This was El’s face after watching Billy die for her btw.

late to the party?

I recently finished Xena's first season and it's the first time I'm rewatching it since I was a teen. And I'm just overwhelmed. I finished "Is there a doctor in the house?" last night and spent my whole day thinking about the episode and the season as a whole.

The thing is, I missed tv so much without even realizing it. Halfway through the season it hit me that we did used to have mid-season finales and the storyline would go a certain way to 1) give us a twist or 2) plant the seeds for the finale. What a joy, truly.

Anyways, from what I could remember the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle was never just implied but I thought they had only started to add more things in later seasons but it's so clear that this build up starts as soon as season 1. It was a very pleasant surprise, actually.

The start of Gabrielle's hero journey is breathtaking. I love a good "young and naive sidekick that tries to keep their heart pure even after witnessing the horrors of the world" trope. She starts like that and it's so painfully clear how much Xena wants to protect that and at the same time in later episodes we also see how much she respects Gabrielle's worldview. I also love that when she goes back home to figure herself out after freezing facing a dangerous situation it's 100% her choice. It was an amazing choice to put this moment right after she starts becoming more and more competent in battle, taking more care of herself because I feel like it was such a turning point for her. It's like in that moment she fully understood how high the stakes were and it's heartbreaking to see Xena come to the realization that she can't help Gabrielle with that. Ugh, I love it.

Speaking of Xena, I love how through the season we see her getting more and more fond of Gabrielle but really keeping her at arms length because she thinks she's not a good person. They are always doing things kind of separately, mostly Gabrielle staying behind and what not. I also love how this power trip and bloodlust she gets into feels almost like an addiction and it's such a painful struggle. She's trying so hard and Gabrielle is so ready to vouch for her, to absolve her of all her wrong doings, even us as audience feel so much in the way she's trying to do what's right and then bam they hit us with Callisto.

AND IT'S SO GOOD! like the literal personification of everything she did wrong. and they show us in such a nice way how much Xena understands and accepts that what she's doing is basically the bare minimum. She's not going to be absolved of anything, she's doing what's right because it's the right thing to do because she doesn't want that pain and suffering anymore and not because people will cheer and forgive her on the spot. She won't cheer and forgive herself on the spot.

It blows my mind how she's as caring as she's tough. I feel like often in media people still struggle to balance this line with the "strong female character" and here I felt it was done so naturally. In the last episode we see her using so many of her battle techniques but this time to help heal people. People she doesn't even know. We see her so practical, rationally teaching medicine as we know it to Hippocrates lol but then it all comes crashing down so painfully when Gabrielle gets injured. Like, that's her guide, her northern star, her partner and best friend. The scene where she's trying to get Gabrielle back is just so so so strong. She's like a cornered animal, no one is going to help her, she's at her most vulnerable and everything is so raw and desperate it truly took my breath away.

I don't think that's when she realized she really loved Gabrielle, I think she's known that for quite some time at this point but it was the first time she actually had to face what it would be like to really lose her and it was the worst thing that has ever happened to her.

Anyways I don't even know if I'm making sense, I just felt a lot of things and decided to let it out. I just love them so much it's crazy. And they love each other so much it's even crazier.

The writers of the SaB show seem to be pulling the exact same shit that lb did in the books. because there’s no way they think ignoring everything the grisha have been forced to endure, pretending that the darkling is the beginning and end of their issues and ravka’s, making sure alina never understands what she’s actually fighting for, etc is going to do anything except make me root for the darkling even more.

The entire second season gives me flashbacks to that insane trilogy because somehow they managed to be even worse than the books. they have alina telling the darkling that he doesn’t understand sacrifice?? really??? a man who has spent centuries of his life fighting for the betterment of his people doesn’t understand sacrifice?? the person who literally made protecting grisha his life goal doesn’t understand sacrifice??? does alina realize that the only reason she wasn’t killed the moment she was discovered was because of him?? because of the work he has done??

They had time for baghra to tell stories about her crazy family and how she killed her sister, but there was no time for her to say “this is what life was like before my son decided he was going to make it better for our kind?” if anything, they just pissed me off more because how the fuck is it possible that they are pretending the biggest issue they have is the darkling?? not the monarchy that has exploited grisha and ravka, not the fjerdans who hunt and kill grisha, not shu han who experiments on them??

Sigh, I can’t even write out my thoughts coherently because I’m so irritated by pretty much everything that happened this season. I’m irritated that instead of telling a complex story, we got this dumbed down garbage that tells us nothing, accomplishes nothing beyond “guy in black is bad.” the narrative condemns him for using merzost because he was so desperate to save his people, he tried forbidden magic, but 20 seconds later the hero is using that same forbidden power to bring her boyfriend back to life??? With zero repercussions?? I want to scream!!

If the narrative is so sure they are right, if they are so sure the darkling is wrong about everything, then why are they so afraid to expose the hero to the suffering of her people?? Let her see what they have to deal with, let her truly understand then. She has been a grisha for less than a year, and somehow she knows what’s best for them?? She doesn’t even know them. The show writers literally spent this season making her chase Mal around. Look what happened when they were going after the seawhip, two people died because she didn’t want to kill it, but they moment it went after Mal, suddenly killing it was ok. Her side of the war got attacked and instead of checking to make sure everyone was ok, including her friend’s brother who was literally about to lose his arm, she was screaming about Mal. You want to tell me about sacrifice?? She only cared about one person, and he was perfectly fine at the end. What does she know about sacrifice?? Why oh why is this fucking story just so determined to make her make all the worst possible decisions??

Incase you haven’t noticed, I haven’t talked about the crows at all, because I hate their presence in this story. They are a distraction!!! The grisha are fighting for their right to exist, Ravka is in the middle of a civil war, I do not have the time to follow the shenanigans of a group of criminals from a different country. I still don’t understand their purpose in this story, except comic relief?? 🤦🏽‍♀️

I love Alina, I really do, but jfc you cannot girl boss your way out of real solutions. They have her basically serving the monarchy and the whole time I kept thinking, if I were grisha, I wouldn’t follow her. She’s the leader of the second army but she’s wearing a first army uniform, she’s more interested in protecting the Lanstov throne than she is in protecting her people. She’s so blinded by everyone saying “the darkling is bad, the fold needs to go” she’s not stopping to say “what happens when the fold is gone?” “What happens after the war?” Because surely, she isn’t naive enough to think the people who started killing grisha as soon as they thought the darkling was gone are going to live peacefully with them now?? It took 2 seconds after the darkling died for Fjerda to send an assassin on jurda parem into ravka. Now that there’s no fold to stop them, what will stop Fjerda or Shu Han from sending an army?? Ignoring everything else the crows did, Kaz was right when he said “when they stop looking at her with gratitude, they’ll start to wonder if she hasn’t overstayed her welcome.” Which is basically what Aleksander kept saying btw, they are not going to love you for long, they are going to hate you eventually because they are afraid of what they don’t understand.

I don’t even know what the point of this was, but yeah, I guess it was a rant about how Fucking ridiculous season 2 of shadow and bone was.

If Jiro truly turns out to be the final villain then I don’t think I can get behind the conclusion to this season, no matter what. After the last episode my partner and I have spent a lot of time talking about the way that this season could end and the only thing we’ve really come up with is that Jiro is going to be the final boss. The Juuto conflict has been wrapped up, the Noto appear to be wrapping up their conflict in either the next episode or the one after that, and all the Hitotsuki have been taken care of if we go by the fact that we should have all the gears now so that only leaves Jiro’s storyline as a loose end. Jiro, who just found out his entire life is a lie and that no one has ever truly loved him (including his teammates) and was left all alone in that village while the rest of them moved on back to the shenanigans. So the way I see it there's really only a couple ways this could go.

First; the trauma of everything pushes Jiro fully over the edge and the Donbrothers have to put him down to protect the world. And I hate that this is an option because from my point of view this would be entirely the fault of the Donbrothers. They have had every opportunity to get to know Jiro as a member of their team and a friend, to be there for him when he was dealing with finding out about having a feral personality or when he was halfway to dead after fighting Murasame. Instead they continued on with their own lives without worrying about where Jiro was or why he wasn’t there. They can get a pass about being upset with him about trying to kill them the first time the feral side took over but when it kept happening they should have stopped to figure out why. They never checked in with him to see if he was ok, or if he knew what was going on, or even just to provide emotional support while they worked together to help him. 

And what really gets me about this is that they’ve put in more effort getting to know the Noto Trio than their own teammate. Taro and Soon have had multiple instances of talking and emotionally connecting in a way that shows how much they care about each other. Despite the fact that they’ve killed each other they still put that all aside in favor of their emotional bond. Sononi literally just attempted to murder Natsumi by using Inu as a proxy and not only did he save her life but she’s allowed to be at the peace conference taking place next episode. The one that Jiro isn’t invited to because Inu and Taro presumably didn’t think to go back to the village to get him and the rest of them don’t care enough to ask. 

If this season ends with the Donbrothers killing Jiro then that means they view him as inherently less redeemable than not only the Noto but the Juuto too. And that’s not even touching on what this would mean in the wider Toku context of the evil 6th Rangers who came before (that’s a whole other discussion we’ve been having). 

The second option is that they manage to power of love him out of his evil state which would feel so disingenuous at this point. None of them have made any secret about how much they don’t like Jiro and don’t want him around. They’ve actually gone out of their way to exclude him from the team and have actively tried to get him kicked off by Taro multiple times. So if they suddenly care now that he’s trying to kill them it would make them seem like the worst kind of hypocrite. Especially since it would work. Jiro is so desperate for genuine connections with people and for someone to care about him that if they do try to power of love him it would work. And then the Donbrothers would get to go on like they did the right thing and that everything’s resolved now so they can pretend this isn’t their fault.

And even if this does include an apology from then, in my personal opinion, it’s too little too late for that. If this was a midseason finale or even happening 3/4 of the way through then maybe this would be viable to me. It would be a paradigm shift in the season with a chance for the Donbrothers to show that they have actually learned and changed from this experience. But with it being the finale they’re never really going to have to reconcile with what they’ve done and allowed to happen. Instead we’d get the “heroes” of this season giving one apology and thinking that it fixes everything so there’s no need to really reflect on their actions. It doesn’t give Jiro what he deserves.

hope people chill out soon, your take was immaculate and actually the reason I followed you initially bc i am an adult who likes cartoons and little kid shows but also doesn't get in internet fights about them and thinks adults who do are... wild, for lack of a better term..

but!!! now I wanna know about your comic (???maybe its a comic not sure) that you've mentioned, I couldn't find a tag to search but do you mind sharing about it? tysm either way have a good one

hi nonnie!! first of all ty for the well wishes and compliments! i'm sure once all the jokes and the offense die down, people will be relatively normal again... i hope.. lets get into the meat of the ask under the cut

EDIT: this got long so if u just want the basic gist, go to the very end!

soooo my girlfriend @pokemonleague and i decided back in...2018? to make spidersonas due to our love of comics and the movie into the spiderverse, but since we're nerds that totally span out of control. it went from a fan rp with several spider-man themed characters to a completely original concept with new characters, our own setting, power system-- the works. it is about superheroes, so it might not be your thing. okay so first backstory stuff

it used to be called the phillyverse and if u go into the tag u might find some old art, but its all extremely outdated (and bad. im not the bessst artist). after some delegation we decided to start making it a comic (we spent YEARS debating it) and named the project around last year. its uh called Show Your Spine!

I'm the worst at describing things but we have like 3 whole seasons entirely plotted out so I can pull somethin like a pitch together: while the vigilantism is a core aspect, with the main overarching plot being a group of unlikely heroes, old and new banding together to stop their city from being overrun by the mob, supervillains, and other threats. it's really about finding love and community in a city at war and finding the strength to protect and nourish it. all the while unlearning all the shit the last generations have taught us, to stop us from perpetuating the cycle of hate... while also beating the shit outta some baddies

in short its abt cringe-fail women doing cringe-fail things lmaoo. its a like a superhero-action-soap opera taking place in the retro-futuristic city of Chesire Grove, new jersey.

in this world, there's people with powers called Augments, who are just like you and me but due to changes in their DNA due were born with the ability to manifest different abilities (think mutants or metahumans). the tension between augments and humans is a little.. high right now, but allegedly better than they've ever been before. It's a newish era of human-augment relations, for better or worse.

we have an ensemble cast, and we intend on taking the main characters from the ages of 16 to eventually 25. the characters are aging in real-time.

OKAY PLOT TIME: The first few arcs focus on a delinquent teenage girl, Leo, trying to find a cure for one of her best friends who has fallen ill after trying a new drug, by all means necessary. during her quest for it, she meets the elusive newer vigilante Spitfire, who had saved her once before. Despite a rocky start, the two start a mentor-mentee type thing, in hope that the other can help them find what they're looking for. For Leo, she's looking for info on the man who made the drug that's been killing people, desperate to make him reverse engineer it. For Spitfire, they're looking for Chesire Grove's longest-running protector: Nightingale, who has suddenly gone missing. Spitfire's a bit new in town but lucky for them, the kid knows the city like the back of their hand.

At the same time, a sheltered augment teen's life is changing, as her overly protective father has finally realized that keeping her inside wasn't protecting her at all. freshly enrolled in a school for STEM students, Bobbi (also known by his nickname Retro) has to learn how to navigate the world for the first time and solve the full mystery of her past, all while her powers are on the fritz.

there's so much to this world, and we're so excited to share it with everyone!! i tried to be pretty vague cause of spoilers, and like i said, bad with words

ur mileven post about the mike saying ily to her AFTER she gets her powers back literally not fixing the issue at all hit me in the head like a BRICK i literally said fuck out loud bc like. literally. its literally just gonna confirm for el that her powers are the only thing that make her lovable/valuable to people....

then i thought MAYBE what if in vol 2 she still isnt able to access her powers even after finding out about 001, and thats where mikes monologue comes into play? we saw in ep 7 that it was love that gave her the ability to defeat vecna/peter/henry so maybe mikes monologue is him saying he loves her whether she has powers or not, and then shes finally able to access her powers again and defeat vecna?

anyway sorry for the word vomit but i saw ur post and went 😰😣🙁🤔🧐☝

yeah, if mileven is going to heal from this argument, i would prefer them to do that healing when she's still not back at 100% for her own sake so that she has more reason to believe him. the writers calculated everything mike said to her in that scene to be the maximum amount of painful ("you're being ridiculous," "incredible" as brenner used to say, calling back to "mouthbreathers," "you're a superhero") and obviously she just got re-traumatized at the lab so she's going to need complete clarity if mike is going to be able to break through to her.

i think if the mike monologue does end up being about his relationship with el, then it needs to include the idea that he loves her, powers or not. and that means assuring her that when he says stuff like "you're a superhero" and "you saved the world," he's talking about her bravery, determination, and loyalty to the people she loves. and she should believe him! he spent all of season 3 saying that she shouldn't have to use her powers and wanting to protect her (which is why this whole thing seems weird. their argument is based entirely on what would hurt el the most from a writerly convenience standpoint and not really on what mike would do? he hasn't really behaved this way about her since season 1. idk maybe i'm wrong but it's definitely felt strange to me.)

edit: i guess i just mean that the way mike talks to her in that scene doesn't seem like how a boyfriend would talk about his girlfriend. it's not personal enough. but maybe he's just awkward and has been idolizing her in her absence ("superhero," bragging to dustin about her saving the world).

imo even if they make up and mike confesses his love to her, they still need to work on communication. el went against one of her core character values (friends don't lie) for months in her letters because she was insecure over mike's inability to say "i love you" and wanted to prove she was cool enough to be worth loving.

they're young, and obviously they're gonna make a lot of mistakes, but if they don't learn to resolve these communication problems i don't feel like the general audience has a reason to root for them. we don't really need to take season 3 seriously because their breakup was played for laughs, but the tone of season 4 makes it seem like their missteps with each other are much more consequential.

our decay most episode of television ever. i don’t even necessarily believe this i just feel so strongly about it that i need to hyperbolize. like it’s not even close to like. my favorite episode even just in season five but like it’s soooo crazy insane i can’t NOT stan her….. the plot of the episode rests on rumplestiltskin making a portal from the underworld to bring zelena’s baby to hades but zelena and belle both get caught in the portal too and belle takes the baby and goes to find their friends and ends up being told that she’s not only pregnant but rumplestiltskin, her husband who’s technically her ex, SOLD their baby to hades due to a deal he made a hundred fucking years ago and not ONLY that but also he’s the dark one again, because she thought he had got rid of his power when emma put all the darkness into excalibur and stabbed killian with it, but actually the darkness was just funneled right back to him. meanwhile zelena finds her sister and her sister’s boyfriend who is technically also zelena’s baby daddy due to a long and complex revenge scheme we don’t have to get into right now, and she has to try to win their trust to get to keep her daughter and all that. and then of course she ultimately gives her sister her baby to take care of because she knew regina could protect her better at the moment. and then of course the flashbacks are telling us about how zelena and hades fell in love while zelena was in oz trying to make a time travel spell (due to a complex revenge scheme. again we don’t have to get into it) and he was helping her because he too wanted to use the time travel spell. but then he fell in love with her because they’re both shitty awful evil people that have no love in their lives and want nothing more than to bring destruction on their enemies <3 and she turns him down because she doesn’t believe herself to be capable of being truly loved. and then back in the present in the underworld they meet again and the most romantic scene i’ve ever seen plays out where he tells her that he literally created his kingdom in her image and he’s loved her all this time. the underworld looks like a decaying mirror image of storybrooke because storybrooke is regina’s town and zelena spent her whole life jealous of what her sister had that she didn’t even get a chance at and hades wanted to give her everything she wanted. but! the underworld is a place of death and destruction! things don’t grow here they only decay! but it’s OUR decay!!!!!! and he’s loved her all this time!!!!! that’s fucking romance!!!! my god!!!!! screaming crying banging my head against the wall!!!!!

A Holiday By Gaslight by Mimi Matthews

Read time: 2 Days Rating: 4/5 stars

The quote: It hadn’t been love at first sight. That was too trite. Too simplistic. But something within him had recognized something in her. Had understood that she would be important to him. — Ned

A Holiday By Gaslight is honesty just an adorable second chance Victorian Christmas romance. Appreciate the characters. There is some brilliant forward-thinking that is well suited to the social revolution of the age and the technological changes of the industrial revolution are well represented. The protagonist Sophie is a female readers protagonist. Working to obligations but with a degree of freedom and much intelligence but still with flaws. She's remarkably feminist for the time, the whole book is. Also, she has great style. Many of these traits are suited to readers. They want to be her can relate to her on a level. As a reader, her thoughts on Darwin were unlike what I've seen in fiction but I feel like they suit and make sense, especially for a woman in her position.

Ned feels like a quite traditional historical romance lead. Until you learn his full disadvantages and he loses his shackles. He really is a good match for Sophie. All I will say is to hell with reputation. Give me all the illicit Victorian kisses. Having a male main character who is not only a lower class who has worked his way up but uses an interesting trade is great for me. Ned is the son of a draper and works with material he picks up material as an indicator of class and confidence easily. He is attracted to Sophie's confidence that belies her slightly lower class. Their relationship has something of a power balance in more than one way. Ned by far wealthier but Sophie is of a higher class. In the Victorian time period class trumps all. It does lead to an odd feeling in the ending. I do want to share a line. This is between Ned and his best friend/ business partner Walter Murrey. It's such a perfect exchange between friends, that feels perfect. “You’d like to punch me in the face, wouldn’t you?” “I’d like to disembowel you with a teaspoon.” Walter winced. “Ouch.”

The support cast is rather two dimensional but this is only a short novella it's limited to families and Ned's business partner Walter Murrey. But there are some differences. There are class and financial differences in play that are used to explain cooler personalities and some recklessness. That idea of Sophie and her mother keeping her family as financially stable as possible while Papa and Emmy are more frivolous is a good one. The responsibility of the oldest child. That drive to protect a younger sibling. I do want to say though Papa is a bit of a bastard. I was frustrated at him, he spent his daughter's doweries... just no. You absolute moron.

I will say one thing for new players, persevere through Ned and Sophie's early relationship, especially Ned it does get better after they arrive at Appersett House. Mimi Matthews works with tropes, as said Ned feels like an almost typical historical romance lead initially at least in the vein of a Mr Darcy mould, but there is also the marriage for money, on the shelf, unexpected intelligence and romance in the season. But what I love is the language used. This is just so lovely descriptively. Matthews writes evolving language well too. I like the differences in Sophie and Ned's attitudes. Their time in London vs after they free themselves of social propriety vs when they have to slip back into polite society while at the Christmas celebrations at Appersett House. He's charming and she's intelligent. All show well and all are quite different. Writing suits them both and they suit each other. Their styles differ enough that you can put it down and know exactly which character's pov you are in. Even with the tropey plot points, the writing and the characters just kept me reading from start to end.

Mystery Monday #9: Half seasons

First of all, I have to apologize for this being late! I got a new job this week and my days have been hectic to say the least.

Last week I said that each season has a Calamity Power theme. Today I say that each season follows a similar pattern with regards to its theme.

In the first episode of each season, Anne and the Plantars are supposed to stay inside, but end up getting out anyway and proving they can handle themselves. Then the first half of the season is all about Anne and the Plantars adjusting to their new surroundings. And the second half is all about one of the Calamity Trio taking the lead, directing what happens, and coming into their own.

Season 1 began with Sprig finding Anne in the woods and Hop Pop agreeing to take her in. In the first episode, Anne was told to stay in the house for the time being until the town got used to her being there, but she and Sprig got out and went to the lake. Anne then spent the early part of the season getting used to life with the Plantars on a farm in Wartwood. But as of Toad Tax, Anne was still treated poorly by most of the residents.

By the end of the episode, though, Anne gained the town's respect by protecting them from the toads who were collecting taxes that they had already paid. Snow Day advanced this development further when Anne went, as Sprig put it, "from town beast to town protector." And this arc concluded when she was voted "Anne of the Year" and had a "Reunion" with Sasha. Oh, and there was another "stay inside" episode on Grubhog Day.

Sasha also took on leadership at Toad Tower following her Prison Break. As we learned from her theme song takeover, she trained the toads to become fiercer warriors, and she and Grime eventually got to the point where they staged a banquet for the frogs of Wartwood.

Season 2 began with Anne and the Plantars adjusting to their new life on the road. In the first episode, Hop Pop told the kids to stay in the f'wagon for the whole trip, but they ended up checking out the Ruins of Despair. They spent several episodes stopping at new towns, eating whatever they could find, meeting new frogs, and trying to get to Newtopia in one piece.

After Sprig and Polly became Night Drivers and the Plantars Return(ed) to Wartwood, they had to stay inside during The Shut-In! Then after After the Rain, Marcy showed up in Wartwood and took the leadership role. She owned the first temple, triangulated the locations of the latter two temples, and oversaw the preparations for all three. But she kind of split the leadership duties with Anne: while Marcy handled the details of the temples megaquest, Anne helped to keep the family together and introduce Marcy to Wartwood.

Newtopia was kind of an in between phase. It was like the first half because although these episodes all took place in the city, they still featured a lot of new for our main cast. Sprig had a "stay inside" adventure when The Plantars Check(ed) In. But it was like the second half because Marcy took the lead and acted as a guide during their Scavenger Hunt, as well as helping King Andrias with his research while the Plantars were exploring the city on their own.

The first half of season 3 began, once again, with an episode where the Plantars were told to stay inside. The next episodes were all about the Plantars learning how to survive on earth. Anne and her parents helped them as they learned about earth's customs and their new environment.

Then after making their Escape to Amphibia, the Plantars joined the Wartwood Resistance, and promptly started gathering allies. Sasha was the leader of said resistance, even after trying to make her friend the Comm-Anne-der. (Missed op-pun-tunity with that episode title) Once again, Sasha and Anne kind of had a split leadership role here: Sasha commanded the attacks on hostile forces, while Anne led the missions to recruit more allies to the cause.

Each season of Amphibia followed a similar pattern:

The season started with an episode where everyone was supposed to stay inside, but someone found a way to get out and have fun anyways

The first half of the season focused mainly on Anne and the Plantars adjusting to their new surroundings and situation

There was an episode around midseason that saw a transition take place

The second half of the season saw the Plantars take a back seat while one of the Calamity Trio took the main leadership role (and another one emerged as sort of a secondary leader)

That's all for this week! I've got several more topics planned, so stay tuned for those!

she ra confuses me, like in some parts of it, it subverts tropes like destiny, mentors, redemption arcs, but in the big finale it's the biggest 'the good guys defeat the bad guys with the power of love' cliche

I disagree. There are some elements of this, but the meat of the finale is not about the power of love - rather, it is about identity and self-actualization. And the places where love interact, sometimes it is in more interesting ways. Such as.... where this love comes from, and where it is accepted.

Let me go through the key beats of the finale:

1. Would you say Shadow Weaver saved Catra and Adora with the "power of love"? Is that her "love" for them? If so, then that's really interesting - a darker interpretation of love, which they also have for her, in a way. That is no happy go lucky love cliche. The scene with them crying over her, it's powerful and painful and very provocative, IMO the strongest part of the finale. What do you do when you feel love for your abusive parental figure, and then just when you're getting over the fact they never cared about you, they show love back in an act of self-destruction? What closure do you get?

2. Love in the context of Entrapta and Hordak, is hard earned, because these characters spend so much of the show thinking that they were innately unlovable, and because Hordak had spent the whole season being guided back to his own identity with the "LUVD" crystal, and even then, it still wasn't enough - after Hordak had finally won the battle to be true to himself, to show and accept love, he had this pried out of hands immediately by Horde Prime. In the original animatic, Hordak panicked that he killed his brother (who in part he does still love), and Entrapta calmed him down... then Prime yelled at them, in Hordak's body, that they were unworthy and unloved and would die with no comfort. It was chilling. The final scene was cut short but I'm glad the original was shared.

These two have a bit in common with Adora and Catra - Entrapta works her ass off this season to protect the people she cares about with her tech skills, and is scared of failing them or being rejected, while Hordak doesn't think he is worthy of love because of the monstrous abomination that he is. In this scene, rather than shooting Entrapta, failing her again, and discarding his identity, Hordak shows her that he recieved her message of caring about him, reciprocates, and has her back. And in doing so, accepts he's worth something.

3. Catra and Adora's story of love isn't about the fact that they were going to get into a romance, it is about how Adora has spent the entire show giving OTHER PEOPLE her love, INCLUDING Catra, and how she has always refused to accept reciprocation. She has gotten herself into the mindset that it's her responsibility to care for and protect everyone else, and that to accept help, or to let other people do the job, would mean that she is too weak to be counted on, that she is unworthy of the power of She-Ra, or of the love her friends have for her. Adora's too strong for her own good and thinks that because she has a very slim possibility of surviving a suicide mission, that she should do it, rather than someone who has zero chance. But like how Angella didn't think Adora should seal the portal, Catra doesn't think Adora should use the Failsafe by herself, and decides that they will face their fate together.

In accepting Catra's love, Adora accepts she is worthy of love, that she is worthy of happiness, and this basically heals a rift in her being which allows her to focus on BECOMING She-Ra and actually save the world.

4. While I'm not exactly fond of Mermista and Sea Hawk's scene (IMO its inclusion was fun but made the finale seem too much like "power of love woohoo"), Glimmer and Bow had some interesting demonstrations of love.

Glimmer doesn't break Micah's control with kind words of friendship like everyone else does - she shows her love by MELTING HIS DAMN FACE OFF, knocking him out of the fight and stopping him from further damaging his own body.

Bow's big love moment isn't for himself or even someone he's particularly close with - it's for SCORPIA. Bow appeals to Scorpia's inner good nature, to get her to pause for ONE SECOND, so that he can execute Entrapta's nicely-prepared programme and actually free all the chipped people, because no amount of love will spare them from Prime's hivemind. It's a big moment for Scorpia, who has spent the whole show being the villain who always had so much care for others, but never recieved much back. Bow may not be close to her, but he understands what it is to be that friend, and is able to connect to her and believe in her without having much of a rapport.

5. Prime's actual death is straight up She-Ra murder, which is pretty cool. Bear in mind, this isn't She-Ra's power being boosted by love so much as it is the Heart of Etheria that the First Ones collected... but Adora, now at peace, is able to enjoy a moment of empathy for Hordak, a character who has a lot more in common with her than she would have ever believed.

Two soldiers born and bred to be used as weapons of war, finally meeting again at the end of their journeys.

Anyway, like I said, there are SHADES of "power of love", and that comes through when the characters "break out" of their chip control, but complete pandering to this is subverted by how the chips actually had to be 1. broken to prevent complete control of the characters and 2. removed by Entrapta and Bow's server hack, which is absolutely NOT "power of love", we spent the whole past season watching them prepare for that task, learning about Prime's computers and dismantling the chips.

The places that it appears most, as listed above, are hard earned, and more about the power of self respect than about loving someone else. Because the characters have all been capable of loving others the whole time, but the hard part is accepting they are worth being loved back, and that's what the finale is about!

the entire cast needs therapy? give me a list of reasons why.

Jesus Christ where do I even start.

Alright so: as a baseline, everyone in the cast has been on a planet at war with itself since they were born, and eventually gets involved in said war. This is not good for anyone's mental health. In more specific terms:

The parts of Etheria aligned with the Rebellion are constantly under attack, which means nobody, fighter or civilian, is having a good time. Thaymore specifically takes a lot of shit. The Princesses are in slightly less constant danger, but it’s their responsibility to protect the people who are, which leads to a different- but still damaging- kind of stress.

(Mermista and Perfuma are both teens [or VERY young adults] who have been put in charge of a kingdom, and Glimmer joins that particular club in season four. This goes double for Frosta, who is a literal middle-schooler.)

The people in the Fright Zone have even more shit to deal with on a personal level, since not only are they constantly at war, they’re a society built around war that values strength above all else and discourages all forms of vulnerability- this culture of shame about being hurt is probably a big factor in why abusive people (some of whom probably helped create that atmosphere in the first place) stay in positions of power: nobody wants to admit weakness by reporting them.

The Galactic Horde isn’t off the hook either- if anything, the people involved in that nightmare have it worse, with a leader who strips them of their identity and freedom and also literally takes their bodily autonomy away from them at random. And they’ve been brainwashed into liking it. And even if anybody wanted to report Prime for anything from the general rapey vibes to the brain invasion, there’s nobody to report it to and no way out.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have the Crimson Waste. If Prime’s empire is the pinnacle of abusive order, the Crimson Waste is terrifying, constant chaos. It’s a never-ending free-for-all between gangs, set on a backdrop of sand, cacti that can do everything from normal cacti stuff to turning something into a statue, and giant three-headed snakes. An environment this dangerous this consistently is going to have everyone in it on survival mode all the time, which is not good for a person.

To be even more specific, the Best Friends Squad is Dysfunction Junction at its finest.

Glimmer is, as of right now, half an orphan and spent a good season thinking she was a whole orphan. She has, as Netossa puts it, “crippling self-doubt mixed with overwhelming hubris”. She’s got a complex about people taking her seriously, grief over Angella, a sense of not being good enough compared to Angella. Plus she spent some amount of time on the same ship as Prime The Literal Worst, which should be counted as a traumatic experience on its own.

Bow... well, Bow has Seen Some Shit by the end of the series (they all have), but the thing that comes to mind for him specifically is his need to always be the mediator- to be the one thing tying the Best Friends Squad together. Also, he’s terrified of his parents finding out who he really is- George and Lance are very sweet and supportive but the fact that Bow felt the need to hide such a huge part of his identity from them is... concerning, even if it was just the product of a misunderstanding. My guess is, he’s got some sort of anxiety that makes him anticipate the worst from the people who love him.

We could write a book on everything that’s wrong with Adora, but we all know the basics. Lack of a sense of self, hero complex, guilt complex, control freak, constantly having something expected of her, etc. She thinks she’s worthless unless she’s powerful and useful, and she’s got that classic Fright Zone Vulnerability-Related-Shame.

Catra, similarly, has a laundry list of issues. To grossly oversimplify: Extreme external locus of control (Never My Fault in Tv Tropes language), suicidal tendencies, homicidal tendencies, self-loathing, trauma from Prime’s Rape Metaphor Chip, and of course: Fright Zone Vulnerability-Related Shame.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s the basic rundown. All in all, they’re a mess. Every character. Every single character has perfectly good reasons to be a mess, even the ones that don’t have that trauma explicitly depicted.

I deeply appreciate how ATLA depicts all the main characters responses to trauma. Aang’s, for me, however, stands out for its rareness in media. And we are not hammered over the head with the idea that Aang (or any other characters) repeatedly act certain ways because of a single traumatic event. Sure, there are key moments in our lives when a certain event comes to the forefront, but no one experiences the world as constant flashbacks. Rather, we see only in retrospect the way our sarcastic sense of humor or our heightened friendliness were protective responses to a deep emotional injury. Being able to understand Aang’s approach to loss is essential for the show. The structure of the series is founded on his arc (despite an incredible foil provided by Zuko). Our little air nomad initially confronts the loss of his people with a full-on meltdown in the episode “The Southern Air Temple,” where Katara’s offering of familial belonging soothes him. But this kind of outburst is not Aang’s primary response (and actually the literally out-of-character apocalyptic tantrums align with Aang’s overall process of grieving). Instead of constantly brooding (hey Zuko!), Aang leans heavily toward the monk’s pacifist teachings and toward his assumed destiny “to save the world.” He becomes overtly accommodating and joyful, constantly trying to see “the good” in everything with a perfectionist’s zeal. This is not to ascribe his bubbliness only to his trauma. Rather, he comes to emphasize this part of his personality for reasons related to the negative emotions he struggles to face.  Book 1: Water

In the first season, Aang is simply rediscovering his place in the world. “Water is the element of change. The people of the water tribe are capable of adapting to many things. They have a sense of community and love that holds them together.” This is vital to Aang as he initially faces his experience. He won’t get through this if he is not prepared for his life to change. Even if he hadn’t been frozen for 100 years, his world would never be the same. This fact involves eventually finding new people that he feels safe with. After such a massive loss, he’s learning who to trust, and also often making mistakes; not only does he find Sokka and Katara (and I’d argue he’s actually slow to truly open up to them), this is the season where he helps save a fire nation citizen who betrays him to soldiers, befriends the rebel extremist Jet, and attempts to befriend an actively belligerent Zuko (his moral complexity had only JUST! been revealed to the kid!). He’s constantly offering trust to others and seeking their approval in opposition to the deep well of shame and guilt he carries as a survivor of violence. This is also the season where Aang swears off firebending after burning Katara in an overeager attempt to master the element (one will note how fire throughout the series is aligned with, above all else, assertiveness and yang). Aang is so eager to be seen as morally good to others that he refuses to risk any possible harm to them.  And asserting himself carries a danger, in one sense, that he might make a mistake and lose someone’s positive regard, and, in another sense, that he is replicating the anger and violence he’s witnessed. He has no relationship to his anger at this stage of his grief, so it comes out uncontrollably, both in firebending and the Avatar State. It’s through the patience of his new family that he can begin to feel unashamed about his past and about the ways his shame is finding (sometimes violent) expression in the present. Book 2: Earth In the second season he begins to trust himself and stand his ground. Earth, after all, is the element of substance, persistence, and endurance. The “Bitter Work” episode encapsulates how Aang must come to a more sturdy sense of his values. First, there is the transition of pedagogical style. While Katara emphasized support and kindness, Toph insists on blunt and threatening instruction, not for a lack of care towards Aang. Instead, it’s so Aang learns how to stop placing the desires of others above his own--to stop accommodating everyone else above his own needs. Toph taunts Aang by stealing one of the few keepsakes from the monastery that he holds onto. This attachment to the lost airbending culture is echoed in the larger arc with Appa. And, by the end of this episode, it is Aang’s attachment to Sokka that allows him to stand firm. This foreshadows the capital T Tragic downfall in the “Crossroads of Destiny.” Aang gives up his attachment to the other member of his new found family, Katara, despite his moral qualms. Although he has access to all the power of the Avatar state, his sacrifice is not rewarded. Season 2 illustrates Aang coming to terms with his values. He is learning about what he stands for, what holds meaning to him. Understanding himself also includes integrating his grief, and there’s a lonely and dangerous aspect to that exploration. We see Aang’s anger and hopelessness over longer stretches rather than outbursts in this season. It’s hard to watch and hard to root for him. That depressive state leads to actions that counter his previous sense of morality, as he decisively kills an animal, treats his friends unkindly, and blames others for his loss. Letting these harsher feelings emerge is an experiment, and most people discover their boundaries by crossing them. Finding ways to hold compassion for himself, even the harm he causes others, is the other side of this process. Our past and our challenging emotions are a part of us, but they are only a part. Since Aang now has a strong sense of community and is learning to be himself rather than simply seeking validation, we also see him having more healthy boundaries with new people. He’s no longer befriending villains in the second season! He’s respectful and trusting enough, but he’s not putting himself in vulnerable situations nor blindly trusting everyone. Instead, he’s more likely to listen to his friends’ opinions or think about how the monks might’ve been critical towards something (they’re complaints about Ba Sing Se, for example). By knowing what he cares for, he can know himself, the powerful, loving, grief-struck monk. And he can trust that, though he might not be everyone’s favorite person, he does not need to feel ashamed or guilty for who he is or what he’s been through. Book 3: Fire However, despite a sense of self and a sense of belonging, Aang and the group still find themselves constantly asking for permission throughout their time in Ba Sing Se. It’s in the third season, Fire, that initiative and assertiveness become the focus. And who better to provide guidance in this than the official prince of “you never think these things through,” Zuko. It’s no longer a time for avoidance or sturdy defensiveness. It is the season of action. Fire is the element of power, desire, and will, all of which require us to impact others.  We see the motif of initiative throughout the season: the rebels attempt to storm the Firelord on the Day of the Black Sun; Aang attempts to share his feelings and kiss Katara; Katara bends Hama and a couple of fire nation soldiers to her will. In each of these examples, the initiators face disgrace. Positive intent does not bring forth success, by any means, only more consequences to be dealt with. This is perhaps Aang’s biggest challenge. He is afraid that his actions will fail, or worse, they will succeed but he will be wrong in what he has chosen. The sequencing in the series, here, is important. We have already seen how Aang has worked to care for (and appreciate) the well-being of others and how he has learned to care for his own needs. With this in mind, he should be able to trust that his actions will derive from these wells of compassion. But easier said than done. Compassion can also trap him into indecision, hearkening back to his avoidant mistake in the storm, in which the whole mess began. Aang’s internal conflict, here, becomes more pronounced as the finale draws nearer. I think it’s especially significant that we witness Aang disagreeing with his mentors and friends. He must act in a way that will contradict and even threaten his sources of support if he is to trust his own desires. Even the fandom disagrees about the choice Aang makes, which further highlights the fact that making a decisive choice is contentious. There is no point in believing it will grant you love or admiration or success. For someone who began (and spent much of) the series regularly sacrificing himself just to bring others peace, Aang’s decision to prioritize his own interests despite the very explicit possibility of failure is the ultimate growth his character can have and the ultimate representation of him processing his trauma. (This arc was echoed and made even more explicit in many ways with Adora in the She-ra finale.) The last significant time Aang followed his desire, in his mind, was when he escaped the Air Temple in the storm. To want something, to trust his desire and act on it, is an act of incredible courage for him, and whether it succeeded or failed, whether anyone agrees or disagrees with it, it offered Aang a sense of peace and resolution. Now I appreciate and love Zuko’s iconic redemption arc, but Aang’s subtler arc, which subverts the “chosen one” narrative and broke ground to represent a prevalent emotional experience, stands out to me as the foundation for the show I love so much.

so I was thinking about the whole hbo supernatural thing and all I could think was how it would fit in my major spn interpretation which is TRANSFEM SAM WINCHESTER!!!!

• changed her name to samantha for pure praticity

• is a lesbian, so all the romantic part is pretty similar to the canon, monsterfucking and all

• in which dean got a little confused about the distinction of gender ≠ sexuality at first like “wait but why did you become a girl if you like girls?” (he doesn’t know a lot of queer people, give him some time)

• AND SPEAKING OF DEAN! the biggest ally of all times. at first he doesn’t understand lots of stuff that seems obvious to sam (“why are you putting on a suit?” “dean we’re going to a small town, the case will be way harder if everyone is staring at me”), asks indiscrety questions (“can i ask you something?” “it depends” “you wanna chop your dick off?” “NO YOU CANT ASK IT”) but over time he starts to get it more naturally

• despite his numerous hook-ups, dean has never spent so much time in his life in a company of a woman so even the smallest things are extraterrestrial to him (“hey whats that bowl in the microwave?” “depilatory wax” “OH CMON SAMMY I WAS GOING TO HEAT UP MY DINNER THERE”)

• of course, there would be a scene where they met some hunter friend of john who says shit about sam, misgender her etc and dean goes FERAL, fist fighting with the guy and stuff. later sam yells at dean, saying she doesn't need dean to protect her and the argument would escalate to all the times that dean treated her in a condescending way, dean yelling back that dad said it was his job to take care of her and sam yelling even louder that dad would probably dead by now (in this moment all the lamps in their room (and in the street) simply explode, but they ignore. it was probably some short circuit…. right?)

• ok lets talk about john. still the same asshole, still gave a gun to kid who was afraid of the boogeyman, still tried to summon azazel when his son was in comma in 02X01 BUT now he also has a whole series of microaggressions with sam. she’s not stupid, she know the dad she has so doesn’t come out until she’s in stanford, SO john finds out sam is trans in 01X16 when john see sam after two years wearing a skirt and holding a .45 gun. he looks at her up and down and doesn’t say anything however, suddenly stops calling sam sam and starts calling her strictly samuel.

• it got worse after s1 season finale with the whole azazel possessed john > sam had the opportunity of killing azazel/her dad > couldn’t do it > azazel escaped > the winchesters get hit by a truck. when sam questions her father about being worried about the colt while his own son is dying, john explodes with her “you know samuel this is all your fault, once again you couldn’t just man up and pull the fucking trigger, kill the thing, you had to be same old sissy and chicken off, if your brother dies its his blood in your hands”

• aaaaaanyway, lets go back to our girl :D

• her style is kinda a mess. makeup done in a hurry, most of her clothes are mid skirts, hoodies and long dresses but now and then she spends a week wearing baggy jeans and band t-shirts, like dean’s, and no makeup at all. when he asks her “where is the whole angry teen outfit?” sam would simply respond its “because of the praticity, it’s tough to fight with a vampire in a dress lol” dean knows its because sometimes sam’s internalized transphobia ft repression gets loud

• her music taste is mostly grunge, punk and some alt bands she discover in stanford but dean call all of it emo “oh fuck off sammy, i let you drive once and you already put this emo shit” “dean this is literally nirvana, you cant call everything made after the 80’s emo”

• when she came out to bobby his reaction was literally “so now you’re a girl?” “uh… yeah” “gonna change your name or something?” “now is samantha but sam is still fine” “okay, now look this sigil... (and went back to the lore they were searching)”

• sam’s catholicism being more portrained on screen and how the dilemma of being a Christian and queer filled sam with religious guilty

• her paranormal powers also showed up sooner and since the beginning she knew something was wrong. her throat felt sore every time she recited the rituale romanus and holy water made her skin itchy. the older she got, the harder those “symptoms” became and with her denial, desire to be normal combined with religious guilt, it was easier to just convince herself that all this was just god punishing her for living in sin.

• surprisingly, all the demons and angels (and most of the monsters) even being assholes treats sam with the right pronouns

• which make sam and cas fist encounter even more interesting because cas literally turns to dean and go “is this your sister, samantha winchester?” “yeah” “ABOMINATION”’

• samruby second (cause the real first was ruby killing the seven deadly sins and stuff) encounter on the other side was a little more like "why are you following me?” “because youre tall and tall women are sexy as fuck” (then sam’s brain was short circuited for a sec because her height make usually makes her dysphoric)

• between s3-s4, dean still in hell, there would be a scene of one of the first times that sam drank blood to exorcise a demon with her mind. so here they are, demon tied in a chair and trapped in a trap, sam with blood all over her chin and ruby looking at her all heart eyes. Sam tries to do the exorcism but it doesnt work so ruby says sam needs more blood. Sam responds that shes nauseous and if takes any more shes gonna puke (cause you know voluntary vampirism came too natural in canon and that disturbs me) so the demon, who's wearing a cheerleader as a vessel, laughs and says "you know sammy, for real women blood tends to be a natural thing". ruby kills her on the spot.

• speaking of the catholicism (and the blood drinking) again, sam prays every single time before/after drinking demon blood, ruby mocks her for it but she doesnt care. its a weird feeling because even thinking that what shes doing is right, that she needs to get strong to kill lilith, it still feels bad, unholy in some sense.

• of course lucifer tempted her in s5 not only appearing as jess but also saying things like "why samantha, after all, are you willing to sacrifice yourself for a society that treats you like scum, that looks at you like a freak?"

• no need to say that in 05x04 "The End" episode when dean faces lucifer using sam as his vessel, she's wearing an outfit way cooler than that abbey-road-john-lennon-white-suit (to know what i mean search amanda seyfried 2018 met gala look THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!!!!)

• even after being clean of blood drinking, sam still has some of her paranormal powers. she can't do exorcises with her mind anymore but she can move small objects with telekinesis (she doesn't do it in front of dean cause she knows it would scares the fuck out of him)

i also had a list of some episodes rewritten in this au but this list is already long, guess i'll post later

rott spoilers ahead

so i’ve given myself some time to think about everything and try to process it all and here are some of my thoughts on trollhunters: rise of the titans...

- straight off the bat, i loved the intro. opening with blinky telling the story of what happened up until this point was incredible. i would have loved if they had circled back to this though (i saw someone else say it should have been him telling the story to jim and claire’s kids and i loved that idea!)

- i also liked that they didn’t waste time at the start, instead they just jumped right into the action which was fun.

- honestly, i thought jim’s plotline throughout the movie where he basically thought he was useless without the amulet was just really not fun to watch. i understand why it was there and it played into the climax but i really did not find it one bit necessary seeing as i felt that we have grown beyond that. i felt it was overused. we’ve been there before and jim is aware that he’s the trollhunter, amulet or not.

- douxie being so soft with nari was genuinely one of the most heartwarming parts of the movie. i feel that we were really robbed of so much potential with douxie in this movie though. we didn’t see nearly enough of him. it seemed that the writers were picking and choosing when to remember how powerful he is. switching with nari and connecting to her are two examples of when they actually used his power, but aside from that they just disregarded it a lot.

- and speaking of forgetting how powerful people are... i’m genuinely so hurt and let down over what they did to claire. do they not realise how powerful she is? did they just forget about her character arc? it sure felt like it. she got to use her powers a few times (connecting to nari, portalling the titan, etc) but mostly it felt like she was saying she was spent and therefore unable to do anything. she is so strong and so powerful, and that’s just so empowering - especially for young girls. and then it kinda felt to me that rott was reducing her to basically nothing more than jim’s love interest.

- okay another quick note, it kinda felt to me that krel’s potential was also pretty wasted? he barely did anything and i just think he deserved more too.

- ew okay i don’t even want to think about it but i know i can’t discuss rott without talking about the mpreg thing. seriously, what the fuck was that? at first, i thought it was going to be a joke. i thought aja and krel were gonna wind steve up and see how far they could go with making him think he was pregnant just for a little bit of comic relief. but then he was actually pregnant. and so i laughed, because even though it was dumb it was kind of funny. weird and unexpected, but kind of funny. but by the time the movie was over it just didn’t sit right with me. looking past the fact that it was just more of them making steve’s character into a joke, i couldn’t see the logic in giving so much time to that subplot when other characters (claire, douxie) and other relationships (claire and douxie’s friendship) were sidelined. maybe if he had gotten a whole season the mpreg thing could have been included as comic relief or whatever, but with such limited time i really don’t see the point of wasting so much time on something so pointless. 

- speaking of steve, i need to talk about creepslayerz... they really deserved more :( like i get that eli literally helped steve through child birth and then named one after him which was lowkey adorable but i loved their friendship so much and i was really hoping to see more of them. i was kind of hoping they’d get to do more as well. look i gave up on hopes of a romance long ago (even though i still really wished it would happen) but i hoped that at least we’d see some more of their friendship.

* by this point my brain has decided to forget absolutely every point i wanted to make... cue the brain fog (we don’t like her) and allow me to take a moment to read back and try to find my point again *

- i don’t think i can stress enough how much i loved the visuals in this movie. holy fucking shit it was just phenomenal. like wow. the art was absolutely fantastic and i’m really hoping for another the art of... book because i love the art of trollhunters and i feel that they could do with updating it to include the newer stuff. but yep, the animation quality was incredible and i don’t have a bad thing to say about it because just wow.

- speaking of art... a moment of appreciation for character designs. just wow wow wow. we love to see such intricately designed villains. we love to see growth in our other much loved characters. and the locations too? fantastic. beautiful. amazing. loved it.

- another moment of appreciation for jim. the hair. the scars. the injuries. the winter jacket. the fact that he looked a little older.... loved it. loved it, loved it, loved it. i cannot wait to spend hours pouring over reference pictures to draw them all.

- and claire... her armor being weathered and worn. her eyes!! her hair looked great as always. i just love her...

- nari nari nari... my goodness, her magic is so beautiful. i wish we got to see more.

- also, the jlaire moments were very cute. their kisses? so soft. they literally love each other so much. i adore them.

- what happened to the babies from the darklands btw? is not enrique just chilling in the lake’s house with a ton of babies? 

- barbara deserved better. i would have liked to see her and strickler happy.

- on that note, why the actual fuck did they think a few explosives would win against magic?? literal ancient magic and these dumbasses were like huh i guess we should blow it up. i’m sorry, what?? y’all are stupid.

* currently trying to think of every possible point that isn’t to do with the ending because i really don’t want to think about that yet *

- the whole thing with archie and charlemagne felt super unnecessary. like usually characters sacrifice themselves and it’s like sad and you can see the reasoning and stuff. but they literally could have gotten out. i really did not vibe with that. it felt like they just did that to leave douxie with no one.

- that trollmarket was beautiful though.

- speaking of trollmarket... they really restored the heartstone just like that? are you joking? i was not impressed at all. the heartstone was dead and gone, could not be destroyed. did they just forget that? half the shit in wizards wouldn’t have happened if the heartstone could have been restored. very pissed off by that. it was dead, that was it.

- okay back to jim... love that he pulled the sword from the stone. it was cute that it was a group effort, kinda would have preferred if it was just him but that’s just a me thing. and maybe me and my daylight tattoo are biased here, but excalibur is not half as pretty as daylight.

- not gonna lie, jim yelling come on trollhunters! kinda got me. i was very emotional watching this.

- i think the most in character jim moment of the whole movie was when he dropped excalibur, he didn’t have his armor, he was all alone and he decided to make a fist and fight the wizard/god with literally no weapon or means of defence. i don’t think y’all understand how much i love this dumb self sacrificing selfless boy. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, he is literally one of my most favourite characters of all time. i love him with all my heart.

- the armor!! wow wow wow. that was a fucking cool scene. beautiful.

- jim getting stabbed or whatever with that fucking spear thing nearly killed me.

- okay here goes... toby. my sweet toby. jim and toby’s friendship is one of my absolute favourites ever. my goodness. and toby getting in the van and going to save jim was incredible and such a toby thing to do. of course he would think of doing that.

- but like seriously... claire and douxie are so fucking powerful and they were both just like lol i guess we can’t do anything to help jim? i’m sorry what?? don’t tell me that claire wouldn’t go full on black and purple eyes and get herself up their to him. i just... i’m so bothered by the fact that they were sidelined y’all :|

- also, do not seriously try to tell me that aaarrrgghh!!! would let toby go on his own. he would have went with him. he would have followed him.

- literally as jim was falling the first thing that went through my mind was oh aaarrrgghh!!! is gonna run up and catch him.

- and while we’re on the topic of aaarrrgghh!!! why tf did they have such a build up that something was going to happen to either him or blinky for literally no reason? wtf

- aaarrrgghh!!! would not have let toby go alone!!! if he had been there, he would have protected toby, he would have saved him and none of that mess of an ending would have happened.

* ugh here’s the bit i was dreading... the ending *

- first off, i am choosing to ignore it.

- time stone? really? we’re... we’re gonna do this? literally one of the most original things i have ever watched is now - at the literal last possible minute - rip off another movie?? really?? whyyyy???

- i literally cannot express how much i hated it. it was so fucking unnecessary.

- he didn’t need to go back that far!!!

- i’m actually trying to block this out but i suppose i have to at least touch on it. jim would never ever put that burden on to toby. he just wouldn’t. before even looking at all of the other issues with toby getting the amulet, i need to say that. it just wouldn’t happen. he struggled so much with being the trollhunter, he wouldn’t put that on toby. 

- also toby literally never wanted to be the trollhunter?? he never wanted the amulet? he wanted to be a duke and have his war hammer and go on adventures with his best friend and his wingman and eat mexican food.

- okay so um i guess they all just forgot about unbecoming? cool cool cool.

- seriously though, was it not established many times that jim literally had to be trollhunter? and if he wasn’t it would be draal and everything would go to shit? did they just forget about that??

- having jim just decide to give toby the amulet literally takes away from the entire meaning behind jim getting the amulet and becoming the trollhunter. the amulet chose jim. merlin chose him. out of all of the creatures in the world, it had to be jim. he can’t just give that to toby!!

- and as much as i love toby, he would not last a day as trollhunter.

- and that’s not even beginning to mention all that jim erased by not becoming trollhunter. no father son relationship between him and blinky. they didn’t stop steve from picking on eli so no steve redemption and no creepslayerz. is he just going to allow enrique to be taken? toby will not have the same incentive to go into the darklands to save him if that’s the case. strickler will not show any sort of sentiment towards toby either. and then the big one...

- IS THAT FUCKER REALLY GOING TO ALLOW CLAIRE TO NOT GET HER POWERS??? WHAT???

- if jim isn’t trollhunter and the whole thing with enrique doesn’t happen then claire will never get her shadowstaff. let’s be real, strickler probably wouldn’t even need angor rot with toby as trollhunter. somehow i can’t see him making it that far...

- if claire doesn’t have her shadow staff then the whole thing with morgana won’t happen. she won’t destroy the shadow staff and then she will never develop her powers. would jim really rob her of that?

- okay i can’t do anymore, it’s too much for me now...

- i touched on this already in a separate post but i gotta say it again... i did not enjoy the destiny is a gift bit at the end. first of all, jim having toby find the amulet literally takes the meaning of that speech and his destiny away instanty. and second, i just could not stand hearing emile hirsch say the words that belonged to anton yelchin. it was just uncomfortable.

aaand i think i’m done. maybe i’ll have more later but i have a headache now from all of this.

Okay I see there are those who are confused as to why most of us are pissed about 15x19 I will gladly explain in depth:

Let’s start off with our boys Adam Milligan & Michael. These characters have not been seen for 10 fucking years. During that time there were Adam stans like myself campaigning like mad to have him and the infamous archangel return for some much needed closure. We had to content ourselves with headcanons, fanfictions and metas based on what we briefly knew of Adam and Michael as people while they unfairly sat in Hell. You might have seen the “Adam’s Still in Hell” memes that circulated. WE WAITED OVER A DECADE FOR THIS. And finally SPN answers our prayers and returns these boys back into the story for the final season. None of us anticipated what their arc and dynamic would look like. Before we could only imagine who these two characters were/are after having been trapped in a cage so long; what their personalities would be like and if they’d be antagonistic to TFW. 15x08 was a surprise because not only were Adam and Michael likable right out of the gate but the writing for them and their dynamic was damn near flawless! And Jake fucking stole the show he killed it as these two. It’s a crime they were not featured in more episodes because the chemistry between these characters is amazing and they’re played by the same dude.

We were given so much background into both Adam and Michael’s psyches in just a short period of time. Their motivations, interests and how they viewed those that wronged them (like the Winchesters); how Hell affected/changed them both and how they viewed their families. We got to see them banter, cooperate with one another and most importantly their different personalities. With Jake Abel appearing in only a handful of SPN episodes, he still fleshed out Michael and Adam beautifully; giving them layers and complexities that most side-characters (who’ve appeared more times than they have) didn’t. The way Jake played Adam’s anger and resentment towards his brothers was brilliant because it’s more under the surface compared to his angsty teenage self in 5x18. He’d become somewhat restrained, laid-back, gentler and wiser which works because Adam displays traits similar to Sam and Dean. He’s kinder and has a sense of humor but none of that distracts from rational thought as he’s quick to analyze and dissect situations. Man, he would’ve made a great hunter/Men of Letters recruit. We know right off the bat Adam’s pissed at his brothers for abandoning him in a thousand-year-prison-sentence and didn’t lift a finger BUT that ironically doesn’t compromise his willingness to help them unlike his past self in 5x18. Jake gets the point across with this character without saying much and that’s what made him so compelling to watch in this episode.

Now Michael was even more of a mystery onion since he wasn’t onscreen as much as Adam had been in past episodes so Jake got to really build on top of this character. Going from the uptight, cold-blooded merciless celestial warrior/dutiful son of God we saw in 5x22 to someone whom despite his arrogance and regal princely demeanor was very human, intelligent, fair, mindful and compassionate. He trusted Adam and respected his opinions even if he didn’t agree 100%. Whereas most angels take over the vessel completely from their original occupant; Michael chooses to share his vessel with Adam as a mutual agreement which says a lot about who he is. He’s fascinated with humanity and wanted to explore it instead of returning to his throne in the clouds. We know that Michael was created specifically to be Humanity’s protector and guardian of Heaven and Earth so these quirks he’d demonstrated in 15x08 aren’t too far off. He holds a lot of pain inside from his abandonment issues with his father whom he loves to a fault and grief over the death of his brothers. On the surface there’s very much an abused child syndrome thing going on with him though he masks it with a domineering presence. And above all this we saw that he was capable of forgiveness. Whether or not Michael always had these traits inside to begin with, its very evident that his friendship with Adam influenced the person he became post-Hell. And that was someone who, like Castiel, chose to rebel for the sake of free will by aligning himself with the Winchesters after witnessing the evil his father had committed. He actually cared about saving the world. This is what we call character development.

What does 15x19 do? It shits all over that. We don’t get to see Adam and Michael’s dynamic at all; and this was perhaps one of (if not the first) most healthy portrayal of a relationship between an angel and its original vessel occupant in the history of Supernatural. Adam is just killed off-screen Thanos style without so much as one last word and Michael barely reacts like he gives a crap. It was just established to us in 15x08 that he’d developed an emotional bond with Adam through years of inhabiting the same body. He protected Adam while they were trapped together in Hell. They were each other’s only friend and source of comfort. They’d developed a certain co-dependency on each other while respecting one another’s space. They’d both made peace with their joint situation. All they had was each other and the writing in 15x19 basically tells us their relationship meant absolutely NOTHING to Michael based on his OOC actions in this episode. He shows up much darker and shadier now that Adam is gone and its like all those years of friendship, things like that independence, newfound strength and humility he’d gained from living with a human for so long are erased. Michael just reverts back to Chuck’s 5x22 bitchboy persona in the most ridiculous 180 shift I’ve ever seen in my whole damn life. And all because his little brother called him mean names. Pitiful. Just when he lectures Lucifer about standing up for what’s right; he betrays his own words, his allies and the rest of humanity in T-minus 2 minutes. That is total character assassination. Nothing about this motivation makes any sense.

There’s no build up to it, no foreshadowing in 15x08 or throughout 15x19 until they get to the lake. He’s completely deconstructed as a character in this episode and rendered weak. It’s like 15x08 never happened. Stripped of all his development for lousy shock value. Instead utilizing all of what he’d learned through Adam and sticking it to Lucifer by proving he could be more than what Chuck tried to mold him into; Michael becomes just another NPC in the story forfeiting the hero he was. And his reasons for siding with Chuck are never specified. Was it about about saving Adam? Was it about proving something to Lucifer (whom he’d already killed in anti-climatic fashion)? Was it all an act that he was in on with the Winchesters; cause there’s absolutely NO FUCKING WAY they could’ve predicted he’d flip on them like that for their magical plan to work. Not after everything Chuck’s done, killing Adam and Jack and leaving Michael to rot in Hell for eternity. And why would he suddenly go along with destroying the Earth when defeating Chuck would probably get Adam back (if that was his goal) which IT DID not to mention its his sworn duty to freaking protect humanity, hello? So his betrayal meant jack shit in the end as it got him killed by his fucking dad!! He’s brought back into the show only to be ruined forever and killed off in the stupidest fashion.

Moving on.

Jack Kline & Castiel. This iron-clad relationship has been in development for 4 in 1/2 years since before Jack was even born. And next to Adam & Michael its the other most healthy relationship on the show. Castiel, a million year old celestial being, spent the first 9 years of his arc on Supernatural following around the Winchesters, being torn between his loyalty to them and to Heaven. He rebelled when he was supposed to be a straight-by-the-book warrior of God. And he defied every rule in the process even when the odds were stacked against him. There was an endless rinse and repeat cycle of love, loss, betrayal and redemption when it came to his relationship with Sam and Dean. It made his character complex, interesting and layered but it still didn’t give him an arc that was his own. Castiel started out moreso being written as just the Winchester’s angel BFF/side-kick. Until Lucifer got Kelly Kline pregnant in 12x08 then things really took off. Before this, Castiel was a lost soul. His faith was broken, he was depressed, lonely, battered and rundown from years of being conflicted over the other angels and Sam & Dean. He felt he’d lost a sense of self and meaning in his life. And didn’t have a mission. Once he turned on Heaven’s orders, Castiel was a rebel angel without a cause so to speak. But like I said this changes the moment he meets Kelly.

Originally Castiel was suppose to kill Kelly in 12x19 because she was carrying the child of the devil and Nephilim are considered forbidden abominations. Told that if Lucifer’s kid was born he could unleash even more evil into the world. But instead of doing what he thought he should, Castiel decides to runaway with her. Choosing to protect her from all threats (Lucifer, demons, other angels, princes of Hell); this especially included the Winchesters. During this short time-frame the angel develops a strong, emotional bond with Kelly and her unborn son that stretches all the way to the S12 finale; to the point where it actually gave him a power-boost. From the womb, Jack appoints Castiel to be his father and protector and he’s given a glimpse into the child’s destiny that he’ll bring paradise to the world. A prophecy that the writers establish head on. This is an unusual circumstance because right here is where Castiel’s solo arc apart from the Sam & Dean takes shape. The journey of becoming a first time parent and guardian. Its a new kind of independence that for the first time has nothing to do with his friends or his family members/colleagues in the sky. Its his own personal mission that he willingly accepts, the second he connects with Jack from inside Kelly. Castiel immediately falls in love with him, before they even see each other; and adopts the boy devoting himself to keeping him safe. Making a promise to Kelly that would later become a vital plot-point in the seasons to come.  

Castiel literally risks everything (Heaven and Earth) to ensure Jack’s birth and ends up dead by 12x23′s startling conclusion. Leaving the newborn infant Nephilim alone in the care of the Winchesters going into season 13; scared, confused and aged into a seemingly 18 year old boy for his own protection. And Alexander Calvert who is a fantastic addition to the cast really brings something wonderful to this role; he’s like a breath of fresh air and a bright light in the middle of a dark room. Jack’s naïve, innocent and curious about his surroundings but also as Castiel once put it “remarkably intuitive”. Right when he’s introduced his arc is intentionally paralleled with Castiel’s. Their alien-fish-out-of-water beginning is practically identical as is their adorable stoic facial expressions. Like father like son. And this helps because while the angel is currently dead in the beginning of season 13, there’s an empty void he’s left behind. So Jack is kind of his temporary stand-in. Odd enough this type of switcharoo would’ve been considered very controversial but it’s handled quite well. Alex is so likable and charming I almost wish Supernatural had introduced him sooner. I mean I really thought I was looking at Castiel’s actual mini-me and not the son of Satan. But I digress Jack’s story in the first half of this season is pretty much about discovery and reuniting with Castiel. He’s a baby so everything is new to him but he’s also one of the most powerful beings in the universe destined for greatness which makes the Winchesters very nervous.

Jack remembers choosing Castiel as his dad which is why he already feels strongly connected to him. Its a bond so powerful that it actually resurrects Castiel out of the Empty the first time. Something Chuck himself was unable to do (that was until the mess that is 15x19). When they’re finally reunited the payoff comes so naturally. Misha and Alex have such a phenomenal onscreen chemistry starting with that first hug; they really play off one another so well that it doesn’t feel like two angels interacting but a genuine father and son duo. So much of what makes Jack and Castiel’s relationship so relatable, deep and endearing is because of what the actors bring to it. But they’re not just a fascinating relationship, they’re compelling on their own too. Both trying to find their way in the world and within the Winchesters’ lives. Death is no stranger to either of them (tragic being that Jack is only a toddler). They’ve each experienced their own personal pain, traumas, life lessons, mistakes and decisions. The biggest for Castiel would be his deal with the Empty to save Jack in 14x08. While for Jack it was the consequences of said deal that would lose his soul causing him to accidently kill Sam and Dean’s mom in 14x18 as a result (something that Jack struggles with immensely to the brink of depression from so much guilt and regret that he’d rather die). Repercussions that would follow into the shows final season. What’s interesting about this deal though is that Castiel made it on parental instinct alone not as a promise to Kelly. He chose to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son as a selfless act of love and kept it a secret from Sam & Dean until his death in 15x18. That’s the extent how much this child meant to him. The other great thing about their family dynamic is that it parallels nicely with the Winchesters. Castiel and Jack share this unconditional love that can never be broken. its even greater than their ties to the Winchesters themselves just as Sam & Dean’s love for each other is greater than any of their other relationships. They would do anything for each other. Castiel would go to the ends of the earth for the little nougat baby because that’s his son.  

Each time these characters were faced with danger or died, Castiel and Jack were overcome with extreme devastation and distress. That said its not just pain that binds these two its happiness. Jack is the best thing that ever happened to Castiel. Literally becoming a father to that child saved him. It brought him back to life, restored his faith and gave him a sense of self-worth and hope he’d long since abandoned. And for Jack, Castiel is the best dad he’ll ever have! He gave this baby comfort, wisdom, nurturing, strength. Was always there when he needed him whether it was to talk or to have his back. No other person in Jack’s life has ever made such an important impact nor made him feel more safe and loved than Castiel. Even when Jack had done such a horrible thing to Mary alienating himself from his family; it was Castiel’s unyielding devotion to Jack that ended up being his salvation. This was huge because once again he’d chosen over the Winchesters proving that no matter what (whether it be the world ending) his son comes first. So when Castiel’s pact with the Empty finally comes due in 15x18 you’d think it’d have an earth-shattering affect on Jack in 15x19. I mean for the first bit it does...until he becomes God. Then its like to hell with that relationship. Castiel is a complete afterthought to Jack and the rest of TFW in this episode. JACK DOESN’T EVEN GET TO GRIEVE HIM PROPERLY. And he just lost his dad because of a deal he’d made a year ago for him. A DEAL JACK HAS BEEN FUCKING DREADING WHILE HE WAS SOULLESS MIND YOU. And when he finally has the power to bring him back, he doesn’t? Jack just walks around with a conceited smirk on his face, bids Sam and Dean adieu and fucks off. I mean who gives a shit right, its only your dad that you love more than anything. This was extremely OOC given that time in 14x14 Jack nearly lost his shit when Castiel got infected with gorgon poison; the anti-venom wasn’t working so Jack resorts to using his powers putting his soul at risk.

I mean if he was so limited to helping Castiel in the Empty AT LEAST FREAKING CLARIFIY THIS TO THE AUDIENCE. This is not about shipping a certain pairing btw. Jack becoming God is not the issue its his characterization after the fact. His first instinct would’ve been to save his dad above getting in touch with the Earth. Yes we knew this transformation was coming it was foreshowed way back in Season 12. Does that justify bad writing or character assassination?? HELL NO.

This is what I’m talking about, episode 15x19 deliberately butchers these characters and their relationships. It shat all over them. No one is behaving like themselves. The pacing is wonky and inconstant. The script feels like it underwent several rewrites and I swear there were scenes cut out. The acting is off too and maybe the pandemic could be blamed for these things but it ultimately falls on the writer. Buckleming screwed up by showing us they don’t know who the hell these characters are, their motivations nor do they give a rat’s ass. And its noticeable on screen. I’ve known better fanfiction writers for SPN than these guys. It’s like they all came back to work but just didn’t care to put the effort into it. That’s why people like me are upset and we have every freaking right to be. Some of us have been with this series for the entire 15 year run. I at least expect these characters to be handled better and for things to make sense. 15x19 doesn’t and its not satisfying its just a cruel joke. The writers and Dabb should be embarrassed to have put this out there thinking we’d just swallow it and shut up. But far as I’m concerned the only thing this episode serves is to disrespect and ruin everybody while angering long-time fans.

MICHAEL. ADAM MILLIGAN. JACK KLINE AND CASTIEL DESERVED BETTER. And that’s the tea.

Catradora, Wanting, and Religion

When you think about it, discovering and accepting what they really want is a huge part of both Catra’s and Adora’s arcs this season. And that really was necessary after they spent all this time fighting each other and telling themselves they wanted to stay on this path.

With Catra it started last season when Double Trouble called her out on this life not being what she really wanted. The question was posed to her again this season by Glimmer and Horde Prime before she realized that what she really wanted was to protect Adora and maybe somehow earn her forgiveness. Then she struggled to accept that she wanted to actually be around Adora because of her guilt and her habit of blocking emotional connections out of fear of getting hurt. She even told Adora she wanted to be alone before she realized how much the prospect of Adora leaving hurt and asked her to stay. And admitting this to herself ends up hurting, because Adora’s inability to prioritize her own desires makes Catra think Adora doesn’t want her back.

For Adora, it’s less about thinking she wants something else and more about not being able to identify her own wants, because she has never prioritized them. Despite how she’s clearly worried about Catra in episode 4, Glimmer has to be the one to voice that Adora wants to go back for Catra, and Adora looks ashamed when she admits that it’s true. Towards the end of the season Catra questions whether risking her life to save the universe is what Adora really wants, and again she can’t really answer because she’s not used to this thought process. What she wants is to save the world, right? Even when Mara asks her what she wants when this is all over, Adora insists that it doesn’t matter. It’s not until she has that wish for the future that she realizes and maybe even accepts that she doesn’t want to die, she wants to live to be with her friends, be with Catra.

This theme of learning to recognize and accept your own desires is really powerful in a season that also features a lot of toxic religion. Wanting is often considered sinful in religious contexts. You’re supposed to cast off your own desires and want what your god wants for you. This is something that becomes very ingrained in your psyche when you are raised in that environment, especially if you have desires that are considered deviant and sinful. Like being gay, for instance. (That whole “Prime casts out all shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure” thing was very uncomfortable to watch, as you hear a lot of that same kind of stuff in some Christian sects, especially re. conversion therapy.)

The Horde has always been a metaphor for toxic religion, even before this season took it to a new level. Adora and Catra were raised in an environment where wanting anything was frowned upon, where you had to be willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of the Horde, of the world. Adora bought into this especially hard and was unable to leave this way of thinking behind when she switched sides. Even the more rebellious Catra was affected by it, because letting herself want anything was dangerous in an environment where she couldn’t have what she wanted: Adora to herself, both of them against the world. Giving into and chasing that desire could only lead to heartbreak, so she kept it under wraps, then pushed it deep down once Adora left because it hurt too much to acknowledge.

Seeing both Catra and Adora identify and accept their own desires by the end of this season was just so satisfying. And inspiring, as someone else who was raised in a toxic religious environment. The fact that it all culminated in a beautiful moment of love between two women who had to fight so hard to embrace their own desire for each other, that made it unforgettable.