#<- but all four of them are deeply codependant and love each other very much.. 🤍

[grossdyke]

the bartyrosiers uni au sounds scrumptious and i'm just imagining the twins becoming like an urban legend around campus, they're THE worst case roommate scenario every freshman is wary of

i'm wondering tho, what do you think everyone's majors are? i always imagine barty stuck in law or politics or smth because of his dad

no literally!!! 😭😭 like people are making drinking games out of it, whispering line ’yeah and i walked in on evan spooning this girl… and it turned out to be his TWIN’ and someone else chimes in like ’oh yeah? i saw pandora kissing him before leaving and the kiss lasted TEN SECONDS’ and someone else swearing on their life that they slept naked together, someone else about how he’d wake up and hear them having sex…..

and like. it all spirals to the point where there’s just no way to tell what’s true and what isn’t…. which i think helps the rosiers sort of ?? like i tend to think that the twins actually do try to be careful and want their relationship to be secret, so they wouldnt actually have sex if their roommate was home and they wouldn’t actually sleep naked… but thing is that the twins are also terrible at understanding whats normal ahdjfjsjd. so the KISSING is true and the kissing always goes on for longer than a sibling kiss ever should… or like yeah they absolutely will spoon etc etc etc. so yeah there’s all these twincest rumours going around about them, but everyones also like aware that people are overexaggarating and making things up… so people sort of always come to the conclusion that Yeah they’re the creepy campus twins… but i’m sure it’s blown out of proportion…

and majors!! i think about this a lot…

barty: i always imagine him stuck in law or political science and stuff too… so absolutely something like that. i think he’d want to minor in english or litterature <- but i also dont know how majors and minors work and if he could get away with that with his dad……. but i’d like to think he does a lil litterature or english course. he’s just soooo rich priveliged guy who has no understandings of morals and he’s just so. wrong. wires crossed and all that…. so he’s obsessed with the twins from the start, perving on them and getting off on the twincest rumours going around Hoping and Praying that they’re true…….

evan: i love med student evan….. malpractive evan save me… save me malpractice evan…. him with his scalpels and notebooks filled with anatomy drawings and his deep psychosexual obsession with pandoras insides the two of them being twins and wanting to open them both up to compare where they’re similar and where they’re not…. i imagine he does a lot of drawings of pandora opened up

pandora: ive always seen pandora as a girl in stem…. i feel like it’s the closest to her canon career and how she ends up dying because of a failed spell experiment… i want her in lab coats and holding vials and doing explosive experiments and calculations etc etc…. and also the psychology aspect of majoring in a stem field… like my girl is SO curious about other people and how they work and Why they work the way they do. she always like.. uses her and her brother to compare other people to. like that’s her normal, so she’s fascinated by people who aren’t them. can’t fathom that there are people who work differently. both the rosiers have this sort of superiority complex.. to me.. where they’re just sort of convinced that they’re better than other people. more aware. on the outside of societal expectations and not caring about them. they’re like ’free’ or whatever whereas they consider other people prisoners of societal norms and rules.

there are only two people in the world who can stand them and that they can stand in return…. and it’s barty and reg…🤍

[caughtthedarkness93]

So I've got some Acolyte thoughts again after giving the last episode a couple days to percolate and talking to my partner about it. Spoilers under the cut.

So the thing about the characters we've seen die so far - Yord and Jecki - is that they are non-essential characters, in effect. They have a role in the story, but not a load-bearing one. The story isn't about them where the story emphatically is about Mae, Osha, Sol and our new Sith friend. The show is at its core about the relationships between these four people. It's probably going to spin off in some really wild directions given where the last episode ended, but Mae and Osha, Mae and Qimir, Mae and Sol, and Osha and Sol have so far been the primary defining relationships that keep the story in motion, and there's burgeoning hints at a pre-existing relationship with Sol and the Sith Lord and the last episode's ending strongly suggests a big part of the next episode is going to be about building on the beginnings of Osha's relationship with the Sith Lord that was established when she saw shit go down in the last episode, especially with the implications that there's more to the story of what happened to the witches that raised her.

So it makes sense for those two to die, as their stories are secondary to these four core characters who define the conflict of the show. They're secondary characters who have intrigue and are involved in that conflict, but they're not the ones guiding it, not really.

But what I find really interesting about this is that they are both very loyal adherents to the Jedi Order and the Jedi Code as it is understood at this point in-setting. Look at how they both are introduced. Yord enters the story reuniting with his old friend Osha. Where she greets him warmly and happily, he's very much all business and arrests her pretty much immediately without really bothering to listen to her or corroborate her story or check her alibi in any real way. This sets up his extremely by-the-book nature which, of course, extends to his view of the Jedi Code. Jecki, meanwhile, is introduced chastising her master for his nostalgic attitude towards Osha because to her it looks uncomfortably like attachment - as we know, that's forbidden for the Jedi. It also sets Sol in contrast as someone who has a bit of a less strict view of what is ideal in a Jedi and how one is supposed to act.

So when we lose them, we don't just lose two characters we'd really started to feel some affection towards, we lose our two characters who are most attached to the order's rules. And what we're left with is a Jedi school flunkout, everyone's new beloved Jedi dad who loves you in a way the Order doesn't seem to like much, the very face of unhealthy codependency, and a fucking Sith Lord. The least messy of these characters is clearly deeply wounded by the past and struggles to contain his emotions at times. And now, his emotions have become a huge part of the show's battleground, and he's lost the two strongest anchors to the Jedi way when he needs them most.

And while we're at it, it also deprives Osha of the same. When Yord comes to see her, she's genuinely excited to see him again and proud of him for making Knight. When she decides to leave before the Khofar mission, she goes out of her way to say goodbye to Jecki. It's clear the two have developed a bond over the course of the story.

All that's left for Sol and Osha is an existing connection they have with each other - the very connection the fallen Jecki enters the scene criticizing.

That on top of how this show is very interested in the Jedi Order and how it navigates is place in the galaxy - as both a religious institution and a political institution and the way those impulses conflict with one another. Already we've seen aspects of how scared the Order is of this getting out. And if the Jedi believe the Sith have been extinct for a millennia by the time of TPM, there's gonna be another shoe that'll drop - especially if Qimir is part of the Rule of Two's lineage. Either this will all get buried or we'll discover things are not how they seem in some other way.

This is gonna be real interesting, I'm sure.

[leiascully]

This 'Field Where I Died' exchange has always bothered me, where Mulder says, 'If early in the four years we've been working together an event occurred that suggested, or somebody told you, that we'd been friends together in other lifetimes, always... wouldn't it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another? And Scully says, 'Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn't change a day.' Then she says well, except for that flukeman thing. That's nice and all, but I always felt like she was answering a different question. He was asking her about them, about who they were to each other, not whether she had any regrets. I always felt disappointed in her answer, like she dodged the question. Thoughts?

I feel like that's kind of essential to their relationship, and one of the things we love so much about it. Everything is oblique or shrouded in shadow. They talk directly about so many things, but so rarely about what there is between them. Each time one of them opens up, the other one has to deflect in some way. Their love is too bright to look at directly. To discuss it is to open the ark of their covenant with each other. They're not sure they'll survive. Even her serious answer has to be tempered with a joke. But I do think you're right - she's not answering about their potential multiple lifetimes. She's skating past that assertion and just answering about the last four years. I honestly think that question is something of an apology on Mulder's part, because he was kind of a jerk to her at first. He's saying I didn't know. I couldn't know. And she's telling him It's all right. You couldn't know. There are so few moments that she doesn't show her trust in him - even in Wetwired, you can feel her fighting against the idea that he's betrayed her. They've pledged allegiance to each other.

I think the kindest interpretation of this odd moment in this odd episode, which in its attempt to set up a different soulmate for Mulder ends up reaffirming his connection with Scully, is that it's both of them feeling a little bit of a sense of relief that the depth of their connection makes sense. If they've known each other for lifetimes, the mud and the rain and the quiet hotel room in Oregon make sense. Her willingness to confront other government officials and possibly shoot them to get him back in their second case together makes sense (although the timeline of Deep Throat does not, haha). His devastation over her abduction makes sense. The fact that she shot him, drove across the country to save him, and learned an ancient but living language on his behalf makes sense. All the things their families didn't or don't understand about what they mean to each other are easier to brush aside if there are centuries of companionship and love behind it. They're not being foolish or codependent or toxic or whatever. They're deeply and intricately linked together by circumstances beyond their control. Meeting each other was coming home.

Also they're both very pretty in this episode thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[usertoxicyaoi]

[1/2] so i love codependency as a trope. the whole us-against-them, i-will-watch-the-world-burn-as-long-as-i-can-keep-you-safe thing really works for me. love it when two characters are like, i have ONE person, YOU are that person, fuck everything else. love it best when it’s acknowledged in-universe that it’s not quite healthy but they just do. not. give. a. shit. it’s my jam and i eat it by the spoonful.

so i love that akktheo are codependent, i love that akk is theo’s one and only person, i love that akk puts theo above everything and everyone else, even his own happiness, i love it because it’s 100% mutual, one is not more obsessed or more unhinged than the other, they match perfectly in their yearning and intensity. all they want is each other. all they need is each other. despite what akk thinks, theo has never and will never want anyone the way he wants akk. despite what theo fears, akk will never ever leave theo’s side unless theo himself asks it of him. they are it for each other

and yeah. some people might find it unappealing, unhealthy, toxic even. and that’s valid. codependency in real life is not romantic at all and it can be very damaging. but we all have tropes we don’t like. me? cannot stand power imbalances. not overly fond of enemy-to-lovers even though it’s probably one if not the most popular trope. but you know what? 1) no one forces me to consume content i dislike and 2) i don’t make assumptions about people based solely on the content they enjoy

[2/2] the other issue i think some people have with Enchanté is that it didn’t turn out to be what they expected. like, unlike what the trailer had led us to believe, it didn’t turn out to be a harem story where the boy lets himself be courted by his four suitors before realizing at the 11th hour that his pining bff was his One True Love all this time. i think most people were happily surprised by that. but then, some folks wanted it to be a journey of self-realization, of choosing reality over fantasy, of theo choosing akk over enchanté. but the reveal shattered all that. instead it turns out to be the story of a boy so lonely and so desperately in love that he does this one very stupid and selfish thing to keep the boy he loves by his side. and i can understand how some people would be put off by that, i do, but to me it’s chef’s kiss because friends-to-lovers is one thing. but true mutual pining? unhinged yet un-acted upon yearning? excruciating slow burn not because of contrived misunderstandings but because of a deep seated fear of losing the one person that matters the most? we don’t see that often. and perhaps for good reason, going by the many many people who find akktheo boring or frustrating or unrealistic. but me? it hits me where i live.

so anyway, this is the longest and most convoluted way to say that 1) you are not alone in your deeply unhinged love for akktheo and the equally messy and unhinged love they have for each other, and 2) you should not be made to feel bad or ashamed or guilty about it wtf. i love how much you love them because that’s how much i love them. i love coming to your blog to partake in this shared obsession. life is fucking hard, man. if these boys bring you joy and solace and a reprieve from reality then that’s great. that’s amazing. i want that for you. you fucking deserve it. - tee ♥️

hiiiiiiiii my love!!!

SHFBSICOAJ THIS ASK. CAN WE HANG THIS ASK IN THE LOUVRE.

like. HONESTLY. co-dependency like you said ISNT everyone's thing, bc it can get V V extreme sometimes. but i think the reason why i Get It with akktheo is bc ... they are CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS. they are ALL that they have. they are ALL that they have known. there's a whole other layer to it that being childhood best friends adds. and not only that. but they're NEIGHBOURS too. like. even when they dont wanna see each other, they still do. imagine being in love ... in THAT sense.

but yeah. i'm just SO glad that enchante went the way it did. i would have Not Liked it if theo had courted all 4 ambassadors and Then realised it was akk all along. by having it BE AKK as the ONLY ONE for theo from the START, where theo didnt give A Shit about any of the other 4, just makes it sooooo much more .... intense and sensical to me. like you SEE theo yearn, and then you find out he's enchante, and it hits that much more deeper. ALL THE WHILE as we see akk Go Through It too. its the pure ... mutual-ness of it all.

and i think. like. the thing is. theo in hindsight REALISES that it WAS a pretty stupid thing to do. he WASNT proud of it. there IS an acknowledgment on his part that this whole thing which was only meant to be a small in-house thing snowballed and snowballed and it spiralled. and i Love that theo .. ugh. i Love that theo is this MESSY character. i love it SO SO much bc of how it REMOVES HIM COMPLETELY from this first impression we have of him being this absolute Angel. i WANT messy. i LOVE messy.

anyway man like. idgaf what people have to say about me or anyone else liking enchante. we shouldnt be made to feel shitty or guilty about it. i'm just glad enchante isnt as Big as other gmmtv shows are bc honestly .... who needs that stress of fandom wars man when real life is So Damn Stressful as it is. so in a way im glad its lowkey and that it isnt ~everyone's cup of tea~ in whatever sense that may be (they find it boring or slow or book's french accent is bad or forcebook look too alike or that theo is a manipulative psycho or whatever). there's plenty of other shows out there to watch if you dont like enchante!

[kitkatopinions]

The sad thing is that Blake's most healthiest option romance wise is someone who gives her space and willing to let her go. Sun fits this description perfectly. But they went with a codependent toxic relationship partially held together by guilt in which one side is clearly submissive and the other too worried and insecure.

Yeah, tbh, the send off to Sun at the start of volume six made me think they would pick up the relationship where it left off eventually for a couple different reasons, but one of them was this reason.

I want to preface this post by saying that A. I don’t really like Bumblebee and I don’t need a reason to dislike it even though I have reason to dislike it, B. I’ve shipped BlackSun from Sun’s first introduction, and C. also I’m coming at this as someone who has been in a co-dependent relationship, so all three of those things means I’m naturally a little biased. I’m not pretending this is all a super objective, impersonal interpretation. This is just me talking honestly about my thoughts towards a ship I don’t like. Bees, I’m sorry if this shows up in your tags, Tumblr is being screwy and I’m not trying to rain on anyone else’s posts. I’m using filterables and putting this under a keep reading to try and make it easier for Bumblebee fans to not see this.

I had - when I saw season six’s opening ep - given the show mad props for writing a romance driven relationship where the partners didn’t have to stay together all the time to still care about each other and be secure. It felt like the perfect move to me to get some distance between their characters while firmly establishing that Sun had never done the things he’d done ‘to win the girl,’ and didn’t consider himself ‘letting Blake go.’ Sun not only being willing to spend this time away from Blake, but to not even need it really said, and to have his own stuff he needed to do as well... All of that felt like a healthy, independent relationship. I don’t mean to get personal on main, but I’ve been in a relationship where I felt partially responsible for my partner’s happiness and he tried to do things like keep me from my friends or guilt me into things. I ignored the red flags because our relationship was important to me, but it made me feel pretty unhappy because I was always worried that if I didn’t do the things he wanted, he would get upset and over-react, and put himself down until I built him back up, and if we didn’t spend the majority of our time together, he would start talking about feeling like I didn’t really care that much about him and how lonely he felt. This was really exhausting to me, especially since I’m an introvert.

Sun always seemed like such a good partner for Blake because he was always so self-possessed, so confident in who he was already, independent and happy and accepting of Blake’s independence. Sun was always there for Blake, but he also was the one usually pushing her towards interacting with others too, they were able to go do separate things and even go on completely different missions with confidence and without drama. For a character who had previously been in a destructive, possessive, controlling, abusive relationship, it had seemed like a scene that clearly established Blake and Sun’s relationship as one where Sun wasn’t expecting Blake to stay with him all the time, respected her goals and her independence, and had his own life and his own friends too. I had kind of just assumed that the choice to have Sun leave the group and go to Vacuo was to further their relationship. Upon rewatching the scene later now that I know that the writers were already starting to try to implement Bumbleby, I can see how the show writers might’ve been intending that scene to be an amiable goodbye where Sun confirms to Neptune that they aren’t actually an item with his ‘it was never about that.’ But I just have to shake my head, because I was giving the writers credit for something they didn’t do.

Instead, they were trying to tie off the relationship between Sun and Blake by having him leave, not cementing Blake’s independence and Sun’s encouragement of that (and they tied it off badly imo because Blake freakin’ kissed the boy lol.) And once they had Sun leave, they started setting Blake up with Yang. I want to clarify that there’s nothing wrong with the writers deciding to go with Blake x Yang, and the ship itself was not a totally baseless one. I’m personally disappointed that one of my favorite RWBY ships isn’t going to be endgame, and I personally don’t like the idea of Blake and Yang as a couple. But my problem isn’t really with the ship itself, it’s with how the show writers have chosen to write the ship in execution.

Getting past the queerbaitery nature of Bumblebee as a ship, the choices surrounding Blake and Yang seem faulty on both sides (which I also think is important to remember. I’ve seen loads of people recognizing that Bumblebee as written in the show is destructive to Blake, but I’ve seen much fewer people talk about how it’s not the best for Yang too.)

Let’s start from the fact that Blake is an abuse victim. She was previously in a relationship with Adam and talks about his destructive and violent behavior. Blake has a really hard time trusting people because of how Adam had acted. He was explosive, manipulative, and he got angry at and hurt Blake specifically for leaving him. The last thing Blake would need is a relationship where she feels personally responsible for the stability of another person. The last thing she needs is to be pressured into staying with someone. The last thing she needs is to be expected to be with that person without the option of ever working with others. The last thing she needs is to be in a relationship where she can’t be apart from someone even temporarily without that person getting anxious and insecure or without having to feel guilty and like she did something wrong.

And yet the show has her in a relationship with someone that has abandonment issues. The show has her promise to stay with Yang in a moment of huge trauma, Blake crying out a desperate denial to the accusations of the abusive ex who had made her life hell, after he tried to again separate her from anyone she loved and she was forced to kill someone she had once deeply cared about. It was also a really weird choice of the writers to have the characters respond to a question over if they’d ever thought about working with other partners with dismissive and cold behavior as if the very idea was somehow wrong (especially since Yang spent quite a bit of time pre-volume six working with Weiss and Blake spent so much of her time working with Sun.) And the writers chose to frame Blake and Yang leaving on temporary separate missions in volume eight to result in insecurity and anxiety from Yang and guilt for Blake. On top of that, Yang is a person with a strong temper and aggressive tendencies. Although she seemed to be trying to work through those problems in seasons four and five, Yang backslid and seems just as controlled by her anger and her insecurities as her volume 2 self now, who had lashed out at Blake and angrily pushed her for not listening in ‘burning the candle.’

As for Yang, she lost her mom when she was very young (Ruby was a toddler,) and her dad temporarily shut down after that. She soon found out her biological mom had left her when she was a baby and spent her whole life wondering why while her uncle spent that time flitting in and out of her life and taking on dangerous missions - the same types of missions that had killed the woman who had raised Yang for the first part of her life. Yang has deep seeded fears of being abandoned and losing her loved ones, and she also has a history of trying to take care of and support the people around her even at her own personal expense. While Yang’s more selfless moments in season five - like giving up her dream of getting answers from Raven to follow and protect Ruby even when she clearly wasn’t wholly healed from her trauma - are admirable, what Yang absolutely doesn’t need in a partner is someone who she feels like she has to protect and save and sacrifice for. What Yang absolutely doesn’t need in a partner is someone she feels like she can’t rely on to be there for her. What she doesn’t need in a partner is someone who can’t give her stability or struggles to trust her. What she doesn’t need in a partner is someone who won’t call her out when she goes a little too far. And yet the writers chose to put Yang with someone who runs on the regular, the only member of their team who thought Yang might be lying about Mercury, someone who needs time and distance when Yang clearly needs someone who is consistent and present. And then the writers made it so that Yang and Blake spend very little time with anyone else. The writers made it so that they can’t be apart without guilt and anxieties.

And you guys, Blake in seasons 6-8 feels so needy. She’s consistently in need of saving, consistently doesn’t stand for herself, seems like she needs a lot of reassurance in her relationship, she’s consistently waiting for other people to make moves, etc. Even when Blake convinces Yang to divulge top secret information to Robyn, when Ironwood confronts them about it, Blake backs up and leaves Yang to explain their actions. In the early seasons, it feels like Yang cares more about their friendship than Blake does and that she’s putting in more effort, which don’t get me wrong, makes total sense since Blake had just gotten out of an abusive relationship and Yang’s clear anger problems (and her using a laser pointer to try and force Blake to talk to her,) might’ve made Blake hesitant to get close to or open up to Yang. But while it no longer feels like Yang cares more, it still feels like Yang puts in more work. Yang is constantly reassuring, protecting, comforting, and stepping up for Blake, while Blake is so passive and acts so dependent that I personally can’t help but feel like Yang must be exhausted. Yang needs stability and reassurance too, Yang needs a partner she can talk to and rely on to be there. When the writers did write Blake as trying to comfort and take care of Yang, it was way too much and had undertones of ableism. And I know, I know they had this ‘we’re taking care of each other’ moment when they were fighting Adam, but that’s just what we were told for one scene, and not what we’ve actually seen in their relationship.

The worst thing is that it didn’t need to be that way. Bumbleby could’ve been a really good ship that built on their foundation. Blake used to be an independent, brave, strong, active character. Blake stood up for herself to Weiss, told Ozpin to his face that he needed to do more for the Faunus, used to have a great, creative fighting style, used to be this sassy girl who’d banter with Sun and with Yang and when she did start opening up to Yang, it was a great way to start evolving their characters to be a strong relationship. In V3 when Blake admitted that she had doubts about Yang due to her past experiences with Adam, but opened herself up and decided to trust Yang anyway when Yang looked her in the eyes and told her sincerely exactly what had happened... That was so great and it really showed off the dynamic the two of them were starting to adapt. CRWBY might’ve immediately separated the two, but A. Seasons four and most of season five had great set up for them to work through their problems and then continue to grow that great dynamic we started seeing in the first three seasons. And B. their respective arcs continued their growth as characters even apart from each other. While I wish that RWBY had let the two work some of this out together, the growth that we were getting did make them more suited for each other. I’ll always ship BlackSun. But Yang getting a hold on her emotions, maturing, starting to work through her abandonment issues, and displaying just what a caring, honest person she was, at the same time that Blake was working through her past and her fears, learning to let people in, strengthening her resolve, and coming into her own as a leader... Come on, those two characters could’ve easily developed a good, healthy, strong, independent relationship and I’m legitimately sad that’s not what we got, especially since we sacrificed so much of Blake’s personality to get a worse ship.

I don’t even know what to say about it, tbh. Idk what else the writers expected us to think with how they wrote things. I’ve heard before that there was probably a cut scene in volume eight that included Yang and Blake fighting (which would then justify Yang and Blake’s reactions when they reunited,) and I do believe that, but the writers chose not to include it, and that made them look worse as a couple. Just like they chose not to include a scene where Blake and Yang work through the problem of Blake having left Yang without a word of explanation at the end of Volume 3. And they didn’t include a scene where Blake explains herself and Yang realizes that maybe she was being a little shortsighted about the trauma Blake had also gone through. And they didn’t include a scene where Blake actually learned that she didn’t have to protect or take care of Yang in volume six. And they haven’t included a scene where Blake puts just as much effort into their relationship as Yang does. And they didn’t include a scene where the two make it clear that they’re fine being apart. If anything, CRWBY has established the opposite, and it isn’t enough to just say that they’re taking care of each other, when they don’t show that to be the case. 

Sun being not only willing to let Blake be with others, go her own way, and be her own person, but encouraging of that, made him a very compelling romantic prospect for her. Unfortunately I just don’t see that with Blake and Yang. Their relationship feels co-dependent, and maybe it’s just my personal experience talking and making me chafe, but I personally just don’t like it.

However, fans have been queerbaited long enough. So personal opinions aside, CRWBY give Bumblebee some confirmation you fucking cowards.

[firelxdykatara]

hm, while im still here and thinking about it

i’ve seen a lot of posts comparing rayaari to catradora, mostly positively but some also using the similarities to call rayaari an abusive/toxic ship, and i feel like a lot of people are missing key differences. and for me, as someone who was not completely satisfied with s5 of spop and never liked or shipped catradora for a lot of reasons, but who deeply enjoys and ships rayaari, there’s something very key that raya does right which i believe spop did wrong with respect to rayaari and catradora.

and it has everything to do with their history.

before adora left the horde, she had a history of physical and emotional abuse--primarily by shadow weaver, yes, but also by catra. we get a lot of memories from their past, and their relationship involved a very toxic codependency with a heavy dose of abuse--adora trying to protect catra but, when she failed, catra lashing out at her, verbally and physically (that scene where young!catra slashed across young!adora’s face w her claws left my stomache in knots for hours). they were set against each other by shadow weaver in a very classic scapegoat vs the golden child dichotomy, but that doesn’t erase the harm catra did long before adora left the horde.

(in many ways, their relationship was very like zuko and azula’s, although their roles in their primary caretaker’s eyes are reversed, with adora being most like zuko if zuko had been the golden child, and catra being similar to azula if she’d been the scapegoat instead. adora being the ‘preferred child’ in shadow weaver’s eyes doesn’t make her any less SW’s victim, and it didn’t do anything to protect her from catra when she lashed out as a result of SW’s abuse. in fact, i’d argue that it made her even more vulnerable, and we see in the show that she winds up blaming herself for not being able to save catra when they were children--even though that very much was not her job--and this is never properly addressed by the narrative. at least, not to my satisfaction. obviously, mileage on that particular score may vary.)

when you combine their history along with every awful thing catra did in the show proper, adora coming to realize she was in love with catra the whole time and not requiring (nevermind receiving) any kind of actual apology for that abuse or for, yknow, trying to destroy the world multiple times, it winds up leaving a very sour taste in my mouth. it doesn’t help that catra kept digging herself deeper and deeper for the entirety of the first four seasons, despite multiple chances to change and begin to make amends for her behavior (and lord knows i’m not trying to say a redemption arc should be linear, but you have to make progress in order to regress, and catra never got that far), which left the entirety of her redemption arc to fight for space in the final season with an entire galactic war.

except that it didn’t even really do that. catra saved glimmer at the eleventh hour (and that was a sacrifice, i won’t deny it) and then got brainwashed, and... that was it. she was ‘accepted’ by the group almost immediately, and all she had to do was stop being grouchy at them for saving her life.

did she ever actually apologize for anything she needed to apologize for, by the way? i genuinely can’t remember. i know she said she was ‘working on’ her anger and apologized for that but like, babe, there’s four seasons worth of shit and eighteen years before that which you really need to unpack before you should be telling adora you’re in love with her and starting a relationship. i’m just saying.

and all of this is without talking about the fact that, especially in regards to relationship development and plot pace, you will tend to expect more out of a television show compared with a movie. i’m a lot more ok with namaari’s redemption being a little rushed and coming down to a few of her own choices and the other characters choosing to forgive her in a less than 2 hour movie than i am with a television show that takes place over 5 seasons with 4 sets of 12 episodes. even cartoon length (roughly 22 minutes an episode when you exclude the credits). that’s a few hours shy of 20 hours worth of material. they had a lot to do, sure, but they also had a lot of room to do it in, and it was a deliberate choice not to start catra’s redemption even a season earlier--which, again given what it had to compete with in the last season, was ultimately to the show’s detriment imo.

so...........that was a very long tangent, and i’m sorry, i just have a lot of residual feelings of dissatisfaction about spop and catradora which i still needed to let out and this was a convenient post for it. but my ultimate point is, by comparison, rayaari is a much less toxic dynamic.

namaari betrays raya’s trust in the beginning, sure, and there are hints that they probably had a lot of run-ins during the six year timeskip given their familiarity, but in all that time they were enemies. that’s why enemies-to-lovers usually doesn’t involve outright abuse, unless there’s another facet to the relationship (ie catradora’s relationship pre-series)--because two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict being violent towards one another does not equal abuse.

and yeah, namaari betrays raya’s attempt at trust again--or seems to, resulting in the cliffside scuffle leading into the movie’s climax--but she also comes back of her own volition. she returns with her shard of the dragon gem, helping raya and her friends fend off the druun, when she could have run and attempted to save herself. that, i believe, is what ultimately prompts raya to trust her one last time. i believe that namaari believes she was about to put down her crossbow and never intended to actually shoot sisu--the horror on her face when the dragon falls to her death is proof enough of that, as is her final desire to just... give up and let raya take her revenge--and she proved that to raya by coming back and risking her life to help them in that final battle.

of course they probably have a lot to talk about and namaari has a lot to apologize for, but i can forgive a two hour movie for leaving that to the viewer’s imagination (especially when there is no expectation of a romantic relationship between the characters in canon--it’s catradora being canon which makes all the rest of it land so poorly for me) than i can an 18 hour television series.

again, opinions may differ on this score, and that’s fine. i just wanted to share my own thoughts.

[dotthings]

So let’s talk about Cas’s issues, and how they hit that nerve of Dean’s insecurities. 

I feel like Dean’s personal issues get discussed a lot (by myself included), both from a Dean-positive take and from the pressure placed on this character in a more negative way. There’s a lot of expectation placed on Dean as a character and ironically enough, in that process I feel like even Cas fans don’t do enough digging into what makes Cas tick, what his weak points are, his fears, his cyclical dysfunctional hang-ups. Cas is a layered, complicated, well-developed character with a now 12 season history on the show, as a main character, even if he is less prominent than Sam and Dean, and as such this means there are flaws as well as goodness in him. It does Cas a disservice to paint him as never wrong, as never causing hurt to those he loves. I’m not speaking as a Dean fan here, but as a Cas fan, this just isn’t about fairness to Dean, I feel there is an actual imbalance in how these discussions tend to go and it’s kind of a habitual tendency in the fandom. In part fueled by the fact that Dean is so open with his feelings, shows that he feels things SO hard and so deeply, that’s the character, and that kind of makes Dean a lightning rod to talk about Dean feelings, good or bad.

Canonically, Cas tends to get less pov due to structure, when Cas isn’t in every ep of a season and where SPN structurally puts Sam and Dean as the center spokes of the wheel, no matter how near the center Cas is of that show wheel. Cas has become another core pillar--Dabb referred to Cas along with Dean as a “core character” in his pre 15.09 interview. But because logistically, Dean still carries more pov on the show, we get more looks into Dean’s mind than into Cas’s. Which isn’t as great for Dean fans as you might think because by SPN not giving more Cas pov, it’s putting more and more of the responsibility for making the profound bond work onto Dean and Dean’s pov. While Cas has contributed plenty to this rift that developed.

There’s also the thing about the fandom default perception is that Dean is repressed emotionally. Which, sure, in many respects, yeah. But not in the way it’s popularized in fandom. Dean is actually the more facile, open, raw, vulnerable in expression of his emotions, with big outbursts, of hurt/anger or softness. He goes big. He expresses. He cries easily. He doesn’t exactly hide. He wears his heart on his sleeve. But because Dean is also a character who constructed facades to survive, he puts on facades and one facade is "no chick flick moments.” A facade I’ve pointed out again and again he’s terrible at maintaining, nonetheless it is real and he can be gruff and he does at times try to hide from his own feelings, and avoid, and struggles not to say stuff and then it gets out anyway. But he’s also very openly emotional.

While Cas is actually far more locked up emotionally as a character. Far more repressed than Dean. Look at his background. Millennia as an angel. Shoved back through the angel reprogramming machine every time he displayed an independent thought. Angels have emotions. They are not unfeeling. But they are taught emotions are weaknesses. They are a taint. They are dangerous. A lot of Cas’s arcing over the past 11 years has been about learning what emotions are and how to manage them. Even if we remove that factor, Cas also has a personality of his own, as a character, and is a survivor of trauma and abuse, as Dean is. Cas, like Dean, carries a lot of anger.

Cas is impulsive. Sometimes heedless. Ironically, he often pulls Dean back from heedlessness. But he has that tendency and Cas’s heedlessness tends to result in cosmic level events (leviathans unleashed, angels falling). He has a temper. He will end you if you hurt those he loves. Cas in the past has shown a hubris about how he has to fix all the things because these frail humans he loves can’t, Dean’s “just a man,” and while Cas definitely outgrew that, there are remnants still there. Which isn’t JUST hubris. Cas, being an abuse and torture survivor, being a survivor of emotional neglect, similarly to Dean, also has, similarly to Dean, this thing about needing a mission, a purpose. He needs to be needed. And if he isn’t serving a purpose, if he feels he isn’t being useful, then he feels worthless. The Dean corollary to that is Dean’s lack of self worth in what his father instilled in him--that he has no purpose, no mission, outside of protect Sam, and the hunt.

This need for purpose and Cas’s insecurities powered a lot of his arc with Jack. Cas’s relationship with Dean evolved over time. They didn’t stay just the same. In some ways the bond equalized in good ways, but as part of that, Cas was no longer the “Winchesters’ guardian” of early Cas seasons. That role gave Cas purpose. As Cas drew deeper and deeper into the family, as his character developed and he increasingly got his own arcs, which are all good things, that also meant Cas wondered what his purpose is.

Protecting Jack gave him purpose. A mission. Someone to look after. His relationship with Dean isn’t that. That hit a height with “draped yourself in the flag of Heaven” at the end of S9. By S11 the focus shifted to Dean’s drive to save Cas. Dean and Cas’s relationship is that of peers, fellow soldiers, friends, and yes, on a coded level that’s been harder and harder to ignore in later seasons, lovers/husbands. 

Cas devoting himself all to Dean wasn’t sustainable. Just as Dean couldn’t perpetually be all about Sam, but while Dean and Cas are more peers/husbands role, Dean is Sam’s stand-in parent. Dean was parentified at the age of four. Sam as recently in 15.09 says Dean raised him. Sam knows his actual father figure is Dean, not Bobby, not John. There’s a whole lot about Sam and Dean’s relationship that made a lot more sense to me once I kept that in mind, that symbolically they were parent/child not just siblings/hunting partners. (Their codependency added another complication into the mix) That is not the relationship Dean and Cas have ever had. They are protective of each other. But it’s not a pseudo parent-child relationship. Nor are they codependent. But Dean always had a Sam, while Cas...did not have a Sam. Dean wasn’t his Sam, once he found a Dean. Dean was something else entirely. Not less, but different.

Enter Jack and while I was resistant to that arc initially, in the long game I can see multiple overarching purposes for the story. One of them is Cas’s character development. While the Cas and Jack bond isn’t just like Sam and Dean’s, and I’m not suggesting it is, it has that similar pseudo parent-child aspect. Jack is all of Team Free Will’s kid, but I think the way Jack impacted Cas’s arc made the most seismic shifts. 

The thing about this S15 rift with Dean and Cas is that it’s not really about Dean’s existential crisis about “realness.” It’s not actual about Mary or Jack or that freakin’ snake. Well, it is...I’m not suggesting Dean had no valid reason to be hurt and upset with Cas. That is real. But this was ramped up as a culmination of years of issues. It mashed Dean’s buttons so hard because these are reflective of cyclical behaviors that come from Cas and it hurts Dean every time. Underlying all that, maybe subtextually, Dean’s doubts about realness played into it here as well. But the doubts, fears, insecurities, and hurts Dean feels about Cas are there regardless. Chuck applied pressure points to hasten the rift. To rip them apart because that serves his purpose but all he did was play on their actual insecurities and feelings and then watch them dance to his tune. 

One of Dean and Cas’s issues has been things that have been there a long time, in the relationship, where Dean’s chronic issues play on Cas’s insecurities and Cas’s chronic issues play on Dean’s insecurities. There’s a bunch I could reel off. Dean’s abandonment issues vs. Cas’s tendency to keep things from Dean, not turn to Dean, not trust Dean, for one. This is something Cas has done for years, long before Jack, and it hurt Dean then and it hurt Dean now. Just for example.

I feel like what happened late S14/early S15 is that all these long running issues they never addressed came crashing down on the bond at once. 

The things that are Cas’s issues, Cas hasn’t talked much about. Cas doesn’t talk about his innermost emotional landscape the way Dean does. Sometimes he does speak his feelings, but I wish he’d do it more often. 

The things Cas has done in the past that hit on Dean’s abandonment issues all got ramped up with Jack. And it happened more than once. Why is Dean so hurt. Look at how he responds to Cas keeping things from him, or to losing Cas, or to Cas not reaching out to Dean, trusting Dean enough to go to him in the past. How hard that has been on Dean. Take your pick of plots. Cas teaming up with Crowley. Cas and the monster souls. Cas running off with the angel tablet. 

With Jack there was a string of events. It wasn’t just the one thing. This isn’t my condemnation of Cas or because I don’t get Cas’s motivations and good intentions. Or about Cas being right/wrong. Right or wrong, his actions still hurt Dean. Being a parent added such a completely new layer into Team Free Will bonds, the TFW familial unit shifted. Change can be hard on a relationship anyway.

Quick recap of the sequence of events with Cas and Jack: it was Cas slipping away from Dean as Cas devoted himself to a nephilim in embryo. When Cas bonded with Jack’s grace in the womb. When Dean said he didn’t recognize Cas. There was Cas’s belief in the vision Jack showed him. It was Kelly giving Cas a mission to protect her son. Cas, like Dean, feels a strong sense of duty. Remember Dean’s S2 speech when Sam died? How Dean expressed the depth of his sense of failure? “I had one job, to keep you safe.” And by the end of S14, Cas lost Jack. He had one job. To keep Jack safe.

Cas pretty much thinks he’s worthless without that, same as Dean.

So there’s Cas, taken by Kelly after Dean was begging him--begging him--to return to the bunker with them so they could talk. While Kelly effectively prevented Cas from taking the action he might have done of his own volition since she drove off in the Impala with Cas still inside it and he couldn’t stop the car without hurting her and her unborn child, the element of choice there is murky. But Cas did choose to protect Jack. He did choose to knock out Sam and Dean at the playground. There’s Dean, as he has in prior seasons, seeing Cas walking away again. 

Then it happens again. Cas heedlessly goes after Lucifer, when he should have waited, Cas was so focused on his Jack mission, and as a result, Lucifer stabs Cas dead, right in front of Dean’s eyes. So Dean loses Cas again, and audience gets to see Dean is utterly devastated (but Cas doesn’t). 

But then Dean gets Cas back! His big win...which Dean confesses to Sam but again, Cas doesn’t get to hear it. And then right after getting Cas back, Cas is running off again, due to Jack. Dean begs Cas--BEGS HIM--let me come along, you need backup and Cas says no. Because Cas has to fix all the things himself. So Cas gets kidnapped and locked in an angel proof cell. Dean doesn’t even know he’s lost Cas this time due to voice mimicky plot, but there it is again, Dean loses Cas, again for Jack. Then Cas keeps that detail about Felix the snake from Dean, which wasn’t right for Cas to do, to be so secretive. Whatever his intentions, no that wasn’t right, and it goes right back to Cas’s tendencies shown in earlier seasons. To fix the thing himself. Anael calls Cas on it, even. His fears. Which leads to Cas finally going to Sam and Dean with the information. Cas apologizes and confesses, explains in a rare moment of us actually getting to see inside Cas’s emotional landscape that he was scared what Jack losing his soul would do to tear this TFW family apart. What Cas would lose because of that. A hella lot of that is about Dean, not just TFW or Jack. 

None of this has ever been Cas not caring about Dean. Cas was there for Dean in S14. He fought to save Dean, first from Michael, then the Ma’lek box. But Dean and Cas don’t exist in a profound bond bubble.

Dean doesn’t even know yet that Cas sold himself to The Empty to save Jack midway through S14. Should we start screaming now?

So after Cas’s confession and apology late in S14 about what Jack did to the snake that Cas didn’t clue in Sam and Dean about, Mary is dead, because of soulless Jack, and all hell breaks loose with Jack, and Dean believes the only way out of this with soulless Jack is to kill soulless Jack. Cas doesn’t agree. Dean delivers an ultimatum, my way or the highway and who cares what you think (bad move, Dean). So to save Jack and Dean, because if Dean shot Jack with Chuck’s gun, it would kill Dean too, Cas runs off to get to Jack first. 

From Dean’s perspective he’s seing Cas’s back again, leaving him again. Losing Cas again.

Think about how this steps on the same nerves as Cas’s vanishing acts in earlier seasons, or Cas walking into the lake, or Cas staying behind in Purgatory when Dean did everything he could to save him. Think about Dean’s abandonment issues. Think about how Dean’s abandonment issues and this repeat cycle of Cas’s inherent tendency to not get that he should loop his family into things, that he can’t fix it all on his own, of leaving, even if he always comes back. And no we can’t blame Cas for the times he left when he didn’t want to, when something happened to Cas, but when he vanished into the lake in 7.01, when he insisted on staying behind in Purgatory in S8, when he heedlessly went pell mell after Lucifer--Dean losing Cas was a direct result of Cas’s choices. Where Cas put himself into a position where Dean lost him. 

This has happened again...and again. Imagine the heart-crushing heartbreaking panic for Dean during their Purgatory revisit when Cas disappeared. It’s Dean having to relive his Cas trauma. Because guess what, Dean loves Cas a lot. I don’t know how this even became in question in fandom, it continues to utterly baffle me. 

So it’s not really about Jack though. I’m not blaming the Jack storyline for this. What happened was the Jack storyline brought those issues to a boiling point. Cas’s insecurities and drive to have a mission. Dean’s abandonment issues clashing with Cas’s running off again. Repeatedly. 

What’s going to happen when Dean finds out about The Empty deal, and not just the deal itself but the fact Cas kept that, too, from him. I don’t think it will be rage this time. Not after 15.09. It will however, I suspect, be utterly devastating for Dean...maybe this time he won’t snap at Cas, he’ll just say how devastating it is, before he and Sam get to work on a solution. And Cas will have to witness how devastating it is. Cas hearing Dean’s prayer in 15.09 is such a big deal and I really really hope this hit Cas hard and woke him up to some things. Because with all of Cas’s particular insecurities, despite the fact that Dean has repeatedly shown Cas directly how much he matters, there’s also been plenty audience gets to see (Cas is family/Dean’s grief arc/Cas is a big win) that Cas hasn’t. Cas hearing Dean’s prayer here I think will change things. Cas won’t be the same. Dean won’t be the same. The bond won’t be the same. In a good way. 

15.09 didn’t feel like resolution to me, and I’m glad Dabb confirmed that in his pre ep interview. It felt like ice melting, barriers crumbling. That’s good. It’s a start. That will help them with what’s next. But they have so much to work through still. Because their problems aren’t just from recent plot events, or Chuck. These tap into some fundamental things about them each that affects their bond. I’ve been saying this since before the end of S14, this isn’t hear to destroy their bond, it’s to level it up. It’s to deepen it, to fix what’s been amiss at the root and realize it into something even more powerful.

I need Cas to speak, not just Dean. Not just for my ship but for the character, I need more looks into Cas’s inner emotional landscape and how he feels about his own insecurities and I’d love to see an equally big confession about his Dean feelings.

[iatheia]

EDA reviews part 2 - books 10-18

Previous part here

10) Legacy of the Daleks - A very enjoyable read, even though it doesn’t mesh well with Big Finish continuity. I have a few headcanons on how to rectify that, though... The meeting between the Eight and Delgado’s Master left me grinning ear to ear, the way Eight was posturing, wholly aware of the way the Master ticks. I’m not sure I liked Susan quite as much, though - nor was she that fundamental to the story, spending most of the time off screen, but being somewhat unlikeable when she was there. Her final confrontation with the Master was a bit much... Similarly, it was hard to accept Master not recognizing her. That said, the rest of it was a fun romp, and Eight’s thoughts towards the end were particularly poignant, 9/10

11) Dreamstone Moon - Starting right off the bat with an author self insert, and have him being both the source of the conflict and the one to ultimately save the day, kind of - it’s a bold choice.... It’s been said before, but Doctor’s companions really should unionize huh? Eight’s in particular. It really is quite striking that the situation with Sam is pretty much the exact same one as it will be with Charlie - thinking that the Doctor is dead, abandoned, alone, without any network of support. And I’m finally about to have context for that post, so, cheers, I guess. That said, Sam and the Doctor are very much representative of the “quit telling everyone I’m dead - sometimes I can still hear his voice” meme. I’ve lost count how many times Sam decided that the Doctor’s dead within five minutes of seeing him very much alive. (Ok, no, I jest, but it’s a good book, throughly enjoyable from the beginning to end, 10/10)

12) Seeing I - I, uh, really struggle to follow Sam’s logic in the beginning here. I don’t really understand how she ended up in the place she did, after the last novel. Because, she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t abandoned, she was in a company of people, who, uh, cared about her might be putting it a bit too strongly, but who at least could vouch for her. So this disconnect is a bit odd. And, as good as this novel is, as good as the character work in here is, I have a slight disconnect with the rest of it, too. There is too big of a gulf with where the story begun and where it ended - there are too many things going on, too many plots introduced and then unceremoniously dropped. It’s like... Revolution of the Daleks inside of Kerblam, with Nightmare in Silver thrown in with half a dozen other themes from other episodes. When you have the doctor in the machine and the psychologist guy go from primary antagonists to the supporting cast we’re supposed to root for, there is something mildly dissatisfying about it, thematically speaking. Overall, the story in its entirety is less than a sum of its parts. Breaking it into pieces, though, there is a lot of exciting stuff there. 9/10

13) Placebo Effect - Controversial opinion time - I don’t care for Ark in Space. I think it’s a pretty forgettable episode. So any time I encounter any reference to the wirrrn, my reaction is “wait, who?”. And even though I like Leisure Hive well enough, I dare you to find anyone who has been clamoring for the return of Foamasi. This rather made me immediately apprehensive, straight from the preface. In general, there was too much continuity. Stacy & Ssard, really? How deep do you need to be to appreciate their appearance? They are so utterly unnecessary, too, they disappear less than a quarter of the way into the novel, they aren’t even there for set up, they are there for a set up of a set up. If you are actually a person who knew who they were, and wanted to see more of them, I can’t imagine this being all that satisfying. It’s a rather abrupt transition from the previous ark. I dare even say, aggressive, to the degree you have Sam going from “she is afraid to be even in the same room with him, lest she kills him with her soaked through panties” to “she is absolutely delighted when he imparts onto her his grandfatherly wisdom”. Then again, any time either Eight or Sam opened their mouth, I didn’t see Eight or Sam. I saw Four and Sarah Jane. It’s not well written, either. It’s very clunky. The dialogues in particular are obnoxious. Stacy’s and Sam’s conversation, and later on dogmatic discussion between Sam and the priests gave me full on psychic damage. I mostly skimmed beyond that, can’t say there was much to catch the eye. 2/10

14) Vanderdeken's Children - This book is aiming to be a masterpiece, but it’ll just have to settle for being good enough. It does have some interesting twists and turns in here, even though most of them are pretty predictable and expected from the set up. The last couple of chapters, the ending overall, are quite decent (even though all the ebook versions I was able to find cut off the last couple of pages, argh!), but the middle is very middling, with mostly uninspiring secondary characters that are ever so slowly being positioned on the chess board. 7/10

15) The Scarlet Empress - Where to begin... It’s a series of mostly unrelated short stories in a trench coat pretending to be a novel. It’s set up in a middle of a road trip, unrelated not just to each other, but also the measly bit of plot that was given to us? I found it’s quite difficult to engage with the story overall, or follow it, really. It tries to be more character driven than plot driven, which is an admirable aim, and some of the character stuff they have in here is nice, except... Outside of may be bits of chapter 1, I couldn’t really hear Doctor’s voice - any version of him, let alone Eight. Sam fares a bit better, but, at the end of the day... It doesn’t really feel like Doctor Who story. The pacing is completely off, as is the structure, and it was quite nonsensical and whimsical, more akin to Alice in Wonderland than Doctor Who. Not bad in and of itself, just, hard for me to appreciate as a part of this marathon. A note on Iris. I haven’t yet listened to her stand-alone adventures, but I generally enjoy whenever she shows up in Big Finish. Here, though, she was rather lacking Katy Manning’s charm and personality. And, I feel, if you didn’t have any existing fondness for the character before, this novel isn’t going to give you much to care about her. Except, *checks notes*, this was one of her first major outings? Not really a good start. Oh, and prior to this she was in a few short stories, by the same writer. Well, that checks out. 6/10

16) The Janus Conjunction - I really liked this one. Not much to say beyond it, but, very well written, very easy read, practically in a single breath. Excellent characterization for both Doctor and Sam, just a right degree of joyful, determined, adventurous, death defying, mad, delirious, and codependent, almost moreso than any other I’ve read so far. Rather dark, though, I can feel it resonating in the pit of my stomach, and it gets inside your head. 10/10

17) Beltempest - What did the Doctor do to deserve this character assassination??? It’s not without redeeming bits (looks like “I’m not a man” quote comes from here, big yay), but, in large part, is barely a pale shadow of a character I like. Especially in the beginning - he think that Sam might have died and he is ok with this??? After the Dreamstone Moon??? And he is incredibly obnoxious? And Sam was barely herself, even before being... uh, possessed? for plot related reasons. I can’t describe how much disconnect I have with the protagonists here, or with any characters in the rest of the book, for that matter, and how much the dialogue made me roll my eyes. And, ah, the technobabble. I generally try not to overthink the physics of most things in fiction, because, as a certified space scientist, otherwise I’d be here all day, but there comes a point where it crosses the line. After everything else, to read the words “newly born main sequence star” with my own two eyes is just too much. I’m a good person, I do not deserve this nonsense... The first half of the book left me rather put off. The second part left me feeling absolutely flat. No emotions, either positive or negative. And, uh, there was a post going around on tumblr along the lines of “the worst you can do to the character is having them mention a certain food, because the fandom will turn it into an obsession” - it’s rather the same here with Eight and books & classical music. I am rather starting to loose count of the number of times they are trying to emulate the scene with the ending of the movie, where he is lounging about and reading, or specifically mentioning Pucchini. To be fair, it’s not just this novel, but it definitely starting to take me out of it. 5/10

18) The Face-Eater - I’m generally a bit wary of cold opens in the books, because some tend to ramble a bit, with the characters I don’t already know and love, so it’s often is a chore to muster enthusiasm to care about them. This one, though, despite all that, starts very effectively, in a way that made me immediately sit up straight. Very snappish, in a style of noir novels. Too bad it doesn’t quite sustain that energy throughout it. The plot is... interesting, I guess. Characterization is decent, for the most part - although some moments, especially early on gave me a pause, it more than makes up for it in other places. 7/10

Overall impressions so far: Much better than the first set of 9, which often were too deeply rooted in nostalgia to try to offer anything unique. And, I guess, with more writers having a chance to read each others works, the characterization is a bit more consistent (not for every writer, mind, but, in general). How long does it take for them to write a novel of this length, I wonder? A book a month is a rather grueling pace for the series - how far in advance do they start? How many other books come out during that time? 

Sam in particular incrementally found her footing (though, there is a bit of a lag from novel to novel). Instead of imagining literally any other companion, there were certain novels that really helped me to grasp her character. Though, hmm... being Doctor’s companion is not a safe job by any stretch of imagination, but this girl has really been through a wringer. I’m rather struggling to think of any other companion that has been put through so much (non-lethal) battering. There comes a point when one just wants to just to let her have some good time. And, uh, there was a horrible thought that occurred to me, and went to look up how she will depart the TARDIS in the end, and... well, I have a feeling that sometime afterwards I will not like what will happen.

Also, there is this trend of separating her and the Doctor, for a prolonged period of time, them having no idea where to find each other, without any contact, just, stumbling onto one another eventually. It’s a way for writers to have them cover more narrative ground, and you certainly don’t want them attached by the hip, but when they spend less than 20 pages a book in each other’s company, that’s, uh... not a trend I particularly care for.

Well, onto the next batch where we meet Fitz, and say good bye to Sam.

Next part here

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

THAT’S RIGHT BITCH! It’s October and I am still watching and inexplicably blogging about Supernatural - a dinosaur of a television show that’s been on the air longer than most children I know have been alive. 

I know I’m An Old because I don’t think kids these days understand the struggle it was watching television before streaming. We had to wait for episodes. Hell, I don’t think kids these days even really have to wait for seasons. I mean, Voltron premiered on Netflix in 2016, capped off their seasons at 13 episodes a piece and, oh yeah - aired seasons 5 - 8  all in 2018. Was I mad about that? No of course not. Do I also say phrases like “kids these days? Yes, so who even knows if what I think is relevant anymore. 

Alright, so speaking of seasons, last time I looked at pilots and pilot seasons and how the streaming era is changing everything we know about starting a TV show. But once you’ve got your pilot down, now what? 

Not this kind of pilot. Also, based on the prerequisites for demon possession, we’re all agreed this co-pilot’s like, an alcoholic, right?

There’s a rule in TV (sort of) that the first six episodes (some might argue the first season entirely) should be a kind of rehash of the pilot. The pilot sets up your premise and once you’ve got your pilot down, your job as a TV writer is to re-establish that premise over and over again. You’re building your world, you’re writing it’s rules. You’re setting up a template, a formula for how your episodes are gonna play out. This helps your audience get to know the characters, get familiar with your world, get comfortable spending time with them. Essentially, you’re getting your audience to trust the show that they’re going to be tuning in to for at least the next 20-some-odd episodes. 

I’d also argue that this is important so that later, you can break that format later. I’m not saying you should break the trust your audience puts in you, and that’s probably a real fine line of distinction. But if you break your rules right, it can hit the audience with a big emotional sucker punch. Or, it can stand out as a real breakout, tentpole of an episode - I’m thinking specifically about Ghostfacers! In season 3, or Once More, With Feeling, from Buffy. Those episodes work, really work, because they deviate from the formula, but they only work because we know the formula so well.  And these aren’t big changes to the way episodes are done, they’re just shifted ever so slightly that they felt new again.. 

So what is the premise of the first four episodes Supernatural? What’s the formula they set up for the rest of the series? 

Brothers. I said it in my last post, I’ll say it again, Sam and Dean/Jensen Ackles and Jared Jared Padalecki are what makes this show. Full stop. I think we could have gotten 5 seasons out of a show starring two other dudes. I do not think this show could have gotten 15 seasons with two other dudes. So from the pilot through Phantom Traveler, we learn that Sam and Dean have a sh*tty home life - their mother was killed by some mysterious evil thing and their father raised them to be little demon-hunting child soldiers while they look for the killer. Oh yeah, and Sam’s girlfriend died the exact same way which we will never forget because Sam’s gonna have a dream about it almost every episode from here on out. We set up the tension between the brothers - that Sam got to go to college while Dean stayed with their dad like a good boi. We learn that everybody hates each other probably because they are deeply and unhealthily codependent love each other so damn much. 

Next we get the basic rundown of the season arc: 

Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days. The Winchester brothers are looking for him and by extension, looking for answers as to what killed their mom/Sam’s girlfriend. We also get the basic rundown of every episode: dad is a mysterious and elusive sonuvuabitch, so every episode they go about, say it with me now:

“The family business.” I would also accept “Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can,” but why can’t I find a gif for it?!? 

Backtracking on this but you know what else gets hecking established with the Winchesters? Sam is the cute one with the people skills and the puppy dog face, so you’d naturally assume that he’s the soft one. No. Not the case. Dean is the Sofffft Boi. The SOFTest boi. Dean wants Sam to talk about his feelings, Dean wants Sam to not keep things bottled up, Dean is the one who desperately wants to keep a hold of his family and also is just deeply broken and traumatized on the inside and oh no, I told myself I wouldn’t do this but I did it anyway. Sorry not sorry. This watch, I’m really picking up on the fact that Dean is, weirdly, the Mom Friend in this first season. Like, he’s basically a Trailer-Trash-Teen-Pregnancy Mom who’ll give you spaghettios five nights a week and a shot of whiskey so you’ll quit yer bitchin’ and go to sleep faster, but he’s the Mom nonetheless. Later in this season and in other seasons, I think you even see him do his dumb-baby-best filling in as the Mom when John went off the deep end. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings and we don’t have time to unpack all of that so I’ll just move on.

RUDE.

Next we set up our Supernatural Bag of Holding - what’s in it? What are the mystical artifacts they use to kill those evil sons of bitches? First up is The Car. Damn, I am not a cars girl, but that 67 Chevy, it does things to me. 

This car has some weird pavlovian trigger for me, it’s not NATURAL. 

The journal. 

John Winchester, you journal the way I imagine a psycho killer journals and I would just really appreciate it if you could be ANY MORE ORGANIZED THAN THIS.

The Trunk Full of Weapons - I love that in these first few episodes (and possibly the rest of the series???) they give this HELLA conspicuous look every time they open the trunk full of weapons. It’s hilarious EVERY TIME.

No, you’re not being obvious at ALL, guys.

The Fake ID’s - from credit cards to impersonating feds, these boys are not afraid to break the law to save some lives and I feel like that’s...that’s the theme of the show maybe? They’re here to save people and they’ll do what they have to to do that? In a world that clearly establishes a dark vs. light/good vs. evil dichotomy, the Winchester make it their job to live in a world of grey? Basically? 

Next on the checklist for this first season of Supernatural - it’s spoopy. *Spoop mileage may vary.* I said it last time, but I’ll say it again: this first season aired at 9:00pm at night. That means it’s primetime stuff for the 18 - 25 year old crowd, but they don’t want to risk some 13 year old watching it and getting too scared before bed. 9:00pm is X Files time slots, Fringe time slots. 9:00pm says you’re gonna get something a little more gruesome and gory and shocking than at 8pm. 8pm is for Friends. Vampire Diaries aired at 8pm its first season. 9pm is for the real adult content (but not too adult because the audience is still mostly children). 

SPOOP!

But yeah, let’s look at the real horror vibe that you get off of these first four episodes. We talked about La Llorona from the first episode - this is a legit ghost that they fight. The kids at the end that literally drag their mom to hell? Pretty spooky stuff. The Wendigo in episode 2 is a literal monster of the week and so for me personally, it’s not that scary, but it is a cannibal monster that eats human flesh. Dead in the Water has vibes from both Jaws and Friday the 13th. Everything from the lighting to the sound design let’s you know this is a horror show, or as horror as you can get on network television. Listen to the scenes just before somebody dies and you get a nice creepy “Come play with me” whisper coming out of the water. I’m a little spooked just thinking about it now. Yes I know I’m a chicken, and I’m OK WITH THAT. And if we go past my season 1 disc 1 into episode 5, Bloody Mary is STILL terrifying and I STILL watched that episode with half my face covered. That’s where I am these days. It’s 2020 and the world is a nightmare but imagining Bloody Mary creepin’ out in my mirror does not need to be a part of it. 

SHE F*CKIN CLIMBS OUT OF THE MIRROR GUYS! I DIDN’T KNOW SHE COULD DO THAT!!!

Then we get Phantom Traveler and our very first case of black-eyed-demonic possession. Watching this episode now, it’s like watching someone’s home movie of their first steps as a baby. They’ve never even done an exorcism before guys! They have to read the exorcism rite out of the journal! It’s so cute!!! Let’s not think too hard about how they got that full sized bottle of holy water past TSA in a post-9/11 world. And try to ignore how poorly these special effects have aged - the smoke from the demon possession?? OMG! THIS EFFECT! I’m pretty sure I could make that effect with my first ever graphic design software on my, like, 2009 mac book pro. So cute and soooo good! I’m gonna leave that CG plane alone, they’re doing their best. 

SO cute and SOOO good!

You want to know what my favorite established staple of Supernatural season 1 is? The extras. LOOKIT these guys - 

Wendigo you have Cory Monteith who later goes on to star in Glee. 

You have Alden Ehrenreich, Debatable Han Solo, doing a lot of face work with very little dialogue. 

You have Gina Holden who is in SO. MANY. Spooky-type things! My personal favs are Blood Ties and Harper’s Island, but she’s in Fringe, she’s in the SAW franchise, she’s in the Final Destination franchise, she was in some deleted scenes on an episode of Teen Wolf! I LOVE seeing Gina Holden, anywhere she pops up. 

And speaking of Harper’s Island, you’ve also got Callum Keith Rennie who played John Wakefield in Harper’s Island, a show that was A+ Great and I highly recommend if you like Agatha Christie and/or murder mysteries. 

Honestly, Rennie looks like he’s about to murder a bitch in this episode of Supernatural, it is not a stretch to believe he’s a psycho killer.

Dead in the Water you’ve got Amy Acker, a regular in Joss Whedon and Whedon-adjacent type shows.

Good LORD, this wardrobe was SO 2000′s WB and it PAINED me.

And finally in Phantom Traveler, you have Jaime Ray Newman who also shows up in a lot of the shows that I like to watch. She was in Eureka, she was in Midnight Texas, both kind of terrible shows that I love because they are terrible, but she was ALSO in Bates Motel and Veronica Mars, which are generally considered to be more quality, so there’s that. 

This still implies that they actually LIT scenes, which is a SURPRISE TO ME. 

Point is, seeing these actors in Supernatural back in the early 2000’s felt like I was seeing the start of their careers. That may or may not have been the case, but as a viewer it was exciting to see them pop up again in other things.

So what about TV now? Do we still use those first 6 (sometimes more) episodes to re-establish the premise? Well, it certainly hasn’t gone away. Look at any network show that still produces 22 - 24 episodes a season and you’ll still see that the pilot season just keeps re-iterating the premise established in the pilot episode, specifically in anything that’s procedural - that’s you’re monster/problem-of-the-week shows. Think sitcoms like Brooklyn 99 or Superstore or dramedies like Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. The reason being that these shows play in the traditional model of television - on a network, once a week. They are not releasing episodes all at one time or relying on their audiences to stream a whole season in one sitting. These are shows that still assume that someone out there is going to tune in or stumble across their show one night while they’re surfing channels (lol) and need to be told, no matter what episode they’ve just turned on, what the premise of the show is. They need to be formulaic so that people can pick it up anywhere at any time.

But what about shows that don’t follow this traditional model? I mentioned in my last post that seasons are getting shorter and shorter, so when you’re writing a show that only has (8) episodes instead of 22, how much time do you really want to spend establishing the premise? Because of these short seasons, you’re also dealing with shows that are more serialized and less procedural than their predecessors - meaning, you’re dealing with a show that focuses on a season long story (think Game of Thrones or Stranger Things where each episode is an important chapter that you can’t skip) vs. a procedural (think the shows I mentioned above or any cop drama really) where each episode is it’s own contained story, neatly wrapped up at the end. These are shows where you can skip an episode and still know where you are in the show no matter where you start or stop watching. Supernatural is a little bit of both - procedural with their monsters of the week AND serialized with a season long arc. We’ll talk more on that in a later post. 

Not only are we getting shorter seasons, but we’re also dealing with shows that are not released over long periods of time. A few streaming channels, like Disney+ and HBO Max, make a deliberate point to slow-drip their seasons, but most streaming channels will release entire seasons in one shot. You don’t need to worry about your audience missing an episode because they have 24/7 access to all the episodes all at once. And for the most part, they’re designed to be binged. They start at full speed and they don’t slow down to keep driving you to the finale. 

Do I think the procedural is ever going to go away? No. As much talk as there is about dropping the cop drama from TV all together, I think audiences still love a good mystery series. And you can’t just think of procedurals as cop dramas either - a procedural also covers most if not all sitcoms. New Girl, Letterkenny, Parks and Rec, Superstore - these all have a premise that doesn't change from week to week. They may make tiny shifts away from what they set up in the pilot, but by and large, you know what you’re getting into any time you turn on an episode. I think we as an audience still like that kind of familiarity. We may be seeing a bigger swing towards more serialized content, but that doesn't mean that the procedural is dead and gone. 

So that’s what we’ve got for Supernatural - two dudes, driving around in a car full of spears and hand guns, killing bad guys. Some day, they may even find that father that’s missing. What could possibly go wrong? A lot. Stay tuned. 

[tomloki]

my play experience

Okay story time … I wasn’t sure if I was gonna comment about my play experience on here, but then I thought “what the hey, I kinda actually want to” so on I go… I was in London from the 24th of March to the 27th (a very, very short stay, I know, but it was what I could afford to do and also I had to get back to work and school asap). It was my first time in London and it’s clearly a beautiful city with wonderful people. I wish I had more time to explore it, even though I’m not the touristy type, but I would’ve liked to visit some of the parks and such. Anyway back on track, the play … I was there with my sister and brother and we had seats to the left in Row B in the stalls, so we were very close to the stage. The curtain rises and all three characters are there in the center, motionless, and I’m already heart-eyes staring at Tom at this point. But I’m not going to give a detailed scene by scene breakdown because that would be insanely long. Suffice to say that, having read the actual play beforehand, this performance was everything I could have never imagined, in the best way possible. All the stage direction, all the creative choices made in this production added so much more meaning to the play beyond the literal and made it so heartfelt. I remember reading in the TimeOut review that Betrayal is usually “taken fairly literally, as a realist drama about an affair.” And just off reading it alone (although to be fair, maybe plays aren’t exactly meant to be read??) I also sensed that it was a bland tale about adultery. But not here; not in THIS production. Here, they get it right or they get it different, whichever one it is, they make it so much more than what it appears to be on the surface. Spoilers under the cut. 

The shadows on stage: 

It’s no secret now that one of the major things that set this production apart is that none of the characters ever really step off stage (well, except for the very last scene where Robert has to appear later in the scene and so, Tom does step off the stage and then back on it). The conversations happen between whichever two characters and the third one stands or sits as a shadow or as the “other.” Sometimes this third “other” is silently watchful, sometimes they’re reflective or somewhat involved in the scene, and sometimes they’re staring straight ahead into the abyss. In all occasions, the third becomes the topic of the conversation, at some point, between two of the characters. And the reason this creative choice works so well is that it helps you realize that there’s nothing linear about this story of betrayal, its triangular.. its a trio caught up in each other’s lies and this mess of their own making. In any conversation, there’s always concern for the third and you start to truly feel like these three people cannot exist without each other ... it can’t be just the two of them, they’re codependent, which is why I think Jerry felt so betrayed by both Emma and Robert even though as an audience we are aware of how much heavier his betrayal toward Robert was than Robert’s betrayal toward him. In an odd sort of way, the third “other” constantly being present made you feel their absence even more, because you’re constantly reminded of their existence outside of the conversation. 

Now, there are nine scenes total and Robert is in only four of them, even though that he’s still arguably the most complex character of the three. The fangirl in me was ecstatic in knowing that Tom would never really step off stage. And I think Jaime Lloyd took good advantage of Tom’s ability to be subtle yet vulnerable and placed him in these scene where only his eyes could do any of the talking. In any instance where Robert was the “other,” tom’s expressions were never impassive. Even as he stared into the distance, you felt there was always something on his mind. In fact, I couldn’t take my eyes off Tom his eyes DEMAND attention to the point where I sometimes felt I was being unfair to Zawe and Charlie. I would listen to the conversations between Emma and Jerry, but still only really look at Robert, for the most part. You only have to look to the Morning Star review to validate me: Tom Hiddleston, statuesque yet vulnerable, holds the eye at all times. I remember reading a fan’s recount of her RADA Hamlet experience and in it, she says that Tom does this thing where his eyes meet with the most attentive fan in the audience and he makes you his focal point audience-member for the a good amount of the performance. Which makes a lot of sense to me, since he’s such a responsive person and naturally great at being attentive. And, I kid you not, I was close enough to the stage and persistent enough with my stares for that person to be me. Directly after the performance I was talking to my sister and said “I swear I’m not making this up, but me and Tom made direct eye contact at least five times over.” And she hadn’t even let me finish that thought before she affirmed it was happening, she didn’t think it was wishful thinking, she didn’t think I was crazy, she just said “I noticed that each time it happened too! He DID make eye contact with you it was wild.” Like even when we came back home, my dad said I must’ve been imagining it but she jumped in and was like “No, believe me I would’ve called her out if she was being insane, but I witnessed it happening!” I thought about it a lot on my way back to the hotel, that night, and what I thought was that either a) he appreciated my attentiveness and reciprocated it or b)  this was a natural Tom reaction to someone constantly looking his way (which we all know that he’s very responsive and really great with eye contact so maybe he couldn’t help but look back at the person constantly looking at him) or c) he looked at me and thought “this isn’t even my scene you creep, you should redirect your attention to Zawe and Charlie.” Whichever it was, because Tom is so good at remembering faces, I like to think that if he does even remember me at all, he’ll remember me as the creepy girl in the scarf who stared him down. It was out of love for him though and his performance elicited nothing less, so I really hope it didn’t come off as creepy. 

Robert’s persona: 

There’s a lot to be said about Robert and there’s a lot more to be said about Robert as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston. Think probably in the same manner that Tom was praised for making Cassio charming and memorable, qualities not usually attributed to this character. So, clearly Tom’s ability to sympathize with the characters he portrays is ever present in his performance and transfers over to the audience. Reading Robert on page, you sense that he’s got this sort of macho stoicism complex and it makes it difficult for you to ever feel genuinely sorry for him. But the way Tom portrays him, this same macho stoicism starts to feel deeply like a persona that the character works hard to keep. It’s Robert’s mask, it’s how he protects himself, but when it becomes revealed to him that his wife is indeed cheating on him with his best friend, he cannot help but have a real reaction to it. And even then, tom finds a balance with his tears to form a character that is still trying to stay in control even as he’s breaking. Even as his world is falling apart, he doesn’t reveal his anger, just subtle, gradual tears that fill this silence between him and Emma. (Sidenote: Tom’s pauses and silences are never just that; he fills them in with an expression, an emotion or even an open mouth and raised eyebrows in his stillness). I’d also like to add that my brother hadn’t read the play, but by the end of the performance he asked, “did Robert really cheat on Emma or was he just saying that?” In the script, of course it is never confirmed for sure, but we take it as a fact, as the truth of the matter. But the way Tom plays him, you feel sorry for him, and you do really start to wonder what if this is also part of this persona, this reputation that Robert has built for himself? Robert seems to be precisely the kind of character who would tell his wife that HE’S been cheating on her when it is revealed to him that SHE’S been cheating on him; just to seem invulnerable, just so that no one can sense him breaking. 

One of my favorite uses of both the revolving stage and the third “other” on stage was the scene when Emma and Jerry are in their flat and Robert revolves around the stage sitting in a chair, holding his daughter. This was by far my favorite scene, and it isn’t even part of the script and it isn’t even technically Robert’s scene. But it adds another revelatory layer to what lies underneath Robert’s persona. Here is a father, holding onto his child, laying his cheek against her forehead. His expression is tranquil, but you sense a sadness in it, a sort of hidden worry. He’s holding her tight, and at one point, he looks down at her then lays his cheek back against her head, and in this moment, it feels as if he’s trying to protect her from the world, from himself, from his and her mother’s mistakes. He cares and he cares deeply, even if his conversation with Jerry says otherwise. This isn’t just a betrayal happening between three people, the consequences of it become the children’s problem. They are involved in a way that they never asked to be, and suddenly, you have a clear picture of who the real victim is ... it’s not Robert, it’s not Emma, and it’s not Jerry ... it’s their children. Of course, I can’t ever really know what or how Tom felt about this, but I sensed that there must have been something of himself directly in this scene. He is a child of divorce himself and he’s talked briefly in the past about how that affected him and shaped him and even that acting became his escape at a young age as a consequence of his parent’s separation. You know when people ask “if you could go back and visit your younger self what would you say?” In that scene, I felt as if this little girl was representative of Tom’s younger self, on a personal level. And this must’ve contributed to the way he approached this moment; it was deeply felt and incredibly heartbreaking. 

The dinner scene: 

There isn’t much I can say of this iconic melon and prosciutto dinner scene that hasn’t already been said. From the Evening Standard: There’s a brilliant scene that demonstrates [Tom’s] usually under-exploited flair for comedy. With emphasis on UNDER-EXPLOITED please exploit it PLEASE DO you won’t be sorry, clearly. He’s funny without trying to be, he imitates Jerry’s laugh sarcastically and the audience breaks into full on resounding laughter, even his pauses show a comedically reserved anger as he stares at Jerry with wide eyes and a haunting smile. All this passive aggressiveness being so much more comedic than it really ought to be and you start to wonder how Jerry is just sat there without a clue. Also, throughout this scene, there were moments where tom’s eyes twitched as you sensed Robert’s rage build up. Just like this, just like with here:

And I don’t know if this is involuntary on tom’s part or not (I think it must have been), but it added so much to the heat of the scene. 

1968: 

My goodness, even the ending was laden with creative choice that veered off script, again, in a way that only made it better. In the very final bit of the very last scene, Robert is supposed to clasp Jerry's shoulder, briefly, turns, leaves the room. Emma moves towards the door. Jerry grasps her arm. She stops still. They stand still, looking at each other. Robert is meant to leave the room before Emma gives in, but he doesn’t. In this production, Robert grabs Emma’s hand as he’s leaving the room. Jerry grabs her other hand quickly and Robert stops, facing the direction of what would be the door to exit. Emma looks at Jerry and all three of them are connected, literally arm in arm.  They stand there motionless. A portrait of Betrayal ... if Harold Pinter’s Betrayal was to be painted on a canvas, I truly think this final moment of this final scene would have been it ... the perfect summation, and this production in itself plays out as if a work of art had come to life. 

Stage door: 

So, yes, I did get a picture with Tom. It was very brief, because I was very shy and honestly, I expected nothing less of myself. Now, I don’t have twitter or Instagram and I don’t post any pictures of myself online, so I have completely cropped myself out of my picture with Tom. And I know this means people might think I was lying, but that doesn’t matter to me. You can choose to believe me or you can choose not to, I can’t really convince you of this, nor do I really even wish to. You can still kind of see my shoulder and my purse strap and burgundy/ maroon scarf (I wore burgundy on purpose because I was hoping to match up with Tom in his burgundy jumper, but alas, it was pretty cold outside and his coat was buttoned up). Before he stepped out, I had this simple little gif/interview related gift I wanted to give him. I kept taking it out of my purse and putting it back in until I finally decided that I was an idiot and if I gave Tom this gift, he’d think I was dumb so, I put it away. Now, of course, I live with the regret that I didn’t give it to him in my lack of confidence. But when I came up to him, I said “hi” he said “hello, how are you?” and then like a frantically shy girl, I quickly handed him my program then asked “can I take a photo with you?” he said “yea, sure” and I handed him the phone (again frantically) and he took the picture. It was incredibly brief, but I will say this, he definitely IS in fact even more beautiful in person.. somehow, he just is. We all know how beautiful Tom’s speaking voice is, but he’s also very soft-spoken and his voice sounds like that of someone who can do no harm. And I’ll also say this, as I walked off onto the other side of the street after having taken my picture with Tom, I remembered this quote of his that I read before: It’s not that you change but people around you change and that takes some getting used to. It has to do with visibility and anonymity. It’s odd. There’s a before-and-after. Before is you walk into a room and you meet someone and they don’t know you and you don’t know them and you get to know each other. The after is you walk into a room and you meet someone and they know who you are and you don’t know them and that interaction is changed as you get to know each other. Off of me briefly meeting him and just standing on the other side seeing him meet other fans, you definitely get this sense of an attempt at normalcy from him. He approaches you the way you approach him, if you’re shy, he’s not making as much eye contact and he seems to be just really humble as if he’s thinking “you need not be shy of me, but how can I possibly convince you of that?” If you talk with him, he talks back, he holds a normal if even brief conversation with you (although the security guards ask the fans to be mindful of those behind them that also want to meet Tom). So yea, I wish I was confident enough to tell him how creative and artistic and heartfelt this production and his performance were and how lucky I felt to have been a part of his audience, but I’m happy to have even met him at all. 

Some other things from when I stood on the other side of the street after my picture: This guy standing on the other side with us shouted “TOM YOU’RE CLASSICALLY HANDSOME” and Tom made this face, this questioning expression with a smile and said “thanks” or “thanks, man.” A white car (maybe a taxi?? drove by the stage door and stopped, did a double take, I guess trying to figure out what this crowd was queued up for on both ends of the street (or maybe just in awe of Tom if they knew who Tom was. Who knows?) and Tom leaned his head over while signing and said “Hello” with this big, calm smile on his face as if to say he completely understood the hilarity of the situation. 

There's a bit in the BBC Only Artists radio interview between Tom and Nicholas Britell where Britell talks about the odd feeling of being a composer when you know there were all these greats before you and Tom says "Well, at this point, we're all just remixing; we're all sampling and remixing. It's all been done." If this production of Betrayal can be considered a remix to the script, it would definitely be better than the original. So that was my not-at-all brief account of Betrayal + stage door and if I had the chance to go see this play again, I would do so, over and over and over again and I don’t think I’d ever really get tired of it to be honest. 

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (AO3): Weirdness_Unlimited

Creator name (Tumblr): Burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weirdness_Unlimited/works

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: In the Mad Max universe, anything that is completely absurd and outrageous is represented as the norm. Leather fetish gear? Oh, that's just the security guard uniform at Bartertown. Those guys over there are wearing black and white face paint? No, you're not at an ICP concert, those are War Boys, also run. Whoa, there are acrobats being flung through the air on poles attached to moving vehicles! No worries, that's just any Tuesday in Gas Town. I love this fandom because pretty much any nonsense my skull meat can come up with, as long as the mechanics of it work, I can throw it into my fics and not a single person will bat an eye. As a matter of fact, the weirder, the better. 

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Life is gross, humans do gross things, and the environment around you could not care less about any of your moral dilemmas. I suppose you can say my style is a lack of it. I like things straight forward and I know this characteristic often weakens any aesthetic appeal to my writing. “To Love Reptiles” reads from Slit's perspective the same way a radio manual does but with a lot more cursing. I try not to make it too complicated to digest. I'd like for people to be able to fill in any blanks with their own interpretation of the situation and then move on to the next. 

Themes though, I go heavy on themes. The main theme is interpersonal relationships, coping with failure within them, and personal growth. Other themes include coping with mental illness, codependency, hunger, greed, warfare, trauma, etc.  

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: The most fun work of my own, by far, has been “To Love Reptiles.” It has also been the most popular, most successful, and my most favourite. The most difficult has been an original work with no working title. I can't give away much about this original piece but it has to do with local myths and survival in the wilderness. I quit working on the rough manuscript when my grandmother passed away several years ago. I'll be picking it up again soon. It may turn up on AO3 in the next three or four years.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?/

A: Gritty but hopeful, I think. The wasteland is nasty but humans need hope, right?

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: Alright, so that's an interesting question with a pretty messy answer but I'll try to make it brisk.   Step 1: I start with a summary of the story as a whole with a point A (the beginning) and a point B (the end). Step 2: I break that summary down and and fill it out with events that can ferry the characters from the start of the story to the finish on a drawn timeline to keep things in chronological order. I also have note cards. I break this down further into named chapters. This can take a while. Step 3: I summarize each of those chapters to figure out if this story needs more than one installment. It depends out how the series of events land and how many minor arcs are included with the main arc/objective. Sprinkle some drama in there, scrap some unnecessary things, narrow an installment down to thirty (30) chapters at maximum. Step 4: I summarize individual scenes within the chapters and hack out important dialog. This takes weeks. There's typically between four and ten scenes per chapter. Also more note cards. Step 5: I try to flesh out one scene per day. (key word: Try) 

 I get the most writing done in the morning over coffee and before work. I usually sit at the breakfast table with my phone and spit out about 500-ish words before my husband wakes up. I'll write intermittently throughout the day. Lately I haven't been writing much because of holiday junk and winter being kind of a bummer. 

 If I'm in a rough patch, I can break though it by sitting in a room with no internet access and forcing myself to scratch out a scene or two in a notepad. Usually these notepad scribbles are so awful that they get torn out and chucked in the waste bin but the next day I'm keen to do the job right. 

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Ambient sound, white noise, or nothing. I do listen to music and there's a lot of songs I associate with stories, fics, characters. Tove Lo is a big one for Dune. Most of the time I find that music with lyrics or a high tempo is distracting if I'm in the act of writing something but it can be a source of inspiration separately. 

Q: How do you keep track of all the details as you're writing? How do you keep details consistent in your works? How do you fact-check your writing?

A: I have a little memo pad with numbered facts that do not change at any point through the story. These are kinda the cardinal rules. I can't tell you the rules because they contain spoilers. After the “RULES” there are miscellaneous details that I'd like to remember in case they come up later. Things like birthmarks, scar placement, mannerisms, things I've hinted at without exposition that will need to be revealed later.

I fact check by googling stuff and falling down research holes for several hours until I forget what I was doing. EVENTUALLY I'll come back to writing and realize that's why there are things in my search history that probably have me on some kind of government watch list.

Q: What motivates your writing?

A: My motivation. Real talk? For AAL it's to get to a particular scene in the planned third installment. Scene thirteen in chapter seven. I know that answers exactly nothing and is weirdly specific but... yes. Other works of mine, I'm motivated by the idea that some of my ideas might entertain someone out there, even if it's just one someone then I've succeeded.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Time management. I have a lot of hobbies and finding time for individual projects is... Hard. I made a boredom jar that lets me pick an unfinished task/project/piece at random to do whenever I'm bored so that I can stop myself from starting anything new when my apartment is already full of unfinished junk.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: Yes. My organizational skills have improved by miles and my attention span is better focused. Grammatically my work has undergone general improvement.  

Learned anything about myself? Hmm, I learned that my opinion of what is canon and what makes good fan fiction are two completely different things. If you ask me anything specific about the Mad Max franchise you will probably get both opinions. As an example: Does Maxosa make for good fan fiction? Heck Yeah! Will canon Max Rockatansky or Furiosa ever be mentally and emotionally healed enough to actually be in a relationship? Probably not and that's okay. I can happily read Max and Furi getting cuddly and domestic and enjoy the heck out of another writer's interpretation of these two overcoming the hurdles of their respective traumas. I can do this knowing full well that Max and Furiosa probably never canonically saw each other again after the closing scene of Fury Road. I'm okay with this because that's the magic of fandom and why I love it.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: I relate to Max the most, and I think the reason I haven't yet published anything written from his perspective is because he'd be the most difficult to write without touching on my own fears and inadequacies too much. Max is not interested in being involved with the dramas of anyone else's life. He's already seen too much turmoil and had a hand in it too many times to actively seek people and their inherent problems, however, when presented with zero alternative he'll do what needs to be done and suffer though forming new attachments to very mortal people who may drop dead at any minute. He isn't comfortable with the process of forming attachments and he'd rather avoid it. He doesn't want another ghost. At least that's my interpretation of him. 

 Slit, remarkably, is my favorite to write for in spite of the fact that I don't relate to him in any way and my interpretation of his portrayal in the film is, simply put, a blunt edged euphemism for abusive relationships. He's just... a guilty pleasure to examine and write. I blame my fondness on the stunning character design and Josh Helman's energy on screen. The character says and does ridiculous things and it's just hilarious to watch Slit dig his own grave and humiliate himself. Case and point: I've got his boot! My understanding of Slit has grown through writing about him. He's probably (canonically) deeply insecure and his way of thinking very toxic and self focused. There's gotta be trauma there (I took massive creative license in that area) and a whole host of personal issues that explain his behavior, but will never excuse it. Does that make good fan fiction??? Parts of it do, the rest has to be that very human ability to grow and improve, although I don't think he'd have that opportunity in canon or accept any form of assistance... If he'd lived. 

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I think you kind of have to self-insert to a point. Writing tends to involve exaggerating your own experiences and the imagined interactions in your own head in order to make the experiences of the characters relatable. I'd rather not examine every individual facet of the issue but yes, I think Dune is an unintentional self-insert to cope with health problems before I was consciously aware of what I was coping with and since that realization, lately, she's a lot harder to write. 

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?Honestly? Close platonic friendship. Emotional intimacy is interesting. I draw a lot of inspiration for friendship in fiction from Mulder and Scully in early seasons of The X-files.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: I see more minor details and the context of silent interactions. Some of these details are unsettling, some of them are so subtle and subliminal that they're easily missed when you watch the films, especially Fury Road. Oddly enough, I'm a lot more- Ah whats the word? Not quite critical of but unnerved by my own observations of Capable's relationship with Nux. I'm not sure why. It could be that I'm misinterpreting the actress's tone or George Miller vision/direction, but I watch the movie now and find that the way Capable looks at and talks about Nux so intensely makes me uneasy. The previous is just an example among many that I've spat out so far, it's not important.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: Everything I write within the Mad Max fandom with the exception of collaborative works will probably be linked together and consistent with one another because that means less to remember and fewer mix-ups.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: If you have to, break it. I'll read it. I like my fandom unlimited, baby. In my own works I try to keep with canon somewhat but I resurrect a lot of characters who almost certainly died because if I didn't, it would really only leave seven (I think) named characters with dialog who did not die in Fury Road. (The surviving women of the Many Mothers weren't named.)

Q: Share some headcanons:

A: 1) Max has intestinal parasites. He ate a live (two headed) lizard in the first thirty seconds of Fury Road. You really really really should not do that. 

 2) Furiosa didn't want to kill Ace. She could have just blown his head off instead of punching him in the face with a pistol. She didn't shoot him. 

 3) Ace did not go under the wheels. Foxy Grandpa lives. 

 4) Miss Giddy is also alive somewhere 

 5) Actually, most people in the wasteland probably have intestinal parasites. 

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: My original characters tend to create themselves. I don't know how they do it, they kinda just decide for themselves for better or worse what they'll look like and how they'll behave. Dune was an accident and the “About a Lizard” series wasn't supposed to happen at all. It was supposed to be a one-shot word dump of what Slit's final moments might have looked like. Slit was supposed to die in a fleeting but intense two seconds of delusions about Valkyries and Valhalla... And then be eaten by a scavenger cannibal. The whole thing kind of just happened on the fly. Ardith, Phil/Crank, Featherknife, Bones, and the kids were also accidental. I had no idea where I was going with the encounter with Crow Fishermen. They just popped into existence of their own will and the rest is history. The only original characters that have been planned and designed well beforehand have been villains. This probably says something about me as a writer though I'm not sure what. 

Q: When creating a new character for the AAL series, how do you approach their first interactions with your main characters?

A: The first thing I ask is “What does this scene need” and sometimes it needs a new character for villainy or friendly acquaintance reasons or for a skill-set the main characters do not posses. New characters have a habit of changing a chapter or making it much longer than intended. First interactions with Slit probably won't surprise anyone. He phases through distrust to dislike to begrudged cooperation and from there he's either on his way back to dislike or entering the tolerance phase. Beyond the tolerance phase is... The Complicated Zone. The Complicated Zone is where Nux and Dune are situated. Dune has two basic instincts with people: Should I shoot you? Or should I befriend you? Bizarrely, being friendly is the weirder option in the wastes. Shooting is almost always a consideration if she's taken by surprise.

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: My original works are probably darker and deal more with modern problems. I turn to fan fiction for fun and to indirectly work through things.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: A lot of the fandom, too many names to name but one stands out and I can't remember their name or the title of their work. It was about Ace growing up and there was a dingo and a young Miss Giddy. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please help. I've been looking for this fic for ages.

Q: Is there a specific author(s) that inspired your work when you began writing TLR?

A: I don't think any specific author inspired me while I began TLR but The Dark Half by Stephen King is one of my favorites and I recall re-reading it shortly before getting deep into fan writing. I may even have unconsciously plagiarized a few lines off that book. In my latest attempt to re-read that novel I'm feeling like there's a lot of Thad Beaumont in my portrayal of Slit.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.? 

A: Don't be afraid to write things that are too soft or too dark or too this or too that. Sometimes readers crave that stuff that makes us feel warm and safe and sometimes we're also here for things that make us wonder how the @!#$% the characters will ever recover or IF they will ever recover. The real world is full of all sorts of feelings, situations, serendipitous coincidences. Take us down whatever funky road you got! You're the driver, you decide. Your fic is your world. Write WILD things sometimes because it's fun. 

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I would love to take a trip to Australia one day to paint scenery in oils but that predates my time in MM fandom. I really want to go to Wasteland Weekend in the next two years but finances, necessities, costumes, etc need to be sorted out first.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: Well, I'm buying up model car kits to make little Mad Max cars for nerd purposes.

Thank you @burn-your-face-upon-the-chrome

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/jada-pinkett-smith-admits-she-did-have-an-affair-with-singer-august-alsina-daily-mail/

Jada Pinkett Smith admits she DID have an affair with singer August Alsina - Daily Mail

Jada Pinkett Smith has admitted she did have an affair with singer August Alsina while married to Will Smith. 

The 48-year-old sat down with her husband for an intimate conversation on her Facebook show, Red Table Talk and revealed she developed a friendship with August around four years ago.

She said around the same time, the married couple were going through a ‘difficult time’ and they had ‘basically broken up’. 

The bombshell tell-all comes after both actors denied August’s claims that Will gave him his blessing to have a relationship with Jada.  

Tell-all: Jada Pinkett Smith admitted to having an affair during her marriage during a confessional with her husband Will Smith on Red Table Talk on Friday

In Friday’s episode of Jada’s web series, the Hollywood couple sat opposite each other as they set the record straight and reaffirmed their commitment to each other.

Jada began explaining that the couple met August through their son Jaden and recalled that the Louisiana-born singer, who would have been 23 at the time, was ‘really sick’.

‘And it all started with him just needing some help, me wanting to help his health, his mental state. 

‘The outpouring for him from our family was initially about his health,’ she said. ‘We found all those different resources to help pull him through and from there you and I were going through a very difficult time.’ 

Will admitted, ‘I was done with you,’ while Jada added that they decided to separate for a ‘period of time’. 

‘And then what did you do, Jada?’ Will asked, urging his wife to keep talking. 

‘As time went on, I got into a different type of entanglement with August,’ Jada explained.

The mother-of-two went on to respond to August’s claim that Will gave her ‘permission’ to have an affair. 

‘The only person that can give permission in that circumstance is myself,’ she insisted.

‘But what August was probably trying to communicate because I could see how he could see it as permission because we were separated amicably, and I think he wanted to make it clear he’s not a homewrecker because he’s not.’

When Will pushed Jada to clarify what she meant by ‘entanglement’ she responded, ‘It was a relationship, absolutely.’  

Jada continued: ‘I was in a lot of pain, and I was very broken. In the process of that relationship I definitely realized that you can’t find happiness outside yourself.’

She explained the couple were going through a process of healing. 

‘I just wanted to feel good, It had been so long since I felt good… and it was really a joy to just help heal somebody.’

Jada said she and Will met singer August Alsina, who was ‘really sick’, through their son Jaden. She said she and Will were on the rocks at the time and decided to separate for a period of time. Will admitted: ‘I was done with you.’

‘I devoted myself to it, I gave my full self to it, so much so to the point that I can die right now and be okay with knowing that I truly gave myself to somebody.’ August said of his relationship with Jada. They are pictured together at the 2017 BET Awards 

The Set It Off star pondered whether her actions were down to her codependency issues and needing to ‘fix people’ due to her past traumas.  

As Will made light of the fact that he’s being the dutiful husband and standing by his wife after her ‘transgressions’ amid intense media scrutiny, Jada admitted that she doesn’t see her relationship with August ‘as a transgression at all’. 

‘Through that particular journey, I learned so much about myself and was able to really confront a lot of emotional immaturity, emotional insecurity and I was really able to do some really deep healing,’ Jada said. 

INSIDE WILL SMITH AND JADA PINKETT SMITH’S 22-YEAR MARRIAGE

Jada and Will have been married since 1997 after they met while she was auditioning to be his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

The couple have previously denied they are swingers or in an open relationship 

‘I’m like, “Yo, I wish. I wish!”‘ Jada told Andy Cohen in 2017 of the persistent swinging rumors

Yet they have remained open about their sex lives, often sharing intimate details

At the premier of his movie Focus, Will let slip that Jada loves to watch his sex scenes

‘She’s a little freaky like that,’ he joked

In 2010, Jada told Oprah Winfrey that spontaneity is key to her and Will’s relationship 

‘During the day I might send a sexy picture of some sort …If he’s on set with me, we might take a break,’ she said

Just a year earlier, she’d offered advice in a Redbook interview that it was important to move things outside of the bedroom

‘Does he have access to his office? Have a fantasy date. Be his secretary! Pull over on the side of the road…Just switch it up,’ she said

In 2010,  the couple took their own advice in their limo on the way to the Oscars

‘We started kissing passionately, and the next thing I knew, well, let’s just say we missed the red carpet and I ended up with almost no makeup on,’ Jada revealed

The actress also claimed it was Will who first told her about the ‘Grapefruit Method’ made famous in her movie  Girls Trip 

‘And as I came through and started to realize certain things about you and I, he decided to break all communication with me which was totally understandable. And I let that be and hadn’t talked to him since so it is a little weird that all this stuff is coming out now since this was several [years ago].’ 

Will chimed in, ‘For me, this was years ago,’ as Jada reflected on how far they’ve come in their relationship, ‘We have really gotten to that new place of unconditional love.’

At one point in the conversation they echoed each other, saying: ‘We ride together. We die together. Bad marriage for life,’ a reference to a catchphrase in Will’s Bad Boys franchise. 

August told The Breakfast Club’s Angela Yee on June 30 that he was in love with Jada and said: ‘I sat down with Will [Smith] and had a conversation due to the transformation from their marriage to life partnership… he gave me his blessing.’ 

August said the two became very close, and holidayed together with the family in Hawaii a year later and they even attended the 2017 BET Awards together.

He said: ‘I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really deeply love and have a ton of love for her.

‘I devoted myself to it, I gave my full self to it, so much so to the point that I can die right now and be okay with knowing that I truly gave myself to somebody. 

‘And I really loved a person, I experienced that and I know what that feels like, and some people never get that in this lifetime.

‘I know that I am completely blessed and this conversation is difficult because it is so much, that it would be hard for people to understand but, once it starts to affect me and my livelihood, I have to speak up about my truth.’

Shortly after Will’s representative branded the reports as ‘wrong’, while a spokesperson for Jada denied the claims to Page Six, calling them ‘absolutely not true’.

But a day later on July 2, Jada tweeted: ‘There’s some healing that needs to happen… so I’m bringing myself to The Red Table.’ 

Jada has been married to Will since 1997, they are parents to Jaden and daughter Willow, 19. Will has a son Trey, 27, from his marriage to Sheree Zampino, 53.

In 2019 August had denied an affair with Jada had taken place after his track ‘Nunya’ was released.  

Rumors were sparked by the lyrics: ‘You got me feeling like it was an act, you’re just an actress / Putting on a show ’cause you don’t want the world to know.’

The singer now says he is not speaking out to cause trouble. 

He said: ‘Contrary to what people may believe, I am not a troublemaker. I don’t like drama. Drama actually makes me nauseous. 

‘And I also don’t think that it is ever important for people to know what I do, who I sleep with, who I date … but in this instance it is very different because as I said, there are so many people that are side-eyeing me, looking at me questionable.

Breaking silence: August told Angela Yee during their interview that he usually wouldn’t discuss the affair, but he’s ‘lost money, friendships, relationships’ over the rumors

‘It was a relationship, absolutely,’: Will asked Jada to clarify what she meant by ‘entanglement’

‘I have lost money, friendships, relationships behind it and I think it is because people don’t necessarily know the truth. But I have never done anything wrong.

‘I love those people [the Smiths] literally like my family. I don’t have a bad thing to say about them. They are beautiful people.’

Jada has previously denied rumors that she and Will are in an open relationship and said they will never divorce. 

Will has previously said that the couple no longer use the ‘married’ title but refer to each other as ‘life partners’. 

‘We don’t even say we’re married anymore,’ he told BET in 2018. 

‘We refer to ourselves as life partners, where you get into that space where you realize you are literally with somebody for the rest of your life.

Denial: The couple, pictured here in 2015, initially denied the claims coming from August

Jada Pinkett Smith sets the internet ablaze after revelation she DID date August Alsina

Twitter was alight on Friday after Jada Pinkett Smith admitted to having a relationship with August Alsina on this week’s episode of Red Table Talk.

Fans and followers had mixed reactions when Jada admitted to the romance after initially denying there was anything between her and the R&B talent.

While opening up about the ‘private’ matter during a sit down opposite her husband of 23-years Will Smith, Jada said she and August dated while she was ‘separated’ from the Fresh Prince actor.

Though some fans were keen on calling Pinkett Smith out, others seemed to be there for the drama more than anything.

Open book: Jada Pinkett Smith revealed she did date August Alsina while sitting down with husband Will Smith on this week’s episode of Red Table Talk. They couple are seen in 2019 above

[adi9267]

5 Crappy Reasons to Stay in a Relationship That Isn’t Actually Working for You

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Trust us, we get it: Relationships are hard to come by, so it can be temping to stay in one even when you know (deep down) it's not actually meant to be. The trouble is, hanging on keeps you from finding the right relationship, and the kind of love that fulfills and sustains you.

In this excerpt from her new book The Love Gap ($26, amazon.com), journalist Jenna Birch highlights the common excuses we make to avoid the painful but necessary process of moving on. Ask yourself if these are the reasons you're still with your boo—and whether you may be settling.

The relationship is yours

In behavioral economics and psychology, “the endowment effect” explains the tendency of humans to assign more value to the things that they own just because they own them. Not only do people tend to be reluctant to trade their items for items of equal value (which they may even need), they also tend to pay more to retain their items than they are worth. Once you associate yourself with the item or person in question—maybe it’s an old concert T-shirt, or maybe it’s your assistant who is about to leave you for a higher-paying job—you’re going to have a harder time letting it go.

Maybe your T-shirt is really too small these days anyway. Maybe Janet was always just an okay assistant. If your BFF was struggling with either of these decisions, you’d say, “Donate it! Get the tax write-off,” or, “Let her go! You could hire another Janet tomorrow.” But it’s not your BFF. It’s you, and these are your things. You’re reluctant to let go because you chose that T-shirt and you chose Janet. There’s psychological value in that. It’s a loss, and humans are loss-averse.

We also see an endowment effect in relationships—whether it’s early days and he’s pulling back, or you’ve been together for years and can’t reconcile differences about a wedding, marriage, and future. You probably overvalue what you have, simply because it’s yours, and forget there are tons of people in the world who are potentially a better fit.

RELATED: 30 Signs You're in a Toxic Relationship

You have history together

History is a powerful thing. For as much depth and character as it can provide a couple’s story, history also keeps us hanging on to relationships way past their expiration date. 

This is why you should consult your gut early and often—and especially before you take another step in the relationship, like making it official or getting engaged. When you are young and relationships are bright, shiny, and new, you need to amass experiences. You may have had a long-termer with someone who was totally wrong for you, and that’s okay. You were learning.

As you get older, though, you should get more discerning. You know what’s out there, what works for you, what feels wrong. You are aware of the unsettled feeling in the pit of your gut that says, Don’t go further! History can blind you to that feeling or rationalize it away. That is why you are going to ask yourself these two questions before every “big step,” or whenever you feel like something is wrong for too long:

• Does this relationship feel rare and different from any others I have found in the past?

• Is this relationship helping me become closer to the person I ultimately want to be?

You have to know when to walk away, cut your losses, and find the person who is actually right for you. This takes getting real with yourself. This takes knowing what makes a strong partner, acknowledging what you like and can’t stand in a guy, and recognizing that rare person who contains the “it” factor—the one whose long-term goals and desires line up with your own, who inspires you to be better, who values what you bring to the table.

Some mistake history for connection. It’s an offshoot of connection that can add to its beauty, but is not connection itself. History creates attachment, not connection. And if you’re clinging to history, you might never find the great and elusive “it.”

Positive experiences that greatly outweigh negative ones can sometimes bring couples back together when the timing is right. Negative or ho-hum experiences, which vastly outweigh the positives, are just history that you should learn from.

RELATED: How to Tell If You’re Dating a Psychopath, According to a Woman Who Married One

He fits an ideal

Some women say the darnedest things—like they will date only African American finance guys who are six foot four or taller and have an athlete’s pedigree. Or that they will date only Southern men with scruff who own farmland or are in possession of oil money. I kid you not. I have had real conversations with women who have told me the above.

Not only are these types of ideals a hindrance to finding a great guy in the first place, but they can keep you holding on to a guy who is totally not working for you. They can also keep you from asking the hard, real questions. Delia, a 29-year-old magazine editor in NYC, recalls dating a guy when she was in her early to mid-20s. “He was objectively great—attractive, ambitious, a wonderful person,” she says. “From the outside, people think you’re the perfect couple.”

Delia thinks she probably hung on to her ex simply because he seemed ideal—even though inside her relationship, he could not open up emotionally and they were never in sync with their humor or goals. “I tried to bring fun into our daily lives,” she says, to no avail. When Delia “added up their relationship on paper” after years, it finally did not work. “He wanted to get married, have kids, and stay in DC,” she says. “He had always assumed that path. For me, it was the bonus, but not the goal.”

Delia broke up with him, moved to NYC, and got her current job. Oh yeah, and a relationship built on connection. They've been together about a year: “He already gets me on such a deeper level,” she says. “He’s thirty-five. He’s been through relationships. We think about the world in the same way. He’s a great storyteller, and very creative. We love to hear about each other’s lives.”

This guy had so shifted Delia’s paradigms about a good relationship I couldn’t help but smile while talking to her—as if it were happening to me. “I feel like this is everything you hear about!” she explains. “The person makes you want to be your best self, you never get jealous . . . and you’re not crying all the time.” (That’s a good box to have checked.) “I think I bought into the older generation, who said, ‘Relationships are hard,’” she says. “So I was always thinking, ‘Well, how hard?’”

In reality, relationships aren’t hard. Life can be hard. A relationship with a person you deeply love and are compatible with should be easy.

RELATED: Are You and Your Partner Super Close—or Codependent? Here's How to Tell the Difference

You feel external pressure

You get pressure from every side to find The One—Mom can’t stop asking, Great Aunt Sue always brings it up at Thanksgiving, societal norms say women in relationships > single women, and there’s that silent-yet-deafening tick of the biological clock. But pressure is no reason to settle.

Lydia is one cool "full-package" woman. Not only is this DC-based 23-year-old working in communications, she just has an impressive life résumé. “I’m really interested in politics and international affairs, traveling,” she tells me when I ask her about her life. “I’ve lived in hostels in Australia and Europe. When I was in London, I met a lot of people who were like-minded.”

She is a smart, upbeat person who speaks with kindness and who can discuss just about anything—the kind of girl you’d definitely want in your squad. But Lydia is also perpetually single, and confident as she is, she’s not immune to the pressures of singledom. “Society doesn’t exactly help,” she says. “There is this woman at work who keeps asking me if I have a boyfriend—and it’s really hard when you want that companion.”

Recently married to Isabelle, 37-year-old Shawn, can also attest to this. When I ask him to name “traps” singles should avoid, he mentions only one: “If you are feeling external pressure to move forward in the relationship, be skeptical,” he says. This includes pressure from your friends, your family, societal expectations, on-paper ideals, your dog . . . whatever. “You should feel an internal push to move things forward,” he says. Internal pressure is your desire, which feels organic, exciting, and full of potential. External pressure is other people’s desires for you, which can feel uncomfortable, confusing, or even terrifying if you form relationships based upon it.

You’re lonely, and dating sucks

It’s okay to admit that you’re lonely. We are created for connection; a 2013 Gallup poll found that only 5% of Americans have never been married and say they don’t want to marry, meaning that most others have been married, are currently married, or want to marry in the future. But just because we’re basically all looking for connection, that doesn’t mean we find it whenever we desire it.

Hunkering down with the wrong person is only a barrier to meeting the right one—so you have to learn when to stay and when to leave. Take Landon, the 30-year-old journalist, for instance, who admitted to remaining in multiple relationships beyond their expiration dates when confronted with the alternatives of staying single or dating around—one vaguely sad, the other exhausting.

Lydia is similar, but she’s taken the opposite approach. She’s holding out until she meets a worthy candidate. “I’ve met and talked to lots of guys, but it always seems like just first dates or hookups,” she says. Deep down, Lydia knows she’s a relationship kind of girl, and she’s always had the courage to admit she wants something real. “I’ve never been in a relationship!” she says. “I want someone who cares about me—a partner, a form of support. When you go on dates and get ghosted repeatedly, you have to act like it doesn’t faze you. But I’ve spent whole mornings crying.”

Lydia meets plenty of guys. She’s been on apps. Even while she was abroad, she hit it off with multiple guys back to back—like one night at a speed-dating event, and another at a poetry reading. However, she has had no luck in finding a long-term connection.

While Lydia’s hunt for a real connection hasn’t been easy, it puts her in a better position to meet the right person, because she’s not expending tons of emotional energy on guys who don’t call her back, guys who only want a regular hookup buddy, or guys who just like the thrill of keeping multiple girls in rotation. She knows what she wants, and she’s keeping her eyes on the prize.

And remember: Settling is a way of life. It’s insidious, and it will catch up to you once you start down the path of making small concessions. So keep asking yourself those two questions—and don’t hang on to a relationship out of comfort, history, fear, pressure, or loneliness.

You’re not being picky; you’re remaining selective to find long-term compatibility. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Excerpted from The Love Gap: A Radical Plan to Win in Life and Love by Jenna Birch. Copyright © 2018 by Jenna Birch Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Life & Style, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.

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