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sarahlevys · 1 year

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300 Twylexis Works On AO3: A Retrospective

(Yes, this is hugely belated, given that we’re currently at 338 works on AO3. 2022 was a bit of a crazy work year for me 😅)

First, what came before this milestone?

The first Twylexis fic, Oh Please, Not Now by in48frames, was published on December 18, 2018, and the one hundredth, all i want is you by @landofsonlali, was published on January 22, 2021! The two hundredth, ask ‘em my questions and get some answers, was published on July 23, 2021 by @lilythesilly, and the three hundreth, Selling Schitt’s Creek, was published on March 23, 2022 by @lilythesilly, @sarahlevys, @typewritess, and @nerdframed!

Check out a bunch of stats, charts, and tag clouds below the cut!

Twylexis Over Time

First, here’s a complete look at Twylexis works through the years, beginning in 2019 and ending at the big 300 mark. (I will be posting a follow-up of Twylexis in 2022 as well!)

Since our last milestone, it took eight months and 2 days to reach our 300th Twylexis work!

While the fandom slowed down in 2022 alongside a slowdown of the Schitt’s Creek fandom as a whole, we’re still alive and well. Check out how long it took to reach our previous milestones for comparison:

100 works: Achieved after three years, one month, and three days

200 works: Achieved after six months and one day

At 338 works as of January 3, 2023, if we continue at our current pace, we are projected to hit 400 works in May 2024.

Twylexis Creators

In total, 123 unique creators have published 300 Twylexis works, and 63 of those creators published works #201-300; they’re listed below in the word cloud!

Twylexis Content

Lastly, here are the most common tags used within fics #201-300:

Alternate Universe: 44 times

Post-Canon: 38

Canon Compliant: 23

Twyla Sands: 23

POV Alexis Rose: 19

Podfic: 18

David Rose: 16

And here are all tags for works #201-300, broken out into individual words. You can compare it to the word cloud at the very top, which shows the tags for all works #001-300:

Here’s to the next hundred fics!

(PS: For those who’ve read my previous installments, I decided to stop analyzing comments, kudos, and hits because to have the most up-to-date data, I’d have to download all works every time—and that’s a bit much for right now 😅)

#alexis rose #twyla sands #alexis x twyla #twyla x alexis #twylexis #schitt's creek #twylexis history

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drsilverfish · 5 years

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A Pearl of Great Price - 14x13 Lebanon

Well, Supernatural’s 300th episode was SO affectingly emotional. And beautifully so.

But what exactly is up with that magic pearl in 14x13 Lebanon?

Continuing my meta series on the Jungian themes of S14 (have I mentioned how much I LOVE S14?) I’m going to talk about the significance of the Baizhu, the heart’s desire granting pearl of the episode, as the pearl of great price.

In particular I’m going to talk about the pearl as holding special significance as the object which permits Dean to confront (and make peace with) the ghost of John Winchester. The pearl helps to move on Dean’s psychological haunting by an internalised construct of his father, which has oppressed and repressed him for so long - part of the Jungian Shadow-work of the season.

So, why was a pearl the magical object chosen to grant Dean’s wish-of-the-heart, thus altering the time-lines to resurrect John Winchester?

Pearls have significance in the Bible as metaphors for Heaven, because of their beauty and value...

In Revelations, the gates of Heaven are made of pearls, hence the pearly gates. And in the parable of the pearl, the “pearl of great price” is commonly interpreted to represent Heaven:

”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

— Matthew 13:45-46,

King James Bible

So, the pearl grants Dean’s wish for what he had long imagined as a kind of Heaven - his original family, Mom, Dad, Sam and himself, all together again.

But, as with most wish stories (and I’m sure @prairiedust will be writing a great meta about fairytales and wishes) - be careful what you wish for is the maxim here.

Because Dean finds that the price the pearl exacts is too high.

If they accept the world the pearl has delivered, he and Sam will, eventually (as the timelines course correct) no longer be hunting together. Sam will be a lawyer and a kale-eating motivational speaker (a hilarious nod to Tom Cruise’s dick character in Magnolia) and Dean will be on the FBI’s “most wanted” list again. They will be separated. Neither will the brothers have the gift of their mother’s return, because Mary will never have been resurrected by Amara. Additionally, their adopted Nephilim son Jack will not exist, because Lucifer (presumably) will remain in the Cage. And finally, Castiel will not have escaped his endless obedience mind-wipes in Heaven, thanks to his transformational encounter with Dean, starting with the raising of the elder Winchester from perdition. Instead, Cas will stand at that dick-in-Heaven functionary Zaccharia’s side, and will neither know nor love the Winchesters. He will still belong to Heaven (and not to Dean).

So, the pearl can be understood as the pearl of great price, because the price the pearl requires is simply too great, and the “Heaven” it offers is a false one.

Dean chooses (with Sam’s full assent) in the end, all the pain, all the suffering of his and Sam’s lives, including his 40 years in Hell and Sam’s agony in the Cage with Lucifer, because that journey has brought them to who and where they are now. Dean chooses the found family that their journey has brought, not the (impossible) fantasy family of his boyish imaginings.

JOHN: (to Sam and Dean): “And now you live in this secret bunker, with an angel and Lucifer’s kid?”

later....

JOHN (to Dean): “I guess that I’d hoped eventually that you would… get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family…”

DEAN: “I have a family.”

(And oh boy is that ever the kind of conversation that happens between a hetero-normative parent and their queer kid - but that’s another meta).

However, there’s more, because as well as representing too great a price, and a false Heaven, thanks to its Biblical associations, the wish-granting pearl in Lebanon also links to the season’s Jungian themes.

A pearl has also (I argue) been chosen by Dabb and Glynn as the episode’s wish-granting object, because of that object’s connection to alchemy.

Jung’s key interpretive understanding of the mystical pseudo-science of alchemy, is his revelation that the transformation of matter in medieval alchemical texts can be understood as representative of the (potential for) the soul’s psychological journey towards greater self-actualization.

“The alchemical operations were real, only this reality was not physical but psychological. Alchemy represents the projection of a drama both cosmic and spiritual in laboratory terms. The magnum opus had two aims: the rescue of the human soul and the salvation of the cosmos. What the alchemists called ‘matter’ was in reality the [unconscious] self...”

Carl Jung in Speaking: Interviews and Encounters ( p228) (in a 1952 interview with Mircea Eliade).

Here is one of the earliest printed books on alchemy (originally 1546, by the reputed alchemist Bonus Ferrara, but translated into English, as here, in 1894):

You can actually read a copy of the translated text itself here:

https://archive.org/stream/newpearlofgreatp00laciiala/newpearlofgreatp00laciiala_djvu.txt

The “pearl of great price” is another name for the “Philosopher’s Stone”. On a material level, in alchemy, this is the supposedly mystical and magical substance which could turn base metals like mercury into gold. So alchemical texts, like Bonas’ one above, read in part as weird chemistry recipe books. But, on a metaphorical level, this chemistry was understood (in Bonas’ book and elsewhere) as analogous to the soul’s journey to God:

“The Sages represent the Stone as bearing the same relation to the metals which is borne by form to substance, or, soul to body.”

Jung takes that Christian interpretation of alchemy (made by correspondence of the world below with the world above) and transmutes it into a psychological one. For Jung, the alchemical work is the work which psychoanalysis can assist a person with - the work of facing and integrating with one’s Shadow self.

My previous series of meta on S14 and the Shadow is here:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/181122764984/14x09-the-spear-jungian-decoder-ring-edition

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182299438269/jung-and-deans-journey-towards-self-integration

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182486474324/ouroboros-in-prophet-and-loss-14x12

So, how does the episode’s pearl of great price (aka the Philosopher’s Stone, aka the mystical substance which makes possible the soul’s journey to God, aka, according to Jung, that which makes possible profound psychological progress) happen for Dean, in particular, in Lebanon (given that he was the one whose wish the pearl granted in the first place)?

Well, Dean has been running from an internalised psychological construct of his father, a haunting by John Winchester’s ghost, if you will, for a very long time.

The opening sequence to 14x13 Lebanon is key in recognising this. Because one of the flashbacks we get is to 14x04 Mint Condition, in which Dean confronts the ghost of “Hatchet Man”.

Here is the 14x13 Lebanon flash-back at the start of the ep. Dean, with the axe:

confronts the ghost of the comic store owner, animating the life-size model of “Hatchet Man”:

As my meta on Mint Condition made clear at the time,

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/179735406854/batman-vs-superman-connection-and-conflict-in

the episode, “...invites us to see Stuart’s conflict with the ghost of his father-figure, the comic store owner, as a mirror for Dean’s conflict with the ghost of his own father, for whom AU Michael (in the narrative arc of S14) acts as a mirror (AU Michael = John Winchester = Dean’s own internalised repression via the metaphor of Dean’s “drowning” possession by Michael).”

That the psychological construct of the ghost of John Winchester has been a very repressive internal construct, for Dean, is further symbolised in S14 both by Dean locking AU!Michael in a closet in his mind AND by the Ma’lak box Dean has built and has been intent on locking himself inside for all eternity.

Just to re-emphasise this, the opening sequence of 14x13 also shows us AU!Michael once again banging on the doors of Dean’s mind-closet:

Dean repressed a lot of himself in order to be a “good little soldier” for his Dad, in order to try and be the parent for Sam that his Dad was manifestly failing to be, and in order to embody the kind of (straight) masculinity he thought his father approved of.

So we can think of John in 14x13 Lebanon as partly representing the opportunity (at last) for Dean to confront that internal “ghost of John Winchester”, i.e. for Dean to confront a part of himselfL

When Dean is able to hear his father tell him he is proud of him, when Dean is able tell his father, out loud, that he loves him, when Dean is able to tell his father that he has a found family that includes Castiel and Jack, when Dean is able to tell Sam out loud (as a result of his encounter with his father) this:

DEAN: “Look, we’ve been through some tough times, there’s no denying that, and for the longest time, I blamed Dad. I mean, hell, I blamed Mom too, y’know, I was angry. But, say we could send Dad back, knowing everything, why stop there? Why not send him even further back, and let some other poor sons of bitches save the world? But, here’s the problem? Who does that make us? Because I gotta be honest. I don’t know who that Dean Winchester is. And I am good with who I am...”

that is Dean being able to tell himself all those things:

I am proud of you

I love you

I have a “found family” whom I love

I am good with who I am.

Jung tells us that the more we run from the Shadow, the more its terrifying haunting power over us grows. It is only when we turn and confront it, and embrace it (as the repressed parts of ourselves) that we can achieve psychological growth.

As I said in my meta last week on “The Riddle of the Sphinx” in 14x12 Prophet and Loss:

“The Jungian solution, which the S14 narrative is offering to the metaphorical Riddle of the Sphinx, is, to turn around and embrace the Shadow-self (the parts of oneself one has repressed) and in so doing, to evolve - to become more fully human.

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182482293379/the-riddle-of-the-sphinx-14x12-prophet-and-loss

The pearl of great price in 14x13 Lebanon, in symbolising the transformative alchemical power of the Philosopher’s Stone, has enabled Dean, in confronting and embracing the ghost of his father, to undertake some powerful Shadow-work. Shadow-work that will, eventually, help him to defeat both the repression locker in his mind where AU!Michael resides and the eternal repression locker represented by the Ma’lak box.

#Supernatural #SPN meta #14x13 #Lebanon #The ghost of John Winchester #Jung in S14 #Dean vs repression #Dean is bisexual #Still subtext #Meta

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gossipnetwork-blog · 6 years

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TV We're Thankful For in 2017: Grey's Anatomy, Game of Thrones and More

New Post has been published on https://gossip.network/tv-were-thankful-for-in-2017-greys-anatomy-game-of-thrones-and-more/

TV We're Thankful For in 2017: Grey's Anatomy, Game of Thrones and More

The CW; NBC; ABC / Melissa Hebeler; E! Illustration

It’s that time of year, TV fans.

Time to gather around with loved ones, pile your plate full of turkey and pumpkin pie, unbutton that top button on your pants, and dig in. But before you do, it’s only customary to go around the table and share what your most thankful for. In that spirit, the E! News TV Team is coming at you with what we’re most grateful for this year—and you know it all has to do with our beloved small screen. (Yeah, yeah, we’re thankful for our families and our health, too. But you don’t want to hear all that mushy stuff!)

Every Thanksgiving, the members of our team reveal what TV delights got them through the year, ranging from massive milestone episodes to minor moments. So join as as we share with you what we’ll be talking about when we get together with our families to distract us from ruminating on what a bizarre year this has truly been. And, as always, be sure to let us know what you’re thankful too!

NBC

This Is Us For Giving and Withholding

I fully admit I was a bit nervous going into season two that the show, which has possibly achieved a new level of hype and exposure in the TV world, would hit the dreaded sophomore slump, doubling down on aspects of the show fans loved. (We get it, Internet, you all want to know how Jack died!) Fortunately, the show gave us a few clues in the premiere, and are slowly but steadily doling out the explanations, choosing to focus on character-building and relationship-testing storylines. —Tierney Bricker

Crazy Ex‘s Continued Excellence

Bless Rachel Bloom, Aline Brosh McKenna and the entire cast and crew of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The beloved CW musical dramedy continues to push boundaries in every possible direction without feeling forced or preachy. Rebecca Bunch’s evolution (or spiral to rock bottom) has been handled with grace, while remaining hilarious. Striking that hilarious/poignant balance is no easy feat, especially when dealing with mental illness, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to walk that line expertly in season three. —Chris Harnick

ABC

Grey’s Anatomy‘s Ghosts

Grey’s Anatomy joined an elite club of shows this year when it aired its landmark 300th episode, and in doing so, paid perfect homage to all those who helped get the series off the ground and keep it afloat for 14 years. From the trauma patients who bore uncanny resemblances to former stars T.R. Knight, Sandra Oh and Katherine Heigl, to the very early Grey’s feel of the interns’ actions, to Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) seeing Ellis (Kate Burton) up in the O.R. observation gallery, applauding her Harper Avery win, it was a pitch-perfect episode. —Billy Nilles

The CW

Riverdale

I don’t know what this show is smokin’ most of the time. It’s insane and makes no sense, but I love that it exists. I love that there’s a show on TV that will just throw out any wacky thing it thinks of in the most dramatic fashion while we’re just supposed to accept it. Sure, that’s how you join a gang. Sure, Jingle Jangle is a great name for a drug. Sure, shower sex is a great idea while you’re washing your father’s blood off of your clothes. Whatever. It’s great, and I’m so thankful we have it. —Lauren Piester

HBO

Game of Thrones For its Incest*

OK, I am NOT a fan of incest. BUT I did like finally feeling vindicated by Jon Snow and Dany’s hookup this past season after calling that it would happen for years! Yes, my need to gloat tops my disdain for relatives hooking up. (Also, they don’t know?! I am trying to convince myself it’s OK to help this ‘ship sail, people. No one said shipping was easy.) —Tierney Bricker

*But Cersei and Jaime are just messed up. Period.

NBC

The Good Place

NBC’s The Good Place is easily my happy place. Kristen Bell and Ted Danson lead a cast that’s on top of their games. The Good Place turned everything on its head at the end of season one, allowing for season two to truly blossom. If D’Arcy Carden doesn’t get an Emmy for playing Janet, well, fork that. —Chris Harnick

Netflix

The Funny Ladies of Netflix

It seems like Netflix drops a new series every time I blink my eyes, to varying degrees of quality, but since the January release of the One Day at a Time reboot (starring the luminous Justina Machado), they’ve proven to be a haven for some of the funniest women in the game. Aside from mainstays Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Grace & Frankie, the streaming giant brought Drew Barrymore to TV in the madcap zombie comedy Santa Clarita Diet, introduced the world to the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling with GLOW, found Dear White People‘s trio of fantastic female leads (Logan Browning, Antoinette Robertson, and Ashley Blaine Featherston), and gave us a second season of Maria Bamford‘s sweetly surreal Lady Dynamite. Even The Defenders was slightly redeemed by Krysten Ritter‘s Jessica Jones and the humor she injected into the otherwise dull proceedings. In a year that’s proven there are more bad men in Hollywood than we could even count, turning these funny ladies on and tuning out an ugly world has been a true godsend. —Billy Nilles

Netflix

Babysitter Steve Harrington

I loved all of season two of Stranger Things (even that terrible episode!), but what I loved most was the fact that my season one love of Steve Harrington was not only justified, but it became larger and more widely accepted. The whole world now sees the joy in this ’80s jock who’s really just a kindly single mom at heart, with Farrah Fawcett hair and a baseball bat covered in nails. We can all now unite behind Steve Harrington, and for that I am thankful. —Lauren Piester

YouTube

Luann Falling Into a Bush on RHONY

Sure, Luann (or Lu, as her friends like to call her) has given us so many .gif(t)s over the years, but does anything top her falling harder than she fell for (Please don’t let it be about) Tom into a bush after drinking a few too many margaritas on the RHONY ladies’ infamous trip to Mexico? Oh, and then her subsequent fall off of a four-foot high cement platform? Classy as ever, she laughed it off…and woke up to do yoga, surf and give zero effs about her drunken antics the following day. This is how you Housewife, people! —Tierney Bricker

TLC

90 Day Fiance

Somehow I have become somebody who not only DVRs 90 Day Fiance, but also tweets about it. The guilty pleasure reality show satisfies all my curiosity and drama needs. Who’s actually in love? Who’s so delusional? My judgmental nature flies freely thanks to this show. Don’t even get me started on Before the 90 Days… —Chris Harnick

NBC

SNL‘s Lowkey Obsession With RHOBH‘s Erika Jayne

All hail the kitty ambassador to the twink republic of Quonk! I’m not sure who in the SNL writers’ room is a hardcore fan of the RHOBH fave, but I’m so glad they are. It was exciting enough when, during Chris Pine‘s episode in May, he and Bobby Moynihan performed a “lip sync for your life” to Erika’s “XXPEN$IVE.” But watching Cecily Strong become Erika—excuse me, Candace—during the “New Wife” sketch with Larry David in early November slayed me. Now who do I have to bribe with munty and Givenchy hunty to have Candace and Erika meet? —Billy Nilles

ABC

Every Single Season of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix

Grey’s Anatomy has been my entire life for the past month, and it was the happiest month of the year, maybe (not really). Sure, I cried a lot about things that normally wouldn’t make me cry, but those tears were cathartic. I needed them. Everyone should rapidly rewatch all 13 1/2 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy at least once in their lives. —Lauren Piester

What TV are you thankful for this holiday season? Sound off with your faves in the comments below!

(E!, Bravo and NBC are all part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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