#because these were. people who were literally supernaturally not in control of their actions. and they were described so animalistically

[overelegantstranger]

been reading a run of horror/thriller novels lately. i've specifically been looking for ones that aren't too intense, ones that are a bit generic or not intended to be especially earthshattering. and i've been largely enjoying it, but, for anyone else who also enjoys reading horror/supernaturaly thrillers, i just wanna stake a quick red flag over J. H. Markert's The Nightmare Man. Not gonna say "don't read". however. AM going to say two things: thought it was a first novel until i saw the six other titles at the back; was astonished at the amount of gratuitous ableism throughout. Also felt it was a bit racist and sexist but not in an overt way, in a nagging uncomfy way.

[caputvulpinum]

my latest tabletop characters in chronological order:

-17 year old orphaned anarchist guild leader who ends up apotheosing as the god of their homeland and ends up taking the throne to rebuild it after an apocalyptic disaster

-farmboy becomes a soldier in a war against a double-apocalypse, fucks up some invading fairies hard and gets captured as a war trophy, spends the next 400 years in fairyland before the moon says she likes his vibe and breaks him out by turning him into a furry and giving him ultimate cosmic power, which he mostly uses to act as the ethics babysitter for a godlich whose special interest is civil engineering.

-fairy princess eldritch wildlife biologist whose mom is basically titania. it was a very complicated relationship for like 14 levels and it took literal reality-altering magic rituals to start fixing their relationship. she hates the anarchist aforementioned bc hes 17.

-perfect prettygirl daughter of social climbing mother is predestined to inherit the ultimate cosmic powers of becoming part of heaven's secret police. theres two factions of the secret police and she hates both of them.

-rich frat jock gains insight into the hidden occult world and immediately uses it to start a homoerotic frat/dinner club dedicated to shapeshifting and blood sacrifice. snip snip snip

-prometheus got turned into a fairy. a girl who makes things explode with her mind and her friends turned him into a different kind of fairy. then he became her dad. he also accidentally used his fairy mind control powers to cause a global anarcho-communist insurrection due to going viral on international news. 1 billion people were actively mind controlled by it. he was not allowed on tv again but he did get a twitter

-genetically engineered soldier wolfboy has his furry polycule fireclade KIA by a gay sexy pirate and then gets saved by a ghost space whale. he then does war crimes and everyone is soooo mean to him but hes soooo sad about it. and then he performs lobotomy on himself and implants his negative emotions into a shackled AI god which loves him and hunted down his best friend and soul mate to be her service animal.

-a wizard in a mech keeps trying to infiltrate the gay space gnostics and they keep telling him no. then he gets corrupted by the logic plague because he saw the name of god and has ultrasurgery performed on him with the help of a team of hyperqualified shackled AI gods and a mad doctor who has been trying to create anti-god supersoldiers and he was the first success. and the gnostics immediately wanted his cock onboard their snake ship. he never experienced consequences for any of his actions:)

-girl from a noble family of divine heroes is very very late to inheriting divine herodom and has soooo many opinions about this. she spent the last 6 months hunting down a weird fairy with some new friends and spent the first 5 of them pretending to be stupid jock so they wouldnt bother her. she has been trying to eat the fairy this entire time but it hasnt been working yet.

-a werewolf who is big and brown and hypermasculine gets turned into a werewolf and freaks out bc apparently everything supernatural is real and he was weird for not believing in any of it. he totally doesn't have any body image issues due to being a big hypermasculine brown man with anger/resentment issues and he is totally fine with how everyone assumes he's just a stupid violent meathead despite being a trained EMT actively going back to med school for his doctorate. he literally went to a supernatural therapist to vent about lycanthropy and got scared when she did actual therapy on him. he's so in his head about how everyone interprets him as Big Scary Brown Man that he doesnt realize he's drowning in transgender dogs who are actively barking for his attention. he would put on a collar and not realize its a sex thing. a spooky nightingale told him it saw him from across the ghost forest and liked his vibes because he was a murderer

[arthurthepeoplesprincess]

People act like the oppression of magic users in that badly written show is somehow comparable to real-life oppression, which is actually insane. How could someone even think like that? Be serious.

And not to make it about me, but as someone who is actually real, is a religious minority, has been through real-life oppression because of it, lost people I personally know because of terrorism, and grew up hearing stories about the dictators that terrorized my people and what my parents went through living through a war, and what I go through on a daily basis—I think it’s very dehumanizing to get compared to a fictional religious minority from a badly written show. That’s actually dangerous and has harmed almost all of the characters with their "beliefs."

Do you think I or any other real-life minority hurt people with our beliefs? Are real-life minorities genuinely dangerous, or are we just hated because we exist? The magic ban, if it’s anything close to real life, would be like gun control or something, but in this case, people are born with guns attached to them I guess.

That being said, Arthur (or any character) hating magic when almost all of his encounters with it have been harmful to him ever since he was a kid is totally understandable. You’d be crazy to think it isn’t. It’s like expecting gun violence victims to not hate guns.

What’s even funnier is that some people think those who harmed him were some type of revolutionaries when almost every single magic user who appeared did it out of personal gain. Maybe blame the writers for making it hard to sympathize with these characters when every one of them literally proves Uther right. Like, okay, Edwin was right, Freya was just a poor girl (who was harmed by magic herself), Mordred was just a kid, and Kara was one of the only characters who were genuinely a revolutionary and wanted to free her people. But even then, they had to make her kill innocent civilians because according to the writers, you can't fight for freedom without being bad. But even if you set aside the few exceptions, was it revolutionary of Sophia to rape Arthur using her magic? Or was it revolutionary when Morgana did a similar thing to Gwen and shade Lancelot? No, it was just pure evil, a supernatural evil that no real-life person could even do, yet we get compared with them.

This of course isn't me saying Uther was right or that I support him or that their oppression is justified. It's just me saying stop acting like they are real or comparable to real-life people, because they aren't, and it's dehumanizing to be compared to them. And why don’t you go educate yourself on the real, ongoing genocides happening as you read this? Maybe try to help those people instead of acting like Arthur is real and the evilest villain to ever exist. Since you care so much about oppressed people, or does your activism only exist in fandom?

The levels some of you have reached with your inability to distinguish between reality and fiction are astounding. Your posts are starting to sound like people who like Arthur would ignore the suffering of real-life people in favor of the well-being of a dictator's son. Be real.

Also, just a side note: since a lot of you like to act as if Arthur is impossible to sympathize with, but is welling to sympathize with Merlin and forgive him for all the immoral actions he ever committed, I’m just gonna say realistically, if they were real, nobody would give a fuck about Merlin and his suffering. When a revolution comes, he would still be a fucking traitor in the eyes of the people. So yeah.

[dumbassalex]

Ok, as someone who sorta defended The Crow 2024 reboot, and now that i've seen it, i have thoughts about it and i wanna share them... (More under the cut, spoilers ahead)

So firstly i liked the action, it was clear and you could see what's going on and the gore in those scenes was good, so no real issues with the action scenes. I really dug the soundtrack, the songs they chose to play were good and something i'd listen to.

I also like that Shelly had more screentime and got to be more of a character, that was fun and FKA twigs played her well in my opinion. Bill Skarsgard gave a good performance, as basicly always, with his Eric too.

Now my biggest issues is with the story itself, and especialy the pacing, it was SO slow, we spent like half the movie on Eric and Shelly while watching the villians look for Shelly, while also barely any real time has passed for Eric and Shelly, or at least it didn't feel like much of a time has at all passed between Eric and Shelly running away and being murdered.

And even once the couple gets killed by the villians, it takes us like another third of the movie for Eric to really become the Crow, for most of the movie he's just Eric with healing powers, and only becomes The Crow right before the opera scene, whitch is way too long for something based on a comic that's mostly just Eric being The Crow and hunting Shellys killers.

Another thing i dislike is the villians and their story, the original idea for the villians was just a group of street criminals coming across Eric and Shelly on a random day in the rain as their car broke down and deciding on a whim to do what they did, that was the tragedy, that it was random, senseless and didn't have to happen if a single thing happened differently. And changing it to a group of rich people hunting Shelly specificaly due to an incriminating video is such an odd change, along with the change to give the main villian superpowers.

Another thing that i feel like is a big difference between the comic and the movie is that the movie is very literal and very open about Eric coming from the death, healing super fast and there being supernatural entities and superpowers, while in the comics it was all more lowkey with Eric not feeling pain and healing slower than what the movies show, with his walking around wounded and scarred, the crow talking being in his head, same for the skeleton cowboy and the vision of the white horse that was a metaphor for the conflict of the story, it was a random senseless act that Eric had no control over yet he couldn't leave it be and blames himself for what happened.

In the movie it's a literal thing that happened to child Eric and doesn't set up his character arc and personal conflict of not blaming himself and moving on. Whitch was WHY he came back for revenge, because he was angry, blamed himself and couldn't move on, something he was only able to do at the end when he died at Shellys grave.

Whitch brings another change i disliked, the ending, the original ending of the comics is about Eric finaly being at peace and being able to move on and die, joining Shelly in the afterlife. But in the movie the reason he keeps going on is from pure love (somehow he felt such love after such short time) that can waver and make him loose his powers until making a deal for Shelly soul and becoming The Crow, bringing Shelly back to life while Eric stays dead. That just kinda misses the point, there wasn't no coming back and living again, it was about Eric having to come to peace and move on, it was a bittersweet ending but it was fitting the story and the themes, but just like the white horse methaphor, the movie ignores that.

So all in all, as a movie it's alright, but as a Crow adaptation it's overall kinda awfull in most ways. If you enjoyed the movie, good for you, but i personaly didn't really like it as a Crow adaptation and think it could've been much better. One thing i will give the movie for sure tho, is that it skipped Shellys assault, something i think wasn't entirely neccecary to motivate Eric to do what he did.

[nitw]

did you guys know that i really, REALLY love both of the pilot episodes for mp100 seasons 1 and 2 because theyre fucking perfect. i'm gonna talk about them. shut up

S1E1:

literally the first thing you see is a distorted mob fighting evil spirits in a wasteland while his bgm plays. no dialogue, no context, no explanations; just batshit visuals and music to make sure you're awake for what's to come

introduces reigen in the funniest ways possible and immediately gets you familiar with his Vibe, yet leaves you with even more questions like "is this the main character? am i supposed to root for this asshole????"

whoops here comes a little boy! whoops he's extremely powerful! and doesn't that music sound familiar??

"THIS IS SHIGEO KAGEYAMA, ALSO KNOWN AS MOB- ... THE PROTAGONIST OF THIS STORY" incredible.

in contrast to All That we then see mob and reigen's ridiculous dynamic, followed by mob's daily life at school. whatever expectations you had about either of these characters 9 minutes ago were wrong (OR WERE THEY????)

now that you know the duo and their main characteristics a little better it's time to really watch them in action. the haunted tunnel does such a good job of showing what mob and reigen actually do at work, how they play off on each other's quirks, setting the tone for the overall supernatural plot, and of course the animation is just gorgeous too

ESTABLISHES THAT REIGEN ACTUALLY DOES LOOK OUT FOR MOB, AND WORRIES FOR HIS SAFETY, EVEN WHEN HE (REALISTICALLY) DOESN'T NEED TO. i can't stress how important this is to show from the beginning, i've seen so many people gloss over that detail and continue to act like he doesn't care about him?? wtf

ALSO ESTABLISHES MOB'S UNCONDITIONAL KINDNESS AND FORGIVENESS. very good

that final scene of mob just.. staring at a group of teens hanging out and talking together while he waits for reigen at the station, who then takes him out for ramen. it adds even more to the genuinity of their friendship, but also hints at mob's struggle to connect with others and figure out what to do in his spare time. all of that, that single episode is just like, the whole show. this is all you need to know

S2E1:

same old reigen with his same old schemes, but it's a nice detail that he didn't wamt to take money from the poor farmer guy and instead asked for a cut of his harvest (who said he doesn't even do fieldwork for a living anyway). reigen's refusal to accept unfair payment comes up a lot in this show and i think that's neat

same(?) old(?) mob goes "shishou for the love of god i have a life outside of this job yknow"

when the wriggle spirit captures reigen first and threatens to kill him if mob persists, mob actually lets his guard down. 1) he learned from last time 2) possibly foreshadowing how mob will be the one to save reigen in more ways than one this season

mob realizes that the spirit isn't directly possessing the plants, but rather sending out a signal that forces them to obey it, which is technically still a form of "control". COUGH minegishi COUGH COUGH toichiro

also mob basically learns plant magic! ~this action will have consequences~

🅱️ROCCOLI

lots of arcs that started in s1 are immediately continued! ichi and the psycho helmet cult, shinji stepping down from the student council, ritsu supporting his brother, etc. and just seeing how many friends mob has now that want him to succeed is amazing

the fact that mob even agrees to ichi's plan about the election and takes it so seriously is proof of how much more determined/confident he's become

mob gets asked out for the first time in his life, and even though it turns out he rejected emi, he's so cool about everything and still wants to hang out and get to know her - early s1 mob probably couldn't have handled it this well

"do you even have feelings, or your own opinions?" "i decided to consider my feelings more" THOSE ARE THE MAGIC WORDS FOR SEASON 2'S OVERALL THEMES AND PLOT BABEY!!!!

the floating paper scene. i don't even need to say anything just take it in

OHO? TSUBOMI? SCHEMING? LURKING? could this be the beginning of the rumored "character depth" i've heard so much about???

n e way. season 3 soon. explodes

[subzeroparade]

I finished!!! With DLC and everything, now I’m a squid baby hanging out with the Doll for the rest of eternity. Super excited that my self-imposed ban on lore videos and fics are lifted, and now I can read!

Not to diss Elden Ring, gods know I love the Lands Between, but Bloodborne’s story just hits different. With ER it feels like it’s all a giant family squabble, but in Bloodborne it’s the collective human hubris that fucked everything up. The Great Ones in BB seem to be way more sympathetic and often victims of men’s actions, where in ER the Outer Gods appear to be more malevolent. Idk, it’s almost like Marika and the Greater Will is a success story of how to commune with the Great Ones properly and establish a mutually beneficial world order compared to whatever they were trying to do in BB. From a “all soulsborne games are connected” perspective it’s pretty neat.

With that said, I’m dying to know your takes on the lore. I’ve always felt in the beginning (the beginning of the game as well, to a certain extend) everything was your normal level of Victorian horror——vampires, werewolves, hunters, scholars that seek higher knowledge, but all under control and supernatural events were few and far between, known only to certain individuals. It’s only until the event of the Fishing Hamlet and the establishment of the Healing Church, or even after the schism of the Choir and the Mensis, that things went publicly tits up. Are you in favor of the events of the game happened in literally one night, or that Yharnam is stuck in a limbo? How long do you think has passed since the heyday of Byrgenworth and the event of the game (I want to say 30ish years based on Willem’s age and since he’s the only one alive from that time it’s a good time indicator. But then again is he actually alive? Extending his existence through unnatural means sounds like something he’d totally do)? Did our action really change anything? Did killing Rom allow the Mensis Ritual to succeed by weakening the veil and beckoning the Red Moon, or they were going to succeed/already did anyway and we were just breaking the illusions that everything is “normal”? Since the Healing Church is a new power (although how they managed to build so many grand architectures in such short amount of time is beyond me, the magic in this world is not known for its construction powers lol), who ruled Yharnam before them in your headcanon? I read theories that the Vilebloods were the ruling class before the Healing Church and they themselves have Pthumerian ties, which is interesting and adds another layer to the conflict between the Healing Church and Cainhurst. But I don’t know how plausible that theory is.

So sorry for my rambling, I just have so many thoughts in my head and excited to share them with you before I do the same in your comment section 😭 Anyway, since AO3 is back up it’s great time to start diving into BB fics!

Wow this sure is An Ask :’)

First of all, congrats on becoming A Squid! Enjoy godhood. 

The rest of this under the cut for length.

BB and ER are certainly vastly different in their storytelling. I remain a big fan of how the spectrum of ER’s themes run from Greek tragedy to medieval succession struggles. Personally, I find the familial plot points of it to be the most interesting - as well as the vast passage of time and sense of decay and mythology imbued in the world. Admittedly I don’t care as much for shipping in ER - outside of writing Godwyn/Fortissax, obvs - because the legacy and mythos parts of it seem so incredibly rich by comparison (hence why I don’t write BB characters as being related, as many people seem to - I burnt out on family drama themes writing for ER).  

BB, by contrast, is somehow very immediate in its history, in its active crisis, and it feels very grounded in humanity in a way that ER does not. In ER I feel constantly reminded that we are a shitty little lowly Tarnished and cannot pretend to understand the millennia that have past - even since the Shattering - or the scraps we’re now sniffing at in the wake of all that. But humans in BB feel close enough to the gods that they’re compelled to reach for them - scholars, clergymen, institutions, etc - only to realise the gods are crueler and more incomprehensible than even those of ER, while the consequences of their actions are significantly and viscerally more personal. ER has gods as a product of divinity and mythmaking, and BB has them, in a weird sense, as a facet of the Promethean impulse gone horribly wrong. If you really want to know my take on some of these specific questions, I’ve answered similar ones under the ask tag - but am occasionally cagey about some of these, because I use them for plot points in future fics. I’d rather a reader go in not being too familiar with my speculation, and that my conjecture is a means to an end (storytelling) rather than just info-dumping of “here’s what I think happened” - but that’s just my personal inclination. (Which is not to say I don’t appreciate other people’s elaborate lore speculation because I do, and there are some great and heavily-researched headcanons that I don’t always share but love to rotisserie in my head.)

As for what I can answer - 

Are you in favor of the events of the game happened in literally one night, or that Yharnam is stuck in a limbo? 

Semi-answered this in a previous ask here but since cosmic what-the-fuckery is pretty abundant otherwise, I like parts of lorecrafting to be pretty grounded in opposition to that - so I do believe Yharnam folk experience multiple nights of the Hunt, a rhythm of descent into madness influenced by the moon and the slow dissolution of the Church. I think dawn comes for them, but they know the next night will be worse, each new moon another instance of the city unravelling around them.  

How long do you think has passed since the heyday of Byrgenworth and the event of the game? 

Touched on this a bit here. This is based on the pacing I establish in my own writing, but I give the events between the Hamlet and the PC Hunter’s arrival about 50 years, give or take. 

But then again is he [Willem] actually alive? 

I think about catatonic rocking chair Willem like a potted plant on a windowsill. Decorative. 

Did killing Rom allow the Mensis Ritual to succeed by weakening the veil and beckoning the Red Moon, or they were going to succeed/already did anyway and we were just breaking the illusions that everything is “normal”?

Hammering this out for an upcoming fic, because I haven’t entirely made up my mind - also about whether the Moon creates the Dream before Mensis usurps Mergo’s Nightmare, or vice versa - or whether the two happen around the same time, and what their separate or overlapping goals are. I do think Mensis has different goals than the Church, to a certain point. I’ve had some pretty interesting discussions with mutuals about this (and feel free to share thoughts if you have). 

Since the Healing Church is a new power (although how they managed to build so many grand architectures in such short amount of time is beyond me, the magic in this world is not known for its construction powers lol), who ruled Yharnam before them in your headcanon? 

I tackle this with worldbuilding in The Feast We Were Promised, if you’re inclined to read it. Tldr: nothing exists in a vacuum, certainly not in a society with the kind of complexity demonstrable in Bloodborne, so obviously there was both a system of belief and system of government before the Healing Church politicked and/or strong-armed its way into power. 

As for cathedrals (and this is where being a historian by profession is pretty useful in worldbuilding): you could built pretty remarkable structures with pretty efficient timing, especially in the late 19th century. To use a nearby example of my own, Sacré-Coeur basilica at Montmartre took about 60 years from scratch in the latter half of the 19thc (as in there was nothing there before, no minor structure) and that’s considered long - it probably would’ve taken less time without the multiple wars and upheaval over that timespan. Likewise, a structure like Notre-Dame (the Paris one, not the Montreal one) underwent extensive restorations and additions in the 19th century, especially under Viollet-le-Duc (whose students would go on to do the same thing to gothic cathedrals elsewhere in France), but the baseline of the structure was already there - which is what I propose in the case of Yharnam: that much of the city’s civil and religious urban structure was already present (perhaps in the form of Pthumerian ruins in some cases). As in most European cities, buildings sometimes date from the Roman Empire and are gradually embellished, redone, or expanded upon over the course of the following centuries/millennia when funds are plenty and the ruling class is willing. If you think about what Haussmann did to Paris in less than twenty years, I imagine that to be the kind of equivalent of how the Church “cleans” up Yharnam and modernises it. But it’s my own preferred headcanon to imagine Yharnam was a little underwhelming before the Church’s public works; it could’ve also already been a splendid, thriving city.  (I did some work on Viollet-le-Duc's gargoyles like a decade ago, I highly encourage checking out his early drafts of them, they are remarkable images).

I read theories that the Vilebloods were the ruling class before the Healing Church and they themselves have Pthumerian ties, which is interesting and adds another layer to the conflict between the Healing Church and Cainhurst.

I touch on this in Feast a bit as well, but I think it’s really open to interpretation and you can make all kinds of convincing and interesting arguments about Cainhurst’s Pthumerian legacy. Again, on a grounded level beyond cosmic fuckery, I imagine Cainhurst and Yharnam’s larger territories have a centuries-old conflict a la English vs the French type of situation, and every skirmish and hostility arises out of this longstanding hostility and struggle over land and resources. I do think Cainhurst is tied to Pthumeru, though, via actual legacy, in a way Yharnam is not; and so I think Cainhurst would have claim to the labyrinths and the Healing Blood in a way that would threaten the Church’s supremacy in Yharnam and have ultimately kicked off hostilities, etc etc, until you get to the Cainhurst Massacre. 

All that to say enjoy your squidhood and any BB fics you read :)

[castielmacleod]

HeIIers will hate John, a selfish abusive radge who acts like a drill sergeant dictator toward his own family, and love Dean, a *checks notes* selfish abusive radge who acts like a drill sergeant dictator toward his own family

“Oh but Dean’s only like that because of John” Ok? And that absolves Dean of responsibility for his own actions? His dad treated him terribly so he doesn’t have to make any effort to do better for Sam (who also survived John’s abuse btw!) and Cas and whoever else? I’m an abuse survivor. Should I just let myself treat everyone else like shit because of it?

“Well Chuck has been controlling Dean from the start! He made him act like that for the drama!” If Chuck’s been controlling Dean since the start then have we ever actually seen what a non-Chuck-controlled Dean would be like outside of 15x20? Or if Chuck has only been controlling Dean partially, then where exactly is the line between which of Dean’s actions were forced by Chuck and which were Dean’s alone? Or is this excuse only for Dean’s actions that you personally disagree with?

“Tptb just wrote him ooc over and over again” Usually when a character is written a certain way over and over again we’d actually start to call that consistent characterisation. If you don’t like it that’s one thing but it’s not really ooc if it’s something he keeps doing in a completely predictable and formulaic fashion.

“But Dean is so sad about it :(” Oh is he? Can I get your opinion on Kylo Ren for a minute? Or Billy Hargrove? Just quickly. What amount of sad, in your mind, starts to “make up” for the horrific and abusive ways in which Dean treats other people, particularly when there were zero attempts made by Dean to change or improve?

“Well secret good Dean isn’t like that” Good for secret good Dean. I don’t know that guy though. I can only comment on the guy I saw in the show and honestly I still see most of you engaging directly with canon Dean anyway, and not actually doing anything to amend his treatment of Cas for instance and in fact I see textbook verbal, emotional, and even physical abuse from Dean to Cas excused and romanticised constantly so. Secret good Dean doesn’t appear to be all too secret or for that matter good, imo

“He has really good moments though!” He does! Taken out of context he has really good, charming, funny, interesting, and/or sympathetic moments here and there. I can see that. I’m not sure how that makes up for the other 90% of the time when he is, put lightly, NOT having a good moment.

“It’s just Supernatural, literally everyone’s toxic, just get over it” And so we come back to why John is hated, then, if Dean gets to be excused, given that they treat their loved ones the same way. If everyone’s toxic because it’s Supernatural and you’re saying people shouldn’t or can’t have a problem with Dean because of that, why should anyone have a problem with John? I mean if it’s just Supernatural where everyone’s toxic. Why don’t people “get over” him? You see how that sounds insane?

“Well I love Dean and I’m not going to stop loving him because of someone’s rant on tumblr” Oh believe me, I know

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

That post about writers completely re-inventing characters and ignoring continuity and turning them into basically self-insert OC's (which is generally infuriating for fans) got me thinking about times when it actually worked well to totally revamp a character. I think one of the keys is when it's an extremely minor character, and long dead or out of continuity, so fans are less likely to mind. (Readmore, because damn do I ramble a lot.)

Like one of my favorite examples is the Shade, a Silver-Age Flash villain who had a cane who could create shadows:

It's the guy in the top hat, so old school that he hung out with The Fiddler.

Shade had largely fallen out of continuity when he was picked up to be a major character in James Robinson's Starman, where he was reinvented as an immortal being from the Victorian era who had gained supernatural powers from a magical accident. No longer needing the cane, this Shade could control and project shadows. Starman's Shade was also a significantly more interesting and complex anti-hero type, who had adopted Opal City as his home and is willing to defend it. He is dark enough to rip people to pieces with his shadows, but winds up helping the good guys more often than not, even if it's sometimes for his own purposes. The series also delves into his past history through the present, fleshing out his past and origins. Also, he got much hotter:

That probably helped, too. This Shade is so different from the original he may as well be James Robinson's OC, but i can't imagine even fans of the original complaining, he's a very cool character whose profile was raised enough in Starman that he got a solo mini-series. He also appeared in the live action Stargirl TV series as the Robinson version of the Shade, playing a similar role as an amoral anti-hero who might be helpful but can't always be trusted.

Of course, I may be biased, because I love The Shade.

Another example where I'm definitely biased is X-Men's Changeling transforming into Morph on TAS. Changeling was kind of an interesting character, as a former terrorist turned good with a last-minute redemption, but his redemption was a half-assed flashback that retconned his death to revive Xavier. He probably would have been a forgotten footnote in X-Men history if he hadn't been pulled out of mothballs and given a personality overhaul to become Morph, a much more fun, heroic and sympathetic character. I think it says a lot of that all the alternate versions of Changeling that appeared in the comics since TAS (AoA and Exiles) have been clearly based on TAS Morph's "wacky shape-shifter" personality, and literally called Morph rather than Changeling. The alternate version has largely eclipsed the original. That being said, it would be kind of interesting to see 616 Changeling resurrected on Krakoa with more of his original personality intact. He could join X-Force for sneaky shape-shifter espionage stuff now that Mystique is busy with the Council and Destiny. If nothing else, it would be funny to see a former criminal be absolutely appalled at Beast's actions in X-Force because "I thought you were supposed to be the good guys!"

There are examples even with bigger name characters, like Bucky Barnes being famously brought back from the dead in 2005 as a mind-controlled assassin. Despite turning Bucky darker and grittier, the revived Bucky has become something of a mainstay of the Marvel Universe, was featured in several movies, and shared a Disney+ series with Falcon in which they were clearly dating. It probably helped that by 2005, Bucky was just famous for being dead, and not many people were reading old comics from the 40's and 50's, so Winter Soldier could over-write teen Bucky.

And of course, there are major overhauls to even long-standing characters that add depth, like Magneto going from a standard 60's villain to a noble-but-misguided terrorist, Holocaust survivor, and old friend of Xavier. I think most people acknowledge that to be a massive improvement on the character that made him far more interesting and complex.

It probably helps when the characters are taken in a "good" direction, although it can be fun to watch people go dark as well. Grim and gritty Bucky was still a largely sympathetic character, he was just "cooler" (and also alive). But I'm pretty sure absolutely no one liked DC villain Dr. Light being retconned as a rapist in Identity Crisis, even if it made him more threatening. (There was a lot to hate about Identity Crisis). I'm also not super-fond of Josh Williamson giving the original Trickster a come-back only to write him as much nastier than he was before, although at least he didn't become a rapist. Never write James Jesse again, Williamson.

Responses are mixed to Moira McTaggert, another long-dead minor character, being retconned as not only a mutant, but a mutant who has been directing and influencing all of the X-Men's history from behind the scenes. Personally, I'm sad to see one of the X-Men's best known human allies turned into a secretive and manipulative mutant, but I could deal with it until Percy turned her into an evil cyborg that wore a Banshee skin-suit. Percy had better keep his claws off Stevie Hunter, one of the few human X-Men allies left alive. (Also she's totally a congresswoman now).

Overall, I think it depends a lot on how long the character has been out of action and how well the writer uses them, and responses will always be mixed. Of course, these positive examples are not meant to justify the tendency of certain writers to take well-known characters with a long established history and completely ignore it in order to write the shallowest and laziest possible version. Everyone reading this probably has a different writer in mind, and you are all right.

[ariminiria]

You know...even the live action Scooby Doo movies from the 2000's were MUCH more enjoyable then the crap that Hollywood throws at us now. Those people who worked on the LA Scooby Doo movies totally went all out!

They were a little bit bad in some ways, but at the same time they were so charming. And they weren't trying to be edgy, or anything more or less than the source material. They set out to strictly make a live action Scooby Doo, and they did.

I also think that Scooby Doo is a better candidate for live action than many things that have been adapted as such recently, because of the "monster of the week" nature of the show. Most of the episodes were unrelated, unconnected, and rarely referenced each other, except to sometimes mention old cases. But there wasn't a huge overarching plot to drag the pacing down and detract from the main focus, aka whatever case they were currently working on.

That's why I personally found the Mystery Incorporated reboot to be severely underwhelming. Definitely my least favorite iteration thus far. They focused too much on a "big" mystery instead of just. Ya know. Monsters. And they added too much supernatural element. I'll get into why the live action one gets a pass for that later, but the original cartoons and the What's New Scooby Doo phase only ever winked at supernatural realism. Like the cornfield episode where the creepy cat disappeared except for its red eyes at the end. But it was never really taken super seriously.

The live action movies came out to do their own thing and they set the bar from the get go. So sure, we're having Scrappy Doo try to eat Scooby's soul and the gang gets their bodies all swapped around, why not. They kept the tone consistent with the original material and that's what matters. And you didn't have to watch the other movies to understand whichever one you were watching, much like the original monster-of-the-week setup of the series.

Mystery Incorporated tried too hard to be dark and gritty, yet it still pretended it was being faithful to the original. But they reduced all the characters down to the most one dimensional cardboard cutout caricatures of themselves, taking one trait and blowing it up into their whole personality. Fred is a dumb jock who knows nothing but how to make traps. Velma knows nothing but books (and also she's a controlling emotionally abusive girlfriend now??). Daphne is overtly obsessed with Fred and that's her whole personality.

And then they tried to add an overarching plot in the background of each season. They imply that its similar to the cases they've solved this far - ie realism - but just a bigger threat pulling the strings. They're never ever clear of what is supposedly going to happen. Some vague and generic bad guy is planning something. What something, you might ask? What is the culmination of three seasons of insulting material and vague hints? Maybe a real estate scam? An inheritance scheme?

No. Quite literally out of nowhere at the end of the last season, they go through a portal into a shadow dimension and a whole bunch of people get eaten by a shadow demon that can only possess talking animals (for some reason) and it wanted Scooby but only managed to snag some pathetic bird. But it still wants Scooby tho! Anyways the shadow demon is literally consuming their town and the people in it (including the gang's parents cause yeah let's give the kiddies some nightmares) and somehow the power of friendship defeats the shadow demon but also sends them back to an alternate reality like Back to the Future and they all have really cool, better lives now. For some reason.

Honestly, it was insulting that they tried to even call that a Scooby Doo show. If they had made original characters and done their own new thing it would have been kind of interesting. But nah. Just something else where you can tell the creators hated the original material and were determined to twist it into what they wanted to watch instead of being faithful to the source.

The movies understood what they were doing and they didn't try to make it something that it shouldn't be.

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 4.3

I think my main takeaway from the first part of this chapter is that other people lead very different lives from me. I mean, I don't doubt that teenage parties where everyone is making out and drinking and getting stoned exist, but I've literally never heard of one. Even in college we just sat around and ate chicken nuggets and watched bad anime.

This was scary.  It was scary in the same way John in that abandoned house had been scary.  A person as a force of nature, angry and violent and detached from humanity enough that he was willing to hurt her.  Smoke rolled out around her.

The John thing was scary to me partially because it was more mundane. Not a curse or magic taking effect, just physical violence that is supernaturally hard to fight. Also a good reminder that without tools and preparations, none of them are really capable of fighting against an above-average person.

Avery’s eyes flashed, the mist sweeping over them, in a way that made the outline and darkness of the irises stand out in even dimly lit gloom.  Verona’s eyes turned purple.

I really like the different ways people's Sight manifests.

“I might’ve lied to my mom.  Tanked my karma, tanked the connection breaking stuff I laid on my bag.”

did not catch this, going back to look at the chapter to see what it could have been.

ah.

“Love you!” her mom called out, as Verona climbed out. “Yeah. You too,” Verona replied, giving her mom a tight smile, before closing the door.

fuck.

Verona turned a wide eyed look to Lucy, like she’d been stung.  Wary, alarmed. Verona winced, and nodded.

This chapter is really highlighting how much Verona cues off of Lucy's emotional state.

This Faerie duel thing is very neat. Not sure how I feel about how much time Lucy's been spending with Guilhelme, but I love the whole thing (drawing out the weapon, naming terms, building an arena, making a formal challenge) too much to be appropriately wary.

“We should take her to see Nicolette,” Avery said, from the far end of the fading arena.

Part of the Kennet Trio's whole deal is being more concerned with the people in their jurisdiction (and beyond) than I think the average practitioner is. With Nicolette, it's clear she didn't mean to cause harm to bystanders with her spying, but also clear that she didn't think about the unintended consequences of her actions.

And when you didn’t need us as much, with keen talent for practice, aggressive outreach to other practitioners, and a knack for investigation…

They are very good at this!

I would say you’re getting your own control. And to some, even myself to a small degree, that feels like you’re sliding into a position where you have control over us.

Basically what I was saying a bit ago, that a lot of the Others of Kennet would have preferred puppet practitioners, even if they weren't as useful.

“Miss noted him, as one of five or six considerations, to replace you three if you couldn’t see this through.”

man were they just going to work through the entire middle school. Fucked up that the backup considerations were also kids. Looks like "controllable" was an important qualification. I wonder who the others were? There's a few other classes to draw on, but based on the characters we've met, and that "outsider" seems to be important, I'd guess Pam and Gabe?

“I want you to say what you’re feeling because you look mad and I can’t take it.”

oh big mood. Just get it over with instead of letting the tension sit

I wonder if part of the reason this is hitting Verona so hard is that Lucy is maybe the only person whose good opinion she really cares about? I mean, she likes Avery, she gets along with various Others and wants to learn well, but we don't see her looking for approval from any adults/authority figures. I think in a lot of ways Lucy is who Verona bases her sense of morality and responsibility off of.

“I don’t want you to deal, I want you to be happy and good.  Talk, vent.  Hurt me if it means getting it off your chest.  Please.”

Mixed feelings on this one. On the hand, there's "You don't have to hold back your own emotions to protect my feelings". On the other, there's "Hurt me for my mistakes if it will make you feel better". Not really sure which one this is. Don't think Verona knows either.

“I wanted to get the stuff back and get back to normal because I wanted you to be able to go back to that cabin where you were with Wallace and Mia and the others, and kiss a boy and make other friends because that’s what I really wanted out of tonight,” Verona said.

oh. 🥹

Verona’s sandals were strappy, and it looked like the edges of the straps had rubbed Verona’s feet raw, to the point there was blood. All that running around. Trying to fix things.

oh

So. I don't think I could pick between the three girls. But as of now, Lucy and Verona's friendship is winning as my favorite.

[despairs-memorial]

I don't think division 7 was ever meant for the Remnants, though. Even before they found out where the Remnants were they were saying to kill them on sight. The program was meant to help with trauma. I always thought they were going to spread it around world wide after the tragedy calmed down to help people recover from the horrific events and regain some normalcy in the world. There's also the line about Naegi "being lied to" in the emails, which implies that someone (likely Izuru) was manipulating him/pushing him behind the scenes into doing something so drastic. I agree fully that the Future Foundation should've agreed to help out, though. It's a great test of the program and if it ends up not working they can just kill them there? They would have everyone trapped in the program it's not like their physical bodies could fight back. But I just think they just didn't even care to attempt it, unfortunately.

Then, pray tell, who is it for? Was it for Mukuro? Junko? The Reserve Course Students? Their own people? Most of those are dead, and one is clearly not working or able to really work since there seems to be no screening for it in place, given Chisa. If you argue that it's people who are working for despair directly, aren't most of them in those Monokuma helmets? They're being directly mind controlled and thus has a very simple method for it, and the rioters are, well, rioters that had their entire way of living uprooted and their status of despair is unknown due to environmental factors making it impossible to assess. Trauma and despair go hand in hand. It was trauma that broke down Mikan and Mukuro who are arguably the most loyal of Junko's followers and if the anime was actually good and had enough time, then the real brainwashing Junko would use would rely on the trauma that all the remnants have. You don't fall into despair without suffering from trauma if we're talking about despair in it's literal meaning rather than the supernatural force it seems to be in some Danganronpa media. There are supernatural aspects of the series given Komaeda's luck, alone, and admittedly, I'm not fully sure or not if despair is supposed to be like that.

While I concede on the point that Makoto could have been heavily manipulated by Izuru/another member into taking such drastic measures, he also had Kyoko and Byakuya on his side who are much more rational than him to give him advice, there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't be there to talk to him and give him actual advice given they were there with him in SDR2.

Given the HUGE focus on the talented being the chosen to be saved, I think they do care, but are forced to not to due to the extreme circumstances of the events that are transpiring. They are practical, to an extent, after all, as shown with Syo and Toko being unable to join right away and only put on an internship.

I'm going to save you some trouble with this in that, I'm stubborn. I'm always going to look at Makoto's actions through the lens of someone who will always think the worst of him because I don't like Makoto. I am fully aware the situation is incredibly complicated with manipulation on both sides and no real way of any solution being the right one due to the amount of manipulation is there. There was no correct or safe way of rehabilitating the remnants even with future foundations help or without it simply due to the manipulations of Despair that are on the inside. The only answer that would lead to is the civil war amongst them thus eliminating most of the last talented chosen. There is no clear cut simple answer because there are too many conflicting mindsets of the people who run Future Foundation along with their own goals that they are focused on.

[mrfandomwars]

Over and over again we watched as the good guys in media broke laws and what not for "the greater good" (like in cop shows, superhero movies/cartoons/etc), as they choose lovers and family over the innocents(I was told, for example, Doctor Who, Supernatural and then S1 finale Gravity Falls) and have watched as the show/movie/etc be a discussion of morality where both sides are right

This is Not Star Wars

Star Wars is not that

It's a kids show with the message being good Vs bad

It Isn't a "everyone is right actually" kind of media

The Sith and their code is Literally Based Of N*zis and the book of the moustache man that I can't spell right now

The Jedi aren't "in the wrong actually", they are the good guys who understanding of the Force is literally the same as how George Lucas (The Creator!) explained the Force

They can't become basically free roaming vigilantes that people seem to love because Star Wars breaks the mold and actually shows us the consequences of actions, even if they were made for "love"

The Jedi have to obey the law like everybody else

(I know, a group of people who's job is to protect and help us actually following the law)

Especially since they literally represent the Republic and the Senate even if they have no power in them

Like, I understand growing up on those types of shows where no one is right and the good guys are allowed to break every rule imaginable and get away scorch free simply because they are viewed as the good guys

But that isn't Star Wars

Star Wars talks about consequences of one's choices

This isn't a new thing, like Luke went via his attachments and lost his hand, had to be rescued making people fail to save Han in time or Anakin choosing to put Padmé over the galaxy and doomed it in the process, loosing Padmé in the end either way

You have to let go of the idea that the good guys can get away with basically everything

That idea is how you end up with people unironically saying that villains who did unimaginable terrible things are the good guys and the good guys in that piece of media are in the wrong

Star Wars is Good Vs Evil, it's about handling and understanding your emotions before they can control you, it's about the consequences

It's a kid show like all the others who went and the whole Good Guy Vs Bad Guy thing

I understand that sometimes it's funny to criticize adults (or anyone) in kids media and say how the good guys are in the wrong because of X but like

You can't do that with Star Wars where one side is literally based off Nazis

The Jedi aren't the bad guys just because they went and didn't become vigilantes in a media that is literally about the consequences of one's action, be it a good action or a bad action

TL;DR: Don't hate Star Wars just because you are annoyed that they took over on giving even the good guys consequences of their actions when you wanted to be the one to do it in you fanfiction

[panlight]

honestly, both Meyer and the fandom are so weirdly mean about Lauren and Mike. They're teenaged humans and the worst Lauren does is dislike Bella. Mike's worst actions are being entitled and pursuing Bella after she's expressed disinterest. But like, Leah and Rose are WAY worse to Bella and they're (rightfully) beloved in the fandom, while Edward and Jacob literally try to control Bella's life and put her in literal danger constantly. It's so weird because none of the humans are on the same level of bad actions as the supernatural characters but they get dismissed and hated so much.

And it’s just the whole Bella-centric morality thing. Lauren is irredeemably bad because she . . . was mean to Bella in high school? The complete destruction of Bella’s life MUST include Lauren succeeding in life? That means Bella’s Happily Ever After must include Lauren’s ruin (that whole bit about Lauren being scammed by a ‘modeling agent’ and getting an extreme hair cut and losing out on a ton of money like . . . why? How does this affect Bella’s life in ANY way?).  Lauren being on “the dark side” in New Moon. . . Bella you just completely checked out of your friend group for months. I get you were going through some stuff, but friendship is a two way street and after the stunt you pulled with the bikers I don’t blame Jessica one bit for preferring to hang out with Lauren. 

And Mike! I mean . . . yeah, kid needs to learn to take no for an answer, but last I checked he wasn’t breaking into her house to watch her sleep, forcibly kissing her, threatening suicide, or breaking her truck so she couldn’t drive somewhere. In terms of behavior he’s just nowhere on the level of the actual love interest(s). And he doesn’t turn mean when he’s turned down, he’s still friendly to Bella. Edward thinking about killing him because he has some impure thoughts about Bella is so weird because like, he’s a teenage boy! He’s gonna have Thoughts! He isn’t acting on them. Asking her out, what, like 3-4 times in two years doesn’t seem like a capital offense to me. Edward, you’re the one daydreaming about murdering her to drink her blood like . . . idk man, I know you’re a vampire but that seems worse. 

Also Tanya! I don’t see it as much in the fandom these days, but in the Early Days she was pretty much loathed and made out to be this ‘scheming bitch’ always trying to get Edward “back” and break up E/B and it’s like, she literally showed up at their wedding and was perfectly nice? It doesn’t seem like her interest in Edward was even that serious! But she was often framed as like the rom-com villainous ex just because she dared to have an interest in Edward when he’s Meant To Be with Bella. 

But yeah this is a series with monsters who literally kill people to drink their blood; Bella/SM is pretty nonchalant about that but you better not have been bitchy or annoying to her in high school!

[therobotmonster]

Lets get Existential with the Goblin King

The Muppet reproduction discourse resulted in me making an offhand reference to why Jaereth the Goblin King isn't a potential origin for Muppets on Earth. Specifically, I stated that he is a rogue memetic construct, something that some people would wrongly call a tulpa (I say wrongly because apparently tulpa is an appropriated term that does not mean "idea that has become a real thing" in its original context).

WARNING: STUFF’S GONNA GET “GRANT MORRISON-Y”

The universe of Labyrinth resists literal reading because it dives head-on into being an emotional tale. As a child, Jaereth frightened me, because I was a savvy little kid when it came to tropes, but Jaeteth broke rules and did things for reasons I couldn't grok at the time, so he was a nightmare.

Pictured: Terror incarnate.

I begin with two initial suppostions 1) the Labyrinth and its creatures spring from Sarah’s imagination and 2) this does not mean that they aren’t real. 

Attempting to codify this beyond its fairytale/dream logic construction is, I believe a mistake, and its not necessary to the issue at hand, which is that Jaereth is a figment of Sarah’s imagination that has literally run away with her. Or at least her little brother.

Pictured: Chekov’s teenage girl’s bedroom.

Jaereth is a fantasy figure like all of Sarah’s other impediments and guides in the Labyrinth. I wager he’s one of the more recent ones, or he’s started to change recently, because this is a coming of age story, and he’s the foci of Sarah’s early explorations of adult fantasy themes. I mean, its David Bowie. Also the whole codpiece situation, and the dance scene, and so forth...

The story is very much about Sarah crossing the child-adult threshold but holding onto the ideals and wonder of childhood. The Labyrinth isn’t very subtle about this, as she’s punished every time she’s childish, but aided by the things that are childlike. This is a passing fantasy, one that Sarah will grow through experiencing, and one she’ll largely leave behind.

And that’s what Jaereth can’t abide, because he’s the figure in the dream that knows they’ll die when you wake up.

Jaereth has no actual power over Sarah (that’s the whole point), because he’s her creation, whether literal or figurative, internal reality or external reality, she’s the godhead from which everything he is flows, and unlike the rest of the toys and pets and scraps of poetry floating around in there, he knows what he is.

That’s the missing part of the puzzle that made him terrifying to my childhood self, his motivation. He’s putting on a show, making sure she keeps her focus on him. If he can make the boy into a goblin and take him forever, she’ll never be able to stop thinking about him and her impending adulthood won’t destroy him. It might even put the idea of him in other people’s heads, if your chosen take is more supernatural than fanciful. 

If she falls into this fantasy world with him, becomes his queen, more’s the better.

Even so, he can only use Sarah’s own power to accomplish these tasks. His control of his own actions might be incomplete, even marginal, and may be nothing more than the intrusive thoughts of a god who is unaware of their own status. He confesses this:

*Everything*! Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for *you*!

He conforms to her reactions, he does what she expects him to do. If he were a real thing invoked form the play she’s memorizing, you’d think the canon of that interpretation would give him some bulwark against her revisions, but whatever reality this runaway memeplex started in, she’s his reality now. Because try as he might, its not his story. 

He’s just the bad guy, one woven together from a puppet and a play and probably a sexy rock star, one given feelings and impulses and ambitions so that they can be thwarted on the heroine’s coming of age quest. But unlike the macabre-but-happy muppet-monsters that surround him, he’s got a human’s understanding of his nature, as he is made in their image. He’s a character that has a life of his own, and he has his own ideas about where to run.

Which sounds really familiar to me as a writer, and may be one of the most on-the-nose instances of “write what you know” I’ve seen.

He is, in essence, a Lucifer-figure, rebelling against his god out of fear of being replaced. A rebellion that lasts only until the authoress of the tale recognizes her own hand on the pen, remembers her own (at least situational) omnipotence, and ends the tale. 

I am not here stating that I believe that “it’s all a dream” is a correct or even good interpretation of the plot. For there to be any tension, Toby has to be in actual peril. And the exact nature of what caused the events isn’t really important. What is important is their purpose, which is providing Sarah with an externalized experience of her own internal struggle.

So, in short, as a limited rogue thought-form, Jaereth could not create the Muppets, nor ferry them from another reality to the one they share with human beings. He is not the demiurge of their reality.  

Sarah, maybe. But she doesn’t really seem like the demiurge type.

[steveyockey]

Regarding how Supernatural sees and literally portrays its own fans: there are the cringy loser man (who also turn out to be gay which is of course even worse), the straight fetishizing women and the delusional queer fangirls. What I don't understand: where are the fans that Supernatural actually wants? The 'real' fans, the actual target group, so I suppose cool straight dude bros? They're never shown as fans of the show! Because how Supernatural portrays is, it's actually cringe to like Supernatural at all which is funnily just the show shitting on itself (and also true). Or what do you think?

I mean I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s cringe to like supernatural! specifically it’s cringe to like supernatural with a passion, which is funny because like, kripke’s original pitch mentions buffy, the x-files, star wars, properties with active fan communities who rooted for pairings and continue to write fic. it feels like those fans come with the territory! it’s genre fiction! but of course supernatural also came up at the perfect time for its writers to have a better awareness of their fan communities than most of the stuff that came before them, and, what’s more is they chose to do that. becky, demian, and barnes are all names of forum mods from back in the day. they’re mean-spirited caricatures, but they are also currency! in-text acknowledgment! that’s a powerful drug. how mad can you be that you’re getting made fun of for having no life outside a silly tv show that thinks you’re a loser when you’re now a character in that tv show!

it’s difficult to source who supernatural was technically supposed to be for, there’s no actual quote of kripke naming teenage white boys as his target audience, but I did dig up this bad boy from 2009 that suggests dawn ostroff (the cw’s president at the time) was not happy the property pitched as being for males ages 13-25 was instead attracting women 14-45. I mean, we know the first two seasons of supernatural were “the DVDs most requested by armed forces personnel in iraq and afghanistan,” so clearly on some level the “intended audience” was being reached, but it seems at least the perception on the inside was those poor boys were getting massively outflanked by women. there’s a couple levels to this. first of all, the show premiered on the wb. it’s not to say the network couldn’t attempt to attract new viewers (and this was probably part of the intent of the show), but teen soaps were in its dna. they had no way to STOP the women already tuning in for gilmore girls from keeping the tv on another hour. second, though the show is purportedly “about” topics that read as exclusive to men (cars, rock, violence), there’s an obvious appeal to people attracted to men in its casting choices and the way its shot. like jensen didn’t do that fucking titantic necklace ad because he’s the epitome of masculinity, he did it because he was an androgynous dicaprio-type cutie! sure, his look may have been aspirational to teenage boys wanting that same type of attention, but again, there’s no way to prevent women from getting it directly from the source! and for all the show claims to tell us about the single man tear stoicism of it all, dean cries like a little bitch. because he’s not the action hero, not at first! he’s a scared kid who was forced to grow up. and sam’s fucking dean from gilmore girls! he’s got the bangs and the goofy smile! these aren’t the guys the women watching wanted protecting them, they were guys they wanted to provide comfort. and the camera plays into it! as our good friend sheila o’malley puts it, jensen and jared “are objectified in a way usually reserved for female stars.” you can discuss this in terms of a male objectification fantasy, there’s a wonderful post out there equating the compromising positions sam and dean find themselves in on hunts to a sort of bodice-ripper erotic thrill in being taken control of, but that only provides more space for the comfort fantasy. and this is nothing to say of just being interested in the genre! that the attention of female fans is devalued and assumed to have less complexity than the relationship men have to their beloved works. which is CRAZY because lgbt fans and women in fandom are the entire reason supernatural even made it this far! yes, there are swaths of “regular” people at home who watched supernatural in a non-obsessive way, but they weren’t the reason the show saw a 27 percent increase in its audience over the ninth season. that’s passionate fans, and fan communities encouraging passionate fans of other things to join them. supernatural might not have explicitly wanted these fans, but they are the reason for its success at almost any stage of the show’s airing and, while they may have been creating fanwork outside the bounds of the text, their reasons for coming to the show were not invented. what gets me riled up about “fan fiction” is I enjoy 99% of it, the one thing I can’t stand being the suggestion that what the fans are doing is based on a reading of the show the text itself doesn’t support. the text supports it because YOU put it there! just like you put everything else there that already made the show appeal to people outside the “target” audience! all of which is to say. I don’t know who the fuck supernatural was meant for. I don’t really care except in the moments it illuminates something within the text for me or when this idea is wielded effectively in the “ring ring! eric!” type jabs on here. because the show had the audience it had! it didn’t have any other! it took all that fucking con money and continues to do so, I don’t think there’s any better metric than cold hard cash.

[castielcommunism]

i feel like what’s hilarious about spn is that the question has been answered multiple times already. no not every monster is bad and a threat to you/the community at large. yes some need to be taken out in self-defense bc they’re actively murderous (most vampires; the leviathan). like i think implicitly this is the case on the show but then bc dean is such a center of it and he’s so reactive it seems like that isn’t the case. like he killed amy who was a vegan essentially. bad! and i would argue it’s framed as bad! they don’t kill garth and co bc he’s not hurting anybody. they frequently don’t kill demons. idk what the fuck was going on in atomic monsters with that vampire kid THAT shit was bleak. the bleakest. that felt like a break in monster treatment continuity to me personally. 2x16 heart all over again but unnecessary?? anyway. dean and sam have to be isolated and have no community engagement their like. always hunted unless they hunt shtick is exacerbated regardless of the reality of how monsters are dealt with (variably). as for jack i don’t think it was ooc at all and it wasn’t actually that unreasonable for dean to think jack was clever enough to play wide eyed and cute and then either lose control catastrophically or do a complete 180. it’s tough bc he’s stuck in a world where that shit happens to him and he has to deal. like if EYE got a nephilim dropped off on my door and my husband seemed to be brainwashed and then died i’d be scared as fuck. i’d raise them as well as possible but for that first year minimum i’d be half doing it for my own and the community’s survival bc… like i feel like the issue was weirdly framed as bioessentialism when no. jack is literally not like them 😭 it literally is not the same as sam ingesting demon blood. it doesn’t matter tho u should lead with kindness anyway and err on not killing preemptively as much as possible

I would argue that those exceptions (garth, etc) prove the rule! the starting point is “all monsters are evil”, and then you make an individual determination on whether or not that rule applies in those instances. but the unquestioned default is still “all else being equal, monsters are bad people”, and then the second order default, which is “sam and dean (and hunters in general) are adequate moral authorities on whether or not this rule applies to a given circumstance.”

However I do also agree with you to a certain extent, because this show ran for 15 years and went through a number of large writing shifts. Supernatural is not a conscious ideological project that pushes bio-essentialism; it just swims in those waters and occasionally breaks the surface to keep things feeling complex and nuanced. Like imo kripke era was where the show was the most aware of this (and where this foundation was built), and because season 1-5 were the blueprint for every season that followed after, the show never fully broke away from it, even if individual writers or showrunners wanted to do something different.

And to your point about dean always living in a world where so much bad shit happens that it’s reasonable for him to be suspicious of a newborn kid - that’s part of the show’s politics too! Like the show does a good job of justifying why dean’s behaviour is reasonable, but those justifications are also bound up in bio-essentialist categories of good and bad. Jack IS potentially evil because of his parentage, and there’s no way getting around that. Even if the show tries to justify this rationally, what it’s justifying is still “some people are evil because of who their parents are.”

The text is infinitely mutable, it can be whatever the writers want it to be. Setting up the circumstances where Dean’s behaviour is a rational course of action is itself a decision about the show’s themes and politics. And Jack’s arc about whether he’s good or bad persists basically to the end of the show, where his “goodness” is finally fully proven because he becomes incredibly useful (ie replacing god), not because tfw accepts him as a person who is inherently worthy of dignity and respect.

So like to go back to the original point. The way the show defines the word monster is that it’s synonymous with bad/dangerous/evil, and it never really examines why certain people are labelled monster, or if their response to monsters is appropriate. Human monsters (vampires, werewolves, rugarou, witches, etc) are lumped in with non-human monsters (leviathan, demons), and that’s also never questioned! In fact that helps to dehumanise monsters by putting them all in the same category. I’ve seen other monster hunting media actively engage in a critique of this by emphasising that “monster” is a political category with political consequences. Whoever falls under the banner of monster loses their humanity, and so the category of “monster” becomes a state and corporate interest.

I’m not asking for spn to do this or be this show. It’s fine that it’s not. Like I recognise that this is a middling cable TV show lol. I’m just trying to give counter examples to say that you don’t need to accept the framework it lays out for how modern fantasy media should look or function. The things it takes for granted AND the things it questions are both political decisions, and those decisions produce the politics of the show.