#It's manipulative story telling and it's disrespectful to the audience

[c0ld0utside]

Hello there,I am a new follower and I'm just wondering if your comfortable to write a Yandere platonic royal family and a male y/n, only if you're comfortable i don't wanna pressure you

Imagine - Yandere Royal Family 

Hi! Yeah, that’s totally fine! 

Yandere Royal Family with a Male kid

Warnings: Overprotectiveness, coddling behavior, manipulation, familial hatred

You are the youngest son of the royal family, consisting of your Mother, Father, Older Sister, and Brother. You’re the baby, the one who can do no wrong, Mama's boy, the one who has to be protected at all costs. Your Older Brother doesn’t need to worry about fighting over the throne with you, and he’d never dream of it! You’re too pathetic and sweet! 

…Right?

Yandere Princess Sister who’s the first to notice your sudden…”everything” change over the years. You’re quieter, you don’t play as much and you’ve started to distance yourself. You’re rude to her. Rude. You hate playing dress up and being cooed at by her and her friends during teatime. You’re usually the first to finish dinner and you quickly excuse yourself and hide in your room. 

Yandere Prince Brother who’s the second to notice. He doesn’t interact with you much since he’s busy learning how to be king for when he eventually takes your father’s place, but he has made time to hang out with you when he can. No- you cannot spar with him. Mom and Dad don’t want you to hurt yourself anyway. Why don’t we read a story instead? No? You used to love it when he read you stories- where is this coming from? 

He feels worried when you storm out of the room. 

Yandere Empress Mother who’s the third to notice. You don’t join her for tea or walks in the garden. You don’t sit with her in her office, talking to her about what you did today. Sure, it was usually repetitive, the same old “I read a new book and saw a pretty bird from the window,” but she didn’t mind. You don’t tell her your wishes or troubles anymore. 

You want to learn how to sword fight? No, absolutely not, you don’t need to learn how to fight at all. You’re safe here, anyway. No, you can’t go out into town without your guards. I don’t care if your Sister only has one, she’s much older than you. What do you want to go into town for? I’ll place an order for you. You want to go outside without me, your Older Sister, or Your Older Brother? I’ll have your guards go with you, then. 

Yandere Empress Mother who simply wants the best for you and wants you to be safe. If you won’t come to her, she’ll come to you. She’s surprised when your answers are short. “Why haven’t you been spending time with me anymore?” “Is it true that you’re being rude to your siblings?” “Sword fighting? Again? No, you can’t. Your father and I don’t want you to get hurt. …Did you just tell me to get out?”

After you slam the door shut, she stands there in a stunned silence. Did that really just happen? She has to process for a long time.

She takes a deep breath before heading off to speak with your father.

With your Sister and Brother.

Yandere Emperor Father who does a double take at what he’s been told. Was this really you they were talking about? He immediately demands an audience with you. Unfortunately, he’s not gentle like your mother and siblings. He immediately asks you if what the rest of your family said is true, and like the good child you are, you admit to it. He can’t help but feel a little happy and proud about that- you coming clean. It goes away when it’s clear that you aren’t sorry. 

“Why have you been acting this way? Don’t give me that, you’re still a child. Stop talking back to me. Don’t argue with me. When did you become so disrespectful? No, you’re not a prisoner, that’s ridiculous! We all love you and care about you very much. You don’t understand how devastated we’d feel if you got hurt. We just want what’s best for you, you’re too young to understand. Didn’t I tell you to stop talking back to me?” 

Yandere Emperor Father who confines you to your room for a month. It’s a hard decision for him to make- he hates having to punish any of his children. Meals are brought to you and you’re allowed to leave to use the bathroom, but the servants aren’t allowed to speak with you. 

Only your family can. 

It’s mostly your siblings and your mother, who you turn away each time. Rarely does your father stop by, lecturing you and trying to get you to see reason. When you don’t, he sighs and adds another month to your punishment time. Unbeknownst to all of them, you have a plan. 

Yandere Royal Family who nearly died on the spot when you’re not in your room. Your older brother is the one to discover you’re missing. It went like this: He “found” your favorite childhood storybook in his room. He had read you the stories so many times he had them all memorized. He felt a bit guilty for hiding it all those years ago, seeing that sad expression on your little face. But he made it up to you by telling you a story before bed. You didn’t need the book anymore, after all. You need him. 

He thought it’d make you feel better. Imagine his horror when he sees the makeshift rope of the blanket and bedsheets in the open window. Imagine everyone else’s surprise when they hear him shouting frantically. When they see him running through the hallways screaming about how you’re gone.

Several search parties are sent out, your family counting the seconds and trying to stay calm. Their panic worsens when you’re missing for days. Where did you go?! Why did you run away?! Did you run away? Did someone take you? That can’t be possible, you don’t know anyone except your family. Because they’re all you need. 

When you’re found, you’re dragged back kicking and screaming. At first your family is worried, thinking you’re shouting because you’re injured. But no, it’s because you don’t want to be locked up again. Especially with them. They don’t notice some of the pitying looks you get, especially from a certain guard.

The guard who they didn’t know let you escape. 

They’re too relieved to be angry at you for long, and your punishment terms have changed.

You have to stay right by their side for the day. Yes, and night, too. Isn’t that fun, though? You can watch your brother swordfight, dress up with your sister (you look amazing, by the way), talk to your mother and father while they work, and have sleepovers…

You spent the day with your brother today. With a loving smile and a kiss to your temple, he wishes you goodnight and closes your eyes. 

Not noticing that you stayed up a bit longer, eyeing his sword on the rack.

-

Wuh-woh, looks like Reader’s getting other ideas on how to get out. This was interesting to write! Thank you all for the love so far! I’ll try to update once a day, I don’t really have a schedule for my posts.

[cosmicjoke]

See, this conversation really highlights everything that's wrong with not just the Loki show, but the MCU in general now.

What they highlight here, about Loki's conversation with Mobius, and how dismissive and flippant he is while talking about what he did he New York, like it's all some silly joke that shouldn't be taken seriously, like it wasn't a big deal, like what he was feeling while he did what he did wasn't a big deal, is really the heart of the problem. Nobody takes anything seriously in universe, so how the hell is the audience supposed to take anything they do, think or feel seriously?

They've reduced Loki's entire character to a joke. They've reduced what he went through in the first Thor film into to a joke, what he went through when he fell through space and landed in Thanos' clutches into a joke, what happened during the first Avengers film into a joke. Everything's a big, fucking joke now. How can anybody like this? Don't they see what the writers of this trash are doing? They're shitting all over you by shitting all over the thing you love. By making fun of it and undercutting it, they're telling you you were stupid to ever take any of it seriously. It's the ultimate form of disrespect to the fans. It's a blunt insult.

This kind of shit drives me absolutely up a wall. It's so awful. And what they say in this video is so spot on. Loki started out having such depth and gravitas and presence. He started off as such a commanding, attention grabbing, complex character. And now, he's just some guy who eats pie and talks about his feelings, but with a flippancy which tells you that he doesn't actually have any feelings at all. He's just a hollow cut out that's full of shit. It's such a god damn joke.

People shouldn't settle for this. They shouldn't praise it because 'well, it's not as bad as the first season'. Because that's such a high bar to clear? Loki getting kneed in the nuts over and over by Sif. That's the bar you're clearing. Loki falling in love with a variant of himself after knowing her for five whole minutes, for no discernible reason, because who the fuck would love Sylvie, the most obnoxious bitch in the universe ? Loki getting man-handled and getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of humans with taser sticks. Loki being made a fool of every other scene. Loki losing every fight he gets into. Loki being tricked and outsmarted at every turn. Loki being so narcissistic and brain dead, that he can't see when he's being manipulated. This guy is supposed to be a genius. He's supposed to be terrifyingly smart. Anyone who knows anything about this character knows that. But reverse psychology works on him, I guess.

So Loki does a little magic which, more than anything, just highlights the utter void of creativity in these writers minds, and we're supposed to cheer and clap? Loki is a god. Loki is the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard. He can do pretty much anything you can imagine. And this is the best they can come up with? He holds someone down with shadows on the wall. Wow. So impressive. Get the fuck out of here.

But that's really the problem. They've reduced Loki into such a shadow of what he once was, that even the barest crumbs of it that we get now, we get excited about. We praise and point to as proof that things are "better". They're not better, though. This Loki is still a clown and an idiot and acts and conducts himself in ways nothing like what was originally established with this character. This Loki still has nothing to do with the original character's story or history in the MCU. They make passing references to that history, and play it off for laughs, instead of actually delving deep into it and exploring it and helping the audience to really understand and sympathize with Loki as a character.

Loki talks here about being "angry" with Thor and Odin. Okay. That would be great, except he says it like it's a joke. Imagine if instead of that, it was actually treated seriously, and we finally, finally, got an examination of what Loki was going through emotionally during the first Thor film? Imagine if Loki actually got to acknowledge the devastation he felt when he found out he was a frost giant? If he got to really acknowledge the alienation and rejection he felt upon discovering he was the very thing that his own people, the Asgardians, had always considered to be lesser beings, and not only that, but literal monsters? Imagine if he got to really express the turmoil of that? Of finding out you come from a race of beings you were raised to believe were inferior, in all ways. If he was allowed to process why he had such an overwhelming emotional and mental breakdown, that he tried to destroy Jotunheim and then take over Midgard. Imagine if we got an actual acknowledgement of what lead up to all of that, with Loki feeling like an outcast, a reject among Thor's friends, among the Asgardians in general, always seen as lesser than Thor in everyone's eyes. Does nobody remember how disrespectful practically everyone was to Loki in the first Thor film? From servants to the Warriors 3 and Sif, to Heimdall. They all treated him like shit. Fucking Christ, there's a literal world of ideas and character depth to explore there, and they just... don't. They could have devoted the whole show to this and it would have been riveting. Imagine, imagine, imagine. But nope. Instead, we get a passing reference to it, written and delivered as if it was all some big comedic skit, and the rest of the show is about finding Kang so they can set up Avengers 5. Holy shit. People should not accept this as good. People should not praise or even give positive commentary on this because it's "better" than the first season. It's not better. It's more of the god damn same.

People shouldn't accept mediocrity. They should demand better. Because if they don't, Marvel and Disney will just keep putting this same shit out and think they can get away with it.

[9800sblog]

mingi tarot reading

persona vs personality

do I have his energy permission to do and share this reading? 2 of cups

mingi said he has a clear division, that in public he sells a fantasy and a performance.

in front of cameras, bosses, fans and other celebrities

in general, he likes to be impressive and because he's so inspired by hip-hop, he wants to look like a bad boy, a player, like he's trouble. he likes to look messy, like he isn't trying hard, that he's naturally that cool, he shows off money and possessions very casually, to not look like he cares, he has no cares. but he also likes the story of a small guy in a big world, he only tells the struggles he's already survived and fixed, this way, he shows how strong and powerful he is. I think he gets a bit embarrassed in front of cameras still, because he's actually trying a lot and planning and thinking and researching (he said that privately he's a nerd and a loser kkkkkkkkk). with the queen of cups, he likes to show that he's in control of his emotions and sensitive to others' emotions, polite, nice and likeable, charming. with bosses, mingi likes to be a fun presence that reminds them of a problem child, I think he enjoys being taken care of and getting away easily when he actually has big trouble. ateez doesn't seem to have many celebrity friends (or any friends except for themselves) and it's basically what we see on camera. but he likes opportunities with successful people to exchange advice and learnings. in work events and ceremonies where he is around them, mingi likes to be calm, self composed and look successful, a quiet type of success. now, when around fans, he tries to be funny and quirky and look open minded and non judgmental, so they can feel comfortable with him. there's also the classic boyband fantasy, where every fan is special, the love of his life and he wants you desperately, only you! it doesn't seem he enjoys it, with the king of swords reversed + 8 of pentacles reversed, he thinks it's manipulative and gives him a bad reputation, it's easy money and disrespectful to himself, to the fans and the special people in his life. the other cards say he's often bored, apathetic or just sad when interacting one on one, but it's just how things have always been done and he doesn't have the power to change it alone. it seems that he wants to be more honest, but he can't, he said "it's hard to be proud of yourself when you do such putrid work".

casually, at home and daily

mingi is really traditional, he likes being home and I don't see him going out at all, a homebody for sure. he is introspective and reevaluates his life and decisions, figuring out if they actually match with him on a real level. he's got a strong sense of right and wrong, he's quite lazy and overly dramatic. his faith plays a big part on him and his mentality, and he is thoughtful, he likes to learn from anything. he's such a sentimentalist, he romanticizes a lot, he's get very attached to things and people, and is probably the type to take many casual pictures and videos to watch his memories in the future. there is this one person mingi feels very close to, his true best friend, who he is very intensely emotionally connected to, he spends a lot of time with them, like a lot, from morning to night and then in his dreams, that's very sweet. he likes to be around this person because he feels grounded around them, and that's when his energy feels actually relaxed and comfortable. when around them, he is vulnerable, dedicated, attentive, detailed, easily accesses his shadow and works with them to fix it, this is a very safe energy and environment, I really like it, I'm happy he feels like that. it almost feels like therapy, but it's better and easier, he's a very healing presence in this energy, very comfortable and unbothered. he seems to still be obsessed with things from his childhood and love things that the target audience is children, it's lighthearted fun, he said.

[tsykku]

Well, the statement is out and it has been confirmed by Wilbur himself that he was the one that Shelby was talking about.

The statement that he put out did align with what I was thinking that he would say. It has been no secret that he has been a dark mental state for the past year and a half and that he has been working on himself so that this was mentioned came to no surprise.

And while I am glad that he did admit that it was him and that he did not stay silent or deny everything, he is not taking full accountability for how he hurt a person so badly. By not daring to say that his actions were abusive, he is downplaying the situation which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The statement was not an apology, it was a PR statement to state his side of view of things which he should be able to share and which I do think was the best move for him. I believe that the only apology he needs to make is to the people that he hurt and manipulated so that the statement was not an apology to his fans etc is not the issue. It is not uncommon that a person with issues and bad mental health does not realise that their actions are abusive in the moment, so that he alludes to that also does not surprise me. I can even believe it to an extent and I am glad that he is working on this with therapy. But, it is way too early to say that he has made great strides as a person.

Especially, the last sentence of his statement of wanting to be held to high standards that he wished to attain and maintain, left me feeling physically sick. The language is so manipulative and he is missing the complete point of why he needs to address this whole situation in the first place.

The biggest issue with the statement and him in general is the lack of accountability and downplaying the situation. The reactions of fellow creators such as Aimsey and Ranboo clearly demonstrate this. Reframing the biting issues, leaving out other harmful actions and only taking taking account for his "slobbish, disrespectful and selfish" state during the time he was dating Shubble.

I think if he had taken full responsibility for his actions and promised to keep working on himself and addressing these issues in the (long) time that he is away, he could have made a comeback eventually with a smaller audience. But coming back from this will be difficult and rightfully so.

At the end of the day, I believe that he is a highly disturbed person with lots of issues. This is not a surprise, as I think many fans of him knew about his mental struggles and how this translated to his music and story telling. It is why a lot of us found comfort in him in the first place. I just never imagined that he would turn that emotional and mental instability to others.

You are not responsible for what you feel but you are responsible for what you do with those emotions. It is never an excuse to harm others. Something that Wilbur clearly has not learned nor has he learned to take full accountability. Please note that this situation is therefore also not an excuse to doxx or send death threats to him or any other creator involved.

Like I have mentioned when the situation came out, I will no longer support him and I will step away from him. Whether you want to do the same is up to you. If you want to stop watching his content, stop supporting/listening to Lovejoy and to what extend or stop watching his close friends and cc's, that is your choice to make. Nobody can accept Wilbur's apology except the people harmed by his actions, and that will certainly not happen any time soon.

If you are going through a hard time, please talk with others about it and my dm's are open.

Send your love to Shelby and support victims. Please take care of yourself.

[clowndensation]

once again thinking about the audience as both voyeur and participant inside the media we watch. thinking about how the camera has a point of view, and the audience is forced to be complicit in that view. thinking about how this is commonly used to denigrate a character, to make the audience participate in their denigration, and how the camera deliberately does the opposite in regards to nacho's death.

the way that privacy, dignity, and respect are indelibly tied in human existence - how humiliation requires a jury of your peers to watch you suffer - and how the nature of film is that the camera innately objectifies (and thus disrespects) every character it shows on screen as a byproduct of telling their story: turning a character's life into entertainment for the audience, a series of vicarious thrills for us to feel and then discard. we see every humiliation that nacho faces. we see every act of degradation, every instance he is objectified and measured, chattel on the chopping block, weighed by the pound. the only time nacho's pain isn't objectified and served before the audience is when mike is forced to hurt him before he's taken before the salamancas for his execution. mike tells gus that nacho deserves his respect, and in doing so he tells the camera (and the audience) that he deserves our respect, as well. and the most respectful thing an audience can do when a character is facing degradation is stop being an audience. he shamed the camera into turning off.

and then, in the very same episode, it studies the reverse. if there's power in forcing the camera to turn away, then there's also power in forcing it to stay. and we are forced to stay with him. we're forced to see nacho as an autonomous figure inside of a narrative that he was never meant to control. we're forced to watch him hold a gun to his head and we're forced to watch him shoot, because if watching a character's degradation is stripping them of their dignity, then looking away from their injustice is too - nacho is, in that moment, a force that's impossible to ignore. neither gus nor the camera can control him any more, he is finally the thing that happens to both gus and to the camera (to us), and we're forced to feel it the entire way through.

something about the audience as voyeur, complicit in everything we're shown on screen, the implied recrimination of finding titillation in the tragedy of the characters - to show nacho's pain would be gratuitous degradation. by panning away, the camera is granting him the ultimate respect - he's allowed to suffer in private. we're there with him in the hotel, we're there with him when he calls his dad, we're there with him when he offers himself up to gus, but we're denied the right to see this needless act of violence, this gratuitous, perfunctory pain. the camera has a point of view, and it thinks what's happening to nacho is a disgrace.

just. the way characters can communicate to the audience through manipulation of the very tool that allows us to objectify them. argh.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Honestly kinda disagree with you on a few points. The first is that just because you don't think the quality of work was acceptable doesn't mean it's a true blanket statement, because that stuff is subjective. The second is that even if the work is publicly available, it doesn't mean the creator has to do jack shit for the audience considering the work itself is completely free. This isn't a case of a genuine level of quality being expected for a product because nobody's spending money on SDRA2.

//If you're focusing very strictly on the money aspect, you're kinda missing my point. This isn't about money, this is about disrespecting your audience and derailing your own story.

//First of all, I've talked at length about why Chapter 3 is bad not just because it derails the twins' characters, but because it's objectively badly-written. It doesn't do anything to service the narrative, it doesn't advance the characters, it doesn't do anything but point and go "Hey, isn't Kanade wacko?"

//Say what you will about the quality on its own, but you can't seriously tell me that wasting 1/6th of your own plot on a completely irrelevant and self-indulgent side-story is a good idea. Especially when that side-story is the longest out of the entire game.

//Almost nothing in Chapter 3 is relevant to the ongoing plot about the Voids, and the bits that are can be learned later on. There was no real reason for things like Iroha being revealed as a Void to happen beyond dramatic irony, but when she doesn't even really do anything in service of the plot or grow as a character, I must ask what the point is.

//The only thing of note that happens is, as I said, Hibiki and Kanade's characters being derailed. Hibiki had a great arc in Chapter 2 and was one of the highlights of that chapter, but then she basically becomes a background extra in Chapter 3 who does nothing but cry and then die for a crime she had no conscious role in. Her death isn't tragic or poignant, it's cheap and emotionally manipulative.

//Kanade goes from a shy girl with a dark streak to a serial killer with a ridiculous body count not because it serves the story or has any bearing on the greater plot, but because LINUJ thought Korekiyo was cool and wanted to do his own spin on V3 Chapter 3. That's it. She turns out to be this manipulative murderer with a body count of over 60 people- which would make her one of the most prolific of all time- and none of it has any meaning.

//There were absolutely ways one could integrate the existing elements of Chapter 3 into the story, where maybe Kanade exposes Nikei as a Void like my friend Mod Poi has suggested. As it stands, however, it doesn't service the plot in any way. The characters barely even seen phased by it come Chapter 4.

//And thanks to wasting a chapter on the irrelevant, that means much of the room for exposition had to be shoved further and further down the line. This is why I think Chapter 6 became a mess of one infodump after another, because there was no room to put it anywhere else.

//The real kick in the teeth for me, however, is that in a character Q&A, LINUJ straight up confirmed that Hibiki- had she survived and gotten away from Kanade- would've eventually recovered from the trauma. If we want to take the creator at his word, this demolishes any notion that Hibiki wouldn't have been a good survivor.

//Kanade, meanwhile, has no qualities or interests beyond her obsession with her sister and just being smart. Without Hibiki, she would've offed herself.

//So essentially, one of them could've had an interesting arc had she survived and the other has no character beyond just being an evil obsessive freak. He deliberately chose to write them like this. And yes, the Q&A has some contradictions, like how he said Emma would've forgiven Kokoro in the afterlife, even though he said she wouldn't have in Emma's character sheet, but this just adds to my point.

//I'm not saying you can never be self-indulgent as a small creator or that you need a flowchart for your entire story. I'm just saying, if you've got a fangan or any story in mind, there are some things you really need to plan out and have nailed down ahead of time, otherwise it's going to end up cluttered, disorganized and full of plot threads that don't matter. Discovery writing doesn't really work when you have a story that needs a definitive outline and conclusion to work.

//Hell, I'm a small creator and my work is free, and I never want people to feel like I should never be criticized because of that. I admit I've made some bad writing choices in the past, but I'm trying to build off of that and make something better. It's a lot of discovery writing, sure, but there's just as much planning behind the scenes for the arcs I have in mind. The relevant points have been decided on ahead of time.

//As a creator, regardless of whether or not you're making money off of a project, if you make it publicly available, that doesn't make you immune to criticism. It also doesn't mean you're free to disrespect your audience and basically tell them they were stupid for ever wanting to get invested in the characters. Even if that's not the language used, it's what's implied with statements like "Oh yeah, she would've grown as a person if she survived."

//Yes, there is such a thing as fan entitlement, but that entitlement and basic criticism are not the same thing. Creators can be just as entitled and self-absorbed, and saying that any creator doesn't have to "do jack shit for the audience" just because it's free? No, you really do. You have to show them basic respect.

//I'm simply speaking as a creator myself and a fan, and on both levels, Chapter 3 fails hard for me. You can explain to me why it ended up the way it did, but that's not going to magically make anything about it better.

[cosmic-herbal-tea]

Justice Society of America (2022) #1 Review: It Just Sucks

Being that I was anticipating for this title happily despite some of my concerns, I am disappointed to say that honestly, this first issue wasn't really good at all. My belief about first issues is that it SHOULD attract an audience enough to want to be interested in the book and I'm not even sure If the first issue could do that given what happens.

Story recap

So the story here is that years into the future, the daughter of Bruce Wayne/Batman, Helena Wayna aka the Huntress, is a member of the JSA. Due to the JSA's legacies not being fulfilled properly as they retire or whatever, Helena convinces Doctor Fate (one of the two only people on the team with legitamacy in terms of legacies alongside Powergirl) to recruit a whole new team, in which consists of former super-villains, some who are related to previous enemies of the JSA.

Doctor Fate is missing and the team tries to find clues to his whereabouts, with some speculating he was killed by one of the new team members. Doctor Fate's body turns up mummified days later and the team is then ambused by time travelling villain, Per Degaton, who uses his time manipulation powers to kill them all save Helena, who is saved by a aged Catwoman and thrusts her into the past to find Doctor Fate of the 1940s.

Opinions

Helena Wayne's focus

One of my earliest concerns about this series was the fact that Helena Wayne was going to be a focus in the series. I recall after saying that, I was reminded that her character has, in fact, served as a JSA character, Infinity Inc. member, etc. That's all find and dandy but again, a character related to Batman gets prime focus in a series over the other Justice Society of America.

It's nice that Helena Wayne finally gets to exist but it comes at the cost of icing other characters needlessly. It also continues this trending idea that Batman-related characters are the highest billed characters in these teams (Titans with Robin/Nightwing, Justice League with Batman, The Outlaws with Red Hood, the Birds of Prey with Barbara Gordon/Harley Quinn). It's time for DC to give other character some REAL love.

Doctor Fate is disrespected

Which gets to my second point: Despite the fact that Helena within the story actually asked Doctor Fate's permission to recruit more team members, implying that HE is the actual leader, you don't see that because he spends the issue being DEAD before you even get another appearance Older Khalid!Doctor Fate. And he is killed by Per Degatron with Falcone thugs doing SOMETHING and then him getting mummified and stuffed into a sarcophagus, found days later because someone unearthed him in a museum and caught an illness that is assocaite with the "Curse of the Pharaohs" myth.

So incase it didn't dawn upon you, DC has Per Degaton, a time-travelling, kill off the ONLY canonical Egyptian Doctor Fate by mummifying him and stuffing him in a sarcophagus in the first issue of a JSA book.

And you know, I find it high-key ironic that even when Khalid is the current Doctor Fate, they're still finding ways to involve Kent Nelson. The previous JSA books didn't tweak their nose nor shy away from telling you the current Doctor Fate (Hector Hall, Kent V. Nelson) is NOT Kent Nelson and they're fine. Khalid is equally capable of fixing the plot like Kent Nelson and yet, Catwoman sends Helena back in time to find KENT NELSON's DOCTOR FATE.

This is an issue that can get fixed down the line but Khalid isn't white so I don't know If it will.

Power Girl is also dispresected.

Not only is Doctor Fate disrespected but I feel Power Girl's character is too. Her character was once Chairwoman of the JSA. I don't like the fact that like Khalid, she is taking a back seat to letting Helena run the reigns, especially when she has some STRONG disagreements and frankly, she has more legitamancy. If not Doctor Fate, why isn't Power Girl leading this JSA? How is it exactly Helena Wayne was able to convince Doctor Fate of a new interim team?

Maybe these answers MAY get answered some time later but I definitely can say I don't like how it is written that the only thing Power Girl did was "not forgive Helena" for it. This version has been on the team for DECADES. This is not the same Power Girl/Helena Wayne from World's Finest back during the New 52 days. Why didn't she just take command instead?

And then she is killed unceremoniously by Kryptonite poisoning even though Kryptonite from other universes can't affect her but OH WELL. We gotta make Per Degaton look REALLY scary for this one-off storyline.

The series' setup is bland

Overall, this series' first issue is bland and ridiculous. You introduce a whole new incarnation and then kill them off in the same issue in gruesome ways just to show off your villain (ONCE AGAIN), who hasn't been impressive since his creation Ain't nobody care about some Per Degaton wanting to be Extant.

The series twists it's neck once more to find a way to tell a story that claims is about "legacy" characters but is beginning to look like it's only interested in the same old fucks in the JSA, which begs the question of why not just having the series set in the 1940s-1970s and just going ham on it instead.

This is another story where "legacy characters" only amount to not being up to par and stuggling eternally just to exist. You don't see them fuck shit up; you watch shit fuck them up. How many stories are we having about legacies that actually come FULL CIRCLE and be real badasses? It's 2022 and you'll be hard pressed because they INSIST on not actually moving forward or taking a few steps forward before making giant leaps back.

This first issue did not take the oppurtunity to introduce the prospect of a REAL, new, and interesting team lineup, which also missed the oppurutunity for both new and updated versions of characters. Instead, the first issue beleives a time travelling murder mystery of the JSA with Helena Wayne on the case is more interesting. That may be a contending fact but it makes me think why isn't it called Huntress and the Justice Society instead.

Overall, given that the JSA was spotlighted in the Black Adam movie and it is received fairly well, I find it severely underwhelming DC's first inclination to using the team's mythos is starting off like this. Not to mention how they treat worthwhile characters, ranging from ridiculous to borderline ignorant at the very least.

[trayzen-the-infinite]

My Hot Take on the Writers Strike

I’m going to get this off my chest because it’s been killing me and I’m seeing too much of one narrative go across my recommended. I’m known to be very blunt and will undoubtedly hurt feelings. For those who don’t want to read it and block me without reading do it now. For those who at least want to hear me out, thank you.

Most of the people in support of it just strike me as bootlickers. The Unions involved are all very abusive, manipulative and hypocritical. They’re in support of it because they tricked themselves into believing this will somehow hurt Hollywood and thus are willing to excuse absolutely anything no matter how horrible. They let big name celebrities continue to do work while barring small time members of the union to essentially starve. Tell influencers who aren’t even a part of the union what to do, as well of cosplayers, and will attack people who’re not part of the union and are just working on independent film by calling the Scabs, while allowing their own union members to do the same thing they attacked indies over. These unions aren’t good people, they’re running a Mafia style racket. You’re doing nothing but perpetuating the suffering of these poor Union members forced to do the bidding of the Union like slaves but you don’t care, because you’re sticking it to the corporations. Not remotely true by the way, they decided that if people don’t want to work for them then they can just automate the process and keep on trucking. The strike is just convincing them to replace writers and actors with machines. So congratulations, you’re solving nothing.

Another thing is that the reason why the general public doesn’t give a rats ass cheek about the strikes is because the actors all act like entitled brats, and writers like pompous royalty. They’ve released Bomb after bomb and whenever they bomb they immediately run to Social Media and insult both the actual viewers and random groups they don’t like as if they can bully people into liking it. When you want men to watch your movie, don’t insult them beforehand and say “it’s not for you” or “if you don’t like it then don’t watch it” because they’ll take you up on that offer, so don’t be surprised when no men show up to watch the movie.

On another note. Years back Lego did a study to understand how to better market to children. They would give kids some toys to play with and separate them between Boys and Girls. They would have the same toys to play with. With some minor outliers the conclusion was this: When Boys played with Batman toys they would stick to the canon, do the Batman voice, have him on adventures fighting crime, beating the Joker and even doing the Batman voice. When Girls were given those same toys, they did not do this. Batman would be a boyfriend or a husband, they’d do things Batman wasn’t known for or did at all. This carries over into general adulthood, Men care about action and Women care more about the Drama. Obviously theirs always outliers but this is the general trend. On YouTube or even TV when having things like building a Cabin in the middle of the woods the majority audience will be Men, their may be some women audience but it’s a male dominated interest. Women on the other hand devour stuff like Crime Drama and is a majority Female dominated program.

I say this because with all the shows being made now, the people making them are behaving like 5 year old Girls. They disregard canon, established Lore or characterization, Season 3 of Picard is beloved by Trekkies that actually stuck around because that’s the Star Trek the fans know. Picard up until that point was unrecognizable as a Star Trek. The Sequel Trilogy was hated by long time Star Wars fans befit spit in the face of Star Wars. Rey was uninteresting and too perfect, the story was nothing like a Star Wars story, and it disrespected the original characters that started the franchise. The removed everything that original fans loved about these properties and made it into something unrecognizable from its name. They keep doing this, hoping nostalgia and Brand Recognition will be enough to reel in old fans while not putting forth any effort to stay true to that brand.

THIS IS WHY ALMOST NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE STRIKE. Because the writers and Actors are entitled brats who forget that their audience pays their bills. If what they write isn’t successful then the company doesn’t make back its investment, if it doesn’t make back its investment it starts losing money, and if it does make money then the writers will stop seeing that cash. Now think back to every Box Office Bomb that blew MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for nearly a Decade Straight and then wonder why these Hollywood Corporations are unwilling to give raises.

Everything Must Add Up Or You’ll Be Subtracted From The Equation.

[heavensickness]

I love your breaking bad live posting :D its soo funny. . And i totally agree : walt is the worst. I watched the show years after it was like omnipresent and it baffles me how people literally went around celebrating him and his actions? Even defending him?? Like ok no one on this show is purely an angel but for walt what i hate the most is the absolute disdain he holds for his family, how he lies and cheats to cater to his ego and how he manipulates everyone. He never does it for them, imo, only to prove to himself that he is a good man, when in fact he is not...

let me know what you think though ! :p

Have a nice evening!

Walt is loved because he is the perfect poster figure for a very wide audience: A man in his late 40s who has let the biggest opportunities in his life pass by him, who wasted his potential and settled for a job that he does not enjoy and feels too qualified for, he feels ridiculed by people whom he sees below himself intelligence-wise even though they are actually not ridiculing him, his giant ego and superiority complex repressed and buried deep inside all his life coming out in the ugliest ways, a young and beautiful wife he sees below himself again intelligence-wise (how he tells ridiculous lies to Skyler and actually expects her to buy them and keep quiet etc.) and wants to control, a teenage son he also wants to control and be the perfect role model for since he feels humiliated by others but doesn't do shit to actually make his son respect him etc. I can count for hours. You can find thousands of men relating to him, and not only in the USA either. He is the self-acclaimed "good guy" who "turns bad" because he was ridiculed by his peers, he was robbed off, he has cancer, his family doesn't respect him yadda yadda, and this guy turns into a powerful, terrifying, and insanely rich figure throughout the story. Do I even need to say that his "fans" see themselves in him? Or they want to be him? And it is no surprise that they ignore or care little about the atrocities he has committed and blame mainly Skyler, Walter Jr. and Hank etc. instead, just like Walt does himself. It is always the bitch wife, the disrespectful son, the asshole brother-in-law, and never the man himself. You can literally meet these Walts at everywhere; at work, at bars, at bank rows, as your neighbors, as your uncle, as your coworker, they are everywhere. And of course they are going to like the character they relate to the most, it is in human nature. The fictional character is the mirror to the real person's own grief etc.

[impostoradult]

I finally figured out why it feels like Supernatural murdered a unicorn (AKA why you need to STOP telling me to watch Black Sails)

I’ll start by saying, everything everyone else has been saying CERTAINLY bothers me: 

- the queer-baiting - the bury your queers - the undermining of Dean’s character arc  - the wasted opportunity for a certain kind of overall narrative closure - the flat out disrespect to Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles

 All of that bothers me tremendously. 

But there has been something else rather ineffable about this that has left a horrible taste in my mouth that I couldn’t quite pin down until last night. Bear with me, if you will, because this will require some set-up. 

*** This is not the first show to ever disappoint me in a spectacular fashion, nor will it be the last, I suspect. And one of the ways I’ve always coped with that disappointment was to remind myself that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right. (”It” being any number of things from just pure narrative emotional coherence to not burying your queers to not stringing along your queer audience and then yelling fuck you to them on the way out) 

But somehow that assurance -- that there will be other stories, other characters, other chances to get it right -- has rung particularly hollow in this instance, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why until yesterday. 

I kept asking myself, why do I still have this feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach, like something was lost here that can never be recovered? 

Because something was lost here that I am doubtful can ever be recovered, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else talking about this aspect of it at all. 

***

A few months ago, TV critic Maureen Ryan did a great interview piece with Mike Schur (of Parks & Rec/The Good Place) discussing the death of long-form TV in the streaming era. They explore how the longer seasons and longer runs of traditional broadcast/cable TV provided an opportunity to tell particular kinds of stories that you simply can’t when seasons are 8-10 episodes and series typically run 2-4 seasons (thanks Netflix).

One key thing we’ve all lost in this new era of highly condensed TV storytelling (and of prestige TV narrative styles)? The traditional (several season’s long) slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance. Not only is there simply no longer the time or space to write such romances, it has also come to be seen as hacky, manipulative, cheap, artistically impoverished, low-brow, a embarrassing vestige of the era before TV became art™. 

Everybody is trying to be Fleabag now. No one wants to be Frasier. (”It’s really more like a 10 hour movie” they all like to brag)

Obviously TV still has romances, even ‘drawn out’ romances. But ‘drawn out’ in 2020 is like 2-3 seasons, maybe. More commonly it’s like half a season. Take Schitt’s Creek. The number of episodes between when David and Patrick first meet and when they first kiss? Seven. Seven episodes. Half a season. If you watched it live, it took less than 2 months for them to move from introducing that dynamic to consummating it. And I’m not bagging on Schitt’s Creek; I think the David/Patrick’s story is very lovely and well-written. 

But Niles & Daphne (Fraiser) had to wait 7 years and over 150 episodes before they finally got there. Josh & Donna (The West Wing) had to wait 6+ years, and 145 episodes. Mulder & Scully (The X-Files) had to wait 7 seasons and 143 episodes. Booth & Bones had to wait...you see where I am going with this. 

And my point is (and I can’t believe I never realized this explicitly until now): there has NEVER been a queer slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance of that type on TV ever. EVER. 

I’m going to say that again, because I think it bares repeating:

There has never been a queer, slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance that fits the 100-150 episode paradigm of delayed gratification on TV. 

Not ever.  

I can’t think of ONE example  Not a single, solitary one. And I know queer TV pretty well. Arguably the closest we’ve ever come is Legend of Korra, and that ran 50 episodes, a THIRD of the length of old school will-they-won’t-theys like Booth & Bones or Josh & Donna. 

Queer people have had a fair number of canonical romances on TV by now, even fairly long running ones. But we never got a primary/front-and-center romance that you had to root for for 100+ episodes before you got any kind of canonical consummation.

That is a particular kind of TV experience that queer people and queer characters were just 100% shut out of until it was too late. And because of how the TV landscape has changed in the last 10 years, I don’t know that that opportunity will ever come back around in our lifetimes. 

***

Dean and Castiel are/were a legacy of an earlier era of TV, an era that still contained the possibility for a will-they-won’t-they of that particular mold. There were other shows that could have also filled this gap at one time - Rizzoli & Isles, OUAT, House MD, etc. But one by one all of them were killed off, their queer romances unrequited, until Supernatural was the only one of its’ generation left standing. 

And they should have acknowledged that they were a species about to become extinct. 

There are plenty of other valid and compelling reasons Supernatural should have gone full Destiel, don’t get me wrong.

A) It would have been the most emotionally satisfying ending to the series and to those characters (and that would have been reason enough). 

B) It would have stopped the manipulative queer-baiting of the (disproportionately queer) fanbase (and that would have been reason enough). 

C) It would have been queer representation of middle-aged men, of bi men, of queers who came to their queerness later in life (and any/all of those would have been reason enough). 

D) It could have been a glorious subversion of the bury your queers trope, considering how often they’ve died and been resurrected (and that would have been reason enough). 

But point E) on this list is the reason this one hurts in a singular way that no one even appears to be acknowledging. 

Almost all of the other wrongs and missed opportunities contained in this Supernatural debacle have the possibility of being rectified (at least to a degree) elsewhere. I can and I likely will get more bi male characters from TV as time goes on. I can and likely will get more middle-aged queer characters. I can and likely will get more queer characters coming to their queerness later in life, and starting queer romances later in life. I can and likely will get more queer characters who aren’t killed cheaply and prematurely. I can and likely will get more genre TV shows with sprawling myth arc plots that are resolved in a coherent, satisfying way. I can and likely will get Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles involved in other projects that value their work and their talents. 

All of those other things are at the very least POSSIBLE, and many are even likely. 

But a queer 100-150 episode slow-burn romance a la Mulder & Scully or Niles & Daphne or Booth & Bones? That is the one baton Supernatural dropped spectacularly that no one else even has the possibility of picking up again for the foreseeable future. (They don’t even write those types of romances for heterosexuals anymore!) 

Seriously. It was a TV unicorn. And rather than letting it run wild and free, they stabbed it with a rusty nail. 

***

Given the monumental shifts in the TV landscape that have occurred in the last decade, I don’t know that TV will ever go back to the slow-burn/will-they-won’t-they romance spanning 100-150 episodes. Today it is a miracle if you can get ANY show to last longer than 50 episodes in the first place. 

And that is the piece of this that makes it feel (to me) like they murdered a unicorn.  

Because queer people have gotten a lot of things from TV, and they will get a lot more as time goes on. But that one? That one could very well be a totally extinct species.

That is the larger missed opportunity here that has left this feeling especially hollow and destructive. That is the thing that makes me balk when people tell me to go watch Black Sails or Pose or whatever other prestige TV show is doing this representation ‘better.’ Because that’s not really the loss I am mourning here. I KNOW there is ‘better’ representation elsewhere.  

But the will-they-won’t-they/slow-burn romance is a qualitatively unique thing that queer people literally just never got. Ever. There is no substitute, no alternate, no other show I can turn to with that kind of build-up and pay-off for a queer couple, and there probably won’t be in my lifetime. Not unless the TV industry undergoes another monumental evolution similar to the streaming revolution that shifts the incentives back to telling those types of stories again. 

All those shows you want me to displace Supernatural with? None of them can give me the one thing I uniquely wanted (and could have gotten) from Supernatural. THAT ALTERNATE SHOW DOESN’T EXIST. It doesn’t exist. And I have no reason to hope it will ever exist in my lifetime. 

So stop telling me to look somewhere else; you don’t understand what made this one a unicorn. 

***

Addendum: The only other possible show that could perhaps fill this gap is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (re: Mac/Dennis). But I’m hesitant to say it exactly meets that criteria, for a number of reasons:

1 - It’s far less serialized relative to Supernatural and (except for a handful of stand-alone episodes) very little of the story is grounded specifically in Dennis/Mac’s romantic dynamic (unlike SPN, where it is absolutely central to much of the narrative)

2 - IASIP is fundamentally satirically in nature/tone which makes it much harder to have genuine romantic pathos (not impossible, but harder) 

3 - All the characters on IASIP are fundamentally crummy people who you aren’t exactly supposed to root for. Which doesn’t mean a romance between two of them can’t have its value/charm/worth but it’s not the same as when it is between characters who unequivocally deserve nice things/happy endings

[thorniest-rose]

“villains like this have been recontextualized. So instead of being evil, they're simply misunderstood; or their stories have been told by biased narrators; or they have tragic origins which explain how they "went wrong". Maybe writers think they're giving these characters new layers or added complexity. But it's actually the opposite. If anything, these films leech away everything that was interesting about these characters in the first place.”

Oof that’s how I feel about Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai. He was not an evil villain, but Cobra Kai’s “well ackkkchually he was just poor and his rich step daddy was really mean to him” rewrite or embellishment or whatever has the same vibe as the villain treatment you described. Cobra Kai could have just let Johnny be that rich violent 80s movie bully and found other ways to make present day Johnny a character that the audience wants to root for.

Oh that's really interesting! I actually didn't have an issue with how the CK writers expanded upon Johnny's backstory, but I can see why you'd consider it to be lazy or cliched. A kind of, "How do we make this character instantly more likable or sympathetic? Let's give him a troubled childhood." And I agree, I'm sure there were a number of ways they could have made Johnny more of a multi-dimensional character without leaning on this.

The reason I don't have an issue with it is because I don't think Johnny is just a bully in TKK. I mean, he definitely is a bully - he's a hot-head; he's violent; he's cruel; he's controlling and possessive with Ali; and he gangs up on Daniel a number of times. BUT I think what elevates Johnny above being the typical high school tormentor is his dynamic with Kreese. This is a really interesting part of the film because Johnny could so easily have been written as the bully and the romantic rival and nothing more, but instead he's given this subtle narrative which turns him into more of a tragic figure.

And even though you only see Johnny and Kreese together in a couple of scenes, you can tell immediately that Johnny looks up to him as a father figure and a paragon of masculinity. He wants to be like Kreese and he deeply craves Kreese's approval. Something that Kreese exploits to make the boys do his bidding. So it's obvious why Johnny bullies Daniel - all he's been taught is violence as a way of channelling his emotions and solving his problems.

But then there's the scene at the tournament, where Kreese tells Johnny to fight dirty and to hurt Daniel. It's such a small moment, but the way William Zabka acts it is deeply affecting: he's scared, because he doesn't want to disrespect Kreese or risk his anger, even though he's being told to do something he thinks is wrong; and he's disillusioned. He thought Kreese was a hero and he's shown that in reality Kreese is just a bitter, jealous man who's using his students as his pawns. It's literally a few seconds, but it transforms Johnny from this one-dimensional bully into a scared boy who craves validation and who's been manipulated by an older man. The start of KK2 then expands upon this even further, in the opening scene where Kreese breaks Johnny's trophy and strangles him.

So already at the start of CK, Johnny has this shadow looming over him: he's an abuse victim, and he was humiliated, hurt and rejected by the man he idolised and considered a father. So I don't think it's too much of a stretch to add that Johnny had a troubled family life too. It actually deepens the reasons why Johnny was so dependent on Kreese and why he so earnestly wanted a father figure. Plus, Johnny's abandonment issues mirror the ones that Daniel has (as Daniel’s father died when he was a little boy, he didn't grow up with one either and this is why he was so drawn to the tutelage of Mr Miyagi), so it has thematic weight. 

It also explains why Johnny cares so much about Miguel, another fatherless boy, and wants to do right by him. Maybe by teaching and guiding Miguel, he can heal himself. He can undo some of his own history. His arc in CK is very much defined by this. Like “how do I not become the man that Kreese taught me to be? How do I break the cycle?” even if he isn’t able to articulate it like that himself.

I wrote a lot here, but in a nutshell, I do agree that it's a lazy and manipulative gimmick to always give a character a troubled backstory. But I think in Johnny's case it is valid, as the seeds of it were planted so long ago in the Karate Kid movies.

[machinegunbun]

Did we ever get the freaky colson fic? Asking for a friend

Yenno what? I’ve been practically starving yall so i think you earned it. Ask (for a friend) and you shall receive. Buckle up kiddos, this ones a doozy.

TW?: Like? everything. everything is a problem here lmao. Just weird. H/A stands for haunted attraction, i had one in mind but it felt disrespectful to mention.

I present to you... The Freaky Fic ™

                                                           ~*~*~

You knew this interviewer had a history of asking personal questions, which meant when you came on you were completely expecting to be asked something or other in regards to you and Colsons sex life, but asking about the freakiest sex you’ve ever had still felt a little forward. You weren’t thirty minutes into what would be an hour-and-forty-three-minute podcast and he was already pulling out what you originally thought to the big guns. Your eyes met Colsons as you silently tried to decide whether or not you should avoid the question.

“I already know what it would be, I'm just not sure we should say.”

“It’s that bad?” The interviewer asks

“Well, it’s more that everyone is gonna say its white people shit. Cause it is.” You took a moment to think about the statement “It wasn’t incest though! Obviously. Just a little weird.”

“What was it?” Colson asked, mind reeling through your personal kama sutra for anything that would stand out as the freakiest. Colson and you were definitely not vanilla, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? When you’ve done so much weird stuff, it’s hard to rank which would be the weirdest.

“The [H/a].” You say, watching as a flash of recognition falls over his face

“Seriously? That’s the worst thing you could think of? Cause I can think of, like, five worse than that, just off the top of my head.”

 “I mean, it’s definitely not the freakiest, but it’s a good story without it being super embarrassing or personal.” Colson nods in agreement, mumbling a small “Right”

“Yeah, go ahead. You can tell it.” He says, turning to face you in his spinny chair.

“Okay, so, I’m very superstitious and, like, paranoid right? I mean, I literally will not sleep in a room that has a mirror facing me. It doesn’t even have to be facing me, it could be facing the wall opposite me, but it has to be covered. I don’t even really trust it when it’s covered, honestly, I prefer it to be face down to the floor. Because mirrors are supposed to be portals to the after life, or whatever, and I remember hearing that if one is facing you while you sleep it’s easier for ghosts to manipulate you. It’s not that I necessarily believe that, or that I think if I slept with a mirror facing me that I’d die or something, but that I respect it. However, I think when places are advertised as haunted they usually aren’t. I mean you see these youtubers go to these places and film all these videos and it’s just- That’s not how hauntings usually are. Ghosts have an ability, to an extent, to manipulate your emotion. Have you ever heard of someone suddenly being overwhelmed by an emotion because they believe a loved one is near? It’s more like that, it’s very spiritual. Being haunted, coming from someone who ghosts seem to love, is nine times out of ten nothing like what Hollywood portrays it to be. It’s not to say that I think every one of these youtubers is lying, I think some of them definitely are, or that they were scared and when you’re scared it’s easy to blow little noises out of the water, but mostly I think it has to do with the places themself.”

Your story was cut off by the interviewer asking a question, 

“Hold on, you aren’t about to make a joke about freaky also meaning spooky, right?”  The interviewer asks

“I mean, you could totally make that joke, but it’s definitely a little kinky. I’m just giving some background.”

“Okay, continue.”

“Where was I? Oh, yes. I think when you go somewhere that is advertised as haunted they are selling you an experience. If you went to the [H/a] and nothing happened, some people would be disappointed by that and would want their money back, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“I think some of these places have audio recordings and mechanised doors, things that they can use to manipulate every room and give you a good scare. This is all theory, by the way, so don’t sue us.”

“You really think it's more plausible that they have a whole control room to scare people and that none of the workers have ever squealed than believe that these places are just… haunted?” The interviewer asked

“I don’t know. Maybe, if they only allowed people with a certain seniority and made them sign an NDA? And if the ones who control it get to give their coworkers a little scare so they come online and say they’ve had their own experiences? Yeah, I think it makes sense, and it's making them money, so why would they stop?”

“Okay, I guess.” He nodded along, entertaining the idea

“But, I also believe that if you talk to ghosts or call on them they will show up, so it’s kinda” you made a scale motion with your hands before continuing.

“Anyway, I went on board with this in mind. We were in our room, cuddled up on the bed and-” you took a moment to recall that night “I don’t remember if we were waiting for something to happen, or if it already had and we were waiting for something else. Anyway, we must’ve gotten bored, because we started making out.”

The crappy old hotel sheets shifted under you as your lips met Colsons, his warm hand reaching over to rest on your lower back. The kiss quickly became heated, your mouths smashing into one another, his tongue swiping across your bottom lip while his hand pulled you closer, your own reaching down to rub his growing bulge.

A short, fast knock came from the wall, breaking both the kiss and the silence.

“Oh, do you like that?” You ask, continuing to massage him through his loose sweatpants. Colson originally thought you had been referring to him, but quickly caught onto the fact that you were addressing the ‘ghost’. 

“Hm, what about this?” You continued, kissing your way down his body, pulling his pants down when you got to them and sliding his tip between your lips. A barely audible creak erupted from the room beside you, the bathroom sink had turned on, a small stream of water pouring aimlessly down into the sink. 

“Does that make you wet?” You ask, sucking one of his balls into your mouth as you stroke him. Colson found the whole act to be a bit odd, but you seemed to be enjoying yourself, so he let you continue. As fucked up as it was, the idea of a third party watching as the two of you were doing your thing was really getting you going. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to some, other than the fact that the supposed third party was a ghost.

“Do you like watching us fuck?” You slid your mouth down the length of his prick, hollowing out your cheeks before coming back up to continue “Tell me what you want me to do to him next.” You offer up, glancing up at Colson who looked equal parts freaked out and turned on.

“You’re crazy. God that’s hot.” He said, throwing his head back while you let out a small laugh. A book slides from the coffee table across the room, falling to the floor and landing on its spine, flipping open to a random page. You weren’t entirely sure what that implied, but the only thing that came to mind was him fucking you on that table. You took a moment to ponder it before deciding if you tried it would break and that you didn’t wanna bother paying the place for a new one.

You began kissing your way back up his body instead, admiring his tattoos as you go. Your lips landed back on his, reaching down to slide the tip of his prick through your folds, gathering your arousal. Stopping the kiss for a moment, you opened your mouth to take a breath. Colson took this opportunity to spit in your mouth, connecting your lips again soon after.

“Think the ghost liked that?” He said, reaching down to grab his hard dick from your hand, teasing your hole. You shrugged, leaning back into the kiss, moving your hips along with his movements. 

After a minute or two of teasing, you swore you felt the bed begin to shake. It started off slow and small, almost as if Colson was shaking under you and it was transferring to the bed, before slowly building to a much more noticeable rumble.

“Oh, I think it wants us to shake the bed.” You say, a smirk playing on your lips, a gasp falling past them as you felt colson slip inside you. You happily obliged, the sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room. You didn’t realise how badly you needed this, you couldn’t help the moans slipping past your lips as you fucked each other as hard as you could manage, trying your best to make sure the bed shook. You were looking down at Colson when suddenly his face disappeared, replaced by impenetrable darkness.

“What the fuck.” The interviewer mentioned, more amused than judgemental “I can't believe you’re telling me this. I can’t believe this isn’t the freakiest shit you’ve ever done.”

“Well, the ghost thing was kind of a joke. I mean, it happened, but it was more about the fact that someone was obviously watching us, or the concept of that.”

“Right, right. You guys like an audience, I see.”

“While it was dark though, I swear I felt a hand slide up the side of my thigh, I know it wasn’t Colsons cause I could-” You cut yourself off “I’m not gonna say how, but I felt both of his hands on me.” 

“Oh shit, forreal? You never told me that part.” Colson said, you gave a small nod in his direction before continuing.

 “But then the lights came back on.”

The lights had only been off for about a minute, small sounds of things moving barely audible over the sounds you two had been making, Colson flipping you over in the dark, pounding away at your hips. When they flicked back on, the room was messy, your eyes scanned the room, falling on the complimentary ouija that sat on the table first. It had fallen out of its box, the lid on the floor next to it. Next, you realized the closet had slid open, it had one of those bendy doors that made it so when you slid it open it bent out towards you, they were called bifold closet doors, if you remembered correctly. 

It was slid halfway open to reveal the empty closet behind it, the only thing adorning the shelf being a couple lone close hangers. As you watched, one looked as if it were smacked off and fell to the floor.

“It wasn’t hot anymore at that point. I didn’t see anything, I think it was my paranoia-- remember when you were a little kid laying in bed and you were like, there is a person crouching beside my bed right now and if I look over the edge at them they will have no more incentive not to kill me?” A silent understanding “It was like that, I don't know how but I know what they look like and I was fully convinced that person was crouching next to us on the bed and if I looked over there I would see him. Because the bed was on the wall, and it’s a big bed, a queen I believe, and colson and I are laying with our head at the foot of it, there was plenty of room to the side of us cause we weren’t exactly in the middle. “Wait, you said that you believed the hauntings were mechanical, so do you think this was a ghost, or a worker?”

“I think it may have been the lady at the front desk, because when we came out she asked us if we were having a good day. I don't know. I don’t think I’ve ever been turned off so fast, I mean at first the idea of a ghost or a worker watching us have sex was hot, but the thought of that… thing being there with us-- That wasn’t hot. We just, kinda, silently put our clothes on and walked out to the lobby. We went back later and got our stuff and checked out early. All I know is it was a dumb fucking idea.”

The day after the interview was released twitter was filled with variations of “If Mgk and his girlfriend wanted an audience they could’ve just asked me.” 

Guess you should’ve expected that one.

[peppermintbee]

OMORI’s poor writing (Part 2)

Once again, if you are a big fan of OMORI, this review is not for you. Treasure this game, love it, recommend it, make fan art, buy the merch, do what you will with it. I am not here to take OMORI away from anyone. Based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam, I know that my opinion is in the minority.

However, just as the fans have the right to praise the game, I have the right to examine it, criticize it, and explain why it failed to provide a compelling experience. This is second part of my review where I will tackle OMORI’s problematic themes and disrespectful appropriation of mental health.

[ See Part 1: Plot Writing Lies ]

(Note: I use “OMORI” in all-caps for the game title, and “Omori” in title case for the character name.)

Spoilers and criticism below.

Part 2: OMORI’s message is mishandled and distasteful

OMORI provides a warning that it depicts scenes of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Because the game includes these scenes, I assumed these mental health issues are presented in a way that is meaningful and respectful.

However, that is not the case. 

Despite having depictions of such, this game is not really about depression, anxiety, or even suicide. It’s about committing a horrible crime, lying about it, and getting over the guilt.

1. Suicide as a game mechanic

Suicidal thoughts are intrusive, terrifying, and painful. As well as ending the victim's life, suicide wreaks havoc on the lives of those who once knew them. It is often a taboo topic, but discussing such matters is an important step to understanding and preventing it. Video games are a medium well suited to approaching such dark topics.

Unfortunately, OMORI does not handle the topic of suicide well at all.

First, suicide is written as a unavoidable game mechanic that seems to have been included for shallow reasons such as aesthetic and shock value. To leave Sunny’s headspace and wake up, you--as a player--must direct him to stab himself in the stomach. 

But why? It’s not like waking up involves some sort of major sacrifice. In fact, waking up is something that is more or less unavoidable. Reality should be something that snatches Sunny away from his headspace against his will, perhaps as an encroaching darkness that Sunny can run from, but never truly escape. But instead, facing reality is something you are forced to opt into in the most needlessly violent way possible.

Forcing you--as a player--to literally commit suicide just to wake up from a dream is a pointless, distasteful, and disrespectful action that sets a precedent for suicide not being taken seriously in this game. (And it isn’t.)

In the black space, Omori is pressured to kill a cat. In that scene, regardless of your choice, you are forced to kill yourself. However, the act of stabbing yourself has been seen so many times at that point that it has completely lost any impact. Who cares about suicide when it’s been reduced to just a means of travel?

Lastly, if you fail to defeat the final boss, Sunny commits suicide in the real world. However, this is not a cutscene, it is once again something that you--as a player--are forced to do to progress. Putting these actions in the hands of a player is not as meaningful as the writer seems to believe, because there are no other options to progress. Any weight in making that decision is lost to resignation; a frustrated sigh of “Well, okay, fine. I guess I have to click Z here.” You are then rewarded with a SLAPPING pop song and a psychedelic cutscene of Sunny falling to his death. It’s tasteless to its core and appropriates the deaths of every suicidal person as a quirky, shallow “bad end.”

(Seriously, this is how the writer decided to depict a child taking his own life.)

2. Sunny/Omori is a poor presentation of depression

Sunny/Omori does not smile. Even in past photographs before The Incident, he still is not smiling. The contrast between Sunny and his friends stands out like a sore thumb, so I assumed this was the writer’s attempt to show that Sunny is dealing with depression, where he can’t be happy even in happy situations.

Of course, if that were the case it would be inaccurate since depressed people do smile and do hide their true feelings. They are often dismissed with, “You can’t be depressed, I saw you smiling once.” However, I was willing to let Sunny’s chronic frown slide because sometimes you have to oversimplify an idea to get your point across.

Much to my surprise, there is NO evidence of Sunny having depression before The Incident and there is very little indication of him having depression throughout the game either. The evidence of this is that while looking at a family portrait, Sunny comments that he's never liked to smile. Since he's a a baby in this portrait, this goes to show that his not smiling is simply a preference -- a quirky character trait that makes him stand out so that you feel an emotion during the true ending when he finally smiles. 

Everything in the game seems to point to him being pretty happy and well adjusted up until he killed Mari. Then, even after he killed Mari, he pretty much looks and behaves the same way. Wouldn’t it be more jarring and tragic if you saw Sunny was happy in the past, but depressed now?

Which leads me to my next point...

3. Sunny and Basil are not depressed, they’re guilty (and for good reason)

In the book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), Brené Brown explains the difference between feeling guilt and shame.

Guilt means: “I did something bad.” Shame means: “I am something bad.”

Guilt, when attributed to bad behavior, is actually a healthy emotion. It means that you have a sense of right and wrong, that you empathize with those you’ve hurt, and it motivates you to make things right.

Shame is an unhealthy emotion. It arrests growth, destroys self-esteem, causes poor decision making, isolates you from your loved ones, and is directly correlated with anxiety and depression.

OMORI should be a game about overcoming shame. All the right set pieces are there. Sunny’s walled himself off, his sister (allegedly) committed suicide, and he seems to be struggling with lifelong depression. However, this all falls apart, when it’s revealed that he killed his sister and staged her death as a suicide to escape blame (with Basil’s help). He DID do something bad. It’s not shame, it’s literally guilt.

All at once, OMORI stops being a game about recovering from grief and depression and becomes a game that demands the player to sympathize with a killer and liar who is hiding from his crimes. Because he and Basil feel bad about what they did, Sunny and Basil are presented as greater victims than their actual victim.

4. OMORI asks you empathize with villains (with ZERO self awareness)

Games where you are playing a character with a guilty conscience has been told before, but where OMORI really fails is that Sunny is not truly held accountable for what he did to others. Instead, the game focuses on HIS pain: since killing his sister he’s been isolated, he’s having nightmares, and he’s suicidal. 

The plot of the game is focused on helping Sunny forgive himself for ruining other people’s lives. The writing barely acknowledges how his friends/family feel about what he did. When his victims’ pain IS addressed, it’s either used to further victimize Sunny (ie: isn’t it sad for him that he made his friends so sad?) or it’s used to reassure the player that Sunny’s victims have forgiven him (or will forgive him). 

In fact, the game holds Mari responsible for her own death, citing that her "perfectionism" must have been what pushed Sunny to attack her. OMORI presents Mari, through headspace, as someone who accepted death gracefully and wants Sunny to live a happy life. She is never given her own voice and nothing in the game suggests she is capable of feeling bitter over her death and postmortem desecration. She plays the role of the Madonna archetype--and the perfect victim--allowing the player to empathize entirely with Sunny while accepting that Mari brought everything on herself.

[Mari suggesting that Sunny acting out his aggression on her was her fault.]

The climax of this game is NOT Sunny telling the truth to his friends. The climax is Sunny defeating his guilt and forgiving himself. We know this because the story does not even show how his friends respond to his confession, because-- once again-- what’s most important thing is resolving Sunny’s pain, not the pain he has caused others. (Though the game does heavily imply that his friends will forgive him.)

[Pictured: the boys shedding their guilt is the true happy ending ]

Imagine, for a moment, if this game was about an abuser, who caused immense pain to someone and got away with it. Then, the whole game was about how they felt bad for the abuse they caused, and-- as a player-- you help them forgive THEMSELF for their past abuse. Then, in the last few seconds of the game, they either apologize to their victim or kill themself. The victim’s response is not shown because it is not important.

This is the plot of OMORI, except with a bunch of excuses thrown on top to make it more palatable. Sunny and Basil are just soooo cute and sad. Killing Mari was an accident. Stringing her body up like a piñata was a juvenile mistake. The boys feel SO BAD that they want to kill themselves. And because suicide is so tragic, you-- as an audience-- are manipulated into empathizing them.

5. In OMORI, suicide is used as a cheap ploy for sympathy

As I mentioned before, suicide is horrible and tragic. People struggling with suicidal ideation need help, support, and respect. That said, let’s make one thing clear: being suicidal does not automatically make someone a good person. There are plenty of examples of criminals who kill themselves to escape the penalty or guilt for something they did. It is so common in the news that I don’t think I have to list out examples.

In bad endings, Sunny and Basil’s suicides are 100% motivated by guilt for their very real crimes. Now, it should be stated, Sunny and Basil do not deserve to die. And because suicide is such an extreme, permanent end for those two boys, we-- as players-- are invested in preventing that tragic end at all costs.

However, the looming threat of suicide is used as leverage to force the audience to dismiss the severity of what Sunny and Basil did. As I’ve said before, the plot of the game is about soothing and alleviating Sunny’s guilt and stopping him from killing himself as opposed to making things right. 

The worst thing is, this tactic actually works. The threat of suicide is so strong, it has distracted many players from the truth that this story is about sympathizing with a boy who has killed his sister, with little regard for those his actions have affected (see point #4).

It’s terrible because suicide is such a serious topic worthy of discussion, but when used as little more than pity-bait, it twists your perception of what the characters did and silences those who try to criticize how this game handles such topics.

6. Mari's suicide being fake is a terrible twist

Lastly, by revealing Mari’s “suicide” as an accidental death, OMORI misses an opportunity to tell a much more powerful story. In the first half of this game, when Mari is thought to have committed suicide at the young age of 15, is a sobering moment. That tragedy is something very real.

If Mari had killed herself as opposed to being killed, Sunny isolating himself after his sister takes her own life is realistic. Mari’s death coming as a surprise is also realistic; how often have we heard people saying that they never knew someone was suffering? That they seemed like such a happy person?

Losing a loved one to suicide does not just cause horrible grief, but crippling shame as well. Those left behind will blame themselves, tormented by thoughts of how they could have saved them, how they would do anything to get them back. That shame can follow you forever, haunting you like a ghost, threatening you with the same fate. Overcoming that grief and shame is no simple task, and I truly thought OMORI was going to be about grappling with grief and letting go of survivor guilt.

Instead, Mari didn’t commit suicide, her life was cut short by her brother. Then, her body was staged as a suicide, forever changing how her family and friends perceived her. Her hanging body did not represent a devastating loss of life and horror of teen depression, but instead is a cheap twist that represents Sunny’s guilt for killing her and tampering with her corpse.

Conclusion:

As I’ve mentioned before OMORI has a lot of potential. The set pieces of a depressed kid who escapes to a dream world to cope with his unresolved trauma is one that had the makings to be very meaningful. However, it fumbles these issues, creating a sloppy plot that results in a problematic message. It’s baffling that this even happened, especially considering the length of time this was in development.

[that-mom-friend-talks]

I just watched Lost City of Mizu

and HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot get over the production value of this thing. The map was absolutely gorgeous, complex, convoluted and fascinating. The attention to detail was incredible, and the fact that they took the time to fill that many chests??? There were so many!!! It must have taken so long!!

Each room was wonderfully detailed, and suited the story they had of each character very well. If I didn’t know much about the present SMP (like the characters) you would still be entranced, but with the audience knowing these “idols” as familiar characters, it was fascinating seeing where the reality and distorted history blended together. Which leads me to my next point-

This is set in the future, at least several generations down the line if we’re to trust Ranbob. And this makes me wonder: who wrote the books? Because this history is distorted, as most history is, by the perspective of the writer. And it clearly showed. Several big players (wilbur and techno) were missing entirely, the most dangerous (dream) was stuffed into a secret room behind a display case which was tucked away in the depths of the city. Was it one of Ranbob’s parents? Was it Ranbob himself?

My theory is that it was Ranbob, at different points in his life. The earlier rooms, the obvious books, were written by a younger Ranbob, enchanted by the stories his parents passed down to him. He then realized that they were hiding something from him, that there were discrepancies in the books and key players missing. So he searched, unlocked more rooms, and hungered for more knowledge. He kept his motives secret, asking around under the impression he wanted a complete history. Which he did, in a way. But towards the end of the journey, the secret room, mysterious ravine, and eventually Dream’s monument, he read forbidden books, books glorifying violence, manipulation, and lust for power. He read these books and immediately demanded his family tell him why they hid them. They said it was a shameful history that deserved to be buried, but Ranbob was raised to cherish history in its completeness. He decides that he was in the right, and turned the different families of the city against each other, killed whoever was left, and claimed sovereignty of his bloodline.

In his isolation, he reread the books, adding to them, and drove himself to near madness in his regret and doubts. He buried the books where he once found them, let himself be mad until he forgets. But he remembered. When studying the books of Dream, he learned that this idol killed his connections, separated himself from his past and his relations to forge a better future for himself. And Ranbob killed what doubts laid in him, the memories of family and unity and safety and connections, killed the remnant of his ancestor’s influence by ruining his own mind and memory of all he held dear.

He forgot for many years, wandering aimlessly in the few rooms he had. When these visitors showed up, started arguing and looting and disrespecting, he started to remember. This is why he does not connect with people. And they cannot know what he knew, the knowledge of the ages past and the horrors he committed. That knowledge would never leave these ruins, and last leave his ruined mind. So these trespassers will die, and he will take his City with him, as the ruined man stares at his world burning down around him by his own design.

[crose84]

I’m about to rant about The Rookie and what they did tonight. I admit, I appear to be in the minority here, but here goes. Also, maybe don’t read until you’ve watched, because it’s kind of spoilery. 

First, I’m going to be honest, I’m a vindictive AF TV viewer. Blatantly screw with my emotions with a bait and switch and I will duck out of your show until the penultimate episode of the series when you finally get your shit together because you have no other choice.

Audiences do not like to be purposely manipulated and completely baited and switched.  It’s shitty and alienating. That moment you teased relentlessly for an entire week? I don’t think anyone expected it to be completely real, but it played like a prank on the most vocal part of the audience. And this is a show that cannot afford to alienate its most vocal portion of the audience. They’re very much on the bubble. Maybe they underestimate what’s really drawing in the majority of their audience?

Why is it so hard for shows to respect their audiences? People like Chenford. People want them to be together. They resonate with the majority of your audience as a couple (but also as actors and individual characters). So it wasn’t your original plan? It works. People like it. Did we need to go from 0-100 today, no, but did you need to completely do us that dirty either? Also, no.

Give people what they want. Why do shows make people wait until the very end when a show has been canceled to finally give the audience what they’ve spent seasons asking for? I wish more shows would put couples together and tell compelling stories about said couple. It can be done. Let’s move on from the moonlighting curse and be creative. It’s old and tired. And if you need help understanding what story options are out there for couples once you’ve paired them up spend an afternoon on AO3 reading fanfic. Fandom is filled with wildly talented writers who understand the characters, storytelling and what the audience actually wants.

I see the folks who hope that tonight got wheels in motion for the characters and the show. I hope you’re right, but after the way they spent an entire week purposely manipulating us & getting our hopes knowing full well it was a fake out? How is the audience supposed to trust them moving forward? Once you’ve lost the trust of your audience what do you really have? Especially when you’re already a bubble show whose 4th season is far from a sure bet.

Again, I didn’t Chenford to become an official couple tonight. I didn’t expect that. I just didn’t want to feel disrespected for being invested in the couple and that’s what tonight felt like. I might change my mind later, but this is my initial take.

[im-like-if-a-girl]

*THE* mean-girl-dean-girl's Supernatural reboot MEGAPOST!

I'm gonna stick a little "keeping reading" here because hoooooo boy, this is a very long post.

Let's start with

Plot

Season 1

Dean kills John while they are out on a hunt in a crime of passion, but Dean doesn't remember because he blacked out. Cue Dean going to Stanford to get Sam and tell him "Dad's on a hunting trip... and he hasn't been home in a couple days."

The audience doesn't know what happened to John, but slowly figures it out with Dean and Sam as Dean slowly remembers what happened that night.

The entire first season, the boys are following the trail John left and fighting monsters as well. They find out Dean was with John, Sam realizes Dean has an unreliable memory, they have heart to hearts about their childhood and the fire, they find John's body, "how could you kill Dad?" but maybe Dean didn't kill dad, whooaaaaaa, misdirection.

It was actually good ole yeller eyes (Azazel) and he made it look like Dean killed John.

Okay, now let's move on to the first episode

Not sure how the opening would work, I would like the story of the fire to be revealed over the course of the first season, but maybe the opening scene could be a little bit of an establishing character relationships and backstory, idk, I haven't thought that far yet.

I'm thinking maybe it's like, Dean gets back to a motel room covered in blood and he listens to a voicemail on his phone from John saying he was on a hunt or something, I don't really know lol.

HOWEVER

I do know that after the intro rolls, we get a scene of Sam waking up to his alarm and "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton starts playing.

Y'all know where this is going.

Cue a montage of Sam's normal Stanford college life (him sitting through lectures, walking through the campus with friends) spliced with scenes of Dean absolutely slaughtering a nest of vampires (or some other monsters, whatever works best.)

But

Now onto

Characters!!! (And descriptions)

Dean Winchester

Some lovely person on this site made edits of Dean with platinum blond hair and it made me feel some kind of way so we're doing that, homie's gonna have platinum blond hair

Side note about the hair, later when the brothers are running from the FBI he dyes it a dirty blond/light brown (insert jackles hair color controversy here) as a disguise.

He also gets tattoos because we were robbed.

Speaking of tattoos, concept: when Dean comes back from Hell, all of his tattoos are gone. His body is a clean slate, devoid of tattoos, scars, etc. So he gets his tattoos done all over again, which he doesn't mind because he made some bad, drunk tattoo decisions in his youth.

(And before you ask, yes, he does get one for Cas, either a bee or Cas's name in enochian, something cute.)

Dean goes to therapy after Sam gets sent to the Cage.

It's actually court mandated because he got in trouble, lol, he would never go to therapy on his own.

Along with the hair, Dean gets to be the grade A twunk we all know he is.

Sam Winchester

His hair gets longer in every scene he's in

No jk, but imagine

King of Microaggressions

Sam starts off like the sweetheart he is in season 1 but in later seasons he starts enjoying killing a little too much...

It's that demon blood, ba-by!!!

He brings up issues of morality to Dean, i.e. killing monsters who aren't hurting anyone. (Yes I know this is contradictory to my previous statement, but these two facets of Sam can and will coexist.)

Sam and Jess's relationship is explored further, meaning we'll need to start with a different inciting incident, but that's fine, I think everyone can agree fridgings are *(thumbs down)*

Sam doesn't truly know what happened the night of the fire until later, and then he understands why Dean is so protective of him.

Jess

She gets to live beyond the first episode

She is also trans

No, I don't feel like I have to explain myself and I won't 💜

She urges Sam to join Dean in a search for their brother, kind of gets pulled into the hunter lifestyle by association lol.

She dies on a rusty nail after fighting vampires on a routine hunt with Sam

No jk!!!

But imagine....

She's amazing and I love her and Lucifer also uses her as leverage against Sam and possesses her because I think that'd be cool.

She supports Sam 100% and also she and Dean are buddies, pals if you will.

She meets Cas Thee El and immediately she Knows, that is a homosexual.

She dies still so that we can have a Saileen Endgame but she's not dying the first episode or in a fridging. Not on my watch.

Castiel

He gets to keep his raw, light-fixture-exploding power.

I want more of that "I pulled you out of hell, I can throw you back in" energy except over dumb shit like Dean not cleaning up after himself.

He looks like a Dilf in every scene he's in, yeah, that's right, dilf with a capital D for *(GUNSHOTS)* *(gets sent to horny jail)*

Claire

She gets pink hair

And more time with Cas

And maybe a nose piercing

Feel like she should be able to kill a couple angels onscreen, punch a couple homophobes

She gets to meet Jack and teaches him swears and fun slang words.

She deserves it.

Jack

I says "that's my baby and I'm proud."

Jack starts off as a baby, but like Amara he grows up super quickly.

Like, baby to 11 year old in a couple days or less.

This is because Jack's emotional age on the show is on par with that of a 5th grader.

It's at this point when he's a young kid that he runs away from the Bunker and shenanigans ensue.

It's also at this point that Dean threatens to k*ll him.

(Still not sure if I want that in my Supernatural (threatened infanticide? In my Supernatural? It's more likely than you think) but we'll see. We'll see.)

Throughout a majority of season 13, Jack is like an 11 y.o. kid

Season 14 he's like a 16 y.o. teenager

Season 15 he's 21, you get the picture.

Listen, I love Alex Calvert a lot. He's great.

But Jack is a child and should be a child.

Kelly Kline

Kelly, baby, stay right where you are, you're perfect.

Eileen

SHE DOESN'T DIE

SHE GETS TO BE IN THE FINALE BECAUSE SHE'S AMAZING AND I LOVE HER.

BLURRY WIFE WHO? I ONLY KNOW SAILEEN ENDGAME!

She teaches Claire and Jack swears in sign-language. Castiel is not impressed.

John

J*hn W*nchester stans, DNI.

He's dead.

We only see him in flashbacks and only sometimes hear his voice in voice overs.

He's not "down the road" from Dean in Heaven, in fact he instead gets to wander around in some Purgatory like Hell for the rest of his time :)

People who get to say "fuck" on the show:

Cas (but only Once)

Jody

Bobby

Now onto other things

I want more of

Ghostfacers

(they need more screentime because I love them)

Dean/Benny

We know they had a thing.

They definitely had a thing.

Demon Dean

Again, I feel like more should've been done with this. All that build up for what, 2 episodes? was not utilized well at all.

Dean's Bisexuality

Straight Dean truthers DNI, my Supernatural is a show about love and being true to yourself

You think Supernatural is a show about 2 straight brothers fighting monsters?

Naw bitch, this is a show about the Gay Experience

He will get to have relations with men on this show.

Of course, only after John dies does he, y'know, display it. Maybe he kisses Cas on his dad's grave just to fuck John over, make him roll in grave.

We all agree John would be/is a homophobe piece of shit, right?

Okay, glad we're on the same page.

Dads

3 men and a baby with Jack is what I'm saying.

I love it when the Trio are father-figures to younger troubled characters they see themselves in, even better if it's like reluctant-but-loving father figure, oh, that trope gets me every time :'^)

Dadstiel and DadDean are my favorites, but I like it when Sam plays "Uncle Sam" to kids too lol.

"Fellas, is it gay to want a tight knit family with your husband, his son, his vessel's daughter, your brother, his wife, your cop mother figure and her wife and their adopted daughters? Asking for a friend."

Garth

Biggest flaw of Supernatural was underutilizing Garth.

I will never not be bitter that Garth was only in like, 7 episodes out of the whole 15 season series.

Every episode with Garth gets immediately 5 times better.

I love Garth.

Follow ups on characters who had entire episodes featured around them and then just... vanished???

This is mostly about Jesse, the magic kid whose imagination ruled an entire town like, his daddy was a demon and nothing came of that kid??? Only one episode about him?? No follow up???

KID CAN MANIPULATE REALITY AND WE'RE NOT GONNA GET A FOLLOW UP ON THAT?????

Uh, there was that one episode with Ennis the guy whose girlfriend was killed by a monster? I think?? Who we never see again, that was weird.

Tamara from season 3, episode 1.

And of course-

Cassie

She was so cool, and then we never saw her again :////

She gets to be a badass.

Religious imagery

As a former Catholic school student who has become for the most part, disillusioned with religion, religious imagery in TV shows like Supernatural make my brain go "brrrrrr."

Fun episodes!!!

Like, after season 6 or so, there's a drop in funny episodes

I'm talking Changing Channels, The French Mistake type stuff. (Scoobynatural is an outlier and should not be counted.)

So anyway

In my version we would have more fun episodes

I'm thinking

GENDER-SWAP EPISODE, BABY!!

(why they didn't do that in the original, we'll never know.)

An episode where Dean gets to wear eyeliner

That's it, end of post.

I want less

Racism

Yeah I feel like this is self explanatory, nearly every reoccurring character in SPN is white, and black side characters normally die in the episode they first appear in, or they'll be featured as a villain (Uriel, Raphael, Billie, etc)

Also there's a lot of... uh... asian fetishism featured in the show (what with "Busty Asian Beauties) that's really gross, also Kevin was a bit of a stereotype...

Also also it's super yucky how they kill the gods from other religions like???? Uh??? That's super disrespectful, let's not do that????

I know Supernatural is like, inherently racist because monsters are a separate race that are seen as some dangerous "other" that must be eradicated by hunters in a form of genocide-

Okay we won't get into that but

Still

Stop killing all your POC

Fridgings/Unecessary murders of female characters

I know Supernatural starts with a fridging, so this will be a hard thing to remedy, but

One death that really pissed me off was the death of Charlie

Yeah, that was pointless and we're not doing that. Charlie gets to live and be an awesome aunt to Jack.

And also Claire

Charlie Bradbury Superiority

Charlie and Garth get to meet because they're nerd/geek solidarity.

British Men of Letters

I fucking hate these guys

They're "litcherally" the worst.

The worst part is that the actors they have playing the British AREN'T. EVEN. BRITISH.

And you can tell

Uh, and that's all for now, I'll add more later.

tag list for people who liked my "if this post gets one like I'll post my SPN reboot masterpost" post.

@darianyunidi @sarasidlesaid @crazybananaalpaca @playfulpanthress @ultfreakme @fififeelsmellow @heller-char @luna8eaton @princessmeganfire @insanebot109 @queenofnightsnow @mongoose-underthehouse

Thank you for the support, hope the wait was worth it.