#but subtext (and by that i mean text) makes it so obvious hes just kinda his punching bag. but hey he sticks around

[sawvhs]

seriously doubt adam or lawrence had any close/trusted friends which just makes their relationship in the bathroom that much more weirdly emotionally charged. codependency bait to the max

[dekusleftsock]

From a writing perspective, tropes are one of the biggest ways an author can tell you something. Tropes are amazing and SHOULD be used and molded. But they can also just be used as that. A trope.

And bkdk uses a LOT of tropes, to the point where they straight up repeat them????? Specifically romantic tropes. And at that point it just isn’t subtext anymore, it’s text. In your face, text, telling you “these two have romantic feelings for each other”.

We’re gonna start with the most obvious: childhood friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, and rivals to lovers. They kinda fall under all three of these at different points in the series. And I find it important to point out just how *often* these two are put under the “childhood friends” label over everything else. Not rivals, friends, not anything like it. And whats even more interesting? No one, and I mean NO ONE, has ever called them friends. Ever. Because they aren’t friends and never were! They were *childhood* friends or they were *rivals*. And the show/manga makes it a point to always say childhood friends! This DIRECTLY separates the two labels!

Now enemies and rivals are kinda loose terms here, I will admit that. Because are they really either of those things? Were they ever those things?? Were they ever even friends??? Maybe when they were little. I feel like a better way to encapsulate it is opposites attract. Because they aren’t enemies but they do bump heads a lot, and they are rivals but they still support and help each other be better. In fact, their rivalry is often used as a way to make each other closer. So, opposites attract seems like the safest option.

“What does she see in him?” Is a pretty common trope and honestly its a little funny.

It results in this hilarious scene, but there other scenes. Repeatedly, people view Katsuki as ugly in canon and TALK about how he’s not the nicest on the eyes, yet repeatedly Izuku is the ONLY one who’s sees things in him.

And there are so many more tropes!!! That’s the thing, this is no longer a mistake. It’s not “the author accidentally made the rivals have more chemistry than the love interest”, it’s actual writing decisions HE MADE to make his story fit a different narrative than we would normally see in shonen. Conscious writing decisions for two male characters. Katsuki is repeatedly shown to have more development, chemistry, and tropes than izuocha or anyone else in canon.

Bkdk canon.

[ocpdzim]

so ok in deep space nine they HEAVILY code the genetically enhanced people as neurodivergent (imo they all read quite clearly as autistic coded like, specifically, but most of them also seem to have other neurodivergency going on on top of that) and on one hand it kind of really sucks and is one of the biggest fuckups in the show in terms of like. representation. bc it’s sometimes played for some sort of shitty comedy and also plays into the autistic savant stereotype which nobody likes.

however also with that big “THIS KINDA SUCKS” disclaimer out of the way , there’s also some other things about how it’s handled that i want to also discuss bc they’re either interesting or actually good or just fucking weird and the combination of “this is good” and “this sucks” and “what the absolute hell were they even trying to do here” has resulted in me not being able to stop thinking about it.

first of all the number one thing that i think is actually really good about it is the very blatant and obvious “we need neurodivergent doctors for neurodivergent people” subtext that i’m not even sure it’s accurate to call subtext, it may just be text. NEVER have i seen that as a message in any show, the closest i have seen are shows where there’s a neurodivergent doctor but the reason the show considers that great is that the doctor in question can come up with novel ideas for helping neurotypical patients with unrelated issues. but it is really important - we do need neurodivergent doctors!!!! it makes a MASSIVE difference in pretty much the exact way depicted in the episode - neurodivergent doctors treat neurodivergent patients like people and engage with them on their own level and can relate to them and understand what they’re going through. star trek really said “maybe some of these patients who are ~difficult cases~ aren’t actually difficult cases and don’t need some kind of novel special procedure or whatever, they just need someone to fucking respect them for once.” and it extended that compassionate and humanizing perspective to neurodivergent people who had extremely visible and debilitating symptoms. brilliant incredible ahead of its time i just wish that it wasn’t weighed down by other Problems In The Episode. and since i figure i ought to throw in my two cents, i think this is a valuable enough message that it makes up for the flaws of the episode overall even though they are so glaring.

second of all the other thing i think is Actually Really Good about it is bashir being neurodivergent already before augmentation (they pretty much explicitly state he had some sort of learning disability) and how his parents’ attempt to “fix” him was NOT a good parenting move but instead, even though it DID make him fit in more with society and “fix” his symptoms, was a massive violation of his personhood that severely damaged his sense of self and pretty much destroyed his relationship with his parents. they weren’t evil or hateful parents - they really did want what was best for their son - but because of their ableism they couldn’t understand that what he really needed was to be accepted and respected for who he was, and to have his needs accommodated, not to be changed. neurodivergent kids get put through traumatizing and harmful “therapies” by parents who really do love them and would never intentionally harm them just like this all the time in real life. i really liked that his parents were dealt with sympathetically and it was made clear that they really did mean well, but despite that, he didn’t have to accept any justifications for what they’d done and his father ended up facing real consequences for it and accepting that it had been wrong.

this is a continuation of the bit about bashir being neurodivergent already, but i felt it needed a paragraph break - the other thing about the way being augmented by his parents in an attempt to stop him from being neurodivergent impacted bashir as a character that worked really well is that it DIDN’T stop him from being neurodivergent, it stopped him from outwardly appearing neurodivergent super obviously. it’s made very clear that even though he doesn’t have the same symptoms he had as a child, he’s still neurodivergent and instead of freeing him from any kind of burden, the treatments he was subjected to have condemned him to a life of masking forever. once again this is something that is the actual goal of many “therapies” for developmentally disabled people (fuck you aba), AND it’s something that a lot of neurodivergent people end up self-enforcing even if they’ve never been through these abusive therapies. bashir has to hide his neurodivergency to avoid making others uncomfortable and to protect his career, and it takes a clear and painful toll on his wellbeing even though it allows him to become a successful doctor. he makes it very clear he’d have rather lived his life without being forced into this box in the first place, even though now that he’s in the box he doesn’t want to get back out of it since being his authentic self now, after all the years of hiding, would put everything he has at risk. a lot of us do grapple with that and i don’t often see it portrayed at all.

now onto stuff i cannot slot neatly into “this is great” or “this sucks.”

on an actual serious level it is not good but i personally find it extremely hilarious, like as a concept, that in the sci-fi future of star trek, they invented a procedure to give your kid autism and then banned it because it makes your kid smarter and stronger than all the other kids and maybe he’ll take over the world. i’m drafting my world domination plan right now as we speak so watch out, i will destroy the government with my autism beam attack.

i have a lot of mixed feelings about lauren. on one hand, the way she’s written is often very flat and sometimes kind of creepy, and i wish she was dealt with with more nuance and depth. on the other hand, having a character who is not only disabled but institutionalized and nevertheless presenting her as beautiful, sexy, and capable of wanting and having romantic and sexual interactions is kind of nice in the face of the rampant desexualization experienced by disabled people.

the federation’s broad anti-augment stance is interesting in a show that generally presents the federation as being over most other types of discrimination. i think it’s intended to be up for audience interpretation whether the federation policies about augments are good or bad. personally, i think that it’s FLAGRANTLY bad - it isn’t the choice of a child whether to be augmented! it certainly makes sense for the procedure to be illegal considering both the risk of it being used for eugenics and the nature of it as a horribly violating procedure, but the consequences should not fall on the genetically enhanced person, but rather on whoever did that to them. i wish we’d seen more pushback against the federation’s policies and more examination of what they meant for augmented people.

the treason plotline being connected to all this was baffling to me. i am not necessarily against it on a principle level - “neurodivergent people will engage in high stakes treason and espionage in order to solve the world’s most fucked trolley problem” is so silly that it isn’t really a message i’m worried about - but i felt like it wasted the potential of the episode to go in plenty of other, more impactful directions. i would’ve much rather seen it end with the augments and the federation coming up with a better arrangement for their treatment and living situation - either to integrate into mainstream society or to find a way to improve the way they’re treated at the institution so that they are respected, listened to, and have their needs met better. ideally i would’ve really liked if we saw them all end up with different solutions, like maybe some of them would want to leave the institution and make a life for themselves outside it but others would want to stay, but with more autonomy and respect within the institution.

[i-never-even-wanted-to-be-here]

I love your blog! Your manga analysis is just brilliant.

I'd love your opinion on something I've been thinking about for a while. Do you think Yuu and Mika love each other in a romantic sense? Or at least one of them does? I know it's a shōnen, but I just get some total vibes from these two.

I'm not going to lie - I'm totally shipping them either way 😂

Hey, thank you! Honestly, mind boggling that you'd say that when I kinda just do random shit on my blog but I appreciate that!!

Anyways, about Mikayuu. They're definitely intended to give us vibes. I'm certain the creator wants us to see them as more than friends or family. And I do. See them as romantic, I mean. Even the other characters have acknowledged that they are completely obsessed with each other. They are always talking about saving each other, Yuu is affectionate and describes Mika as his reason to live, even to the point of wanting to kill himself if Mika is dead; Mika blushes around him constantly, wanted to run away with him etc. It's barely even subtext, it's just text.

But are they gonna get together? No. I don't think so. It's just queerbaiting, tho I do think that Mika might actually be canonically in love with Yuu, at least he's queercoded. Not only did he say I love you, even if that can be interpreted in different ways, he also has proven several times that Yuu means the absolute world to him and matters more than his own life, sacrificing himself to save Yuu and all that.

After all of this, I even believe that it'd be quite rude, if not blatantly disrespectful, if they don't get together in the end. I mean, they're so obvious it hurts.

Now, some people still disagree that they're romantic and I think that might be because of Shinoa and it being a generic shonen manga. Shinoa is the leading girl and that's her only role. Being in love with Yuu. Even Mika acknowledges that and even wants Yuu to be with her because, as I see it, he doesn't see himself worthy or capable of making Yuu happy. So he tells Yuu to be with someone else in hopes that Yuu can have a more normal, happier life without him in it.

But Yuu doesn't seem to care about Shinoa romantically at all. Are they still gonna get together in the end? Yeah. Most definitely. At least, I'm like 99% sure. Because it's a generic shonen. So the boy gets the girl, saves the world and everything's great. The end. That's what the story has been leading up to it seems.

Another thing. Mika is thousands of years old and Yuu was created Frankenstein style in order to resurrect him. He was literally made for him. And while that sounds romantic or like they're soulmates, their feelings could therefore be called artificial too. Or they have a reason to be so fixated on each other. Kagami makes it out to be as if their feelings for each other aren't real and that's why they can't be together.

Another thing to consider: the manga is trying to stay close to biblical canon, saying angels don't have a gender. What they also don't have is sexuality, so maybe Mika isn't even capable of attraction. If the plot is trying to be religious and Kagami wills it then God in this verse might be homophobic. That would be horrible...

Whatever. So the way I see it. Mika is in love with Yuu but doesn't want to be a couple. Yuu is oblivious and stupid, because for some reason that's what his character has been made into (he had potential to be smarter but since chapter like, 30 he's been dumb af) and doesn't understand romantic emotions yet, his own or others'. All he cares about is saving people.

So in the end, assuming everyone survives, Mika is gonna be a human because that's what Yuu promised him. And Yuu is gonna be a human too, who can finally concentrate on other things now besides saving everyone and keeping Mika, so he could eventually figure out his feelings for Shinoa and they'll be together. Mika isn't gonna mind it because he wants Yuu to be happy, so he's just kinda there.

I'd want Mikayuu to be together so badly but my expectations are low cause I'm sure they won't be a thing. And again, I do think that'd be disrespectful and I'd be angry because I've never before seen such blatant queerbaiting.

[satanfemme]

what’s ur favorite thing abt vals character?

mean and gay, next question.

fjhgljdfh I’m kidding. Honestly I fell in love with him cause like he’s always been so universally hated in the fandom and he’s so easy to hate due to all the obvious reasons but like. when you think about him for more than two seconds it’s like well hang on. he’s still not a good person really, but he’s not so like ???overly malicious as people seem to assume??? and then when u add in the context of like so many other danger days characters being pretty shitty too all things considered (*cough*literally the rest of the ultra v’s*ahem*) I mean…

which I don’t mean in a woobifying way like “oh he did nothing wrong uwu” like I can not stress that enough. AND I know that this is like such a meta “favorite thing” to have about a character but like it’s so interesting to me (obviously. you’ve literally all heard me ramble about this before:) that we’ve got this complex character who’s trying to fight back against his oppressors directly following the massacre of his friends/destruction of his home + the unrelated death of one of his closest friends the day before, and like said character is pretty frankly alluded to having a mental breakdown of some kind during all this likely in part due to the fact that he’s canonically the only fucking one of these characters who actually sees death as a finality, AND ntm no one in this universe (excluding the girl) does anything but lightheartedly support him when he does do bad destructive things like kill people. it’s like on one hand him saying he wants to kill everyone in the city to keep everyone safe is wrong like yeah there’s innocent people in the city war is bad ect but on the other hand damn he’s a victim of circumstances lol. and like??? I think that’s the point. I don’t think he was really meant to be anything other than morally gray I don’t even really think he’s much of an antagonist in the comics, at least no more than say korse would be. I think bl/i’s the only real antagonist, val is like just another one of the characters.

like, let me explain further I stg I’ve thought about this all so hard, see: I think what’d be kinda his defining antagonist/villain moment is when he kills dr. d because first of all visually it reads as a villain moment especially the last panel of that issue. and it has all the right like parts to it to make him look as bad as possible, a well loved pre-established character is killed by a mean radical killjoy like by all means it should make him an undeniably awful person but then they make it text, not even subtext like straight up *text*, that he’s only killing dr. d because he’s 100% convinced that dr. d’s not only a spy but the spy directly responsible for the massacre that killed his friends/destroyed his home like HOLY FUCK gerard could’ve made him a good just straight up villain whatever and that would’ve been a good fun character for their short little comic series but instead they really said NO ur getting a morally grey character who literally thinks they’re saving everyone and half the reason they’re not is only because of overt mental illness in an unsupportive dystopian environment. 

and I do not think that was an accident, I think gerard has had enough irl struggles with mental illness they’re not making val like that as lazy motivation, val already has motivation, I think they made val like that because he’s not a villain he’s just a fucked up character in this fucked up war story gerard wrote fjgdfjhjhljh like bro honestly!!!! honestly!! considering all the themes about war in danger days like, I think the real “villain” here may just be war itself!!! (and also bl/i I think its pretty straightforward that they’re the antagonist too fjhgkhdf)

and idk maybe!! maybe this is all just like “cool motive still murder” and he’s a problematic fav not matter what I wanna say about him and yeah like no matter what he’s still mean (love that for him!). but I’m just. I’m just thinking bout him like

ok thats all thx for reading if u read all that

[incarnateirony]

Representation, Authorial Diversity, and more.

“I’ll take some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.”

Been a while since most of you thought about that line, hasn’t it? And for some of you it somehow sends some primitive lizard brain gaydar into overdrive and you can’t really pinpoint why, can you? It makes no sense, that line alone, and how it stands -- but between all of the talk of both Bobo Berens and LGBT media history, including The Celluloid Closet/Vito Russo or the Vito Russo Test, this moment actually puts a pin in a shift within our show, its handling of content formerly completely overlooked by creatives, and the importance of diversifying our writing crews that we all press for.

It was the moment our show leaned, and frankly-- should have been the moment the straights panicked. In fact, some of them did, just before it aired, and then everyone has played at oblivious since.

Before seasons air, we get news on new authors being added to teams, or other workers. Pre-S9 was no different, with fandom finding a tweet from Bobo Berens, our first open-closet LGBT author. I mean, Out And Proud. A true king.

The association if this is the mention of the Bechdel Test, a step aside of Vito Russo.

Now let us begin.

Well first of all I’m just gonna let everyone get a giggle at how Bobo handled the straight male knee coil:

But anyway the response to his initial tweet was a merry go round of concern trolling in the area of “OH DEAR I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU PLEASE ALLOW US THE NORMAL ASSBAGS OF THE FANDOM TO TELL YOU AN AUTHOR HOW STRAIGHT THE CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR ARE” and I dunno, it’s comedy.

Whether or not Bobo was addressing SPN as a new project in particular -- and it, from a dark age of SPN I’ve covered the upheaval during -- this is important. Really, really important.

Let’s say that timeline does overlap Bobo’s, and he did implicitly believe it; he might have had to write them as Straight Guys; but his own deep-seated place in the LGBT community developed resonant text, he made change. Change enough that when his first script was put into motion, the showrunner took one look at it and, for the first time in recorded history, we had note of some sort of intent --

Misha went on to say “so that’s what we played there.”

Regardless of anyone’s misunderstanding about how the fandom riled themselves up prematurely and shot themselves in the foot by lighting a CW exec on fire in the middle of network level board/CEO rotation commotion, or whether or not it’s visible enough for anyone--

this, this moment, this content, created by this LGBT individual led to this first known forward motion of intentful creative subtext. People can hilariously try to argue semantics about it that summarily boil down to “I mean it could be metaphorical jilted lovers it could be this it could be jilted lover bros, it’s just a turn of phrase!” in a loop as they’ve done with this data for six years until it dies every time, but this was it. This was the moment.

There is a nuance in this sort of writing -- how easy would it be for Dean to come up and say, “I’ll take some beef jerky.” Dean’s the meat man, Dean loves meat! We’ve seen it in other, new, straight authors the first time they try to tick off the Dean checklist, but like many lessons, that extra line leading into that smile holds volumes of LGBT history unspoken.

I think several of us Old Gays(TM) have banged on about the necessity of reading the Celluloid Closet, because for as much as people think they’re chasing queer subtext around here, it’s like they have completely missed that there actually is like, a printed, accepted code of conduct on this shit, basically. That’s not exactly what it was released for, but if you’re LGBT and engaged in lit and over 40 like you’ve read and understand and know this.

I’m not going to sit here and over-needle that line; most of you felt it the second your eyes drifted over it; but the sum of it is -- why that, what charming secret comes with that smile, a dean we’ve never seen smoke either, how is this part of how Dean throws himself back before his ex buddy leaves more unseen, *why* is that the hook? These are ironically things that no lit crit study *beyond* excessive citation of Celluloid Closet will really capture. This is a form of queer coding -- not the villainous disaster type that queer coding actually *is*, but the subversive form as it’s begun to be casually addressed in the population with positive, resonant content by authors choked out by IP holders while trying to service an audience. Or sometimes, even starting to accidentally.

So you know, you can unironically double down on the simplicity of Dean implicitly probably being a smoker (a possible read of subtext!), and I think this is kinda where the bizarre split happened tbh, because dude bros double down subconsciously into each reading of this kind of coding-- Dean just smokes, or this or that, though it grows thinner by year. Not about why that line is tossed, and how, and does just set off some sort of TV pheremone we all swamp like a bee hive. None of these moments truly mean anything independently. But it is the perspective and voice the text begins to take. The difference between that and “Hey pal [chews on jerky before buying] marlboros and got any pie?” in one moment that knocked everybody around on their ass in the fray of it. And then it all just went gayer from there, as if framed by one sharp moment that set the rest of the tone.

Hopefully you’ve all read my giant post about the history of this all to remember what I mean by accidentally, but even Bobo posted on it before,

That’s all an aside to the general point but worth placing into the edge of the conversation here.

The simple fact is, an activist gay man joined the show, and possibly with ‘keep it straight’ notes wrote some stuff so resonant, due to his point of view in life and the world, that even the showrunner decided to further guide it in that direction. It blossomed a direction.

The direction was small and slow and meek at first, (well, in final product -- don’t get me started at how S10 looks if all the cut scenes were included) with subtext running as dull echoes in Colette (oh look he wrote that too), and maybe more obvious with classic heart songs -- but even this was more structured than “Misha inherited abandoned storyline they scrubbed the romance out of as best they could”, or “Sera Gamble is a dumbass” that just happened to feature great chemistry and some resonant elements, like Bobo mentioned, we all connected with. But to actually constructively choose to incorporate these, no matter how quietly, was... *new.*

And some called it queerbait and I’ve already given history lessons from other angles on why no, but also now why here, definitely, no.

By season 12 we gained Yockey, another LGBT man, another activist in his own way like Bobo, but his less in writing political stuff and more in writing LGBT specialist plays. And everybody loved him, and saw it, and Yockey gets a boat load of praise -- deserves a lot of it -- but sometiems I feel like Bobo gets trampled over without recognition of how he shifted the playing field, the calculated effort he started putting into mastering those accidental resonances into something new, and ultimately to guiding the new author crew, Yockey included, or Jeremy on this newest episode who thanked him.

The same man that picked up Wayward and connected Dreamhunter... back to his own work and moments. The insanity of yelling “HOW DARE YOU LESSEN DREAMHUNTER BY COMPARING IT TO DESTIEL!” when, dead ass, you’re looking at this author who has carefully incorporated work and, with an already resonant story, made another relationship familiar to us by making it similar. Because that’s how writing stories works! But either way, Bobo has been in here doggedly growing the breadth of the legitimacy of queer narrative in supernatural -- to the point that it HAS narrowly, quietly breached into text even if not “loud” or “visible” enough for some people -- and the point where the subtext is so wall to wall and flooding every piece of cinematography in shooting and not just set or lights but complete mise en scene -- a point where everybody OUTSIDE of fandom is just addressing this shit as what it clearly is --

...That’s something that came with bringing the scope of an LGBT male author into the show. Whether you like the volume he’s been allowed to take his work to or not is your own thing, but before yelling queerbait at any creatives, perhaps it’s time to play “sit down children, and learn to appreciate the activists who came before you and how they’re fighting for you right now”. You wanna yell at something, get organized, pelt the CW in a non-aggressive, non-light-on-fire way, do activism like the books Emily put together that are resultingly still on the current showrunner’s desk now 6 years later, but most of all, don’t take a shit all over content you would otherwise enjoy, at the expense of a man in the demographic you’re trying to represent, who has battled, LITERALLY, for both the women and the gays in this show. Wayward was his baby. This slow swing in S9 that turned into a loud din in S12? 

It wasn’t magic. It was a gay author. A gay author that has now climbed to be an Exec alongside dabb and the others and SURPRISE now suddenly everything’s so gay the whole goddamn world is seeing it. Literally SEEING IT, not just guys looking at each other with stories, but intentful, meritful choice in extremely bold cinematography choices that don’t require chasing a post-it on the wall, but instead are shot with care and devotion. Be that 12.19 Mixtape (OH DAT HIS) or 13.5′s Never Too Late (OH DAT YOCKEY. check what antis said to Dabb in his mentions after, even they saw it). Be that 14.18′s het drama PR promo (OH OOP DAT WAS HIS), be that 15.1-3′s entire tension and the openly addressed and so-called by media sources break up (OH DAT HIS), be that 15.7′s low key textuality (to which the new author thanked the elder for guidance, huh), or 8′s heavily shot domestic separation moment loudly filmed in the choicefully hollowed out and dimmed kitchen bereft of family -- this change? This had a moment. And you can find it.

I’ll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.

So this has been eating at me ever since this whole topic came into play. 

Anyway full circle them trying to ride Bobo to Keep It Straight probably wasn’t their smartest idea ever. We gays are contrarian by nature so tell me to do it again, motherfucker. And now here we are in Destiel Divorce Season 15 as heavily managed by Bobo.

Everyone got so fuckin dramatic when Yockey said he was leaving like, tolling the burial bells of Destiel and-- like??? hello? BOBO? JUST? GOT? PROMOTED? Like Yockey didn’t make that entire platform all by himself, and hell, he didn’t leave without laying out unironic empty space of it. Yo guys, Berens done been here a WHILE to the point he’s now *callbacking his own season 9-10 material wtih him and dabb*. Like. Lmao. Guys. Guys listen. Listen. Think.

Whatever your weird goalpost is I’m not promising anybody’s anything is about to get hit. Whatever clown nose expectations you all have enjoy those and honk those loud and proud but remember most of those are yours. But respect the fact that Berens has essentially cornerstoned an entire queer canon within Supernatural discussion, of which others are included in as they joined.

And yes, queer canon. Not the way fandom throws it around for weird kissing spots, but articles of discussion of queer narratives, of which we can literally draw a wealth of episodes from LGBT authors or their understudies and literally point and go “all of that right there, officer.” Whether it’s visible or textual or undodgeable or marketed enough or glittery enough or whatever for everyone’s very unstable definition of “canon” -- Berens has literally cornerstoned an entire architecture of queer canon within this legacy show.

[50shadesofmittens]

The Emperor of Mankind and the Captain General- Parallels as Dads

So in the latest episode (28) there’s some symbolic parallels that are clearly set up and even outright stated between the Emperor and the Captain General, specifically in terms of how they Parent. I figured I’d talk about this a little bit, since it feels like CG and Emps have more to contrast than in common when it comes to fatherhood. Note that I’ll be sticking largely to TTS Emps behavior unless stated otherwise.

The subtext of this parallel is outright text, with Karstodes comparing his behavior towards CG with the Primarchs behavior towards Emps. Except… IMO that’s where the parallels tend to fall flat.

Let’s break down CG’s behavior towards the Custodians:

·      He lets them do their own thing most of the time

o   Most of the time they’re doing jobs they’re well-equipped for and can handle perfectly well

·      He notes their successes and praises them for it

·      He takes note of their desires and acts on them (letting Hammurabi come along on the Mars trip in ep 27)

o   Plus if Hammurabi had said his lines in ep 27 to Emps, do you really think Emps wouldn’t have teased him about being passive-aggressive? Even if he would’ve let him come, it still would’ve been throwing shame on Hammurabi

·      He instructs them well on the situation and/or engages them even outside of the mission (I’m talking about the Dawn of War tutorial gag, as it’s not clear which he’s doing)

·      He calls upon their skills even when those skills personally disgust them, if they are valuable (calling Santodes to seduce the Skitarii as using skills Santodes prefers, instead of crushing them as Santodes has the ability to do and CG would probably prefer to see)

Now let’s compare Emps’ behavior towards the Primarchs:

·      He lets them do their own thing most of the time

o   That said, most of them are in toxic or outright dangerous situations, either being lost in the warp, in environments that encourage their own insanity to fester, or in abusive servitude to mad gods

·      He tends to make jokes at their expense even when they do as he intended

·      He forces or tricks them into filling the roles he wants (TTS version has this with manipulating Magnus and wanting Dorn to go away until he’s ready to see him, but mainline 40K Emps also did this with Perturabo and Angron)

·      His lying to his sons and misleading them is a huge theme in the show, although I will admit we see him cuddling and reading to Dorn (I’m not 100% sure that’s entirely pure and innocent either, but I have no proof and only suspicions so I will keep those to myself unless asked)

·      He wants things to happen his way, his methods- even when/if his Sons have their own ways. Again, this is a big part of why he manipulates Magnus, and also

One parallel we can make from this episode alone is that CG treats the Custodians like adults, while Emps treats the Primarchs like children. As Rogal points out, that’s not how age works- just because you are older or have more experience doesn’t mean that those younger than you are inherently lesser than the average. CG acts more like a single dad to a bunch of 20-somethings still in or fresh out of college, while Emps acts like a single dad to a bunch of five-year olds.

What do they have in common? Emps is trying to be CG, but he fails to truly grasp what makes CG the man he is. Look at the traits that the Custodians list as they describe their faith in CG:

·      His mild disposition

·      His dedication and hard work

·      Like a widowed father who’s just doing his best

·      His ability to care is unsurpassed

·      He’s nice

·      He’s steadfast

·      Make a U-Turn

·      He’s what’s needed in an age of rampant corruption, not a warmaster

Honestly this is just speculation, but I think Emps’ knows is biggest problem as a father in the 30th millennium he WAS a warmaster rather than a father. He’s trying to be a father now, as that’s whats needed, but he doesn’t really know howto be one. And he can’t see or won’t admit that he doesn’t know how to be a father, so he keeps messing up. He treats his children like they’re actual children instead of adults (as said above), and he keeps switching between being a father and being a warmaster (manipulative). Rogal at least has the awareness to not take it personally, but Magnus clearly needs a consistent father-figure from Emps and then keeps getting a warmaster.

Now let’s make comparisons between the source of this simile, Karstodes ‘redemption’ vs Magnus’:

·      Karstodes comes to the redemption on his own, simply from watching CG’s actions- he saw something he valued in CG, something worth following, and he was inspired to make the decision on his own

·      Meanwhile Magnus had to be literally kidnapped and Emps had to both butter him up and reclaim his soul from Tzeentch in order to convince Magnus to join

We don’t have enough information yet to make more comparisons, as CG and Karstodes haven’t interacted yet after Karstodes decision. It will be interesting to see what issues will remain between them, and how those will compare with Magnus and Emps rocky relationship.

I think it’s notable that the Emperor struggles to interact with the people who are his sons in the biological and literal sense, while the Captain General is referred to as a father-figure by people his own age (or possibly older). The Emperor throws his fatherhood around and demands to be acknowledged as such, while the Captain General didn’t seek fatherhood- but was recognized as a dad all the same. One made himself a father by making his sons, and one was chosen as a father of choice.

Now the most pressing contrasts- Dorn’s behavior versus the Custodians:

·      Dorn is frequently pointing out Emps failures, and holds firmly that Emps isn’t a good parent

o   Meanwhile the Custodian host literally lays down the positive traits that are why CG was elected to the Captain General post

·      Dorn often asks if Emps’ plans are a good idea and is never heeded

o   The Custodian host literally tell CG that he’s doing a good job leading them and that he’s exactly what they need

·      Dorn indulges in some ‘child-like’ behavior with Emps (cuddling, bedtime story). Notably, these are also some of the only times Emps is fully supportive and does exactly what Dorn wants him to, without complaint or sass

o   I get the feeling that Emps is happy to do kiddy-stuff with Dorn because he views Dorn as a child more than as an adult, and Dorn is willing to go through with it both because he’s genuinely open-minded enough to enjoy these activities regardless of age stigma, and because it’s the only time Emps pays attention solely to Dorn (well, as solely as he can given his current state of being) and shows nothing but affection for Dorn

o   In which case, the Custodian Host doesn’t NEED to behave in one specific way in order to get CG’s attention and affection

·      Dorn didn’t even tell Emps of his guardian post over Emps- remember it wasn’t until season 2 we learned who the ‘Adorable Centurion’ was. We see something similar with Magnus as well, going behind Emps back even when it’s for his own good

o   Meanwhile, for all we’ve seen so far, none of the Custodians have ever felt the need to lie to or mislead CG on their own activities. The oily ones may have been cruel, but never misleading. There’s a level of trust, or at least a lack of mistrust, that Emps and the Primarchs sorely lack

·      Speaking of, this is a bit off-topic but we know why Custodians trust CG while Primarchs can't trust Emps- because Emps makes false promises and manipulates his kids constantly, even if/when he does act in their best interests, with hidden meanings even when pretending to be honest. He told Magnus to look up Cypher both to get around having to explain the truth to Magnus- something he previously promised to do- and to get him out of his hair for a while

o   There’s maybe one time that CG is misleading to anyone under his command- when he tells Boreale (and Diomedes by extention) to go make him a sandwitch. In this case it’s obvious that CG doesn’t actually need food, but he’s getting the two Marines out of the way while he has a fight with Magnus- a fight that was clearly already causing distress to the two Marines. It’s a very simple, straightforward lie, made solely for the benefit of the parties being lied to, with absolutely no other motive or reason behind it

On a more shippy note, CG also kinda treats Boreale and Diomedes like new step-children in the sense that he’d be a decent step-father to have. He bonds with them over video games, brings them along on trips with his ‘biological children’ (ie the Custodian Host) to include them even if they don’t actually have a ‘role.’ Granted he’s not perfect- using them to shame their ‘bio-dad’ when Magnus fucked up. But still- I always kinda thought of their relationship like a step-dad stepping up to fill the role of parent for the pre-teen sons of his boyfriend

Anyways, going back to Emps, I think that in the grand scheme CG’s successes highlight Emps’ failures as a parent. But, I also think that Emps is trying to parent like CG- he just fails at being like CG. He sees that CG gets results, and wants those same results, but doesn’t want to change his own behavior or analyze what it is that CG does that earns him respect and love while Emps is scorned and tolerated. Emps demands the rewards of being a parent, without doing the work to earn those rewards. IDFK yet if Emps will manage to change his own ways and pull through as a parent, but the point stands that Emps fails where CG not only succeeds, but excels.

[bow-woahh]

If you’re still doing the game, chapter 6 from the grocery store onward?

Send me your favorite scene/chapter from one of my works and I’ll post a DVD commentary on it.

ask and you shall receive!

Little bit of background info, this chapter is obviously part one of two, chapter six being it's better if I calm down, and chapter 7 being the rest of the line: it's better if I lash out. If you listened to the song full stop, you might have already known that lmao

I felt like these two chapters worked well being split into two parts (I mean imagine how long it would have been if it wasn't ... like no thank you) because of the overarching themes across them and most importantly, the plot line with her mom and the readers not knowing what's putting her on edge in chapter 6. It was so much fun to play around with and hint that there was clearly something bothering her. I think in my outline, before I found the official title this chapter was called "calm before the storm" because that truly is what it is, there's a lot of nice, fun moments, but it's clear there is something bad on the way.

Anyway, tangent over, commentary time!

They caught a bus to get to the closest grocery store, which was still a twenty minute journey away, so Catra ignored Diego for most of the ride, listening to music and texting Adora.

When I was originally outlining chapters and everything, the grocery scene wasn't planned in to this chapter (I just love giving myself more to do). I have a section in my outline document where it's kinda just a thought dump of things I want to happen possibly at some point, because I think it'd be cool or cute or whatever. This was one of those instances, and because this chapter felt a bit bare bones at first (the final product was not in the slightest) I added this in as it felt like a great way to introduce Adora and Diego and since Catra and Adora are still fairly early in their relationship here, it just worked so well, because they truly didn't expect to see each other.

“Hey, hi! I knew you said you were going shopping, but I didn’t think—well I guess it does make sense since you live in Alwyn but—”

Okay, time for context no one asked for! Bright Moon is the city they are in (obviously) and Frighton (the Fright Zone) is the neighbouring city. Bright Moon is kinda split into lower city, upper city and mid/center city (guess which kinda classes live where). Alwyn and Elberon (where Catra and Adora live respectively) are more lower city, so they are typically where poorer people live, though there are some nice places there I'm sure. Just not many.

Adora said, “Loser? Nah, Catra’s actually super cool, trust me.” She looked at Adora, properly, for the first time in a few minutes, and found her staring back at her with a fond smile.

Adora's piss poor attempt at flirting. Jk, but I do think this moment is v cute and I just love how Adora defended Catra, even though it's just her younger cousin being stupid. We love to see it.

Once again Diego beat her to it, opening the door and saying, “Sure!” before jumping out and slamming it shut.

[Context for this line: Adora asked if they needed help taking the bags out of her truck.] Honestly, Diego's really cute here. He really admires Adora and looks up to her so he's taking every possible opportunity to talk to her, and be around her.

“You know you could've left, like, ages ago, right Grayskull?"

“Yeah well,” Adora did that little shrug she always did. “I didn't mind.”

Narrowing her eyes for a moment, Catra said slowly, “Alright. Well, you can go now. And I should probably head in.”

She turned to go inside, when Adora grabbed her wrist. “Wait.”

Ahhh I love this whole section of dialogue so I had to talk about it. These two are just... useless. What I love about them, and writing them in specifically this, is the constant push and pull with them, how they can never just explicitly say whar they want, either in fear they'll be judged and rejected or because they don't even fully understand what they want to begin with. With Catra and Adora, as much as one can say something like "You should go" the other will always hesitate to, will always have something at the tip of their tongue that they're not quite saying, or like here, will literally tell them to stay, using words or otherwise. They want each other but aren't quite ready to admit it yet. And I just think that's beautiful.

Also the grabbing of the wrist and the "Wait"? Pretty sure that was an accidental reference to the "stay" scene in Taking Control but it's so ingrained into my brain I'm sure it was subconscious.

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

This line is just so... teenage romance vibes and I love it

Even though they had been talking nonstop for days now, and had seen each other just the other day, there was a palpable tension in the air, one that Catra wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with.

The said tension was definitely more on Adora's end than Catra's, because obviously, Catra is still hiding things (or more accurately, just not sharing them) and although Adora wants to pretend to be fine with it, the closer she gets, the more she wants to know what the truth is, she doesn't want to listen to the lies and rumours anymore.

Adora studied her face for a moment, before saying carefully, “Well, I, uh, have a ton of old gear I’ve been meaning to get rid of, but maybe you could ask him if he wants it? It’d be a good start.”

Catra hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I'm sure he'd like that. I'll, uh, see what he says and get back to you.”

“Great!” Adora beamed.

Another little moment I love because Adora is just so considerate here and understands that Catra doesn't want to delve into things like money issues. She also gets Catra isn't one to accept handouts but the way she puts it isn't ‘let me help you out’ but more ‘you'd be doing me a favour’. Adora understands how she feels. She gets it.

“Why did he think you were texting your ‘boyfriend’ by the way?” Adora asked, and Catra felt her heart drop to her stomach. She hadn’t thought Adora had been paying attention to what Diego said (arguably nobody should ever pay attention to anything he says, ever) but of course she had, because once again, Catra had underestimated Adora’s observational skills.

“Because he's a stupid kid who doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Honestly Diego isn't that far from the truth he just needs to turn that 'boy' in boyfriend to girl.

Also the fact Adora is asking about this.... interesting. Catra's answer.....very defensive and also interesting. Once again they're so many unspoken words and subtext layered in all of this. It's like a tiered cake.

“That? Oh, nah. I don't—it's not really any of her business, y'know?” Catra replied, staring just past Adora’s shoulder.

Catra is replying to Adora asking whether or not Serenia knows she's a lesbian and, well, obviously what she said wasn't true. Well it was, technically, but she's ommiting the real reason. As I've already at least slightly portrayed, Catra has a complicated relationship with her sexuality, and I don't want to spoil it but that will definitely be explored more in the future, and Serenia definitely plays a part in it, being her guardian after all.

“I guess it was always kind of obvious. I never looked at guys the same way I look at girls—my first crush was some girl in like elementary, although I didn't realise at the time, and they just continued from there. I thought all girls had crushes on other girls at some point, that wishing I was a guy so I could be with them was what everyone did. When I realised they didn't, that it was weird, I spent all my time convincing myself I just wanted to be my celebrity crush and not be with them, until I actually kissed a girl for the first time. Then I couldn't exactly ignore it. I still tried to though. Especially when—well yeah, I tried to deny it for a while. But then, I guess I got tired. Of lying to myself.”

This whole paragraph is just... yes. No one has ever asked Catra how she knew, but more importantly, Catra has never wanted to answer this question, and if it were anyone else asking, she would have definitely shut it down, or answered with something short and simple. It's because it's Adora, and because she's growing more comfortable with her, to the point where she doesn't mind, even wants to share these types of details about herself. That vulnerability is even more important in chapter 7, so this was a stepping stone of sorts for her.

“So, uh, how about you? Not that I’m saying that you’re—but since you asked…” She cursed at herself internally when Adora's expression morphed into one of surprise, eyes slightly widening. 

“Oh, me? I, um—I don't really know. Is that weird? I just haven't ever really thought too much about it. I guess my main priorities are school, lacrosse, and work.”

God, it's in moments like these where I wish I wrote from Adora's perspective as well. Because there's a lot to unpack here. She's not lying when she says this, I do think this is partially how she feels. But, some could argue it's so obvious how much she likes Catra, and she's definitely admired some women before. So. I'll leave it at that because otherwise I'll say too much.

Quickly though, back to the what I said about writing in Adora's perspective... saying this here and here only because I don't know if it'll happen but I did have an idea to make a sequel of sorts, from her perspective. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The smooth stream had been interrupted once Adora had asked if Catra's had any plans next week, with Halloween coming up. The relaxed, open demeanor that Adora had seen for the past few hours had almost instantly closed up again, and she could hardly focus on what Adora was saying anymore.

Now that Chapter 7 is out, why she reacted this way obviously makes a lot of sense, but to add more of a commentary to it, as we saw throughout this chapter she was trying her best to ignore her emotions about her mom's death anniversary because for once things were going well and therefore she had other things to focus on. Adora mentioning Halloween forced Catra to acknowledge it, along with the memories that come with her mothers death.

“Promise you won't ditch me?”

“I, Adora Grayskull, promise not to ditch you,” she said, hand on heart.

We love a good promise cameo.

“Did you really get kicked out? Of Horde High?”

Catra should have been expecting this to come up once again. It was bound to. With all the rumours. Especially when Sparkles seemed to be a fan with how she brought it up on Sunday.

I've already talked a bit about the rumours and how they arose in my chap 1 commentary, but really I wanted to talk about Glimmer here, since her scene was before the grocery scene and I have a lot to say about this one. Initially when I wrote it, the scene was a fairly quick altercation that kinda lacked a real punch, but after spending a little more time on it after my beta pointed some things out...it hit hard. I know there is a fuck Glimmer train at the moment because, yeah, Glimmer is pretty mean in that scene. And other scenes. I don't know why I love writing Glimmer as her S4 self so much, but it's fun to play around with okay? I like how she can take on an almost antagonistic role at times.

Glimmer thinks what she is doing is to the benefit of her own friend, by pointing out all of Catra's faults and the fact that she's from the Horde, but I also think there's a little jealousy there. No Glimmer doesn't like Adora, but she is quite a possessive friend, so I can't imagine she likes the fact Adora is spending so much time with someone she doesn't know, and to add to it, she's got the worst reputation in the school. So.

Catra thought back to the moment, and remembered what had provoked it, all the way back in eighth grade. “Yeah. I'd say they did.”

Exclusive for Tumblr gang only, but yes they did on fact deserve it because they called Catra the d-slur. This was during a time where she was really struggling with her sexuality so at the time, this cut deep.

As Catra lay in bed that night, she found her mind wandering back to Adora's handshake, how they had held on for just a little too long, mismatched eyes staring into blue ones. How such a casual touch had brought back that burning sensation, that need to be closer.

Ah...the handshake. There is literally no other reason for this other than the fact they are gay. This chapter along with the next are especially important for their development physically—they get a lot more comfortable touching each other in passing but at the same time they still have to find a reason to touch each other (hence the handshake). Either way, it helps break another barrier in their relationship, and this is even moreso the case in chapter 7. I don't know if you noticed, but that chapter is full of small touches and more, but they couldn't have gotten there if it wasn't for the little steps along the way.

Boy that was a long one! I hope you guys enjoyed this, I know I said chap 8 would be out soon but schools really kicking my ass, trying to find a balance is hard. Nevertheless, it will be out asap, I appreciate your patience! (:

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 15x07

BEWARE! SPOILERS AHEAD!

So. This episode. Which I felt was in many ways a fanservice episode, but not in a negative way (because I don’t think fanservice has to be a negative thing in itself). On the one hand we had Sam and Eileen. Clearly the fanservice already started last episode in bringing back Eileen from the dead in the first place, but this week it became more obvious for what reason: to set her up with Sam, to make her his romantic endgame. I really felt that what had been subtext before became now text. And it wouldn’t make sense to bring Eileen back, to set her up with Sam, and then giving us a tragic ending. It still doesn’t mean we get an overall happy ending, but they wouldn’t go the lengths to bring Eileen back, mark her as romantic endgame for Sam, and then not deliver.

On the other hand we have Dean and his little trip in the past. I’m sure Christian Kane is one of the actors many fans had wished to see on the show one day (given his friendship with Jensen), so yeah, fanservice again. In many ways Dean’s trip to Swayze’s felt like a character study, because the character of Lee felt like a different version of Dean, someone he could have become (minus the monster pet obviously). Just as Sam’s blooming romance with Eileen leads to speculation about his future (and the show’s end), Dean’s confrontation with his old friend told us a lot about Dean, and where his journey might end.

But, as always, let’s take a closer look.

All you have to do is follow three simple rules

Let’s start with Dean and his trip down memory lane. The fact that he left the bunker on his own, working a case, is something Sam considers as progress, and he is right to think so. Ultimately, when it comes to the final confrontation between Dean and Lee, what sets them apart is that Dean still cares. What happens in the world still matters, his job still matters, the lives they save still matter, despite knowing Chuck manipulated them (something Lee isn’t even aware off). Last week Cas found his way back to their mission, now Dean, in time for the midseason-finale next week.

We learn that Dean and Lee used to work together back when John was still alive and Sam at college, so pre-series. It is a reminder of how much time has passed since then and how much Dean has changed since then as well. Lee represents in many ways the Dean from the past. Someone whose dream it was to own a bar, where every night seems like the best night ever, full of drinks and girls. And we can say for sure that at some point Dean shared this dream, because this is something that we saw in 14x10, in the happy dream Michael had Dean trapped in. There he had owned Rocky’s Bar, though it was clear that he had financial trouble and that it wasn’t nearly as full as Swayze’s. And speaking of Swayze’s, it is clear that Dean and Lee share the same taste in movies.

There was some obvious queer subtext as well, where Lee was presented as the ex-lover, a reminder of the good old days, who prevents Dean’s current lover (Cas) from calling him. Earlier we had the sheriff complimenting Dean on his good looks, and we saw Lorna trying to flirt with Dean several times, but with no response. And of course we see that Dean can in fact in sing, when he previously had claimed he could not or sung bad on purpose. We are yet reminded again that Dean puts up a persona, especially around his brother, with the genuine Dean lying underneath.

There are also some signs that Lee’s story doesn’t add up, if you look close enough. He says that after his last hunt he scrounged up what he could and bought the bar, but we know that most hunters barely get by, and obviously we later learn about the real source of his money. Second, he doesn’t seem to be a very good hunter, once Dean brings up the case. He seemingly doesn’t recognize Angela, despite her being a regular at his bar. He suggests the lake as a hiding place for the car, when the junkyard is the more obvious choice (and a little nod to our Bobby). Both times Lorna messes things up for Lee, who symbolically stands between the two men the entire time.

It’s been a while that a human had been the actual villain and that we saw one of the Winchesters kill another person. But to Dean the question whether Lee is a monster or not is obvious. Angela was, as we learn, a good girl. There is simply no justification why Lee chose her as a victim, other than that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore Lee defends his actions that after everything he had done as a hunter he deserves this life, full of fortune and good health. The life as a hunter left him disillusioned; there is so much evil in the world that it doesn’t matter what they do. In fact it doesn’t even matter if he himself does a little evil as well.

And this is the complete opposite of Dean. Dean who still cares, despite having seen the bigger picture, despite knowing the truth about Chuck. Dean who cares about the little people, who thinks that every life he saves matters. And who doesn’t do it for the fame and the glory, who doesn’t think it entitles him to anything, but who does it because someone has to, because despite everything he is still a good person. And of course Dean wants more (always has), and he asks Lee if he has ever regret leaving ‘the life’ behind. And wonders who else is going to care, who else kills monsters and saves lives if he doesn’t. Lee’s answer is that someone else will, which actually reminded me of Sam at the beginning of season 8, who back then had left ‘the life’ behind as well, justifying that someone else would do their jobs.  

And this is interesting when we look towards the show’s end, and where Dean’s journey will end. Because as obvious as Sam’s romantic endgame is with the return of Eileen, it looks like Dean will choose a different path. Lee represents Dean’s past, therefore Dean’s wish to leave ‘the life’ is in the past as well. He can’t stop hunting, because he knows what is out there, because he cares too much. So what does that mean for the brothers? Will they go separate ways, Sam starting a new (domestic) life with Eileen, while Dean still hunts? (Maybe with Cas?) Will Dean perhaps die, but just as Lee he chooses his moment of death? It is still too soon for speculations like this, so just consider me throwing around ideas.

Rubber Soul

I already wrote about Sam and Eileen and the significance of Eileen’s return and what it might mean for Sam’s future, so I leave it with that. And despite Cas having the worst timing (he learned from the best: Sam), I’m glad Cas and Eileen finally meet. Soon they are going to start a self-help-group for people who date Winchesters, I’m sure of it.

There isn’t actually much to say about Sam’s rubber soul. I admit I kinda forget who Sergei is, though it is obvious he doesn’t know Cas very well, otherwise he would have known that Cas would never hurt or even kill an innocent girl. Sam’s connection to Chuck’s memories was a means to an end, finally giving them some insight and some sort of upper hand, ready to make their move next week. What is interesting however is the mentioning of Death and Death’s key, that can open the door to Death’s library. The last time we saw Billy, she was in the Empty with Jack. So it is very likely we will see both characters return and that said key/the library will become important in the future.

Until then <3

[neven-ebrez]

Rowena, the Woman, literally dies bc It Is Written(w/ a similar stomach wound to Mary's from the pilot)! Interesting that she died defending the Text and denying the obvious subtext+refusing to make it text bc as much as i like that it was her choice it's not like she would've done it if not to save sam,dean&co. We've seen this kinda ending before, but I bet Chuck thought he wrote the finale w/ Ghostpocalypse, so I have hope the real ending with TFW(&Dabb) in charge will be more satisfying... 🤡

(part 1) About the narrative betrayal stuff... I wonder if the fact that they were in the Carver crypt when all this went down, & since Chuck IS Carver in-show, i dunno, i mean even at the end when Dean said to Sam they won it felt hollow for good reason bc it felt like they had no choice & so weren't in control at all. Chuck slammed the reset button so it's meant to be frustrating bc we've seen all this b4: Dean is practically John, Something's Wrong w/ Sam™, the ghosts chucked at them are old news, and

I ANSWERED AND COPIED THE WRONG ASK ORDER! SO SORRY!

—

I just honestly believe the show is not finished here. Carver era is severely, severely lampshaded through the episode from Dean saying “Ugh” to the Carver crypt, to Rowena running out of it, refusing to die in it, to the repeating of the sentence I hate more than a thousand burning suns: “I did what I had to do.” And Carver era killed women, full stop. Dabb era has been mostly elevating and exploring the depths of women, with a few exceptions. That’s the history of Dabb era vs the history of everything that came before, which was a real fucking mess and something Dabb has inherited more than anything.

I do think Rowena tragically died a hero saving everyone, and I also think it would still be a narrative betrayal if she doesn’t transform and return. I’m withholding judgment until then. The show is still about finding a way to ultimately break free of itself. This includes its treatment of women I feel. Admittedly, I’ve long since stopped truly caring about *new* side characters. Kevin’s death killed me and wiped my empathy clean. It’s “what I had to do” back in Carver era to keep watching. I’ve kept the habit and it’s served me well.

But yeah. Rowena put a lot of stock into prophecy, I think because knowing Sam would kill her brought her great comfort, like when she could ignore AU!Michael’s threats against her. Who knows what each version of her death said? All she knew was that this was something she could be proud of, even if not truly vulnerable for. She chose, we saw her do it, even before the plan with Belphegor failed. She chose and she didn’t look back. I’m proud of her, even when I’m sad we had yet another redhead killed (however temporary before speculated transformation or not). And even though she chose, her death has been slotted (by Dean) into being the latest (well, last) of Chuck’s machinations. We know what Dean does not, however. We know Chuck is still lurking about, writing as badly as ever. And since the narrative is trying desperately, through Dean, to break away from that (the show’s legacy of killing women outright, Chuck’s obsession with manpain) I see Rowena’s return as something that’s practically required to “defeat” that. The characters must defeat the writer (Chuck) by making their own choice of narrative against Chuck’s values (such as enjoying it when nearly everyone is killed off).

Forgive me but I’m not sure how much deeper I can talk about this.

[beca-mitchell]

Pitch Perfect 3: Beca Mitchell is in love with Chloe Beale

...and there’s nothing Universal wanted to do more than to remind us that we’ll never get canon confirmation of this fact.

Hey, it’s me, your extra AF academic giving you an analysis on the three Pitch Perfect movies (see 1 here and 2 here) and which one provided the best shippy Bechloe content. Thus far, I ranked them from highest to lowest as: 1, 2, 3, though I do flip between 1 and 2.

In a departure from the first two movies, PP3 falls short in bringing super obvious and shippy Bechloe content, but reminds us why we stuck around since 2012...and why we’ll likely continue to do so. It is in no way a terrible movie and has its funny moments, great musical numbers, and fine performances from this talented group of actresses.

It allowed fans to grovel on the ground for the scraps of little things thrown in here and there by way of the director and the actresses feeding us outside of the frame of the movie. The reason this is painful is because of the departure from what was verging on plain, old text right back into the sub-basement of subtext.

Aside: I’m interested in what’s confined to the boundaries of this movie because as we know, there’s a lot to be said about how this movie was promoted/marketed. None of that matters because the team already made these exec decisions about how the movie was going to come out 1) while they were filming and; 2) before the marketing really took off.

As a reminder, anon asked me how I’d rank the three movies in terms of shippy content/value for Bechloe shippers. I rank this last, but not because it’s so terrible, but because it’s angsty as fuck and you really walk away from it feeling kind of sad about the whole thing. 

While PP 1 and 2 are hopeful, there’s something about the shippy moments in 3 that seem contrived so much so that they’re not odes to the fans, but rather a final nail in the coffin and that’s why I’m sad about it overall.

There are two points that I want to make here: 

Beca does essentially everything in this movie because of Chloe.

Beca harbours some deep feelings for Chloe.

Something I will not address because addressing it would be as pointless as its inclusion in the PP3 story (but feel free to ask me about that separately):

the Chicago storyline (which is the unfortunate reason why this movie ranks below 1 & 2 for me)

Let’s go!

**all gifs in this post made by me

1. Beca completes her major plot points/does essentially everything in this movie because of Chloe.

To Preface: Chloe and Beca (and Fat Amy) chose to live together in New York. I’m sad that we’ll never get extended group dynamics here, but the fact is, they do and they live together pretty closely as far as we’re aware (the close confines of the apartment, the shared bed, etc.).

Chloe saying “because it reminds me I was special once” in response to Beca asking why she’s wearing her Bellas’ uniform is a lot more emotional than the scene initially leads you to believe. I found this pretty important because I consider it a huge starting point for the movie’s events, particularly in the way Beca goes about doing things.

Beca shuts up pretty quickly after that. Beca agrees to go to the reunion pretty quickly after that, citing that she needs a “distraction”.

Also, Chloe’s genuine concern for Beca is really cute.

Beca agrees to go on the USO tour, but only after she sees Chloe agreeing to go.

I found this interesting because it does seem like Beca’s partially interested. It’s not to say that she doesn’t kind of want to go for herself since we see her genuinely enjoying herself throughout the movie when she’s performing again,  but she really commits to going once she notices Chloe agreeing to go; when she sees Chloe’s renewed enthusiasm.

There’s some great technical stuff throughout the movie, like these cut-aways and isolated shots.

The movie leaves a lot of gaps to fill in here, which struck me as interesting at first, then I was just grateful. There are so many headcanons available to shippers at this point. How close are Beca and Chloe at this point? How much do they share with each other? Their fears, their dreams, their goals?

And Chloe?

Chloe looks so grateful that Beca agrees to go that it makes me want to die.

There’s a genuine relationship between Beca and Chloe that is never fully addressed, but the movie kind of says that it’s there...but as scraps.

Beca is thinking about ‘Freedom’ (the song) throughout the movie...then sings it straight to Chloe at the end.

The one good thing that she’s got.

Beca mixes and layers the intro to her “Freedom” performance in the hotel suite, which means it’s the first thing that kinda popped into her mind. How long has she been thinking about this song over the course of the movie? Beyond the boundaries of the movie? What does this song mean to Beca? You get some implicit answers here and there, obviously. It’s not hard to glean the meaning of the song. 

Then this happens:

And finally, just when you think it’s enough that Chloe’s gaze is the first one she seeks out, when she’s done and high off the adrenaline of performing solo for the first time...

She runs straight into Chloe’s arms. She spins on her heel, without a doubt, and knows who she’s looking for before her eyes even land on her.

There are moments in between that made me think of Bechloe too.

...Like how Beca has the Bellas at heart and wants to cling on to her family because she’s kinda afraid to take that final step into the spotlight as an individual artist. It almost directly parallels Chloe’s dilemma in the second movie, unable to let go completely.

The shipper part of me that wants to believe that it’s entirely due to Beca and Chloe clinging on to each other despite it all. I don’t think it’s too much of a reach, all things considered. It’s not too much of a reach to think that Beca and Chloe are holding on to each other all these years because they’ve grown so attached to each other. Beca cares about Chloe’s interests, just like Chloe displayed the same care for Beca’s interests all those years ago.

2. Beca harbours some Deep Feelings for/Attraction to Chloe, but she doesn’t address it explicitly and we will never see her address it. 

As I mentioned above, this movie kicks off with Beca taking into account how Chloe feels. Chloe is kinda down about vet school and perhaps feeling directionless. Beca is going through something similar, but hers is more on the creative side and what she wants to do with her future as a musician/independent artist.

Beyond the points I mention above re: Beca doing things for Chloe and because of Chloe, Beca exhibits some attraction to Chloe. They’re all moments worth nothing.

Chloe talking passionately and enthusiastically (much like her old self) about the riff-off makes Beca smile.

That’s it, that’s the point. There’s almost nothing more to be said here because Beca’s smile says it all.

This scene - a significant cut-away - makes me so mushy because of how smitten Beca is here.

It’s an homage to the first two movies where we see Beca easing her way into the Bellas with hesitation, but we understand Chloe to be enthusiastic and passionate about almost everything she does. The way she tackles her problems, well, it’s something that Beca seems to love or at least feels very strongly about, likely after so many years being by Chloe’s side.

Beca looking to Chloe for affirmation/validation.

Again, with the side conversations and general validation that Beca looks for in Chloe. That “special bond” as Trish Sie calls it. There’s a degree of ‘friendship’ here that exceeds Beca’s friendship with Fat Amy. There’s an unspoken closeness between them that really makes you want to know about their history. The years we didn’t get to see.

The two times (of many) she looks to Chloe for support.

And the one time she looks to Chloe to offer support.

Beca allows the boob-grabbing to happen with detached interest.

She’s gay.

“Dude. What is...What is this about?”

And once again, we’re left on the edge of something more, but yet, not quite. Beca, in a departure from her awkward shower encounter with Chloe, isn’t fazed anymore. In fact, the curiosity in her voice is there. It’s the curiosity that Chloe employs in the second movie - the same that Beca ignores and pushes away.

Good question, Beca. What is this about? Is it about the unspoken tension? Is it about the attraction? Who’s to say?

We will never know because Aubrey interrupts them.

It’s “nothing”, in the grand scheme of things, which is absurdly painful. More painful than I thought possible for a movie about a cappella.

Bonus: Beca Mitchell is not a heterosexual.

Her general disdain for Theo can be seen from space. Not that she thinks he’s a terrible person (she says so), but that she is 100% not attracted to him on any level.

What I love more, however, is when we’re introduced to Chicago and Zeke. All the ladies - except two - are basically swooning over them. The two that aren’t? Cynthia Rose (for obvious reasons) and Beca.

Beca is just...riding this wave of not being attracted to men at all in this movie and I’m here for it.

She looks so unimpressed...and that is the Mood for this movie, folks.

Also, if this scene doesn’t remind you of PP2...you’re watching this wrong.

And that’s it! I can’t believe I made it. In total, over the three posts, I clocked in at around 4.3k words. What the fuck??

Thanks for reading!

If you want, reply, reblog w/ comments, or like this post! I’m interested in what people have to say. Tell me what you thought! Tell me what you’re still thinking about! 

[janiedean]

Why is Kylo even considered abusive tho

...... hahaha. uhm. this is gonna be fun.

(ps: anyone who hates kylo or reylo pls skip this post okay? k.)

people have decided that any relationship (not even romantic, any) that’s like, even moderately problematic or not healthy or in between a villain and a hero is inherently abusive, because of course EVERYTHING is abusive now, and villains that aren’t, er, how we shall say, Approved By Tumblr Standards, are inherently horrible abusive people;

kylo is, sadly, technically a mix of All the things tumblr finds automatically problematic in someone, ie that he’s: a) white, b) a cis man, c) comes from a **privileged background** (let’s just say that for the sake of simplicity), d) has obvious anger issues, e) a villain, f) heterosexual as far as we know (or better: we don’t know he’s not, but you know that for people on tumblr when they hate someone and their sexuality isn’t specified straight becomes the default because obviously if u r evil then you have to be straight. ofc kylo could be bi for all we know, but never mind that, right?), g) not conventionally attractive (or, in tumblr lingo, UGLY, because of course everyone’s canon of beauty is the same!!), which means that given point one above, he’s of course abusive, not even a shred of doubt given. (of course if one or more of these fail to happen, tumblr does the contrary and excuses whatever the bad person does but I’ll shut up before I say things I’ll regret.)

which means that of course any rship he could have with rey is abusive when it’s fucking dumb because in order for a relationship to be abusive you actually have to know that person and be in a relationship of any kind with them - your parents can be abusive (but they’re your parents and you grew up with them), a friendship can be abusive (but then you have had to know this person and be friends with them), a romantic relationship can be (but you have to actually be in love with them or at least be together), and kylo and rey have no such relationship because they met, he captured her, they had their mind-force argument where he tried to get inside her head and she got into his (compare that with what happened with poe I mean XDDD) and then they fought and the next time they met each other it was through the force bond and then you can say they developed a relationship.... where she was the one pretty much taking the first step most of the time and where she saw that there was some good in him? I mean, there’s no bloody way any of that falls under abusive relationship. is it problematic? obviously it has problematic elements because any relationship you have with a dude or woman you fought with/tried to kill/is on your opposite side of the fence can’t not have problematic elements. is it 100% fluff unicorns and rainbows? no. but like, from that to say he’s abusive in general is ridiculous, at most he could be to hux but I mean kylo and hux are generally terrible to each other in turn and that relationship is your usual rival/hateship that’s been around since the beginning of times. at most it’s mutually toxic if you ask me, and anyway no one who ships either reylo or kylux goes around saying it’s The Purest Ship, or at least no one who’s not the usual bad apple that you find in any shipper group.

this also is a perfect mirror of how people on tumblr can’t distinguish what’s coded as abusive and what’s not, because if there is one relationship in the new trilogy that’s explicitly coded as abusive it’s.... snoke and kylo, and kylo is not the abusive part, he’s the abused part of it. I mean, tlj made it overtly clear and the point is that whether you like it or not this guy has been groomed/tormented/lied to by snoke (who is, uh, THE BONAFIDE BAD GUY I mean guys it’s star wars being the palpatine stand-in in the dark side part should say everything really) same as palpatine did to anakin and guess what kylo wants to be anakin/thinks that he’s honoring his grandfather’s footsteps it’s kind of heavily implied, and while obviously there’s no overt sexual subtext because it’s still a disney movie made for kids too I’m fairly sure it’s kind of very subtly implied and other people wrote about it more in-depth than me, but tldr: kylo’s issues (he’s unstable, he’s angry, he doesn’t really know what he wants, he’s volatile and blah blah blah) are all direct consequences of a) being heavily force sensitive, b) feeling like his family failed him (and luke AGREES because wow what did he do before they fought in tlj? apologize to him for failing him, and if you don’t think that han let him kill him also because he thought he failed him idk what movie you watched), c) being groomed and lied to by the evil bad guy of the situation for most of his life, which makes... him... an abuse victim.

of course, tumblr has a really unhealthy approach to how you get to be an abuse victim, which is a whole other wasp nest, but basically on this bloody website anyone who doesn’t meet the Good Victim Standard (ie: they fight against their abuser immediately, they do Good Things, they Show Clear Morals and it’s obvious that They Are Good Guys) is automatically Not A Good Victim and is therefore denied any basic empathy/decency, and anyone who tries to be nice to them or to help them out is there to help the villain’s storyline HOW BAD, OR, if the Bad Victim dares being a man, of course it’s all OH MY GOD CHARACTER X IS GETTING SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF Y’S STORYLINE AND THEIR MANPAIN, because of course if you’re a man you can’t, like, suffer, without it being manpain and not, like, legitimate feelings. which means that poor kylo cannot win because even when the story is coded otherwise and rey helping him out/wanting to reach the good part of him/seeing him as ben solo/etc people don’t see it as, like, rey being a good person and regular character development (nvm that the entire point of the light side in SW is, like, forgiveness, but okay then), but as her character being sold off for the male’s development or whatever else they think it is. which is obviously not true, but the fact that you take a character who has being a decent person in their basic traits and think that in order to Be A Good Person they should want to murder their adversary who is most obviously coded as someone who needs help and has issues but not as the ultimate bad guy rather than, like, did what rey did in tlj ie trying to help them out, says more about whichever anti thinks such things (ie: nothing good) than about the sw writers or whatever. I mean, I unfollowed people for reblogging fanart where rey killed kylo and finn/poe were doing the cheerleading and not just because I don’t want that kinda toxicity but also because it’s absolutely OOC that finn, poe or rey would cheerlead each other over murdering anyone that’s not snoke or the likes -

ah, but wait, who killed snoke?

I mean, given that kylo killed the guy who abused him for years because he threatened to murder the one person who had taken the effort to be nice to him and see his side of the story I think that it’s fairly obvious that he’s not abusing anyone himself and that next movie he’s going back to the light side no question also because they’re not gonna kill the last character with direct skywalker lineage around.

but of course most people around here can’t see past their own preconceptions and don’t understand that if you want to care for mentally ill people/abuse victims you also have to give a fuck about the kylo rens and not just about the finns. let’s just put it out there, I care about finn more than I care about kylo and I’m light side trash so of course I’m into the character and I love that finn understood at once he couldn’t kill people and defected and I love the journey he had, but you can’t just support the people that immediately see the way out and do things the way Good People Are Supposed To Behave. because if you support the finns but ditch the kylo rens then you really will end up with horrible people, because if someone who has the potential to not be a terrible person is left to their own thing without anyone trying to help them out of course they’ll convince themselves they’re not worth it and the more time passes the worst they get. and you can’t go around parading that you care about victims/mentally ill people/abuse victims/whatever if you only think the good ones are worth it. it’s such a calvinist way of thinking that makes my skin crawl tbh but then again tumblr is puritan calvinism hell so what do we even expect.

tldr: because tumblr is calvinist af without knowing it and because people have decided to give up on text comprehension for the joy of being asses to anyone who actually enjoys fictional villains, characters who aren’t necessarily the heroes and the likes.

and before anyone decides to murder me for the above and thinks that I’m a ride or die kylo fan or whatever, I’ll close this saying that: in tfa I really couldn’t care less about kylo (really, I was 100% indifferent), my favorite new trilogy character is actually poe which I find way more interesting/relatable/whatever than i could find kylo, my main ship investment in the new trilogy is finn/poe and before tlj I couldn’t care less for reylo (after... well it’s obvious I’m shipping it, but I started when it turned out to have infinite h/c potential/redemption arc potential because that’s what appeals to me in ships, I don’t care for mutual rivalships/hateships or villain/hero ships just for that, I only am into it if there’s the whole potential h/c angle so I wasn’t into it from the get-go). but I’ve liked enough characters who had stuff in common with kylo to at least recognize the pattern and I’d be fairly not coherent if I stanned theon and hated kylo on principle. ah, and I don’t find kylo particularly attractive either (honest I’d take oscar or john over adam any moment if I had to pick based on attractiveness level to me), but I also don’t feel the need to shame poor adam driver over it, especially when I think it’s a very good thing that people find attractive a type that’s not very hollywood-common and that’s actually considered not pretty/beautiful by canonical standards, so I mean, who cares. but it’s a question of intellectual honestly. *shrug*

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Italia episode 10 reaction

so nice of Alice to ask Eva on a date!

Episode 10

Clip 1 - Eva coming for Martino

I feel it’s so fitting for this marshmallow sweetheart Eva to start off leaving comparatively non-confrontational messages for Martino that only escalate when he doesn’t answer, instead of jumping straight to “ISAK PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE NOW” (RUN BOY RUN)

So Eva and Gio seem to be pretty relaxed and comfortable during this conversation about Martino considering their precarious relationship status - like they actually go somewhere else together and sit down, and there’s not a ton of space between them. His body language is pointed toward her. That’s nice that it’s not awkward, but I don’t know how I feel about it narratively, considering there probably should be some tension?

It makes some sense in that Gio seemed like he still wanted to be with Eva when talking to her at the skate park - he put it more on her shoulders, did she still want to be with him? With Jonas there was that “come find me when you find out” but overall it felt more frayed on his end even if he loved her.

But I loved that awkward goodbye kiss! That little customary gesture that’s suddenly got a lot more weight to it as they’re navigating this in-between stage. They’re kinda still dating but they’re kinda not, you know?

Clip 2 - Silvia and Eva in the bathroom

Note that this clip takes place later than the original version, which was paired with the period blood letter and took place right after the Jonas conversation where he asks who Eva is - Vilde asks her the same thing (theeeeme) and Eva bursts out in frustration at the question later talking to Isak. It was overall a more fraught time for Eva, since it was before her reconciliation with Ingrid and smoothing things over with Iben, was thinking she might have to switch schools and had some tension with her new friends after Vilde turned her past into a group presentation. This scene here happens after almost all of those problems have been smoothed over except for her relationship with Gio (which is less awkward than Eva’s with Jonas) and with Silvia (who apologizes during this clip). With that in mind, it’s more comfortable and less fragile.

It also takes the place of the scene where Vilde puts on a fake happy face in the cafeteria and lies to the girls about being with Pepsi Max.

Awww, it’s really nice that Silvia apologized to Eva. And the comment about how she gets used to people hating her is spot-on. it’s worth noting that this is the second time in a short period that Silvia has botched things with a group of girls, and who knows how many times before that.

But again, where does this leave us in terms of a firm arc for Eva? Once more they’ve cut out the thread/theme of who-is-Eva by not having Silvia ask it. Which I don’t inherently mind but I would like there to be a solid line of her character going from point A to point B, like I want there to be, for lack of a better term, a thesis statement about what this season was really about, since that was a strong point of the original S1. But I feel like we won’t know for sure until that final scene with Giovanni.

The original scene lands the point about Eva’s identity, this scene is more about setting up the group reconciliation with Silvia. 

Clip 3-  Awkwaaaaard

Similar to the first clip of the episode, Eva and Gio’s relationship here feels much less awkward than Eva and Jonas at this stage

Gio intentionally approaches her and makes conversation instead of literally bumping into her as Jonas did to Eva. It’s neutral small talk for the most party, and slight inquiries about Martino, it’s not digging deeper, but it still feels like they’re pretty chill. 

That made the fight seem more out of nowhere, though? Like with Eva and Jonas (and other versions) they were walking this fragile ground where they were being polite, and there was that rush of seeing each other and being like, oh, you make me so happy, but you could also sense how fragile and delicate it was through their body language and expressions and pauses, and so when P-Chris comes around, it’s easy for it to break. With this scene, they feel so comfortable that Gio suddenly shoving Fede didn’t feel right, they were on more stable ground. Like I would’ve bought his appearance suddenly creating the awkwardness between Gio and Eva, and Gio having to excuse himself, but not the 0 to 100 in two seconds here.

It doesn’t help that we didn’t see Gio react until he shoved Fede, like the way it was shot was a little weird. At first I couldn’t tell when Gio saw Fede coming down the hall and if Fede made the comment within earshot of them, since we didn’t get a good reaction shot of Gio to Fede’s presence. Plus having Jonas notice P-Chris and get tense was what prompted the “awkward” comment in the first place. Fede just seems like a shit-stirrer, lol.

Lmao, Edoardo did nothing to break up this fight. He redirected Fede with one hand to keep walking, that was it. On the one hand William gradually descending the stairs to halfheartedly remove Chris from Jonas was the best thing he ever did, but on the other hand, Edoardo not giving a shit at all is funny in itself.

Clip 4 - Not a Meet Cute ... a Start-Over Cute?

Good job, Alice! Federico is not worth the private transportation.

The way they shot this makes it look like the beginning of an Eva/Alice hate-to-love romance, more than any other version of this scene. Right now they have moved past “hate” and are in “tentative friendship” mode.

Lol, so I guess people had some beef with the comment about feminism? I get it, obviously feminism is not about man-hating, probably not the best message to send. But I also thought Alice was clearly making a joke and not being serious about it, so unless there’s some nuance in the wording that doesn’t come through in translation, it didn’t really bother me.

Also, not to go on a personal tangent, but I’m at the point of my life/feminist journey/whatever-you-want-to-call-it where IDGAF about defending feminism against accusations of man-hating, because misogynists will think feminists hate men no matter what you say. You can preface every feminist discussion with 10 paragraphs of clarifying that you don’t hate men and they still won’t care and you’ll just have wasted time and energy coddling anti-feminists that could have been spent on the important issues. For real, don’t bother.

Eva suggesting that the party sounds like a Sapphic shindig and Alice being like “Who said that isn’t the solution?” just ramped up the flirtiness, wowza. Although the line about “sounds like [lesbian night]” was translated a few different ways, using language that was, uhhh, not as neutral as lesbian. I can’t speak to whether it was as offensive in Italian, though.

I forgot, did they say that Alice wrote the message in the bathroom stall? It’s not super important since any gossipy person at school could have written it, but since it substituted for the period blood letter, I’m just curious.

Clip 5 - Party in the streets, puking in the sheets

Is this party taking place on the street? Like are they pre-gaming before they go somewhere? Pre-caking? Street parties seem like a good time.

Lol, Sana is pretty warm and receptive toward inviting Silvia, while Eleonora is like eh, whatever. I feel like Eleonora is the one with the pricklier attitude toward Silvia, which could be interesting to see play out next season since S2 definitely has a focus on that relationship.

“She read it but she didn’t reply” I mean you literally just sent the text five seconds ago, give her a minute.

Making the video for Silvia and asking her to come over is the sweetest thing, damn. Like if I were Silvia, my heart would get so warm. You know, if I wasn’t wasted and two steps from passing out.

So Martino wasn’t invited to this party, he just randomly happened to be in the street hanging out with some pals?

Time for the much-awaited snake roasting scene!

“Did your tits get bigger?” You aren’t fooling anyone, Martino.

Martino’s disappointment at thinking Eva and Gio are back together is super obvious, like he can barely manage to conjure up any fake enthusiasm.

Oh geez. So in the original, Isak lets Eva guess why he ratted her out. There has been a lot of meta and discussion as to whether he wanted Eva to guess the truth, take it off his hands, get it all out. It’s when she guesses that he likes her that he runs with the lie. Here, Martino is the one to say he has feelings for her. He creates the lie. There’s no ambiguity as to whether he wants the truth to come out.

I mean, honestly? I could believe that they changed to the plot to be about Martino having feelings for Eva. I don’t think they will, but I could buy it. Because Martino doesn’t seem like he’s lying, it’s like he’s getting things off his chest. With Isak, he wasn’t being too obvious that he was making stuff up, but on a rewatch you can tell that he’s fabricating this story, especially due to the nuance of Tarjei’s acting. Isak is a liar but he’s not necessarily good at it. He’s human. What he gives is an imitation of swagger and Nice Guy-ism. I don’t get much self-doubt in Martino’s performance.

That’s not to say he’s a bad actor, actually I think he’s one of the better performers on this show, but I did think this conversation was underwhelming compared to the original. There’s such great subtext and especially vulnerability in that scene - they cut out some great moments, such as Eva asking how things were going with his mom before confronting him and us getting to see Isak faking his confidence that everything will work out with his parents. Or Isak saying Eva can’t tell Jonas. Or just the extended explanation of why he did it. 

Plus you can really see Isak squirm as Eva pretends she’s gotten back with Jonas, like she’s playing with her food, and this scene didn’t have that delicious build-up.

Was there a reason why Eleonora couldn’t host Silvia at her place? Like logically I know it’s because they wouldn’t introduce the collective yet, if they’re keeping that, but surely it would be OK to bring Silvia back to a residence with no parents, just two quirky university students? Is Eleonora’s living situation going to be the same?

Sana had a very clear game plan on how to handle the situation, good for her.

Lol, I think this scene inherently loses something without the ironic Christmas music but it was funny to have “I wanna be a bottom feeder” right before Silvia barfs on Sana. Sana’s reactions were pretty good.

When the puking started, I wondered whether they would show Sana without her hijab, and then they did.

OK ... I’m not a Muslim so I don’t want to get too much into this, but:

Sana taking off her headscarf as a mark of her comfort around the girls is a sweet gesture, and from what I understand from reading Muslims’ thoughts, this is OK to do and it’s likely that she wouldn’t get in the bed and fall asleep in her hijab. So that’s fine.

But in a meta sense, I did think oh right ... we’re getting this moment because the actress is not Muslim, and this is a costume for her and she can take it off. Whereas with someone like Iman Meskini, it’s not (according to her personal religious beliefs). There was a few (just a few, not many) comments I saw that were like “Sana’s hair is so pretty, she shouldn’t cover it up” which made me go :/ :/ :/

Eleonora giving Silvia a little kiss on the forehead as they tuck her into bed = awwwww.

“I was just trying to kill Edoardo’s son” uhhhh is that an accurate translation? Because that’s kinda different from “I think I killed William’s baby,” there’s way more intent with the Italian one and it changes how I view Silvia’s opinion on the matter. Like I sort of thought a part of Vilde wanted that baby, for not so great reasons, and that’s why she was insistent with the nurse that she had all the pregnancy symptoms. But you know, maybe not! 

Also, “I tried to kill Edoardo’s son” and the scene ending abruptly with a BAM could be like, a cliffhanger for a crime show if we want to make Skam a much grittier and bleaker show.

General Comments:

I’m wondering about how they’ll handle S3. I think S2 has the potential to be better than the original, but so far the portrayal of Martino has been lacking a lot of that vulnerability that Isak had and the conversation with Eva in this episode reinforced that. Again, I’m not placing the fault on the actor, and obviously we’re just getting started with the character, I just hope they can dig deep into his self-doubt when they come to it.

I’m trying not to get into the debate about this since it’s not my culture, but because I keep seeing comments in the Sana casting debate about the potential lack of Muslim actors in Italy, for comparison:

Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Norway with about 2.9% of the population officially (about 153,000 people in 2016) and has increased by 26.6% since 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway#Islam)

According to the latest Italian official statistics, there are 1.400.000 Muslims in Italy (2.3% of the Italian population), almost one third of Italy's foreign population (250.000 have acquired italian citizenship). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Italy#Present_day)

Wikipedia, I know, but here’s the Pew Research Center, a very reliable source, putting the 2016 estimate of Muslims in Italy at 4.8% of the population with 2,870,000 Muslims (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/)

I haven’t mentioned this much but the Skam Italia social media team is doing a nice job, some of the texts have been really funny and cute. Shout-out to Martino telling Eva to move to California to work as a waitress in one of those restaurants “where they give you coffee nonstop” because, yeah, that is one good thing you can say about the US. We’re politically a mess but at least our diners will keep your cups overflowing.

I’m not Italian so if I missed some context, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[svtskneecaps]

Dead Mall Notes

it’s gonna get kinda lengthy so i’m gonna slap a keep reading on it

ALL THE DEAD MALL AU PARTS / TEASERS AS OF JULY FIFTH:

First Part 1 Teaser

Final Part 1 Teaser

Part 1

Part 2 (no teaser for part 2 that I could find?)

Part 3 Teaser

Part 3

Part 4 Teaser

Part 4

Special Video

Part 5 Teaser

Part 5

Part 6 Teaser (binary reads “this is his game / this is our fate”)

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8 Teaser

Kakao Group Chat Name: Dead Mall Cafe, Password: Mimi

i get the feeling that the Alone teasers will be important, so to be safe i've compiled a list

Sources:

United Kpop Teaser Breakdown - Doesn’t have all the info, but has the teasers embedded in the page

A Little Glass Cafe - lists off the Prime Number and member who makes a cameo in the video

(for those who don’t know or don’t remember, Prime Number was a number hidden in each teaser video which could be used on the website to unlock a teaser photo for that member)

KEY: teaser release order, Member (with a link to their teaser), video quote, prime number, cameo, extra notes

if you need clarification, just ask~

1. Vernon - "one less than a full revolution" - 359 (woozi) (compass)

2. Jeonghan - "somebody said it means imperfection and danger" - 11 (hoshi) (camera)

3. Mingyu - "Another chapter of my life began since i met you" - 2 (wonwoo) (duplicates/mirrors?)

4. DK - "in the place thirteen pieces can be completed" - 3733 (seungkwan) (stopwatch)

5. Woozi - "all of the questions in the world can be answered in one definite answer" - 4643 (scoups)

6. Jun - "as the door opened i was faced with a new destiny" - 1013 (the8)

7. Dino - "do not be blinded by the illusion in front of you but follow the truth inside of it) - 7 (joshua)

8. Wonwoo - "us in the different system, another form of seventeen" - 10001 (Vernon)

9. Hoshi - "the line for reaching to the beloved ones" - 2232111 (Jun)

10. Seungkwan - "a pioneer who cast himself into his destiny" - 5 (Dino) (laundromat)

11. The8 - "do you remember how long did we share for each other" - 103 (DK)

12. Joshua - "an everlasting being whichever way it goes" - 131 (Mingyu)

13. S.coups - "I was afraid and anxious since I was all alone /nevertheless we met on thirteen different paths and eventually / a complete bond has formed leading us to our brightest moment" - 17 (jeonghan)

Mimi said there’s important info hidden in the teasers (source)

we know that none of them can text in the side stores (source, source)

also, coups’ phone is almost dead (source) and is now confirmed dead (source)

seungkwan was the teaser image for part 3 of the au, in which Woozi finds the paper with “a pioneer who cast himself into his destiny” on it (in a laundromat, might i add). it’s helpful to note that the teaser image is a screencap from his Alone teaser video, which also includes the quote and the number from the paper

in the first teaser for the au, there’s this sequence of numbers: “ 13, 12, 11, 9, 8, 5, 4, 2… 13?” seungkwan went missing and took their number down to 12. chan made it 11, jun and wonwoo made it 9 maybe other people will slowly go missing until there’s two, and depending on our choices all thirteen will escape or not, since there’s a question mark on the last number?

the doors are locked with passcodes (source). possibly this is where the numbers on the paper come in?

seungkwan talking in the group chat in part three is a typo (source)

after a surface google, the words on the part three teaser and the final part one teaser don’t seem to have any significance with seventeen, i’ll keep an eye on ‘em tho

the part 4 teaser is a screencap from dino’s teaser trailer so keep an eye on our boy chan there

the caption of the part 4 teaser seems to be a translation of “don’t wanna cry” (the same song the Alone teasers relate to, this era’s hella important)

the caption is also coups part (don’t trust S hmm??) (cr. nicole in the gc for knowing that)

teaser five is a screencap from wonwoo’s teaser video, the screencap is showing the set for vernon’s teaser video

the binary wonwoo sends in part 5 reads “when I close my eyes and count one and two” “before i know it i am asleep and” “i look for you in my dream unknowingly” (Joshua’s verse in Habit, cr. Steph in the gc)

the paper they found in part 5 relates to Dino’s teaser, Dino being the member which went missing in the previous part (source)

there’s one scene in the special video that specifically foreshadows something (mimi said in the gc)

mingyu and minghao have some strong gay energy going on there dunno if it’s confirmed or subtext (source)

THE SEUNGKWAN THEORY: (cr. nicole in the gc)

seungkwan fakes his own disappearance so he’s free to work, and places suspicion on wonwoo, who he knows Seungcheol has beef with (source). that done, he snatches chan, who he knows seungcheol is close with (and we know this bc they were in the same group together and it’s reasonable to assume that they grouped with people they don’t hate) (source). he texted vernon with ‘don’t trust S’ (source) to sow more confusion and distrust. that done, the theory goes that if in part 5 wonwoo goes missing, seungcheol will be top suspect as he checks off a lot of the points (motivation to knock wonwoo off, chan vanished while alone with him, name starts with an S). (extended cr. Molly in the gc): if Jun and wonwoo had seen him it’s possible they were like “look it’s our missing friend! he looks like he’s in trouble. let’s go help him,” thus allowing him to knock off two at once.

Other theories:

whoever is behind it isn’t working alone, they have an accomplice among the group

This probably doesn’t relate to the au, but it’s cool: A reverse image search of the image from the first teaser pulls up this site which talks about a bunch of dead malls, and has some nice terminology (neither of the others have anything of real significance, although we might keep an eye on ‘boys be’ in the case of future cryptic notes, as it’s the photoshoot the second teaser comes from)

Welcome to a segment I like to call ‘How Sketch Are They’, where I list off the reasons they could or couldn’t be the one behind it

S.coups / Seungcheol (SC)

seungkwan said ‘don’t trust S’ (source)

was alone w chan when he disappeared (source, source)

had the motivation to knock wonwoo off (source)

Jeonghan (JH)

Joshua (JS)

suggested they split up (source)

semi sketchily says “you look so tired”, inviting someone to let their guard down and sleep (source)

Jun (JN)

reportedly was close to wonwoo (according to Josh, who’s seeming kinda sketch) (source)

was awake and alone with wonwoo when two people went missing at once (you’d think it would be hard to nab two people at once) (source)

had an emotional breakdown (although, the boy is an actor) (source)

Hoshi / Soonyoung (SY)

organized the trip (source)

the only one who’s been to the mall before (source)

'don’t trust S’ (sourced above)

Wonwoo (WW)

was alone w seungkwan when he disappeared (source)

went missing in part 5

reportedly close to Jun (according to Josh, who’s seeming kinda sketch)

was awake and alone with Jun when two people went missing at once (you’d think it would be too hard to nab two people at once)

Woozi / Jihoon (WZ)

went off alone and found the note (source) (we know this because he was in a group with Vernon and Vernon was one of the ones asking him what he found)

Dokyeom / Seokmin (SM)

seconded josh’s suggestion to split up (source)

‘don’t trust S’ (sourced above)

Mingyu (MG)

The8 / Minghao (MH)

Seungkwan (SK)

potentially could’ve faked his own disappearance and sent vernon the text to sow even more conflict among the group, but i don’t know a motive

Vernon / Hansol (VN)

was in Woozi’s group but didn’t freak when Woozi went off alone (source) although in later parts it’s clear that they told him they were going off (in the first place) and that’s why he was chill with it 

freaked when Seungkwan texted him and seemed confused (if he was the sole culprit he wouldn’t have bothered act, either he’s innocent or isn’t the only one) (source)

Dino / Chan (DN)

Who can’t be working together, if it’s a group job:

Soonyoung and Vernon (vernon pointed fingers at soonyoung) (source)

Seungkwan and Vernon (the texts sent after seungkwan’s disappearance) (source)

Seungcheol and Wonwoo (they’ve got some mad beef, and wonwoo wouldn’t go missing because after all their **very obvious** fighting they know that would incriminate cheol) (source)

[incarnateirony]

You didn't ship Destiel until S13!? That really took me by surprise! In that case, thank you for defending the ship even if you didn't ship it, that's really nice and your meta made it easier to deal with the antis. And welcome to the Destiel side of the force! :)

Yeah, several people -- @dotthings off the top of my head, I really don’t remember who else -- literally witnessed the screaming fall into the dumpster.

Again, I really don’t know if I still consider what I do ~shipping.~ I have no specific demands for how their relationship continues from here, I just acknowledge it within the work. The difference that hit in S13 was welcoming that content instead of guarding myself against it because we got slammed with several consecutive bookends that completed an entire romantic arc and punctuated it with a far more impacting mirror of an endgame that didn’t even have said romantic arc to begin with, in Swan Song, so like??? what am I supposed to do? Just ignore it? Act like I can’t understand what just happened in front of me?

To put some perspective, I’ve been running SPN games for... a while. My most recent one was on a discord server that’s niche, but my prior one was on a giant multifandom server. I covered for Cas to keep his power levels in check to the story balance without like, making the humans irrelevant. My Dean at the time was hardcore shipping trash. His name was Chris, he was a bisexual dude in Chile, psychologist, good dude. But like??? it deadass annoyed me? How up Cas’ ass his writing was? The shippers that came in actually kinda annoyed me with trying to matchmaker them in game??? Like. I saw it, but I guess it’s the old “That’s not what the show is about” (which unlike how fandom whips it around, doesn’t mean it can’t exist at all, it’s the obsessive tunnel visioned focus that pissed me off because it kept railroading scenes)

But despite that, during and before it, I was yeah, defending it. Just because I wasn’t an active ~shipper~ didn’t mean I was cool with people stomping on people for very reasonably seeing the stuff my last post mentioned. I just kinda kept myself from investing because I know this old media song and dance too well and didn’t expect it to break, say, S10 levels. And then 11 happened. And then 12. And then--

Because no matter what this fandom says, Castiel’s alien mystified staring at Dean, while great chemistry in old seasons, does not actually compare to things like frequent lunch dates, need and love yous, mixtapes, Eileen being Sam’s Cas in 15.09 and so on. In the actual, not-head-up-ass-about-old-rewritten-content-meta’ed-15-times-over often fused to really bad hot takes on what people call queer coding. But I could respect that, say, the ramifications of swapping Cas and Anna roles to keep Misha around while Julie was bouncing out and getting uncomfortable naturally landed Cas in the hero’s journey goddess role, ala princess Leia if you will, the distressing warrior nondamsel rebelling against the empire and whatnot. But that doesn’t start or end at star wars, that’s thousands of years of human writing.

So while yes, the show heavily stripped the actual content that would have traditionally structured it romantic, people like seeing that x their chemistry early on-- not crazy.

And I defended it for years /to my wife/ despite my server vexations. On this giant dozens-of-thousands-of-users multifandom server not connected to any core fandom spaces and hosting innumerable fandoms and walks of life, I was the oddball out -- me. As a nonshipper annoyed by the crowd, often having 20-30 people logged into my channel at a time playing everything from early Cain to Benny to TFW to Wayward to *throws dart at board* whatever, of the hundreds of names that drifted through the game in sum (including player rotations, OCs and audience that just came to watch/read like a fic), you know how many antis we had?

Three.

One was my wife. so removing her, two.

Do you know how many shippers there were? 

Yeah neither do I, just, “pretty much all of them.” a few hung in “see it, don’t care, moderately annoyed” like I did. But this idea that the GA is a bunch of het-guzzling bozos that can’t do the same basic math all of you fucking did before you got here, just because some other dead-ass irrelevant ship composed entirely on leftfield interpretations to validate niche fandom ships -- that shit’s so far fucking divorced from goddamn reality.

As for my wife, yes. She was an anti. In fact long before I wandered into fandom social media (I think I actually jumped in around S12 bc I saw Dabb taking over and Bobo getting promoted and was interested in Yockey-- Yockey was the first person I tweeted at), I was on these servers, running these games, having these ARGUMENTS with my wife to be quite honest, because like, look, I get it, Destiel fandom can be weird and needy and over the top but they’re not crazy for what they see out of it. By Carver era it was classic subtext.

But she had followed Winbros for years not realizing it’s literally run by the real world becky and her BFFs that have tasteful POVs like “Misha Collins is cancer” “Dabb is a disease” and whatever else on their personals that proxy through their posts and motivations. She attended it on Facebook, which is THE goddamn conservative magafarm asshole platform and yeah, read a lot of shitty arguments. Yes, she picked up sayings like “it ruins the show”. Yes, she hated it. No, that didn’t mean I felt anyone deserved more than mild frustration for their behaviors at the time just because they were stuck in fanfic-shipping-fiction-over-romanticised-land and not canon-divergent-show-genre-complex-interpersonal-relationships fiction. 

She, too, cracked about the same time I did. I was more receptive sure, I saw it more sure, but after a mix of addressing some personal problems, making an OC that completely changed how her perception filtered Dean and Castiel working together, whatever-- and yes, 12.19->13.5. The night of 13.5, the final shot, as the screen went dark, she stared over her phone and, with tonal distaste, said “Oh. So they’re going there.”

Yes, it’s that fucking obvious. No, she didn’t admit that’s what did her in. Not until the end of the season, when she admitted she had been bullshitting arguments since early season 13 because, literally, and I quote, “otherwise Min wins.” -- which, if that comes by way of my own wife, I can only stare into the fandom camera at other people that have turned this show into a decade long money sink and have been divorced from the actual canon path for like minimum 3 years, maybe 6, yelling about it being wrong all the time, etc. Because on the internet, people convince themselves they have ownership and power, that their opinion of what the piece should be overrides even the creators, et cetera. Yeah. There’s a lot of disingenuous horse shit.

TLDR my wife fell into the dumpster and, as the flag of the end of our weird spats, and a birthday present, I made her this, since she IDs as Dean (OLD vid, has hiccup issues newer ones don’t)

So, yup, dat me.

To this day I still don’t read fanfics or browse fanart or any of that. I’ve never cared about that face of the fandom. I’ve never cared about making up rando ships, I’ve never cared about exactly how any given relationship plays itself out, I just enjoy the ride and address it as it does indeed play out. Most shipping culture still pisses me the fuck off with its dialogue, as I’ve made very clear. But because I’m acknowledging the text instead of denying what keeps happening more centrally and critically every year on screen, I’d be called a shipper. Because I’m tired of watching people spew logic even most children could pick apart in an endless roundabout of negativity, because I have no tolerance for absolute horse shit and fandom whining so I just lay out counters to bad talking points, I’d be called a shipper.

But 13.5ish is when I finally let myself start emotionally receiving the content rather than barring it off in a distant wall of exhausted old gay that knows their media too well. Why? Because it already completed and went above and beyond every element of the original way they painted the original goddamn endgame and I guess because I won’t set unfair bars against queer relationships and set them at Extra Hard Difficulty, I’m a shipper. IDK. This fandom fucking exhausts me. Fandom culture in general exhausts me.

[mittensmorgul]

This was an odd episode lol?? I found myself just really detached from it. I mean i didn't dislike it, it was just kinda "there?"

Yeah, that’s kind of how Mr. Mittens felt. He enjoyed it, thought it was fun, picked up on a lot of the movie references (and heck he loves Leverage, so he appreciated the sort of inside-out Leverage episode feel to the whole episode), but so many of the references they were making were specifically to past canon, I definitely don’t expect that everyone noticed all those callbacks. Not all of them were as obvious as Dean’s Hell flashback...

And the narrative structure they’re leaning really heavily on this season involves the themes of things that look like other things, things pretending to be other things, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and only having HALF a story... while I’m personally reveling in it, I do get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. 

From what I’ve seen so far, the surface-level text is still presenting an entertaining story, and honestly not every episode is going to directly advance the mytharc, so yeah... 

But on a meta level, this episode’s structure brought the subtext of what a MotW episode *is* to the surface level... like the purpose of a MotW episode within the larger structure of the season’s overall narrative, that was metaphorically represented in the surface level story. 

So as a viewer, while I get it was a neat little caper episode, as a writer I’m just in awe...