn't work for me: it seems like his contempt for others and desire to hurt them is innate, because he was already insulting and humiliating Deku for fun when they were in kindergarden, and at this age I'm not sure it makes sense to blame the adults around him for this behavior. This is also why I don't buy the "childhood friends" narrative, even before the infamous river scene Bakugo was toxic to Deku.
Hard agree, anon. I'm willing to give some wiggle room to the "Bakugo had a messy childhood and that's why he's like this" argument just because I'm not caught up (and thus might be missing some flashbacks/revelations), no one's life is ever perfect, and there's a subjective line between what we read as innocuous tropes vs. realistic traumas (example: is his mom hitting him something we take seriously, or just classic anime "comedy"?), but honestly I'm... not persuaded by that stance. Largely due to what you've said about this contempt being around since the very beginning. Bakugo's cruelty is the introduction to the entire series, the very first thing we see:
First, they're young here. Maybe not kindergarten young, but as we see in the above narration, it's at age four that Bakugo acquired his "I'm the best" thinking (more on that in a second). They're kids. This is not something that developed slowly over the years until Bakugo crossed some kind of line, he's been like this since the very start. Since a kid is capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and making decisions: like attacking another. In what way does this establish them as friends? Izuku literally shaking as he tries to protect another kid Bakugo is has hurt? Bakugo calling him worthless? Gleefully attacking and punching Izuku in the face? They were never friends! Izuku followed Bakugo around because he was paid some kind of attention by him and Bakugo poisoned the well — no one else in class will befriend Izuku. We see this both by the two willing to help beat him up here and, later, when Izuku says he wants to got to U.A. the entire class laughs at both the idea and Bakugo blowing up his desk in response. The bullying is the only kind of "friendship" Izuku has, so he embraces it with a smile and a nickname. Meanwhile, Bakugo allows Izuku to tag along because he makes him feel good in comparison. All Bakugo needs for an ego boost is to look at Izuku. He's the useless, quirkless nobody whose name can be read as "Deku." What's not to like? Izuku makes Bakugo feel good because Bakugo will always come out on top — always win — when pit against him. Did they have a few good moments gushing over All Might? Yeah, but anyone who has been bullied knows that it's not a clear cut "They were consistently awful every second of every day." Sometimes, those moments of pretend or conditional friendship make everything worse.
(As a side note, I keep hearing the more intense fans of Bakugo saying that those who criticize him identify with Izuku "too much" and it's like... yes? He's the protagonist. You're supposed to identify with him. To say nothing of the question of why you'd include such an explicit bullying subplot — arguably at the heart of the narrative in regards to characterization — if you didn't want readers who had experienced bullying to relate to this story. So it's all about victims like Izuku, you're allowed to care, just don't care in a way that holds Bakugo responsible?)
"But Izuku cares about Bakugo. He tried to help him out of the river." Yeah, because Izuku cares about everyone. Overlooking his warped idea of what friendship is due to having no one but Bakugo, Izuku is the kind of person who is going to extend his hand to anyone who needs it, just like All Might would. His extreme compassion and lack of other friends is not good proof that he cares for Bakugo in any true, healthy fashion, let alone that Bakugo cares for him.
As for when this all started, yeah, it was when they were even younger than in the scene above. Toddlers when Bakugo realized he had a strong quirk and Izuku was told he had none. Bakugo's reaction to these events — deciding he's better than everyone else and that justifies harming those "lesser" than him — is instantaneous. That desire was there all along. He just needed an excuse to act on it. After the conversations about the adults' influence on him, I went back to the anime scenes of Bakugo showing his quirk to his class and it's... pretty normal? I mean yes, there's praise, but in what world wouldn't there be praise? A bunch of other kids are going to ooh and ahh over mini explosions and the two teachers, unless they're entirely heartless, are going to tell this kid that he'll indeed make a wonderful hero someday. Those are standard responses for very young kids who aren't going to understand something like, "That is a powerful quirk and you could be a great hero... just don't let that potential go to your head!" There's nothing in those scenes that imply an excess of praise, at least so much that it would totally warp a kid's perspective of others to the extent Bakugo has going on. If I recall correctly, Bakugo's parents are quite disappointed in his behavior, but that never had an impact on him. And as I mentioned previously, we have incredibly talented characters like Momo (getting into U.A. on recommendation), people like Ida who come from families with other heroes they want to impress, Todoroki dealing with a crazy legacy to live up to, tied up in his abuse... yet none of them turned out like Bakugo. All of that didn't kill their compassion, but adults telling Bakugo he has a strong quirk made him into this person? Bakugo wanted to be that person, right from the start.
Honestly, I think a lot of fans latched onto Bakugo — which is awesome! — but didn't want to admit how horrible he actually is. So they took moments largely out of context and repeated them enough until they became fandom staples. Bakugo and Izuku were close childhood friends who just had a falling out they need to come back from. Bakugo was only like this because the adults in his life drove him to that behavior. Izuku loves Bakugo because he can see how good he is, deep down inside, and definitely not because he's been stuck with him since they were toddlers, unable to escape him even at U.A. It's a very sanitized look at their relationship, embraced because fans want them to be friends or lovers. Which is fine! God knows I'm into a ton of "problematic" ships, I just like acknowledging that they're problematic, not trying to sweeten the situation because fandoms have made others feel guilty for liking anything that's not squeaky clean and pure. Bakugo tormented Izuku for their entire childhood. He encouraged him to commit suicide. He tried to keep him from achieving his dream, both by undermining his confidence and outright threatening him (remember burning his shoulder?). He then reworked that obsession when they both got into U.A., trying to prove Izuku's uselessness, failing, and continually struggling with the thought that he's actually a great hero. And it's like... why do I care? This guy is a horrible person, he's been a horrible person since he was a kid, and his greatest challenge for more than half the story is acknowledging that other people aren't worthless trash. His improvement still hasn't gotten him to the standard of an average person, let alone a hero. If Bakugo were a villain, great, or if the story was going to really highlight the corruption of the hero career as a whole (we take anyone with powerful quirks, no matter how awful they are), great, but as a main character hero whose behavior is supposedly just a cover for a fantastic guy, please overlook everything he does and assume he's worthy of your respect anyway? Ehhh. Why do I care about him as a good guy when there are characters like Ida and Uraraka I could stan? To be clear, I'm not saying other fans can't enjoy whatever characters they enjoy, just that from a storytelling perspective I think it's a failure to introduce Bakugo as such an extreme, make him one of the heroes, give him such a selfish struggle, and then expect a lot of the audience to care. Bakugo either needed to be more balanced from the start — regular flaws instead of such an intense adoration for cruelty from the age of four — or the story needed to unpack his behavior in a way it never bothered to.
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Hi. Umm this must be a stupid and unsettling question but I'm just gonna put it out there.
So Im a destiel shipper and I love reading fics. ok so, all this while TFW had been fighting for freedom and wanted to write their own stories and defeated god n everything. and in mid way of reading in dean's POV it struck me all of a sudden that dean wouldn't want me to know these things going on his mind. ok if you say dean and cas are fictional characters technically speaking and they can't possibly give consent, thats fine ig. but obviously I'm so attached to these characters and maybe I want to believe they're real. especially given how spn is a huge example of how a character can take control of the story being told. and ok yes, I know we as a fandom want to see our beloved characters happy. but what gives me the right to get into dean's mind? I'm dean coded so I always choose fics with his POV but I all of a sudden felt like a perv. Isn't freedom and privacy (from chuck/audience) what dean and the rest of the team fought for?? and we just continue toying with them just cause we recover slightly from cw's bullshit? Idk how this thought came to me after all this time but I do feel guilty to have been reading fics. anyway, is it just me or is this kind of feeling common? I enjoy fics too much I don't want to feel like this
Nonny, you are going through it, huh? I don't know how common/uncommon it is but certainly, many people in this fandom find a lot of self-recognition in these characters and that can be uncomfortable. Sometimes in great ways (the amount of times I have realized something I needed to work through in therapy because of a fic is slightly embarrassing) and sometimes in bad ways.
They are absolutely fictional characters and you shouldn't feel guilty. We tell stories for so many reasons. To understand. To find hope. To believe we can change things. To imagine a different world. There is nothing bad about getting insight into how people think Dean would feel or think. And if it helps, I think frequently what you are actually getting in a fic is a part of the author that they are sharing voluntarily. Certainly, my most beloved writing is often based on my experiences. On telling a story that I think matters.
As a concrete example, I wanted to tell a story in The Birds and the Ts about rebuilding after trauma. A recognition that the trauma isn't what makes you and love isn't what heals you. You rebuild with the help of those that love you. You get to decide how to remake yourself. So a lot of those thoughts the characters have and the choices they make? They are me telling myself and the reader it's okay to feel that way. You aren't alone and there is hope.
They are fictional, but I get the existential crisis. I do. In second grade I lived in fear that I was a character in a book or a dream. And I was terrified I would simply disappear when it ended. That feeling? I can say that feeling is common enough that more than one person has told me they also went through it.
But if it helps, even if they were real in a pocket universe living out these stories, you wouldn't be Chuck by reading about them. Maybe we are all Becky? Or Marie? Certainly, reading a fic is not manipulating time and space. And EVEN if they were real, Dean doesn’t seem to think about the readers of the series in the show. He doesn't seem uncomfortable around Marie, for instance. So even if you can't shake the existential fear that they are somehow real, I don't think you have to worry that the hypothetical Dean made reality would even think about or care about fic.
I would also consider whether you might be feeling exposed, and whether that is contributing to this feeling. Like some things are hitting close to home. That is an uncomfortable feeling. If that is part of it, consider what I said above. If it makes you feel vulnerable because you identify strongly with it, there's a better than 0 chance that it's because the author either speaks from experience or has looked at this character, seen this thing that makes you feel vulnerable, and loved him for it. So try to take heart in that.
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In My Dreams Tonight
for @chaotic-bard who asked me for some fluff!
have a soulmates that dream about each other au featuring both a modern au and the canon universe!
brought to you by “Dreams Tonite” by Alvvays
---
“You’re nothing but trouble, bard,” the tall man glared from atop his horse. He always seemed to be glaring or glowering or huffing, the man in Jaskier’s dreams. The familiar stranger wore his long white hair pulled halfway back and he had golden eyes, the pupils of which were slit up the center like a cat’s. His name, Jaskier had learned after the third straight week of seeing him every night, was Geralt of Rivia. A Witcher, apparently, whose job it was to hunt down monsters.
“Ah, but what a lovely piece of trouble I am!” Jaskier replies. And he’s rather sassy himself in these dreams. Far more clever and ready to fight than he is when he’s awake. “You would miss me if I left, wouldn’t you, Geralt?”
“Hmm.”
The stranger hums a lot. He glares and he hums. Jaskier’s heart stutters frightfully in his chest whenever the man smiles, though. The sight is rare. Geralt has smiled perhaps three times in the past two months.
“Where are we going today?”
“Werewolf outside of town. You’re staying at the inn, where I know you can’t get into… nevermind. You can get into trouble anywhere.”
There’s a lightly teasing tone to the stranger’s voice that Jaskier hasn’t really heard before. He likes it. He craves more of it. He tosses and turns in his sleep, his skin damp with sweat. The dream goes on.
“Geralt, please,” he whines, “I can’t write ballads about monsters I haven’t seen! Or fights I did not attend! That’s lying to my audience, Geralt, and I simply won’t do it. I must go with you.”
“Drop it, Jaskier,” the man snarls. Jaskier feels sad. Incredibly sad.
Rejected?
“Gera-”
“I said drop it, bard.”
Jaskier wakes up feeling a little heartbroken and he yearns to be held. His pillow holds the fading scents of leather and wood-smoke. The sight of a pine sapling at the dog park makes him tear up.
He starts to wear the color yellow out of nowhere and his taste in jewelry switches from gold to silver.
When his best friend asks him about the recent changes, he cannot answer.
---
Geralt pours himself a mug of tea and shakes his hair out of his face. He’s been having odd dreams lately, things that feel familiar but manage to stay just out of his conscious grasp. Someone important is waiting for him. Someone he love and cares about and needs.
Geralt doesn’t really buy into the concept of soulmates, but he does understand instinct. He knows to trust his gut. He knows to listen and start paying attention when the same haunting blue eyes creep into his dreams every night for six months, plaguing him in the waking hours by refusing to give up their owners’ identity.
He wipes a hand down his face and sighs loudly into the otherwise empty studio apartment. “Fuck me, I gotta figure this shit out. I gotta talk to Yen.”
Talking to himself has always helped him calm down. He does it again, just to hear his own low voice scraping through the silence.
“I gotta see what’s going on with my head. These dreams are… getting to be a bit much, even for me.”
He nods to no one in particular and goes to text his best friend and coworker.
---
Jaskier hops off the bus and carries his guitar case down to the coffee shop on the corner. Finally, he’s managed to get a gig that wasn’t through the university.
He sets up his stuff in the tiny alcove the shop treats as a stage and watches as a few customers stroll around near the counter, waiting for their drinks or reading through the menu, hovering just far away enough from the line to keep others from growing confused.
He loves people watching.
Once everything is ready to go and the light outside the window has dimmed a bit, indicating early evening has finally arrived, he pulls his guitar onto his lap and strums through a few quick chords.
“Rode here on the bus,
Now you're one of us.
It was magic hour,
Counting motorbikes on the turnpike;
One of Eisenhower's.”
“Live your life on a merry-go-round;
Who starts a fire just to let it go out?”
He watches a particularly handsome man with broad shoulders and a vintage denim jacket approach the counter. Jaskier adds a haunting, well-practiced lilt to his voice as he goes into the chorus, hoping to get his attention:
“If I saw you on the street,
Would I have you in my dreams tonight?
If I saw you on the street,
Would I have you in my dreams tonight, tonight?”
An equally beautiful woman with long, curly black hair approaches the denim-clad angel and whisks him towards a table nearby. She settles with her back to Jaskier, leaving him with a decent view of the man’s sharp, lightly stubbled jaw, glittering eyes, and severe white ponytail. He’s gorgeous.
He’s also uncomfortably familiar.
Jaskier continues to perform, trying to identify his attractive mystery man the whole time and failing miserably.
---
“He’s everywhere, Yen. I feel like I could identify him by scent if I got close enough. I can’t remember his name, though. Or the color of his hair. I don’t know his face, only his eyes. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Have you talked to Dr. deStael about it?”
“Yeah, but she said this kind of thing is normal. Recurring dreams often help us sort out our trauma or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t feel traumatized by this guy I feel… protective of him. Maybe even like I love him?”
“Hmm.”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
“Shut up for a minute, this live music actually slaps and I want to listen to it. Then we can discuss your weird possessive tendencies towards your dream boyfriend.”
Geralt takes a slow sip of his coffee and glances up at the singer off to their left, perched on a barstool with his guitar held carefully on his lap. His voice is soft but somehow bright. Geralt finds himself utterly entranced.
“On the weird guitar;
Said you'd go to work
In the waking hour.
In fluorescent light,
Antisocialites watch a wilting flower.”
“Live your life on a merry-go-round;
Who builds a wall just to let it fall down?”
The lyrics are strange and hold a dream-like quality to them. They draw a picture in Geralt’s head, something dark and heavy and oddly hollow. He has another sip of coffee and tries to ignore the feeling of panic welling up inside him. He glances at Yennefer to see if she’s picked up on his mood, but her violet eyes are focused on the singer and his nimble fingers as he continues to play and sing.
When he glances up towards their table and their eyes meet, Geralt loses the ability to breathe.
That shade of cornflower blue was…
Couldn’t be…
Had to be…
The gorgeous, feathery tenor continues to fill the air, whirling pleasant notes past his ears and deep into his subconscious. Geralt knows that voice. He’s heard this man laugh and sing and cry and scream a thousand different times. Through a handful of different lives. Geralt knows that face, those hands, those strong legs and long arms and blue fucking eyes. He’s held this singer in his arms every night for centuries, feeling his breathing as they both drift off to sleep.
He has protected this man and been protected by him in return. He has kissed and been kissed, caressed and been caressed. The two men sitting across from each other in the coffee shop physically embody an endless cycle of love. It has been bound up in the souls of two no-longer strangers. Geralt knows that he knows this man.
He knows Jaskier.
Petal pink lips continue to form soft words and slender hands keep plucking at vibrating guitar strings:
“Don't sit by the phone for me,
Wait at home for me, all alone for me.
Your face was supposed to be
Hanging over me, like a rosary.”
Geralt stands suddenly, startling Yennefer but not the performer, even though he’s clearly just as shocked as Geralt about this recent development.
Their mutual realization.
“So morose for me,
Seeing ghosts of me,
Writing oaths to me,
Is it so naïve to wonder…”
Geralt crosses the room to the edge of the stage in three quick strides. Yennefer is close behind him, her latte just as abandoned as his coffee at their table. She grabs her friend’s arm as if to stop him from doing something violent, but when he doesn’t struggle against her grip she lets it go again easily.
“Geralt?” the musician asks.
“Jaskier?” Geralt replies. The guitar is placed quickly to the side and a pair of incredibly familiar arms are thrown around the taller man’s neck. Geralt hugs back just as firmly, his arms flung low around the brunette’s waist. Geralt knows that this is Jaskier’s favorite way to be embraced; he doesn’t know how he’s aware of that fact, but it comes to the front of his mind clear as day.
“Holy shit,” Jaskier breathes, leaning back to stare Geralt in the face. One of his string-calloused fingers traces down over Geralt’s eyelid and cheek and he cocks his head to the side. “No scar?”
“No,” Geralt shakes his head. “Not this lifetime, I guess.”
“Were we? Are we- are we, you know...?”
“Yeah,” Yen beams, adding her two cents from the sidelines. “I think so. Congrats, boys. This is one of those one in a million chances and you’ve gone and done it.”
“Done what?” Geralt asks. Jaskier tosses his head back and laughs. His happiness rings out through the cafe like a struck bell and Geralt’s heart stutters frantically. He really does love this man already. Wholeheartedly and without fear. “What have we done, Yen?”
“As obtuse now as you were then,” Jaskier chides affectionately. “Soulmates, my love. We’ve been bound by the red string of fate and ta-da! Here we are. Again, apparently.”
“Yes, okay,” Geralt breathes, nosing his way along Jaskier’s jaw with giddy determination. He presses a quick and wholly welcome kiss to the bard’s lips. “That makes sense.”
“Do you... do you want me again? This time around?” Jaskier asks, fingers fiddling with one of the ties on Geralt’s hoodie. A pair of chapped lips press against his again and he sighs into it, melting against his no-longer-Witcher.
“Yes. And the next one, as well.”
#bouncey's sappy hours#geraskier#geraskier fluff#yen#yennefer#yenerference kinda#getting together#soulmate au#prophetic dreams#geraskier soulmate au#geraskier soulmates#shared dreams#modern au#geraskier modern au#kissing#first kiss#magically getting together#prompt fill
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I'm the Percy and Jason Are Opposites/Equals anon. Thx for the reply, and after reading it I agree with you with a lot of stuff. I do like Jason - but I wish he was expanded upon more, you know? Given more canon depth as we were with Percy. His trauma as a CHILD SOLIDER for one!. And his abandonment issues could've been tied to his Fatal Flaw - never choosing what he wanted because what if he chooses himself and it's wrong and he's abandoned again, alone in a scary place.
hey anon! sorry it took me a hot min to get to this I just wanted to finish up the drabble series before responding to asks and comments again
you and me both on the Jason expansion front. there's just too much happening in the hoo books. I think it would have been slightly better if Rick had made each book form one pov at least. that way, although we still have the problem of 5 strange new characters, we may have gotten a better insight into them if they each had their own book you know?
like
Jason pov for The Lost Hero
Hazel pov for The Son of Neptune
Piper pov for The Mark of Athena
Frank pov for The House of Hades
Leo pov for The Blood of Olympus.
I feel we could have gotten so much more from the characters like this.
Jason where he realizes the gaps in his memory, where he compares camps and fighting styles, Jason where he struggles with his reality and the fact that it was ripped from him once and it could be again (what's to stop it? it was so easy the first time). a deeper insight into his struggle between being Greek and Roman.
Hazel with her past life and how she is tied into the whole prophecy. Hazel learning how her past has brought her people from the present. how she has this power that she doesn't quite know how to use and it's causing a curse.
Piper figuring out who she is without the fake memories of Jason. with the new development of her parentage and the stings attached to that. the way she was the emotion amongst the group . how she worked to make sure everyone felt what they needed to feel. maybe a bit about her sexuality (which from what I gather *Trials of Apollo spoilers* she identifies as lesbian now?).
Frank learning to trust others with a life that ties to something easily gone. Frank figuring out his own mess of power and the burden that comes with being a child not of Aries but of Mars. frank who still grieves his mother. who doesn't really know how to fight the way his parentage would assume. Frank's internal struggles around the life he wants and the life he is being forced to have.
Leo figuring out how to win the war and what he must do. figuring out that he ISNT the seventh wheel. he is simply the seventh. Leo who is not a tag a long for the team but rather an integral and valued member. who doesn't revolve his whole life and interaction around his loneliness. who learns wha it means to be his own person.
I think more could have been done with the books. I think more should have been done. but I am looking at this with the eye of 21 year old who has had years of reading and analysis behind her now. they are still targeted towards 10-12 year olds and although Rick didn't do much for the characters he certainly gave his target audience something to devour.
so I guess everything with a large pinch of salt.
anyway I agree i wish we had more about everything to do with jason but I'm also really happy with our little corner of the universe where we develop and delve into Jason's character without the hindering of canon.
thanks for the ask anon! hope the weekend is going splendidly! I'm sitting in the sun as I type this and it's really a ball
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HANK’S TRANSFORMATION AS REACTION TO TRAUMA— DECENTER THE SELF
“I think the universe is trying to tell me something and I’m finally ready to listen.”— 3x07, One Minute
(Main Post)
To understand how Hank’s trauma transforms him over the course of the show, let’s start by thinking about what Hank is like at the beginning of the show.
At the beginning of the show, Hank is the picture of toxic masculine arrogance. In the Pilot, Walt envies Hank for his power and confidence. Hank is cool, successful, manly, and everything Walt feels he is not. But we as the audience see how Hank’s ego is hurtful to those around him: he is callous, racist, misogynistic, and focuses more on the power involved in his job (the ~thrill of the bust~) than his potential to do good. What we don’t yet see, initially, though— and what it takes a great deal of trauma to reveal to Hank— is how his masculine arrogance, his obsession with himself, is also hurtful to himself.
Over the course of the first 2 and a half seasons, Hank experiences several traumatic incidents of witnessing and inflicting violent injury and death. First, Hank kills Tuco in a shoot out. Then he witnesses the tortoise explosion in El Paso. And he reacts to this trauma by engaging in increasingly reckless violent behavior— starting with bar fights, and ending with his brutal beating of Jesse.
Why does Hank react in this way? I believe it’s because, up until his beating of Jesse, Hank’s ego prevents him from properly coping with his PTSD. Hank is shaken by the violent incidents he is involved with in the field— exhibiting clear symptoms of PTSD. He has panic attacks and insomnia and startles at loud noises. Hank interprets all this as his mind and body failing him, failing to live up to his idea of a proper man and a proper cop. To accept that he has PTSD, that he has reacted to these situations emotionally, rather than brushing these violent instances off like a Real ManTM, would be to totally shatter his image of himself. So, he doesn’t accept this. When Walt suggests Hank talk to a therapist upon returning from El Paso, Hank immediately rejects the idea, saying “[if you] start going down that road, [you can] kiss your career goodbye” (2x 08, Better Call Saul). He has so built himself up in his own mind, that he believes if he admits any weakness, he will lose everything— his job, the respect of his wife and friends, himself. He won’t confront his trauma, and he won’t confront his reaction to it, and he certainly won’t confront how his natural reaction to the trauma makes him feel (frustrated, humiliated).
So he turns the anger and frustration he has with himself and his failing mind and body outwards. He is violent and reckless. In episode 3x03, I.F.T, Hank has a panic attack in a bar bathroom, from thinking about the possibility of being sent back to El Paso. And then he proceeds to pick a fight with two other patrons, under the guise of DEA business, but clearly actually because he needs to outlet his rage and panic. And Hank’s reaction is even worse when he believes Marie has been hurt (after Saul places the false call in Sunset). He is first thrown into a panic, and then into an uncontrollable rage— leading him to brutally beat Jesse. But this turns out to be the turning point for Hank, the moment when he truly, authentically changes in response to his trauma.
Let’s focus in on the brief moment in between Hank’s beating of Jesse, and his grueling near death experience with The Twins. The crucible moment when Hank’s transformation as I have described it— his decentering of the self— begins. This moment is actually one episode, and it’s one of my favorites: 3x07, One Minute. In beating Jesse as he did— blatantly outside of the boundaries of his job, Hank realizes he has gone too far. This violence touches his personal life— he fears for Marie’s life, and reacts by beating a civilian as a civilian— and so it is harder to make excuses for it as just another part of being in the DEA. Hank knows what he did was wrong. And this is (forgive the metaphor) the Jenga piece that makes the whole pile topple. He finally admits to himself (and to Marie) that “ever since that Salamanca thing” he’s been “unraveling.” He admits that his shooting of Tuco and the El Paso incident are the reasons for his violent and wrong behavior— that they have damaged him. He finally admits that he has been traumatized, and he has reacted to it poorly.
And after admitting this, Hank does something incredible. Something unprecedented in terms of who we have seen him to be previously in the show. He admits fault, he takes responsibility, and he quits the DEA. We see Hank truly and honestly humbled— he admits to both his weaknesses and his wrongdoings, with an unparalleled level of grace and self-awareness. He starts to become a better, more honest, more responsible, less arrogant person. He even weeps openly in front of Marie. This episode is Hank’s high point of the series, in terms of integrity and strength of character.
But then, oh then, there is fresh trauma for Hank.
Hank’s violent injury at the hands of The Twins, and his grueling recovery, hammer home even harder the fears and insecurities Hank had when his trauma was just emotional. Hank’s injury brings him to his lowest point— he is bed-bound, unemployed, and needs his wife’s help to take a shit. Everything Hank was feeling before— about the failure of his mind and body to live up to his masculine ideals— comes back with a vengeance.
And this does continue to humble Hank in the positive sense I described above. I believe that the incredible detective work that Hank is able to do in seasons 4 and 5 is enabled by this increased humility. I think it’s very apt when Hank says, in One Minute, “the universe is trying to tell me something and I’m finally ready to listen.” Hank’s strokes of investigative genius — first those that lead him to Gus Fring, and then the pivotal revelation that Walt is Heisenberg— could well be described as him simply listening to the universe, in a way he wasn’t ready to before. Gus had primed the DEA to never suspect him with his cop-loving act, but Hank was able to get outside of that bias and make that mental leap when all the other officers refused to believe it. He listened to what the evidence told him. And, though you could argue that Hank finding Gale’s book in Walt’s bathroom was purely random, I think Hank’s willingness to even consider Walt as a potential Heisenberg (let alone to extrapolate that possibility from a set of initials and a visually identified handwriting match on a random book) shows significant growth. There are countless moments before that in the series of incredible dramatic irony, where the idea of Walt as a drug dealer would occur to Hank, and he would immediately dismiss them as ludicrous. Because, of course, if Walt were a criminal, Hank would have to be an idiot to have been fooled by him for so long. There was a barrier of ego that was keeping Hank from considering that possibility. And only when it was removed, was Hank ready to listen to what the universe revealed to him.
But, the effects of Hank’s injury on him are not all positive.
Hank is brought SO low, and is SO humbled by his injury, that it moves to the point of humiliation. And he reacts to this by turning his attention away from himself and towards his fanatic obsessions. He decenters himself, by centering his whole life on something else. First there are, of course, his minerals. Then, he becomes obsessed with taking down Gus Fring. Then, finally, he becomes obsessed with taking down Walt.
This fanaticism is bad for Hank. His fanatic obsession with minerals almost destroys his marriage. His legally dubious pursuit of Gus Fring threatens his fragile career (and, unbenknownst to him, puts him on Gus’s hit list). And his fanatic pursuit of Walt eventually leads to his death. This fanaticism goes so wrong for Hank because, I would argue, fanatic external obsession ignores the self, where true humility accepts the self in all its flaws. Think back to Hank’s humble behavior following his beating of Jesse. Hank actually thought a lot about himself— he analyzed the patterns of behavior he’d had since his encounter with Tuco, admitted to his weaknesses, and took responsibility for his actions. He deflated his ego by taking a look at himself honestly, rather than by refusing to look at himself at all. But, after his injury, this is just what Hank does— refuses to examine himself, instead spending all his energy on something else. And that turns out to be Hank’s fatal flaw.
If Hank had examined himself instead of buying so many minerals, he would have seen he was ashamed of his physical disability and was taking that anger out on his wife. And he could have rectified that much sooner. If Hank had examined himself instead of relentlessly investigating Gus Fring, he would have seen that he was going back to the same type of crooked police work that he previously realized he was doing and quit the force because of. And he could have conducted his investigation more safely and ethically. If Hank had examined himself instead of fanatically pursuing Walt, he would have seen that he was furious with himself for failing to see Walt was Heisenberg sooner, and felt a need to redeem himself. And then maybe he would have been humble enough to ask for help from other DEA agents instead of going it on his own. And maybe, he would have survived.
Ironically, Hank’s attempts to think less about himself and his problems, actually ended up letting those problems rule his life.
Hank’s story is, in the end, a tragedy. We see the kind of positive growth Hank is capable of. His reaction to his trauma— the way he uses it to become a better person, husband, and detective— is often inspiring. By season 5, because of this growth, Hank arguably becomes the hero of the show. But, painfully, he isn’t able to grow quite enough. His ego remains involved in his detective work— though this time in the opposite direction (he frantically tries to ignore himself, rather than inflating himself, but this ends up involving him too much in his work nonetheless). And this, among the various sins of other characters, leads to Hank’s death. Which is so painful to see, because we know what Hank was capable of in terms of self-reflection, growth, and integrity. We know what he fell short of.
#breaking bad#brba#hank schrader#hank#brba analysis#brba meta#trauma post series#y’all...#i fuckin love hank schrader#im so sad he’s dead#rewatching One Minute repeatedly to write this post CHANGED ME#hope y’all are enjoying my dissertation
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Today in Strongly Worded Opinions (That You Didn't Ask For), I'm going to assert that there are too objective ways to measure whether or not a relationship is strong in story terms – by which I mean, unrelated to whether or not readers/viewers personally like the dynamic or the chemistry of the actors (in such cases as there are actors involved).
So for the sake of clarity, be ye advised: this isn't about shipping, fuck it, ship whatever you want idc. Shipping a strong relationship isn't inherently better than shipping a weak one – heck, you could just as easily argue that it's the lazier, less creative route. Also, I don't care? I don't care, it's just fandom. Follow your arrow. This is about ways to discuss whether or not a relationship introduced into a text succeeds or fails as an element of the story – or really as I'm going to prefer calling it, if a given relationship forms a strong or weak story element.
For this I'm presuming that you're creating a relationship between a protagonist and a secondary character introduced as a piece of the protagonist's overall story – protagonist/protagonist relationships aren't really a different situation, but they do have more moving parts, so for simplicity's sake, let's stick with a Main Character (we'll call that M) and a Significant Other (S for short). Also, these relationships by no means have to be romantic; any relationship can be measured as weak or strong in story terms.
Also, I'm going to say everything here as though it were factually true, even though it's just my opinion, which is correct, but if you disagree then it's only my opinion, but I am correct. Ready? Okay!
Strong relationships have story functions; in reality nothing means anything and people just like each other because they do, but fuck reality, it's a huge narrative mess. And my basic premise here is that the story function of a strong relationship falls under one (or more, if you wanna get real fancy) of these three categories:
The relationship can unlock under-explored elements of M's story or character through mirroring or intimacy (often shows up as “friends to lovers”). There is backstory that hasn't been unearthed yet, or some reaction or experience in M's life that could advance the story, and S can serve as a means to get at it. Maybe M and S share a similar trauma or life story; maybe S is the first person M feels able to open up to about something profound and relevant. Maybe part of M's story is a conflict between how they seem to others and how they see themselves or their own potential; maybe S is the person who sees them the way they see themselves...or sees M as the person they're afraid they'll never be. The story goal being met here is giving M a boost toward successful completion of their story arc, so even though there could be conflict, S is fundamentally pulling on the same side as M in the major story conflicts, in such a way that by the end, the reader should feel like M's success is at least in part because of what they gain from their relationship with S.
The relationship can function as a piece of the story's overall conflict, or as a secondary subplot conflict (often shows up as “enemies to lovers”). Traditional romance novel plotting effectively slots the love interest into the role of “antagonist,” because the romance's conflict is generally driven by people not getting what they want from each other until certain win conditions are met. In this kind of relationship, M and S might be actual-facts competitors, or be divided by ideological concerns, or they might be forced into proximity by the plot but clash on some personality level. The arc of this relationship is typically going to be about the M softening up as the relationship develops – if M starts out ruthlessly single-minded, maybe realizing that they're running roughshod over S in the process is part of their character breakthrough; if the story is about M realizing that they've underestimated the complexity of the world around them, maybe coming to recognize S as an equal is how that gets concretized for the reader. Basically this is a story where S presents a problem that M has to solve, and the more central to the narrative solving that problem is, the stronger the relationship is.
The relationship can serve to divide M's goals (often shows up as “love versus duty”). This is a story where M has to accomplish two separate things in order to fulfill their arc, but those two things aren't easily integrated. One of M's goals might be fulfilling a vow, or filial duty, or seeking revenge, and the other goal is some form of protecting or obtaining S. If the story puts M in a position of having to choose, then the relationship is inherently strong; it's providing narrative drive, whether or not S is especially well-developed as an individual character. This one can be tricky, because a very weak relationship can serve a superficially similar purpose, by demonstrating M's devotion to duty or obsessive pursuit of whatever when M rebuffs S to keep them out of harm's way or to avoid distraction or whatever. The difference is that in those superficial cases, the audience is meant to recognize that aw, that's sad, M has really had to Make Sacrifices – but there's really no dramatic tension involved; we know all along that M is going to Make Sacrifices in purusit of the real goal. When this is done seriously with a strong relationship, the audience is meant to feel divided as well; Romeo and Juliet just doesn't work as a story unless the audience likes Juliet and Mercutio, unless they fully identify with the dilemma that Romeo is in when he has to either avenge Mercutio's death or spare Tybalt for Juliet's sake and the sake of their future together. That's a big fucking story moment, and it only works because the audience buys both relationships – Romeo's with Mercutio and with Juliet – as narratively strong, to the point where Romeo's choice is not a forgone conclusion. This one is much easier to get wrong, I think, than the other two are!
What I'm saying here is that a strong relationship isn't really determined by how personally compatible two characters seem to be; a lot of movies that fridge a character's wife, for example, rely on actors convincingly portraying, in a brief window of time, two compatible people who care for each other – I'm thinking of, like, Richard Kimble and his wife in The Fugitive, who I think do sell the idea of a loving and happy marriage, but the relationship itself is a weak one. The story only really needs the bare fact of it – “Kimble had a wife that he loved and then this happened” – to kick off the actual story; the relationship between Kimble and Gerard is a stronger one narratively, because much of the emotional tension of the movie, what makes it more effective than just a series of chase scenes, is the way their mutual respect evolves as they compete against each other, and the story question of “Kimble really needs an ally, is this the right person for him to trust?” It's such a strong relationship that it comes as a huge relief of tension when he does make that gesture of trust and it turns out to be the right choice. The audience is happy that Kimble will be exonerated, but the audience is equally happy that the conflict between these two charcters is over – we didn't like them being at odds because we didn't want either of them to lose! Now, would these two people ever be close friends, let alone come to love each other? No? Yes? Who cares? Kimble loves his wife more, but has a stronger relationship in this story with Gerard. From a writing perspective, it's trivially easy to introduce an S and say “M loves this person,” but it means relatively little. It's harder to introduce an S and say “some part of this story now hinges on how M navigates knowing this person,” but that's kind of what has to happen in order to create a payoff that's worth the effort. A strong relationship provides skeletal structure for the story; it can't be stitched on at the margins.
This is an even tougher sell in something like a television series, where the introduction of S may come in well after the story is underway and the bulk of M's characterization is already in place. That's why introducing a late-season love interest is a notoriously dodgy proposition! To demonstrate weak vs strong relationship in action, I'm going to take an example of what I think was a failed attempt and pitch some ways to doctor it up into a strong relationship: Sam Winchester and Eileen Leahy.
This is objectively a weak relationship. She doesn't materially affect the metaplot of the series, or drive any major choices, or reveal anything about Sam's character. She's just, you know, generally nice and attractive and Sam likes her, which is a fine start, but then the writers just leave her idling in the garage forever. But it didn't have to be that way! Say we wanted to make it a Type 1 relationship: super easy, barely an inconvenience! Eileen is very like Sam, actually, in that she lost her parents as an infant and then had the entire rest of her life shaped by the trauma and the pursuit of revenge. That's amazing. How many other people, even hunters, share that specific experience with Sam Winchester? Sam was physically changed by drinking demon blood in infancy; Eileen was physically changed by being deafened by the banshee or whatever it was in infancy. Even just allowing them to talk about that would have made the relationship stronger. Sam is affected by the fact that there is no Before Time for him; even now that they've long since had their revenge on ol' Yellow Eyes himself, he grapples with the fact that he's forever robbed of any memories of innocence or safety or a life that wasn't lived in the shadow of this killing. Eileen also has had her life's quest for revenge fulfilled, and also has to reckon with the fact that it doesn't actually give her access to the innocence that was stolen from her. Maybe she struggles with that. Maybe Sam can open up to her because she knows what it's like to look back on your child self and feel that however strong you've made yourself, you're never strong enough to protect that child.
What if you want to write something spicier than Sam and Eileen talking about their sad feelings? Okay, let's take a Type 2 story. Eileen has been a lone hunter with a disability all her life; it's fair to guess that even if she can't match Sam's physical strength, the fact that she's survived at all means that she's pretty indomitable. Maybe she's had to be ruthless, even brutal in her hunting style; maybe she has a shoot-first-ask-questions-never approach to hunting that she credits with her very survival, but that Sam finds excessively rash and bloody. Maybe they fight about it. Have her kill some ambiguous, maybe-not-dangerous monstery types, a werewolf or something, and Sam's like, hey, we really can't just-- and Eileen is like, look, I hunt how I hunt, come with me or don't. I mean, this is a retread in some ways of early season conflicts about who to kill and when, but everything in the latter seasons is a retread anyway, so whatever, and it provides something interesting to have Sam deal with this whiplash of how there seem to be two Eileens, the smiley, jocular sweetheart who eats pancakes with him and the one who kills like she's swatting flies. What if he wants one but not the other? It doesn't really work that way, does it? Is this something he can dismiss as a foible, or is this a dealbreaker? The dude is almost forty, if he distances himself from Eileen, how many more hunters does he think he has a chance to meet and marry? If she won't even listen to his concerns seriously, is it really a good relationship anyway, or will Sam's needs always end up taking a backseat to Eileen's?
A Type 3 fix could just come down quite plainly to, what if Eileen is ready to retire? She's had her revenge. She's lived her life on the hunt. Maybe she's done, and maybe she wants Sam to be done with her. Doing this in season 15 would circle Sam back to his season 1 story conflicts in a nice way, I think – why does Sam do this at all, if it's not for revenge any longer? Does he feel personally responsible for every dead person he could've saved but didn't – is that a reasonable boundary, or lack thereof, to set? Is a compromise possible – could he continue to coordinate hunts while also getting out of the field and starting a family, or is that still putting his family in the shadow of too much violence and danger to tolerate? What's Dean going to say? He's pitched a fit in the past when Sam said he wanted out, but he's mellowed with age, hasn't he? Maybe he'll get it now? But maybe Sam also feels guilty and fearful, because he knows Dean will hunt without him, so now he's in more danger because of Sam's choices, if Sam makes this choice. It's a little heteronormative, as story conflicts go, but it's thematically appropriate to Supernatural, and the fact that Eileen isn't speaking out of timidity but out of the same weariness that Sam has so often felt about the whole endless cycle makes it feel a little less “the little lady won't let me go on adventures anymore.” This might not be my pick of the three, but the point is that it makes for a strong conflict, a legitimate divided loyalty for Sam to wrestle with, and one that doesn't have a clear right answer.
Anyway, hopefully that helps illustrate what I mean when I say that the narrative strength of a relationship doesn't have anything to do with how likeable an S character is – Eileen is very likeable! But that doesn't substitute for building her into the fabric of the story in some way. My expectation is that a serious protagonist relationship should bend the story arc in a way that requires response, and if it doesn't, I don't take that relationship particularly seriously. Canon can declare a relationship real by fiat, but it can't automatically declare a relationship meaningful without, you know, making meaning of it.
Oh, and there's not anything really wrong with weak relationships – most M's are going to have several in the story. My point is just that the difference between a weak relationship and a strong one isn't really a matter of taste or preference, but has a functional meaning that can be tested and measured, and if there's argument to be had about it, the argument can take place on evidentiary grounds. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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WandaVision episode 6
FIRST OFF
Whenever I go back to pause things for clues, and find exactly what I’m looking for, I don’t feel justified, I feel that much more insane:
It’s really hard to make out, but I had an alright look at it on my folks’ QLED, and it’s definitely a flying saucer doing an alien abduction on what looks to be a person inside an old CRT TV (with some kind of robot head/boombox on top???) There are secret aliens in this show, you guys, the facts don’t lie.
HmmmMMMM I wonder if Agnes is as innocent as she looks:
Also, I didn’t see that she was wearing the brooch in this ep, and I was majorly disappointed in that.
Two things here:
No, that’s not a twins joke.
Another Moonmen Confirmed
I know green is his color or whatever, but that hat is literally 10 years ahead of its time
Also, I took the playing-DDR-at-home scenario at face value, and only on the first rewatch did I realize it was a very pointed turn-of-the-century reference. I am an Old.
There’s a good, subtle Rule of Threes in this ep. The Setup:
The Sokovian Halloween flashback works on so many levels. It’s so funny:
The fact that they went trick-or-treating at all
The “speaking Sokovian”
The treat being a fish
They have to share the fish
The concept that this event gave them an infectious disease
“You probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” -- it’s a good sitcom joke but. the trauma is the joke. The joke IS THE TRAUMA!!!
Elizabeth Olson is a dream with all her wonderful faces she has this ep.
Vision’s unsettling passive-aggression-sitcom-cooperation whiplash is WOW, consider me unsettled!!!!!! “Be. Good.” UGH.
(Just noticed one here, but there are a number of continuity errors in this episode, enough to be distracting later on, and is this a deliberate choice? Please let it be deliberate. I didn’t watch a whole lot of Malcolm in the Middle, is it known for its continuity errors?
)
“It’s their first Halloween.” LOLOLOL they are TEN YEARS OLD and this is their FIRST halloween I LOVE IT
DOUBLE RED HERRING CONFIRRRRRRRRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agent Jimmy Woo accidentally identifying himself as the sassy best friend added 20 years to my life.
Found. FOUND. Not “created,” “manifested,” “willed into being using my insane witch powers.” Third Party Confirmed.
I like that it’s the 90s and we can swear on TV now. “Hell” “kick-ass” “damn it” “fu---dge”
I think the most biting part of Vision finding the whacked out folks is that the soundtrack just kind of ... ignores that anything’s wrong. Yeah, it’s kinda-spooky Halloween music, but it’s still 100% in-world kinda-spooky-sitcom-Halloween-episode music.
OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE AD:
As a 90s child, let me tell you, this is a blisteringly accurate representation of children’s marketing from the period. The shark is wearing sunglasses AND he has a surfboard!!! And he’s selling you yogurt of all things!!!!! This is the supreme distillation of what being a child in the 90s was like.
How disappointed I am that they went with crab instead of lobster.
Heard it through the grapevine that this is a representative of Wanda’s imprisonment on the Raft. That happened in Civil War, right? So the next ad is The Snap? We’re running out of iconic decades, too. so, hold on, new thought.
90s: Civil War
00s: Infinity War
10s?????: Endgame???? or?????????
??: Whatever happened between Endgame and WandaVision, given that the ads are stepping forward through Wanda’s IRL life events!!
I don’t want to know how many episodes are planned/announced, but I don’t know what to expect from the format after they run out of decades from which to draw. Maybe there are only one or possibly two “sitcom” episodes left. Maybe after that it just breaks down and they can pick and choose from the worlds/styles we’ve already established. That’d be p neat. A very unique kind of chaos.
god she’s so cute
Okay, somebody explain to me Pietro. I honestly walked away from last week thinking he was just some townsperson chump, but then I was reminded that this is the Quicksilver actor from all those X-Mans movies I never watched, soooo people are saying Multiverse Confirmed? But, if this is X-Mans’ Pietro, then why did he die the same as MCU Pietro? Or is he literally MCU!Pietro’s corpse, given that he looked all dead same as when she saw Vision’s corpse? If MCU!Pietro, then why different face???
????????????????
Also I found him highly suspicious, what with all the questions he was asking. But the only sort of person who would truly want to know the answers to those questions would be someone who already had them ... so I think he was just asking on behalf of the audience, and the delivery was all wonked out.
Rule of Threes - The Reference:
Ok, real talk, whenever computers/networks/data/encryption/servers/mainframes et al come up in mainstream media, I just look away. I don’t need the kind of psychic damage that comes with such egregious mishandling of the topic.
That being said, does Hayward having eyes through the barrier mean that he could possibly be involved in getting it set up? Because look. If Hayward-after-Hayward’s-Villianous-Ends is one antagonizing force, then is there really room for the Third Party (Confirmed) antagonizing force that’s lurking in the negative space silhouette of the Inciting Incident? With Wanda as the Red Herring antagonizing force, that’s just. There’s just too many villains, alright? We gotta start merging these plotlines.
(then again, when I just said “eyes” I realize probably understanding the true nature of his new secret “CATARACT” project will clear a lot of things up. I’ll wait for enlightenment)
Agnes’ license plate in this episode is 0A1-B2C, which I think is a reference to the way reality is getting pared down to bare bones at the edge of town. Note that this is not the same license plate number as seen last ep.
ALSO, I drove home behind a NJ plate just an hour ago, and was staring at it for a long time, trying to fit it into the puzzle before A) realizing that this was Real Life and not part of the show and B) WTF is a NJ plate doing in front of me in California. In any case, I can confirm that NJ plates do not appear to have this number-letter repeating format.
So let’s talk Agnes.
Demonstrated knowledge of the situation in ways others haven’t (”There’s the star of the show” “kids, you can’t control ‘em”)
Shows up when needed most (explained as being Wanda’s doing, but is it)
When Wanda was having her babies, though, who was trustworthy enough to be summoned? Was it Agnes?
Wanted to babysit REAL BAD
Was in the opening credits framed possessively with the twins
Doesn’t appear to have an IRL identity according to Jimmy’s crime board
Keeps talking about her husband but we’ve never seen him. Highly unlikely that he’s real
Was the one to find Sparky “dead” - internet thinks she was lying to Wanda about how or possibly if he was dead (I’m trying not to read the theories, so idk exactly what the angle is there)
In an episode where everyone is wearing their original comic outfits, Agnes is dressed as (and laughs like!) a witch
She name-drops Wanda as the one controlling everyone; Norm (or the guy playing Norm) only said “she” and “her” -- meaning Agnes?
Naughty
So we’re 99% sure Agnes is Agatha Harkness, right? I never read no comics, so I’m taking the internet’s word for it, but from what I can tell, I think we must be right. If that’s the case, then I’m thinking it’s not impossible for her to be pulling some strings around here (giving Wanda a justification for her “that wasn’t me” doorbell ring, for example, and pulling a double red herring on the fact that she shows up whenever the narrative Wanda her nefarious scheme calls for it).
To devil’s advocate myself, though, we also have Monica’s word that it was Wanda in her mind, lessening the impact of Agnes falsely confirming what Norm only implied. Also she’d have to be acting for Vision’s sake (and ours) and, if so, then what did Vision’s brain-touch really do, and how did she know he’d find her there, and what did she intend as the result of that interaction etc etc.
If Wanda’s (or Wanda + Third Party Confirmed (Agnes??)’s) powers aren’t enough to sustain the simulation of life on the edges of town, how much worse is it going to be now that there is even more area to try to control???
I don’t know if this is strictly an intended read, but the idea of Halloween as a fun, scares-for-entertainment’s sake type holiday, the rounding off the edges of concepts like “skeletons and ghosts are what people are after they die, let’s decorate the town with them and have a good time” kind of is a haunting parallel to the nature of Wanda (et al) covering up the horrible truth of the situation with this happy-go-lucky sitcom glamour.
How much does one hate seeing Vision giving his life for the greater good (the greater good) for the second time? In other news, I think I’m seeing some specifically Mind Stone type energy-colors coming off of him, and very little Wanda type energy-colors. Third Party Confirmed.
Also, I was thinking from last week that perhaps Hayward’s Villainous Ends included capturing the reanimated Vision to be one of those Sentient Weapons his organization is all about, but I Do Not Think his reaction to seeing that sought-after prize disintegrate in front of his eyes really matches up with that theory. Again, will be patiently waiting for Jimmy to check his email to see what CATARACT is all about!
Rule of Threes - The Payoff:
Also, anyone ID the movie playing in the background?
Ok, final thought. I watched this about four times today, and on the big-ass TV at my parents’ house finally paused and got up close to see what that white shape is in the reflection. Thought it might be a skull, but, it’s worse.
These caps do not contain enough data to verify my claim, but I PROMISE YOU it’s a TV
A square old thing with a round screen and antenna on top.
I SWEAR to you, when I looked into the TV, into Wanda’s eyes, only to see the reflection of a TV, of her looking at me looking at her I had a visceral fear reaction. Like. LEGIT nauseous skin crawl.
(All the other episodes have ended with our POV as the fourth wall, from the general (or exact!!!) position their household TV is known to be.)
This is my favorite show Of All Time.
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Multiplicity and what identification and representation means to Us
Madeline: I don’t remember there being many cool, attractive, and overall desirable but not fetishized (bye yellow fever) representations of Asian people in mainstream media while I was growing up in the early 2000s. The Asian media I did consume was introduced to me by my dad, so you can imagine the kind of outdated and endearingly weird characters I was exposed to as a kid. Think blind Japanese swordsman Zatoichi or humanoid child robot Astro Boy, both of which originated in Japan around the 60s. As for celebrities, I occasionally heard people talking about Lucy Liu or Jackie Chan, but only as defined by their stereotypical Asian-ness. My point is that this kind of cultural consumption fell into one of two categories: that of obscurity, which suggests that cultural objects are created by Asians for Asians (bringing to mind labels like “Weeb” for Western people who love anime), or that of hypervisibility grounded in stereotypical exoticism. You’d be hard pressed to find a film that passes the Asian Bechdel test.I didn’t discover K-pop until coming to college when I became curious about who my white friends were fawning over all the time. Since then, it’s been really neat to see how K-pop has become popularized as one of the many facets of America’s mainstream music and celebrity culture, especially when artists write and perform songs in Korean despite the majority of their audience lacking Korean language fluency. This suggests that something about the music is able to transcend language barriers and connect people despite their differences. Today it’s not uncommon to see Korean artists topping Billboard’s hot 100 hits, being interviewed on SNL, winning American music awards, gracing the cover of Teen Vogue, or being selected as the next brand ambassador for Western makeup brands like M.A.C. If you were to ask your average high school or college student if they know Blackpink, BTS, or EXO, they would probably be familiar with one of the groups whether or not they identify as Asian.What does this mean, then, for young Asian-Americans to grow up during a time when Asian celebrities are thought to be just as desirable as people like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, or Michael B. Jordan? What does it mean to see an Asian person named “Sexiest International Man Alive”, beating out long-time favorite European celebs? What does it mean for popularity to exist outside of the realm of the racialized minority and for it to build connections across minority cultures? Of course, fame can be toxic and horrible-- it is, at times superficial, materialistic, gendered, fetishized, and absolutely hyper-sexualized-- but I for one think it’s pretty damn cool to see people who look like me featured in mainstream American culture.I’ve found that throughout the semester, my understanding of Asian presence in America (American citizen or otherwise) has been deeply shaped by our discussions of identity politics and marginalization, another class I’m taking on intergenerational trauma, and my own identity as a Laotian-American woman. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the similarities between American proxy wars in Korea (The Forgotten War) and Laos (The Secret War), both of which involved US bombing of citizens in the name of halting communism. Taking this class has challenged me to reconceptualize how we make sense of mass atrocity in relation to a pan-Asian identity, especially when contending with how trauma and violence can act as a mechanism for cultural production, and I look forward to exploring this more in my thesis.
Cyndi: K-pop is always just the beginning. Enough in and of itself, any interest in the genre at all reinvigorates the consumer to become more engaged with the world in which it exists. Two years ago, I got into a big, but in hindsight pretty silly, argument with my mom when I started going to a Korean hair salon (because of my K-pop delulus / Jennie prints) instead of seeing Maggie, our Vietnamese hairdresser who I can usually only see twice a year on our bi-annual visits to California to visit extended family. My mom told me the Koreans don’t need our money, they are already richer than we will ever be. Who are ‘the Koreans’? Who is ‘we’?? Is every person of Korean descent doing better than every person of Vietnamese descent in America? And #why is my mom being A Hater? Surely, sharing our identity as ‘perpetual guests’ in America should create some sort of solidarity, or at least, allow for transitory economic collaboration??? I give my money to white people all the time: to McDonald’s (Cookie Totes), to Target, to Swarthmore College.
K-pop cannot be the end. As much as I enjoy the music, the show, and the celebrities, I also know in my heart that the current international interest in K-pop will not last. As an almost perfect and perplexing exemplification of modern global capitalism, the industry will over-expand and thus wear itself out. I always see the subtle disappointment on my language teachers’ faces when they ask me how I came to take interest in Korean, and I have to answer ‘K-pop’, because that is the truth; that is not where I am at now, but it will always be how I began. It has become clear to me that this disappointment is not just a generational difference. Maybe these old people are jealous of pop stars like how I also have to question whether I am secure in myself when I see a 14 year old accomplishing things I as a 21 year old could never accomplish in my long life. I am coming to understand that part of their reaction comes from the fact that there is a fine line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation, that pop culture is ephemeral, but they have lived their lives as entirely theirs. Casual or even consuming interest for the parts of culture that are bright, and clean, and easy cannot ever stand in for true racial empathy, though it is where many of us start. Identity in K-pop is merely another marketing technique, but to the community of fans and lovers, it is something that is real, lived, and embodied. I find that looking at K-pop always brings forth my most salient identities in terms of gender, race, and sexuality. As much as female group members express affection and jokingly portray romantic interest toward one another, would it ever be accepted if these jokes were no longer jokes, but lived realities? Even if the K-pop industry itself did not seek to produce fan communities of this magnitude, these communities that have been founded in response to it are here to stay. Lowe argues that “to the extent that Asian American culture dynamically expands to include both internal critical dialogues about difference and the interrogation of dominant interpellations” it can “be a site in which horizontal affiliations with other groups can be imagined and realized” (71). A recent striking example is Thai fans’ demand to hear from Lisa on the protests -- a primarily youth-led movement against the government monarchy--going on in Thailand. Although she is, of course, censored and silenced on this topic, the expectation is still there; fans are holding their idols to a standard of political responsibility.
Jimmy: I haven’t really paid much attention to K-pop until working on this project. Sure, my cousins would do anything to go see BTS perform in person, but I didn’t care so much. Or maybe, I was just not saturated with the cultural zeitgeist. Whereas they live in the center of a cosmopolitan city which imports and exports, my hometown hums white noise. Increasingly, though, K-pop has entered into my life and the wider American cultural space. Now, K-pop tops the charts and is featured on late-night talk shows. Whether or not you are a devout follower, you have probably encountered K-pop in some form. It was not until I went to Swarthmore that I have “become” Asian American. Back home, my friends are primarily either white or Vietnamese-American. And even though I did recognize that I had an “Asian” racial identity mapped onto me, I did not consider it to be based on any politics. After engaging with and working within Organizing to Redefine “Asian” Activism (ORAA) on campus, as well as taking this course, I have a better grasp of what it means to rally around an Asian American identity. It is a way to organize and resist. Reflecting on my political evolution, I feel comforted and alienated by the cultural weight of K-pop in America. It is amazing to see the gravity of cultural production shift away from the West. And to have global celebrities from Asia is great. Yet, K-pop is limited as a platform for Asian Americans to create identity. What are the consequences when mainstream ideas about contemporary “Asian” culture are still perpetually foreign from America? Is Asian American community just built around transnational cultural objects like K-pop and bubble tea? Does the economic and cultural capital of K-pop held by its idols obscure or erase the heterogeneity and multiplicity of Asian Americans?
Jason: The first time I heard K-Pop was when Gangnam Style came on during a middle school social event when everyone is standing in their social circles doing their best not to be awkward when teacher chaperones are constantly staring at the back of your head seeing if any wrongdoing would occur. At that time, I could never imagine the K-Pop revolution that would occur within the American music industry. Anytime I turn on the radio it is only a matter of time until a BTS song will start being blasted from the speakers. It is crazy to think that K-Pop has become so widespread within American popular culture that mainstream radio stations in Massachusetts are so willing to play K-Pop, even the billboards of 104.1 “Boston’s Best Variety” are plastered with BTS, because they know that is what their audience wants. Eight years ago, during that middle school social Gangnam Style was more about being able to do the dance that accompanied the song rather than the song itself. This has completely changed as more and more people are finding themselves becoming devout supporters of K-Pop. This class and project have continuously been pushing me out of my comfort zone by engaging in literature that I would never have read and discussions that I would never have imagined participating in. I have even listened to more K-Pop over the past couple of weeks than I had ever before in my life. I was impressed by myself when a song by BLACKPINK came on and the radio host said here’s some new music that I knew that the song was from their first album that came out around a month ago. I am grateful that I have been pushed out of my comfort zone and “forced (by having to actually do the homework)” to engage in the material of the class. Who knows how long this K-Pop fascination will last in American popular culture, but I am glad that I could be a part of it rather than letting it pass me by and staying within my comfortable music sphere of country, pop, and British rap.
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A Buffy rewatch 5x18 Intervention
aka is weird love better than no love???
Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.
And in today’s episode, Spike does something super creepy and surprisingly decent at the same time, which pretty much sums up his whole character. Meanwhile Buffy should go to therapy, and Sarah Michelle Gellar seems to be having the time of her life as BuffyBot.
You know, it’s my fault. I got into a rant about how Tara is the only one who always treated Buffy without judgement and with understanding, and the next episode on my rewatch naturally ended up being Intervention. The one that has the joke of Tara trying to be considerate of Buffy’s situation post-Joyce’s death, and then going “are you kidding, she’s nuts” upon the whole revelation that Buffy was supposedly sleeping with Spike.
(Which kind of has the same energy as Uncle Iroh’s “No, she’s crazy and she needs to go down” from A:TLA if you ask me tbh.)
But you know what, I’m still gonna be doubling down on my Buffy/Tara feelings, because Tara’s not wrong in assuming that it was a weird turn for Buffy to take at this point in her character arc. And a season from now, when Buffy will actually be sleeping with Spike, and judgement will be the last thing she’ll need, Tara will be right there to offer her understanding.
Anyway, that’s it for that segue. Let’s talk Buffy.
It’s all fun and games, with me talking about my own emotional numbness, until Buffy starts repeating those words back at me. There really is a reason why I feel so close to Buffy as a character to this very day - and in many ways, now more so than ever.
I talked about this a lot with Riley’s departure, about how that whole conflict and Buffy’s emotional unavailability wasn’t about Riley (just as Riley’s insecurities weren’t really about Buffy), but I love that we’re exploring this out loud now.
It’s just good storytelling and character building. We understand that Buffy has been closed off for a while now. Going back to the Riley angle, I will say that while it wasn’t Riley’s responsibility to make their relationship work, he certainly didn’t understand Buffy’s struggles at the time. He was too caught up in his issues to realize and internalize that it wasn’t about him.
So yeah, that relationship wasn’t going to work out, but it still weighs on Buffy that she felt unable to open up and take that step to try. It’s not about Riley, or even romantic relationships in general. Buffy fears that she’s unable to express her feelings to all of her loved ones.
She’s even scared that her mother didn’t know how much she loved her. (That’s absolutely not a soul-crushing thought that makes me over-identify with Buffy’s current emotional state on a whole new level. It’s fine. I’m fine.)
Buffy then attributes this process of her “turning into stone” to her being the Slayer. Which... I’d argue isn’t truly the case for her, both in the story and on a metaphorical level. At least not directly. What made Buffy become more guarded was trauma, plain and simple. Being a Slayer is a part of many of her traumas, but in itself, it’s neutral.
At least that’s my interpretation. For the most part. We’ll find out of course in season 7 that the Slayer power actually comes from demons, which re-affirms Dracula’s point earlier in this season about there being “darkness” to Buffy’s power. Then again, as season 7 generally revolves around the theme of power, one might ask if power can even ever be neutral?
We’ll circle back to that in season 7.
The point being is that while there are definitely darker elements attached to being the Slayer, in this case, Buffy misses a nuance by singling out Slayerhood as the root cause of her emotional detachment. Sure, being a Slayer who kills things doesn’t help ones mental health - but that’s also because it’s a traumatizing experience.
You need therapy, Buffy.
Which I guess is kind of what this Slayer quest thing works as. Kind of. When the First Slayer starts talking about how Buffy’s full of love, and how she just had some painful experiences that now stops her from opening up, and how she’ll needs to embrace all of that, pain and all... That was nice. It was a nice validation for Buffy about her feelings.
But then it was all “love will lead you to your gift” and “death is your gift” and “our time’s up, your questions were answered, now scram”, so that was some overall shitty therapy session if we’re being honest here.
And then there’s Spike.
I have no idea what to do with Spike.
The whole Buffybot thing is super gross, and just thinking about how Warren programmed and probably tested all of that... Yikes, yikes, yikes.
Is it funny and well-written? Yes, it is, I’m not even gonna lie. But it’s also just super gross.
By far the most interesting scene that happens because of this whole scenario is that last one between Buffy and Spike. I like how it’s set up in the script too. I mean, well, “like” may not be the right word, as part of that is Xander making this whole argument about “poor Spike, he’s got beat up and his toy is gone, boo-hoo”... But I like that that’s the red herring to the audience to make us believe that they actually fixed up Buffybot and sent her back to Spike.
As opposed to what actually happens with Buffy pretending to be Buffybot to try and find out what Spike told Glory. Which is also set up by the same scene between the Scoobies.
Watching that scene, knowing that it’s Buffy is a very different experience. You start noticing the thoughtful looks Buffy’s giving to Spike, and the ways she’s manipulating the conversation to make sure that she gets an honest response out of him. It’s intriguing, to say the least.
In an episode that’s filled with Spike at its worst, this one scene is somehow enough to bring me back to that porch scene between the two. As Buffy puts it, what Spike’s done for her and Dawn in this episode, and his words to who he thought was Buffybot about his devotion to Buffy were real. And Buffy accepts that.
The kiss itself gives me a pause though. It feels too much like Spike is being rewarded for being a decent person for once, not ratting out a 14-year-old girl to a demon god. Especially since at this point, it doesn’t feel like something Buffy would initiate or want on her own.
Then again, it’s also a reveal. It’s how Buffy lets Spike know that he was being played, and that he’s not gonna get his sex robot back. But she won’t forget what he’s done for her and Dawn regardless.
And I think that once again, as with the porch scene, we can see that there’s a connection of honesty and understanding between Spike and Buffy’s characters that goes both ways. So maybe there’s a way to look at that kiss as not just a reward, and not as a confirmation of Buffy’s own feelings for Spike at this point... but as a sign of that connection.
Meanwhile Dawn’s kleptomania is becoming a problem. Giles is cooking dinner for Buffy and Dawn, and no one’s appreciating Tara’s protection spells. As is the case with many episodes of this season, there’s a lot of fun stuff going on with the entire gang and their dynamics, which I greatly enjoy.
Next episode is gonna be a bit of a tough one, especially since I plan to touch upon some super non-controversial fandom topics like Willow’s sexuality. Should I open up that can of worms? Probably not. But will I? Most likely.
Almost certainly.
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Emotion
I read a script the other day and it was flat. It hit all those famous plot points you hear about, but it was dull. It had nothing of interest, and I wondered why. The more I thought about it the more I realized that it was void of any authentic feeling, and it only had plot. I unconsciously rejected it based on that - being that I am an emotional animal that has experienced a broad range of emotions - and not just sunshine and farts.
This lead me to a thought: no wonder why I keep returning to those films I love.
One of which is Ordinary People. Since I first watched it some years ago, looking back, I'm unsure of how I came about that... maybe it was Alvin Sargent (the screenwriter), who I admire a lot. Anyhow, I keep coming back to it. I watch it maybe 10-20 times a year along with all this other stuff you wouldn't like. I've read the script, though, who knows what draft it was or what level of production it was in, but it still held the core of the story and its moral.
It really is a fantastic film - and made in 1980 to boot - which puts it in this strange place where I'm not sure how it was made. At that time, the action-adventure blockbuster came storming in with Jaws and Star Wars, and a lot of films flew under the radar due to that. But this wasn't ignored and, ironically, probably couldn't be made today. Who knows, maybe it's because Robert Redford's sexy ass could do whatever he wanted then...
The performances, though in certain areas are lacking (mostly from z-list bit actors), don't keep the story from being solid. There isn't one hole in it. Its - and sorry for spoiling 40 years later - structure isn’t melodramatic. The plot isn't pulling the characters along like movies you're used to, the characters are pulling the plot - extremely important difference. You never know where you're going except for the moment, and yet as we go further down the rabbit hole we become more gripped with this family and don't even realize it. Film wise, this is difficult to make on any level. This is also besides the point I wanted to talk about, which is much greater than just structure and planning, or production values and cinematography... I really need to stop drifting.
(the infamous exploding car)
I want to talk about relatability (is that a word?) of emotion. Because I think that's why I keep coming back to it. First off, this type of film is something you're more inclined to see from outside of the US post '70s. It's a piece of Americana but, almost, almost a slice of life film. Something the French, Italian and Russians specialize in: the inner lives of people and how it effects life around them, ultimately resulting in natural conditions, or an ending that has no place else to go, because that's life. Its only alternative is to have a glimpse of hope. Ordinary People ends with that alternative, because this is fucking America.
(I've written about slice-of-life before: https://indie-struggle.tumblr.com/post/172373896232/so-whats-the-slice-of-life-genre-anyway - but since tumblr blocks this blog from being found outside of tumblr, you probably never saw it.)
This family is nothing like what my family was: they're well off, they're complete, they have things I couldn't fathom or even dream of in terms of benefits in life. This isn't a poor family with gritty living conditions making due and living pay-check to pay-check, which I would immediately identify. So, try to understand the bias here. This family is the polar opposite of all that. So, why in the hell can I relate with it so much? The answer, in the end, is the same damn reason I relate with Sean Nelson's character in Fresh.
Emotion.
The interactions that the family go through are relatable and realistic enough that they transcend any sort of status symbol, race or class. They're universal to those who've had the same emotions, even if it's just coping. You have a father who is simple and confused, but he’s caring and present. You have a son with PTSD, unwelcome in his own skin, his old haunts, at school, at home, and with authority. And then, you have the mother: a torn, stand-offish, determined battle axe, who at every turn is trying to unhear or trying to change the subject to keep herself in balance - the egoshell™. She, strangely enough, is the most unstable of the three. Not only to the characters, but to the audience. I have to be honest, I didn't get this until about my 5th viewing. I was so busy hating her, I didn't realize that she in fact is the one torn inside the most. She doesn't know what to do, and of course loses it all by trying to keep it all. Ultimately, the story is about a father though, trying to hold this family together, as shown through the son.
(moments before the great Uzi on the bus scene)
Now, the biggest complaint I've ever heard about this story is about the psychologist. I understand that. The reason is due to a perception of over compensation. At that time, and even today, it's seen as being detestable to see a shrink, or something to be looked down upon by some people - mostly cowards. So, the film paints it in a bright light, not a savior but a brighter light than most can accept. I, myself, who have been to many psychologists (you can tell), can say that the light isn't that bright. It's more of a case of: "Look, psychology is a story in itself, and we don't have 6 years to spend on the son getting help for this story. So, let's round out the edges." And that in turn creates quicker results and this idea of painting the shrink as a saint. But, his character is true to psychology - take my word for it - that's how they are. Granted, they're not all nice, but when you get a good one, they really hit the mark on what that’s like. And the film isn't about him anyhow, he's just the handle along the steps the son is climbing - something I felt Good Will Hunting borrowed heavily from.
So we have a traumatized, coping family. The reason they're traumatized really isn't important. Though it's shown with brevity, you soon start to realize that this family is being pulled apart by strings that were on a bad foundation beforehand (which, in my opinion, is the reason the story merely shows glimpses of the tragedy throughout - which was a good decision). It has zero sentimentality. There's no guy playing a harmonica in the corner while an old man runs off about the troubles of life. There's no music cue as two buddies realize their futility while sitting on a dock, boozing.
Everything is shown, it's right there, naked, bald, shivering, and with no place to go.
Every character's behavior is perfect for the story. They're realistic, they're believable. All their choices and actions are accurate to how people react to trauma. No two people act the same in reality, and how they do in the film is something you should focus on. Their behavior and actions are what reveals their emotions. The believability of the emotions they're having and the actions they take are what transfers the emotions to me. If you think in terms of action-reaction, it's accurate. And that’s a good thing to note. No doubt an external conflict has created a personal conflict story here, but it didn't need the external conflict to work. It didn’t need to be shown. Why? Because this cloud every character is in is the aftermath of it. It’s a rippling wave through each of them, and that’s what’s interesting, not the tragic event itself.
I'm rambling now... fuck. But what I want you to take away from this, besides that it will make you cry unless you have no goddamn soul, is that you don't need a hook. You don't need explosions. You don't need a good planet vs. bad aliens all the time, or a talking fucking animal... you don't need any of that, it isn't what matters. All you need is emotion out of something interesting and you've got something.
No matter the class, the race, or any social or political beliefs you hold close to your chest, emotion matters the most. And it has to be from some place genuine. It's what editors cut for. Emotions triumph, and this film is a good example of the proper writing and execution of them. Behavior and action are always a side effect of an emotion, whether they're holding on too tight, don't know what it even is, or know what it is and are trying hard not to lose it. Realistic emotions are paramount. They are what's relatable. In stories, it's what you have to tap into, it's what holds you, even more so than spectacle.
(killers photograph their victims prior to dragging them into the murder basement)
Now, if you've never lived and done things to experience a broad range of emotions, how are you going to hold someone's interest who has? You're not, and your story is going to be flat. It doesn't matter if you hit every plot device out there. Unless you're Chris Nolan and can get away with just plot and sentimentality, your script will drown. As Tom DiCillo once said: "If it ain't got heart, it ain't worth shit."
I don't know if he coined that, I just remember him saying it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I heard my grandfather say that once thirty years ago, but you get the point. I hope.
If I had the chance to talk to that writer, I’d tell him to go live. Go get rejected by a woman, try to survive on nothing, get beat up, go get dirty and come back. Do something to get life experience. And if you can’t for some reason, at least read about those who have and try to fully understand it. And for the love of John-Boy, be interesting and make me feel something beside a bit of thrill or fright. It's tired.
There are many more powerful colors of emotion out there besides pink and gamboge... so find ‘em.
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Episode: Nihilism
Then: Michael gloats about how no one spent any time questioning why he previously vamoosed for no reason. It's such a clever gotcha … for the writers to lampshade their own incompetence of making the characters somehow ignore a giant plot hole anyone who isn't permanently concussed questioned endlessly. One I still question, because Michael's “plan” to leave and then arbitrarily come back to break Dean's will … somehow … makes no sense and screws around with angel lore yet again.
Anyway.
Now: I did actually mostly enjoy this episode, aside from a few not-entirely-minor quibbles.
First, I have to say: Wow, the actress who plays Pamela looks almost exactly the same. Also, this is the kind of cameo I actually really love when the show does! It doesn't make death meaningless or have the characters accept a replacement goldfish substitute from an alternate universe as the same person (as creepy as that is). Yet it still allows us to revisit old favorite characters.
I liked the smug – almost gleefully so – way that Jensen played Michael. It actually largely mitigated how easy it was for the rest of the team to capture him for me, which I kind of expected to be annoyed by. He's exactly the kind of villain to monologue instead of just getting on with killing everybody. It also mostly fits that he doesn't take them terribly seriously and so isn't prepared for their alternate holy oil molotov plan. As well as how he's more vaguely interested in examining the cuffs than actually concerned when they do bind him – and not only in light of how he has his own backup plan. There's still the slight hitch that having been in Dean's head, he should realize just how many other villains have gone belly up from not taking the Winchesters seriously? But then, he is exactly the kind of villain that would think he's so far above all of them that he's obviously different – even when them includes an alternate version of himself.
That said, I was not impressed that inexplicably Castiel can no longer see reapers. I swear, he gains and loses more powers on an episode by episode basis ... ffs. Nor did I appreciate that said reaper suddenly was willing to act as a get-out-of-monster-hell free card. Billie and the reapers wouldn't even step in to save their own from being killed in Funeralia (13.19) but now, LOL NON-INTERFERENCE? NEVERMIND! I mean, it just feels so lazy. I give Yockey more credit than a lot of the current lot, and in the end it's partially a season-size pacing problem, but? Imagine if instead they'd stretched this out to another episode and given Sam and the others the time to find a legitimate, clever way out of being trapped, with Michael taunting them all the while. (I could happily watch a couple episodes' worth of just Michael mocking them all, tbh.) Instead, they're cheat-teleported back to the bunker. Heck, Yockey could have just gone with Michael being too smug to have bothered to have sufficient backup monsters! That would work perfectly well, too. I get maybe it was partially meant to bring reapers back to the audience's attention to prime us for the reveal at the end with Billie? And maybe we’re meant to forgive it because the threat from the monsters is still on in the background? But it just doesn't work for me.
Another thing that I actually can forgive because I think it fits with Michael's ego is not having enough imagination to give Dean more than one night at his fantasy bar that repeats over and over again. Even if Cas and Sam hadn't broken in during this episode, Dean had already noticed having deja vu. So on the one hand, it fits how smugly overconfident Michael is, on the other, it really is a stupid plan. I did actually like that Dean's fantasy did still involve killing monsters – since I've always felt like his desire to be out of hunting was more tied to all of the issues with destiny and the apocalypse and all of that manipulation from cosmic forces and weight of the world stuff than the old-school routine of just saving individual people from individual monsters.
Ugh, Maggie. Her being in charge for reasons here really is one of the dumbest things they've sprung on us yet. The only good thing about the whole side meander with the AU!hunters is that I had been cringing at how, once again, I expected the mystically warded bunker to suddenly be just that easy for monsters to waltz into? Yet instead, they actually weren't able to break in without having a turned hunter on the inside. I really did appreciate that!
I'd seen several complaints about saying Dean “thrives” on trauma was annoying and insulting. I kind of get that, especially in light of Ross-Leming's obtuse comment about Dean having antibodies against evil so they never have to deal with him being traumatized? However, while I think perhaps there might have been better ways to phrase it, I think the meaning – that given something he actually knows to fight against, Dean is irrepressible – is clear enough from the context. I did appreciate Sam figured out that's why Dean wouldn't be fighting, because he’d been put in a comfortable fake memory, as well as how he was able to identify which memory was the false one so quickly. I thought it was a nice touch that the music went wonky in the background as Dean remembered what they were saying about Pamela was true. As well as that it was Sam saying their code word that was the final clue slotting into place rather than Castiel's overblown speech. While I can see where it might come off as a rip-off of the Ezekiel thing, I think the situations are sufficiently similar that it only makes sense for them to sort out in a similar way.
Michael's imitation of Castiel was just as funny in context. From what he said to Jack to what he said in Dean's head to Sam and Castiel, I think Michael was telling the truth, or more accurately, a version of the truth. We all have certain nasty thoughts that linger in the back of our heads – resentments, annoyances, uncharitable thoughts – the ugliest version of ourselves. I think Michael was picking and choosing out of that part of Dean to find the things it would hurt the most to say; not thoughts Dean never had, but thoughts that clearly didn't encompass what Dean felt overall. Carefully chosen partial truths without context, specially tailored to hurt those they were aimed at as much as possible that would therefore also make Dean feel guilty, too. If Michael had felt like this much of a character from the beginning... Also, regular world Michael acted like allowing Dean to survive the experience of being possessed intact was some special boon, so this one making a point to say he's going to rip Dean apart on the way out being an additional consideration fits well enough.
While I like a good fight scene as much as anybody, if they're on equal footing because they're all just projections in Dean's head? I actually think it should have been easier for them to take down Michael. Sam, Dean, even Cas? They all have plenty of experience getting their hands dirty in physical fights, whereas we've seen this Michael spend a lot more time actively avoiding them. That, and I did actually find myself kind of mildly annoyed it was Sam and not Dean that was the one to physically shove Michael into the freezer. Yes, the fight was a joint effort, and yes, Dean is the one actually keeping him contained in his mind when it comes down to it. However, with all that we got in the previous episode of Dean really wanting to personally strike back at Michael and how Sam had already played such a major part by figuring out how to get into Dean's head and drag him back to reality? I felt like perhaps it would have been a more powerful moment if Dean had actually done the physical shoving as well. I don’t think it was a big deal or anything, but ... meh.
Likewise pretty ambivalent about all of Michael's monsters just wandering off rather than continuing their attack at the end. I get that they were all supposed to be under some kind of control, but it's just so very convenient. When it's put on top of the teleport home earlier in the episode (and how they're such crappy monsters they couldn't even kill Maggie, dammit) … Again, it didn’t ruin the episode for me, but after Michael was previously shown negotiating with certain monsters or offering them boons, but actually here it’s that he’s controlling them? Michael’s plans and motivations have generally being fairly nebulous and vague all along, so this is just so par for the course I can’t even get that annoyed about it.
Similarly, while I appreciate them trying to tie the invasion of AU!Michael in as the consequences Billie warned Dean would come from universe-hopping? It also seems like a fairly flimsy hand wave. It's better than no attempt at all, leaving it as a hanging thread that was just dropped, but “this whole multi-versal quantum construct we live in, it's like a house of cards and the last thing I need is some big dumb Winchester knocking it all down” seems like it should refer to the potentiality of something a little more colossal than yet another archangel with daddy issues. Maybe that's just me.
As to the end where all the books about Dean's death have changed to have the same ending bar one? Well, by the very concept, all the books can be changed. So, when that one alternative to Michael destroying everything is clearly also awful, it seems the more prudent route to go would be to figure out how to make all the books change again as Plan A rather than going directly for Plan Horrorshow. Not only have the Winchesters made a long-term habit of changing fate, but they've already done it in this specific way once – granted for the worse, but still, it's clearly possible.
I feel like there was something else I meant to address about this one, but I didn’t make a note of it and I actually watched this a couple of days ago and I’m coming up completely blank.
In the end, i feel like what really made me like this episode despite some obvious flaws was Jensen’s portrayal of Michael and the other characters’ reactions to him. Which, honestly, just makes the fact that the season took so long to actually get here and give us something meaty from this storyline feel even less like any kind of reasonable choice.
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Standom Perspective: The GA’s viewing experience.
So, it’s no secret that stan twitter has a hard time discerning where their perspective ends in relation to a broad wash of the general audience. It is one thing to point out that the majority of the audience aren’t single character stans, the majority of the audience are not meta authors/readers, and the majority of the audience aren’t “woke,” but it’s another thing to really carve out what that means before people start yelling about “reasons the show will fail/is failing,” which generally miss the mark already like the recent claims of failing ratings. [1] [2] - and that’s just the recent ones. We’re not gonna touch on how long people have erroneously been citing ratings-death every year, though ironically source 1 touches on the same issue I’ve been talking about in my #ratings tag.
But the real point is - how does the GA react when not actually sculpted by occupants of stan twitter?
I’ve almost accidentally run an observational experiment without realizing it, with the recent streams of SPN by Sonalii Castillo, the actress from The Outpost that I’ve gotten to watch SPN. Make no mistake: Sonalii and I are friends, but I have gone out of my way to not sculpt her vision as much as humanly possible. In fact, it’s to the point I answer “it’s complicated,” or a few episode citations to rewatch when she asks me things that have a very Destiel-esque answer to them, like the “living life in reverse” or Amara finding Dean via Cas when Amara couldn’t find him herself. Answering these from my perspective would automatically paint a Destiel lens, so instead I’ll just direct source a related quote from an episode and/or tell her to watch it and draw her own interpretation.
She’s also point-blank asked me about the nature of Dean and Cas, what point it ends at audience and what point it begins in the show while she’s catching up and hearing about it passingly through people’s fleeting squii tweets. Even that, I’ve tried to leave simply at “it’s complicated, just enjoy it as you see it.” as best I can.
That said, I’ve been doing backflips to avoid heavily impacting her experience, but still catch questions, so I’d like to address some of this beneath a cut to really scale what a GA experience is like for someone coming in with no real extended knowledge of the series or production, and someone who watches on what we WOULD call a “casual viewership” level - and why ratings screeching, yelling about continuity failures causing nonexistent ratings-death, or whatever else simply does NOT match what happens in the GA.
Okay, first of. Sonalii Castillo is a bean. I adore her. And not in that hero-worship actress way, but on that “we hold long discussions every day and I know who she is as a person and what she aspires to be” way. So let it be said if any of my wording about her paints a knee-jerk bad reaction in someone’s head, to ask for clarification before going off on the woke-brigade or stan-mob effect on or about her, as I may be clarifying badly and I do not necessarily speak for her, as much as attempt to illustrate a general perspective about her that I may need to refine.
First: about the person, about who she is, what her viewpoint is, and her general standing in the GA. So first,
About the viewer.
She’s an (until-now indie) actress, writer, producer, but has never had an enduring role and never really watches shows THIS LONG. Most of her personal writing and producing is in the area of 20 minute shorts where everything is a quick pile drive of as much as you can accomplish in as little time possible. She knew next to nothing about Supernatural when I dragged her in, as ten years ago she applied for a certain female role we would all know and recognize, but got declined because she -- frankly -- didn’t meet the racial profiling needed. There was an ax to grind and I had to lighten that from her and she eventually caved as on a friendly level she heard me constantly talking about Supernatural with other people, and curiosity got the better of her.
Speaking OF racial profiling, she struggles in the industry. She’s technically afro-latina, but does not identify with the afro-side, to the dismay of some african-american fans of hers. She was raised in the dominican republic -- which is also why I cite cultural impact since they’re a little less progressive over there about LGBT than even in the US (no discrimination protections, far lower/latent same-sex marriage support rate, but same-sex marriage was legalized when the DR was bound under the American Convention on Human Rights), so I actually greatly treasure what is, for her, culturally an accepting mind she’s still willing to grow with. She released an interview recently where she cited that once she got to America, the black teens didn’t know what to do with her because she was too latina, but the latina people thought she was too black, but she was raised in latinx culture, so TLDR, she identifies latinx even if not all latinx people accepted her as such in the US, especially after a brief time in France adding other stuff to her journey. She actually commented that, from her perspective, the racial divide actually seems worse in America; that it could be wrong, but nobody in France or the DR looked at her skin color, and now she’s running into stonewalls of it everywhere. Too latina to be black or white but too black to be latina and too anything to be anything that fits anyone else’s mold they want for her.
Now - Sonalii Castillo is super-duper straight. She is accepting of queer people, she knows about me and Shea and engages us regularly about our relationship, that it “isn’t for her,” but she will never EVER judge anyone for who they love or are attracted to. But she is still enough -- perhaps culturally due to where she was raised, then moved to over time -- in the straight-bin she feels like being straight is “under-rated” in our modern society. She is on the defensive-straighty spectrum, but again, culturally, I understand why and I more choose to let watching me and Shea deal with life become a passive form of education rather than trying to aggressively indoctrinate her because frankly, that will go a hell of a lot further and she has a good soul and I’ve seen her start to gain awareness of things.
That being said, she is ALL UP on wanting to monkey climb all three of our boys and a lot of her fangirling centers around their visual imagery as much as anything else, although she’s definitely not an emotional brick and is able to empathize with clearly illustrated trauma and pain. She is not a single character stan. She loves all three, for different reasons, and often talks about their strength as a unit and how they compliment each other when reviewing events; she feels for all of them, and sometimes feels bad for not even realizing she should have been feeling for some of them in certain ways that had slipped her mind.
And, realistically, this is still representative of a large wash of our audience with a racial bend to it (since America IS primarily white, for better or worse -- mostly worse.)
I disclaimer this all to really give you a view of what a GA member may look like. Not all GA will be writer-producers, but oddly, her style of writing-producing actually has ramifications that make her miss very large swathes of seasons-long story arcing until she comes scrapping up like “Wait... so, wait. Okay, did that mean-” which... well, the GA will do too. She is often taken aback remembering certain traumas or dangling plot ends WEREN’T handled or WERE still out there, because she’s not out there to meta these episodes. She’s out there to experience the ride. The shock and horror on her when the Michael flashbacks started kicking up in season 13′s finale are extremely telling, dividing the line between the meta community and the GA.
To her actual viewing response, let me say a few things. These have actually been live streamed to the public. She comes scrapping to the audience watching her looking for answers often. If they’re outright spoilers, nobody answers. If they’re basic questions like why X effect did Z thing, people will explain. But by and large, it’s mostly reactionary effects.
Sonalii Castillo is a brilliant woman. She isn’t dumb. But she watches the show as it comes. She doesn’t sit here psycho-analyzing every motion for purity, she doesn’t break apart every potential plot hole or retcon. In fact, she hasn’t mentioned, noticed, or asked -- be it to me personally or the folks on the livestream -- about a single damn one. In fact, she has more questions about consistent canon elements confusing her than what the stan/meta community has declared as plotholes, sometimes accurately and sometimes not.
And that part is my biggest point to really make.
She didn’t flinch about Cas not seeing the demons; she didn’t even ask. She didn’t dig into any of the S6-7 plot holes or anything in Taxi Driver or ANY of that. Because your average viewer? DOESN’T NOTICE, MUCH LESS GIVE A SHIT.
I know that’s hard for stan twitter to wrap their skulls around, but it’s a simple fact. THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT. That’s why it hasn’t hurt ratings before, that’s why (beyond it very obviously NOT tallying as mid-episode tune-out) it’s not the cause for any decline this year, and it never-ever will be. In the stuff I linked above to adjacent conversations, there’s any number of reasonable explanations, including: the decline is NOT as dramatic as people act like, it’s negligible and can have other explanations including Wayward axing, bad promotion, or a bad finale.
Speaking of the bad S13 finale, her hot take on it? She considered the finale epic still. To the side she told me, yes, the wires were terrible, and you could see that it was awful, but it was forgivable. Maybe that *is* her indie side showing and being more understanding, I’m willing to even argue that point, but odds are, not THAT many people are going to perma-grudge the show over the wires as much go “what the fuck?” and see if they fixed it later. A few might. That’s the great thing about a GA. It’s diverse.
Some arbitrary potential plothole isn’t going to ruin the show for the GA. Hell, bad wires isn’t going to ruin it for most of the GA. Anything you consider a character oversight for your personal favorite is not going to ruin it for the GA. Your character stanning point may even resonate with portions of the GA that do think like you do, but it is not enough to actually cause a widespread pandemic among the GA just because Cas was tied to a chair, or didn’t see demons, or Michael Dean isn’t Dean enough for you, or a camera blurred on Sam’s face in a few scenes.
Most won’t even fucking notice, much less care. Because the storytelling and cinematography and everything else is doing what it’s supposed to -- largely engaging the audience, and the audience is just as likely to have confusion “wait, what?” on actual canon-solid events that they have to doublecheck and negotiate backwards with information from six years ago as they are any brief “wtf?” momentary questionable plot events. And if they can negotiate those events with histories-old canon-solid events they can negotiate it with adjacent, subtextual, or even reasonable headcanoned reasons that they don’t even bring into question -- because why would they? They don’t have stan twitter in their fucking ear.
On a secondary point: Destiel
So here’s the fun thing about Sonalii and Destiel. Sonalii, on her own, while I bibbity bobbity bounce and dodge answering questions like that, has pretty much fulfilled what I’ve said about the GA. Or at least the straight GA. She sees things, she questions it, but she’s not entirely “sold” on it; she’s made comments that if it happened that’d be neat, she still squiis over “Awww, Cas loves Dean,” but she’s not out here 100% sold on DeanCas or shipping it or reading into it. Welcome to your aggressively straight female GA take on DeanCas. They see it, they occasionally coo about it, but they’re not sold on it as a standing product and are willing to consider other explanations or just not take it to heart until it happens, but they wouldn’t go fucking postal if/when it happens and wouldn’t be surprised, either.
This, of course, is different than if we were addressing viewership from queer-lensed viewers with a different origin than her, which accounts for 1/3 of the modern US population in our target demo (and 1-in-2 for our upcoming younger demo tilting into the bracket) [3], not counting highly receptive allies but people who tick onto the Kinsey scale in some degree.
So here we have a GA that doesn’t ask about plotholes, reads it through their respective interpretational lenses, glosses the surface quality as their minds parse it, and fill in the gaps with headcanons they don’t even realize are headcanons and just absorb as truths until something challenges it in active-canon to make them go “what?” - because the GA isn’t out here refining the exact border of canon, subtext, or headcanon. They are naturally negotiating the story as it unfolds, without interference. Now, if the queer-receptive-but-very-straight-lensed woman is going “awwwwww Cas and Dean” but “I’m still not sold,” but also “I mean, I see it though,” when people ask her or is even out here actively asking questions like what is going on with it, what do you think that means for our increasingly queer identifying audience as well?
Well, Jan, it means exactly what I’ve been saying it means. Don’t believe me? Check all the queerfolk that pour into twitter and tumblr after binge watching 12-13 seasons that are like “Wait, this is something people argue about? I thought this was just a thing???” and are utterly confused that it’s even in debate.
This of course says nothing for the aggressively-straight-lensed GA that are not receptive to LGBT or queer content. But the fact that we also see active outcry about “pandering” does tell us that they see it; they register it; they just simply want to dismiss it. It’s worth minding that 33% of the US is still opposed to same-sex marriage. Some are more passive in their homophobia than “FUCK THE QUEERS,” but it’s still a phobic tilt in society. Some of the same people opposed to it still endorse that they swear they love queer people, and you know -- I have a gay friend or whatever -- and may even try to be “progressively okay with” queer content so where exactly that 33% shifts down to is hard to say. It’s worth mentioning that every census in fandom has had a minimum 72% approval rate for Destiel, with something like 11%~ hard-against and the remaining being in neutral “Eh, no specific feelings on it.” 28% is not exactly far from the mark of 33% and to estimate 1-in-9-or-10 people in the US being giant cantankerous wankers about queer people still isn’t exactly way off the mark either, with like 6-or-7 in 10 being increasingly accepting and others floating in the middle, unsure how to feel, what to think, or what to do. Sonalii would be in that remaining central bracket, but tilts towards the supportive spectrum (I suppose #7 in the 6-or-7) and unshockingly, is in the “I see it/it’s cute/I’m just not sold/maybe it’s just a super weird bromance until it happens/it’s just not for me/so I’ll wait and see if it happens”) Given, those aren’t my hardest, most cross-checked numbers, but it’s basic observation skills.
That is a far cry from there being a majority of antis in the GA. But rather, like I’ve said, a heavy dose of support. The wide majority of queer identifying people in the fandometric supported Destiel. [4] Now, as queer is not a borg and we are not mandated to all like the same things, unsurprisingly, not all queer people liked Destiel. And that’s fine. Again, because we’re not a borg. But it was a remarkable minority. And someone is free to not like it, but flagging around an “i’m queer and don’t like it” card also doesn’t make you an auto-winner in a Destiel shut-down-argument when the vast majority of LGBT fans do. You’re entitled to your opinion. It just isn’t the only opinion, it is not more important than the next person’s opinion, and while “appeal to numbers” is itself a logical fallacy, if this were taken to a basic vote, yes, the LGBT community would come out with support for Destiel. And, by most censuses, the straight community would come out riding a VERY narrow line between support, or “I wouldn’t have a problem with it/I kinda see it/it’s just not 100% yet/meh” with only a minority screaming about how awful it is.
Let’s really double back to the census.
According to the census, the loudest screamers actually weren’t our antis. The loudest screamers were:
Male, Straight [5]
Conservative [6]
40+, especially 60+ [7]
Not all were all-of-the-above on the list, some only ticked a few of the boxes, but some also filled all the metaphorical boxes by basic vector overlap.
Also let me lay to rest the whole “it was all Cas fans that showed up to the survey so that’s why it was high Destiel” myth by dropping this. [8]
Let’s all be amazed that straight old conservative [read as: 89% white] guys don’t like the Destiel content. It came down to about 31% of straight-identifying men. Or, roughly, a cap of 10.3% of our demographic by general US demographics and known SPN male/female ratio outside of fandom centers. And possibly as low as 7.75% or LESS within target demo. Also unsurprising to us, straight-identifying women are more receptive to the content in regards to queer male content, because, IDK, just a shot in the dark here -- they don’t feel threatened by it to their own identity or some concept of “moral standard”; let’s not pretend we don’t 100% know conservative white dudes are totes okay with lesbians but gay men, that’s where they draw the line, because logic.
The rest are numbers that, unsurprisingly, tilt in female conservative, with a tiny overlap from bro-onlies that are the antis we know and love-to-hate.
Yes, the census has declared it isn’t 100% scientific. That’s just an outright responsible thing to declare. But it ran IP-checked individuality testing, it circulated across numerous platforms, and it resonates with every other online demo report we have today on modern trends, from hashtags to google search frequency, to even the imdb data an anti tried to break out on me only to admit it matched my point and not theirs, and yet they doubled down saying that didn’t prove anything either. Also cuz logic.
This census, partnered with other matching trends, external polls, and basic industry awareness, is as close as we will get to a scientific breakdown of our demographic, especially since they went to exorbitant lengths to break down everything from age, gender, politics, favorite character and whatever else to view them by percentile response we can scale into the surrounding US population or general show demographic by their independently displayed percentiles. Because 500 hard conservatives, not even minding libertarians or moderates in their own pool? Is a pretty damn big test group on its own. And you can view their percentile findings independently. And shock-and-awe, when scaled into all of our other information, it still adds up to everything we see.
And that’s another thing to keep in mind in the red/blue demo divide. Not all red is the same. Not all blue is the same. Not all reds are raging homophobes, some are voting red on fiscal opinion (though this administration is thinning that line), some are phobic-coded but not outright hateful or vindictive about it as much as they are learning. Libertarian tends to count as red in a basic census that only gives you one or the other. It’s a form of conservatism. Moderates tend to still identify more red than blue, or at least did a few years ago, this last presidency seems to be shifting that into moderates identifying blue. But go figure, our last red vs blue census for SPN that was a reliable polling source and not some poll on a rando website that ran for a few days with some basic bitch “What’s your favorite TV show” questions ... was a few years ago.
This really isn’t hard.
TLDR takeaways:
GA doesn’t give a shit about your declared plotholes
GA doesn’t give a shit about your character stanning
GA by and large recognizes Destiel in some capacity, with conservative old dudes hating it, a bundle of neutrals passively spotting/sighting/supporting it, and a whole lot of queers and allies yelling that they love it
You literally just have to watch people watch the show without intervening and filling their head with your horse shit to witness this
Also she completely independently raged when she realized Wayward Sisters was a spinoff that got axed and is like, WHY THE HELL WHAT WHY WOULDNT THEY IT WAS AMAZING WTF WHYYYYY so that’s a thing.
And that’s the tea.
#supernatural#demographics#casual viewers#general audience#ratings#and a little bit of#destiel#but mostly how arbitrary stan twitter is
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The person that send the ask about JRoth refering to Echo and Madi in the past had/got made me take a sec and think because i understand refering to E in the past because i think that BE are going to break-up but why would he refer to Madi in past tense? and then i remembered aa spec that you sai regarding Madi staying in the planet and Clarke leaving with the others, i think? do you really think that would happen and can you talk more about it? 1/2
2/2 i mean i just don’t see Clarke leaving her daughter alone in another planet, altough there is always the whole flame thing, idk how that is gonna affect their relationship but i mean, would Jason really take away her daughter? that’s a new low, even for him lol
He might just have spoken about them in the past because he was speaking about what happened to Clarke and Bellamy over the time jump. That was all in the past. What happened OFF screen affected who Clarke and Bellamy were in the current timeline.
As he’s writing, or storyboarding, that means that he’s developing THEIR story based on the past. It might have been a mistake just based on his focus as he writes. None of what they say in cons is edited, you know? You can’t expect them to be perfect or precise.
My speculation about them leaving Two Suns Planet is PURE speculation and just something they COULD do based on certain themes and foreshadowing and tropes and archetypes. It doesn’t at all have to be story they go for. Just ONE story path.
But you say that taking a characters daughter away and leaving her on a planet alone with others is a new low for JR?
I think that is the EXACT SET UP OF THE 100. Abby Griffin lost her daughter, who was sent down alone onto a poisonous planet with 100 delinquents.
New low? Or, hey, what this show is about?
Oh. Is it different because Madi is so young?
Charlotte. Tris. Baby Lovejoy. Aden. Ethan.
Kids don’t escape violence, loss or death on this show. This is BUILT IN to the narrative.
Don’t confuse a plot line that you don’t like with something that doesn’t fit. Because it DOES fit. It’s pretty standard that kids on this show grow up a LOT faster than kids irl. And Madi HERSELF was left alone at the age of FIVE. So the concept that JR wouldn’t POSSIBLY leave a child alone is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. BTDT. Pay attention.
In many ways, this show is about the new generation, THE KIDS, learning to find their own power and stand up and change the world for the better. All our delinquents except for Bellamy were kids when they landed on earth. That is the NATURE of this show.
You identified with the kids, so you didn’t notice, except for occasionally, that our kids were actual kids, because you were inside their heads and instead you saw the freedom and the power and the challenges and the heroism. When we looked at the PARENTS, we saw them as characters who did stuff TO the kids, who abandoned them or abused them or sent them to earth or betrayed them or whatever it is. Maybe you didn’t notice because all the actors were playing younger than their real age, because the show WANTED you to think of them as active adult principals. But Jasper and Monty? What were they? 15? That’s only a few years older than Madi. And they had NEVER been left alone to survive by themselves. They weren’t as capable. Maybe the subtle shift of adults playing kids to kids playing kids means that the writers want you to think about what it means to grow up, to be responsible, to be an adult or a parent. Remember, their initial thought was to make the commander a child. They’ve actually gone BACK to their original concept.
NOW you’ve got YOUR kid as the parent, as the person who is the hero with the motivation and desires and goals. So you see Clarke as the active principle and Madi as the passive one. But it’s the SAME story.
Clarke raised Madi to be independent, she was driving and going off alone at 11. Hunting and gathering and facing a post apocalyptic earth alone. That’s how she raised her. Now that people are back, Clarke is clinging to Madi and trying to keep her safe when before she’d raised her to keep HERSELF safe.
We’ve already seen Clarke struggle with the same thing Abby struggled with. Learning to LET HER DAUGHTER GO TO MAKE HER OWN DECISIONS. The audience is sometimes outraged that anyone would allow Madi to make these life or death decisions intended to save Clarke, but Clarke was making life or death decisions from ep 1, and we were outraged that Abby would try to stop her and keep her a child.
So what I’m saying here? This is a THEME we’ve seen in The 100. Madi is a bit younger, but she is also just as capable as Clarke. We have SEEN her be capable.
Would JR have Clarke lose Madi?
He had Abby lose Clarke, didn’t he? So yeah. He would. It isn’t some worse horror inflicted upon her. It is a cyclical story. The parent must release her child to her own future as her parent released her. The youth shall inherit the earth.
Actual literal line of dialogue. They PASSED THE BATON.
So, we need to pay attention to these things if we want to understand something more about the story.
so my theory about return to earth? ok
so the idea is that they will have to leave planet two suns, that they will have to DESTROY the comfortable, peaceful human society on the planet because it is, like MW, evil. I think we’ll have a parallel to MW. We already know that the eligius 4 mission was a colonization mission, intent on USING the planet for resources because the earth was used up. This is the bad kind of colony.
We’re also contrasting “doing what is good for you people” with “doing what is right,” and I’m afraid that joining Russell in a peaceful world where their people can finally live life, which would be GOOD for their people, will actually be harming the planet and either another segment of humans OR the native aliens on the planet.
So in order to do the right thing and be the good guys, they’ll have to destroy this “peace” and sacrifice and easy life for their people.
This would help Clarke and Bellamy resolve their trauma in MW, where they had to DESTROY an entire people, and never made peace with the fact that they HAD to because those people were not JUST another society, but a TOXIC one who was using other human beings as cattle and torturing them, and intending to take over the surface.
So while this made her think maybe there were no good guys, the truth is, that even though they committed genocide, it was because that society was EVIL. They WERE the good guys. Sometimes you HAVE to do harm.
So I think we’ll see this again and this time they will recognize that the choice is to let evil flourish through passive inaction and possibly benefit, or GIVE up the soft life and save a planet and a people from subjugation and STOP the cycle of violence that humanity spreads.
See, we’re working on making sure that Humanity DESERVES to survive. So being faced with a pretty, peaceful society that does not DESERVE to survive, means they have to make active choices against it.
The thought here is that they are subjugating or enslaving the aliens or alien/human hybrids or lower class humans of this planet. ECHO, being a child soldier and slave for the throne, while not feeling like she belongs to spacekru, will feel a kinship with the slaves on the planet and she will stay with them.
The other possibility is that Becca has given an ALIE AI to the new planet, so the flame is not irrelevant. Because the flame was created to STOP ALIE. So if there’s another ALIE helping to subjugate these new people, then the FLAME, aka Madi, is there to stop that. COULD someone else take the flame? Yes, because they’re all going to have to be nightbloods. But it’s possible that Madi herself feels too much responsibility and wants to stay to help the new people. but the story here would mean that Madi wouldn’t be alone, but Echo would be staying with her, as her protector. IDK.
I don’t know it’s an idea. I got it when I realized that Raven said, “Just once I wish I could take off of a planet without it being on fire,” and she did that TWICE, which means the magic number three might have that coming true. So then I imagined raven taking off of this new planet, NOT on fire, but still needing to leave because they destroyed the “peaceful” society. Like breaking the cycle means they leave it a better place, rather than the earth, which humanity has killed.
Also with the way the time is going, it took 75 years to fly to the new planet. If they go back to the earth, that’s 200 years total, which is the ORIGINAL speculation for how long The Ark would have to stay in space before Earth would be livable. That’s just too neat a coincidence for me. Makes me think that in, maybe s7, they might be back on the earth again.
All just ideas. I know it’s wacky. But I’ve had a lot of wacky ideas, like using Cryo sleep to escape praimfaya. Or the exodus after they lose Eden. Heck, I told y’all after hakeldama that this show requires Clarke and Bellamy to be TOGETHER in order to work. So I have wacky ideas that I put together when I think about various narrative elements. So here. Have some more.
Also. Because we’re all responsible for our monsters when we let them out, right? Well humanity destroyed Earth. Do they really get to just ditch it and find .a new planet to ruin? I feel like they need to go home and face the mess they made of their planet. To EARN their survival, they have to fix what they did. They have to make amends. Stopping it from happening on another planet might do that, but also, taking care of the planet they hurt.
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