#give her the abused girl power fantasy of going to her dad; seeing what a pathetic state he's in; and telling him she doesn't answer to him

[punkeropercyjackson]

The reduction of Stephanie Brown down to being just a white blonde girl needs to end.That was never all she was,even back in the Robin 1993 days-Did most of her charactet revolve around Tim at first?Yes but he was literally the protagonist and she was the love interest so it was necessary to make them a big part of eachother's lives to make their romance make sense and she gets more and more fleshed out as the run goes on and this extends to her 90s Yj guest starring,her Detective Comics issues and all the Batgirl runs up until to the point where SHE HERSELF became Batgirl because that's how much of her own character she was by then.You cannot seriously call yourself a Stephanie stan if you read all those years of her life and came to the conclusion that the only important part of her character is her having a 'desirable' hair color by white standards

Stephanie Brown has anger issues and violent tendencies and self-worth issues that she tries her best cope with through presenting herself as having unflincing self-confidence that eventually became real to an extent and the reason for all of this is that she grew up with an abusive dad and a drug addict mom yet she was brave and capable enough to stand up to him by becoming a vigilante at 15 without even having powers or special training and ended up being one of the best Gotham's ever seen anyway.She loves all kinds of food,anything and everything purple and girly,weird things,sports,video games,causing chaos and art.She's a shameless flirt but that dosen't mean she goes for just anyone because she has standards for herself and she refuses to give up on anyone but especially herself even if she wants to sometimes and she got murdered as Robin but Gotham ressurected her because it believed in HER too(Idc about the 'was just in Africa' shit DC tried to pull,that's what actually makes sense with the actual lore)and she's so kind to kids that it blurrs the line between big sister figure and pseudo-mom

And yet nonstop,the Batfam fandom can't look past her hair color-It's always 'the blonde Robin' instead of the girl one,making her listen to fucking Taylor Swift as if she's a not huge feminist both in-universe and in a meta sense,calling her an 'It Girl' and 'Preppy' as if she wasn't either a normal student or a troubled kid depending on the writer and sometimes even both and weird as fuck in literally all her incarnations,reducing Tim's pure and well-intended love for her down to her being conventially attractive and even Cass can't escape it because white wlw can't understand that Stephanie and her are canonically equals on every level so they see her as nothing but Stephanie's woc cheerleader gf who has no existense outside of her

Steph's not written like a soulless Barbie doll with no personality or arcs outside of being a girl,she's multilayered and written like a PERSON.You guys are straight up somehow even more misogynistic to her than DC is and i am NOT going to keep my mouth shut while y'all call removing her entire character to make her a cishet gender stereotyped fantasy 'girlbossing' and especially not canon.This is why i give her black hair and brown eyes in my blasian design for her even though it makes her less recognizable because not only do i want her to actually look like me since half the reason i have that hc for her is that i'm black mixed and she's so much like me in so many ways but also because y'all's obsession with acting like blondeness is a personality trait is weird,gross and deeply unserious.Aaaaaand end rant

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading updates: october 2023

hi everybody!!! things (by which I mean everything) have been a little bit hectic lately (by which I mean it feels like everything is one fire 100% of the time), which I guess explains why I'm late posting this AND why I only finished four books in all of October.

I would be very sad about this if the number of books I read had any correlation to my value as a person, but luckily it doesn't! so I don't give a shit, I am literally just vibing and trying to have a good time reading my silly little stories. here's a book report about it.

what I've been reading:

The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison, 2014) - okay, so picture this: you're the fucking elf king's least favorite son. you're not a bastard, but he didn't love your mom and after she died he basically banished you to a miserable little estate in bumfuck nowhere with no one but your abusive older cousin for company. probably he was going to leave you out there forever and hope that you would die quietly so no one would ever have to remember you existed. (un)fortunately, your shitty dad and all of his male heirs just died in a blimp accident and now you're the emperor. GOOD LUCK. this book is political fantasy of the highest order, with loads of machinations and intrigue and chewy worldbuilding interspersed with genuinely sweet moments between characters as one very good boy befriends his way to power. blah blah empires are inherently evil, obviously yes but this is a made up empire with 0 real consequences and Maia is my little dude. the only way I could love him more would be if he'd just nutted up and kissed his boy secretary on the mouth.

Happy Hour (Marlowe Granados, 2020) - I kept seeing this book enthusiastically as kind of a light fizzy funtime celebrating being young and free and running around New York City with no plans, and man... that was not my experience! Isa and Gala are maybe the most stressful girls I've ever encountered in fiction: perpetually broke and hungry, absolutely lacking in direction or ambition, always ricocheting listlessly from one situation to another in search of a good time and mostly only discovering disappointment, I need these girlies to get their lives together for my sake as a reader. there's one scene in particular where Isa is crashing with some disgustingly wealthy friends at the beach and keeps getting callously dismissed while sweating profusely and trying to figure out how she's going to convince them to keep paying for her food and it was so visceral that I developed a second, worse anxiety disorder because of it. Granados' writing is stylish, to be sure, but drama was not worth it for me.

The Magpie Lord (KJ Charles, 2013) - this historical fantasy romance is quick, dynamic, and horny. I can't actually say that I'm particularly charmed by the quality of the writing, which is there to hurtle you at warp speed between scenes of homoeroticism and bald exposition about magic, but I do admire Charles' panache. the book opens on a rather gruesome scene of our protagonist, Lord Crane, attempting to slit his own wrist; it quickly becomes clear that this isn't because he's genuinely suicidal, but because he's been cursed by persons unknown in an attempt to drive him to ruin. enter Stephen Day, a magic practitioner who hated Crane's deceased father and brother but is determined to help him all the same. some plot happens, but also a lot of flirting and (spoilers) sex that comes with an actual power-up for Stephen due to the wonders of blood magic. a pulpy good-time all around, and short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

The Fervor (Alma Katsu, 2022) - The Fervor is a historical horror with a tantalizing premise: in the 1940s, Japanese demons begin to manifest inside of an Idaho internment camp for Japanese-Americans, adding a swirl of the supernatural to a situation that's already rife with mundane horrors. the actual execution is... lacking. Katsu's prose is blunt at best; when I call it "unsubtle" I don't mean the way some racist might mean when they inevitably go on a ramble about how Katsu beats her readers over the head with how racism is bad. racism is bad, duh, and it's hardly unrealistic to emphasize the fear and hatred that dogged the lives of Japanese-Americans during WW2. when I say this book is unsubtle I mean Katsu approaches each chapter like her readers have maybe forgotten everything they read leading up to that moment; you will be reminded frequently of characters' names, relationships, and straightforward motivations. and yet, somehow, the actual plot is still pretty murky. much is hinted at in the protagonist's past in Japan, then never actually elucidated, a main POV character falls clean out of the plot without resolution just before the climax, I still don't know what was up with those goddamn demon spiders. disappointing!

there was also one very specific, GLARING thing in the ending of The Fervor that I did not care for in the slightest, but that's tucked away on my Patreon in the monthly hater post. pay me if you want to hear about some CRAZY copaganda!

[mostly-mundane-atla]

"So my headcanon of what happened with azula post series finale--"

Bro if it doesn't involve cutting her hair, cautious and unsure at first but that gradually melts away into a daze of otherworldly euphoria because she is no longer perfect, no longer beholden, and has finally realized after too long she never should have felt she had to be, i don't care. I'm already snoring. Tears of relief and joy that the shackles of painful and genuinely shameful legacy no longer drag her down or bind her to unfair expectations as she beholds the shorn scalp in the reflection or don't even bother

[panlight]

i think one of meyer's biggest problems (i mean aside from the obvious) is that to her, the characters in her book that aren't bella and edward are just set dressing. she doesn't understand that anybody could see esme, for example, as a tragic character whose human life was defined by loss and abuse, because to her, she's just a plot device. she's The Mom, full-stop. jacob's imprinting doesn't register as horrifying because renesbait is the perfect daughter who deserves the perfect happy ending (a doting husband and probably kids), and jacob is just perfect for her! he's big and strong and loyal, and he won't age and die on her! she doesn't seem to get that people could see these characters as anything other than vehicles for bella and edward's story (and renesbait's, down the line). she has exactly one (1) story that she wants to tell, and anything else is just flavor text.

though to be fair, this started as her personal fantasy. when she got a book deal, she then had to go and beef up the story, which i think is where a lot of the worst stuff comes from.

Yeah, pretty much this.

And this is why romance novels and rom-coms that focus on just one couple (vs an ensemble like Love Actually or something), usually have a pretty limited cast because, who cares? The point is the relationship between the two leads, you don't really need or want anything else. Maybe a quirky or sassy friend (Alice) and a rival (Jacob) or some sort of inconvenient girlfriend/fiancee/ex (sort of Tanya? but not really) and that's all you really need. Family might exist for funny meeting-the-parents scenes but you don't need a backstory on the parents. You don't need a backstory on the quirky friend.

But after she invented Edward, she said she couldn't imagine him without a family. He MUST have a sister like Alice. But that's not enough. SM is from a big family, Edward deserves a big family, so then she invents all these other characters to be The Mom and The Father Figure/Mentor, then The Big Brother. Then oops, Quirky Sister and Big Brother need romantic partners, so here comes Mean Sister and The Vampire-y One. And now you have this huge cast with thinly sketched (but interesting!!!) histories that she doesn't plan to actually DO much of anything with, they just exist to be The Family. None of them have a story arc of their own. I mean I guess there's sort of "Rosalie learns to like Bella" but that's still Bella-centric and is more about Bella's fantasy of a perfect forever family. Does Jasper improve his control? Is Alice vicariously living through Bella's human experiences meaningful? Does Carlisle successfully convince others to try vegetarianism? Who knows, who cares, not the point.

And then she just keeps adding more characters! The cast of the Twilight novels is huge; it's like a Harry Potter universe of characters when the storyline is a pretty insular romance. She invents all these fascinating characters who can turn into wolves and then again, doesn't follow through with anything. Does Leah find peace? Do she and Emily mend their friendship? Who is Embry's father? Doesn't matter. Not relevant to Bella's story.

There's the Volturi, who at first to seem to be about world building and lore, but then they just sit on there thrones so much they've started to petrify. They literally don't do anything! And again, to tell this story you maybe need like one leader and one scary weaponized vamp, but we get THREE leaders and a whole bunch of named vampires with different powers who again, never really get to do much of anything. What's the point of the history between Amun and Demetri when it's never mentioned at all?

Then all the visiting vampires. She obviously LOVES Garrett and Benjamin, you can just feel the "aren't these characters SO COOL?!" pulsing through the page. But other than Garrett's big speech [which feels weird because we only just met this guy. Usually a character who had been there since the beginning would have this moment, a moment that we had been building up to for four books. Maybe Carlisle gets to make his final plea for vegetarianism. Maybe Esme, always quiet, always on the sidelines, steps forward and surprises everyone with her defense of her family and their way of life. Maybe Jasper, the one who wasn't totally sold on this diet, who wouldn't have tried it at all if not for his gift basically forcing him to, gives an impassioned speech from the POV of a former human-blood-drinker that appeals to the other vampires better than any of the veggie-from-the-start Cullens could. But no, it's Garrett, whom we met like 50? 100? pages ago, but since we're told he's a Revolutionary, and a Patriot, that's all the weight we need], none of them really matter or do anything. Benjamin could have left Amun in the end and that would have been something, but, no. It's still Bella's shield that gets all the credit for saving the day. It's still her story and her fantasy. And that's fine! Certainly there are plenty of male-centered power fantasies where some average guy turns out to be the chosen one and better at something than the people who have trained for it for years and gets love and power in the end.

It's just weird that the story she wanted to tell was pretty much just Bella and Edward Fall in Love and Get Married and Bella is the Best Vampire and yet she invented all these other characters without giving them any larger purpose. They have backstories that SEEM relevant but never go anywhere. Esme having met Carlisle when she was a human teen never comes up. Carlisle's mother dying in childbirth is never mentioned during the debates over Bella's pregnancy. Emily's scars are clearly supposed to be a warning about the dangers of being involved with supernatural beings, but it's a warning Bella ignores (and that's not even getting into using the suffering of an Indigenous character to teach a white girl a lesson). Leah's dad only died so Edward could be confused about 'the funeral' and think it was Bella's; it's never really brought up otherwise. There's no reason the rest of the pack has to be so crappy to her, it doesn't go anywhere. How much would the main story really change if Edward were the only vampire and Jacob the only wolf? Sure, some plot beats would be different without Alice to predict things, or without the tension between the Sam and Jacob factions in BD, but overall you could tell basically the same story without literally everyone else.

[oskarwing]

I really wanna talk about the parent child relationships in Midnight Mass

I’m not sure if I’m good at writing this sorta Meta but here goes nothing. Very many spoilers follow.

Let’s start with the adults: 

First we have Erin who suffered so much at the hands of her mother and later because of her mother’s abuse. We don’t get much detailed info on Peggy Greene but from what we can gather she was a lot like Beverly Keane, who seemed to idolize her (though that probably got easier for her after Peggy was gone), in her self-righteous over-pious manner. She just happened to be Beverly with an alcohol problem and a daughter who she could take all her anger at life for not working out her way for God loving her just the same as everybody else out. The dove scene is really such a good scene. But Erin was stronger than her mother, stronger than the abuse that was about to repeat itself and when she found out that she would have a child of her own she left and tried her best to give her kid a better life than the one she had. And she found the strength I think with the help of the same God her mother most likely used as legitimation for her abuse (don’t get me wrong I believe it was Erin’s own strength but she also clearly found something in religion that helped her gather it) and it helped her to carve out a path for herself and her unborn child.  

Sarah’s relationship to her parents is such an interesting one because we get to see the end of it. The man who she believed to be her father has been dead for a long while and her mother is suffering through the late stages of dementia. And Sarah showed up for it. As a doctor she most likely knew what would be happening as soon as Mildred started to show the first symptombs but she wasn’t going to leave her mother. That kind of care for an elderly parent shows something that is proven in Mildred’s character time and time again: She is a very devoted parent and the love between mother and daughter flows both ways in every scene they are in together, after the birth of her daughter her world turned around Sarah and she loved her with all she had. There are a few scenes that show that Mildred’s understanding of the duty she felt towards her family came from the old values of her time. She wouldn’t have taken off with John and their child not for a lack of love but because in those times, in catholism still at least where I’m from, you can’t just marry a priest. You can’t just have a child with a priest eventhough you’re married and then fuck off with him. As a woman, as a wife and mother you have to stand with your husband, stand with your child and you have to stop running after fantasies I’m sure Mildred had. I’m saying this all from her perspective btw, I don’t necessarily think running away with John, in the way he wished to, would have been good for Sarah but honesty might have been and her old fashioned values were also what kept her from being truly honest with her daughter.  To John on the other hand Sarah is a fantasy, a dream he couldn’t reach. His daughter, his baby, so close and yet so far away getting to watch her grow into an adult but never being able to really be her father as in her Dad instead of her priest. And it’s painful to him, he clearly loved Mildred, loved Sarah but he was also kinda selfish in his love that in the end took Sarah away. At first he isolated his child by starring at her giving her the creeps and the feeling that she had done something wrong that he knew she was gay and dissaproved and then he took it upon himself to ‘cure’ Mildred in the same way he was. Sarah wanted to take care of her mother wanted to be there for her in those final months and John decided it was up to him to give Mildred a youth potion to make it so she’d never die. And with that he took away from Sarah what is without doubt a hard but for many people a very important last part of the relationship between child and parent. John was a complicated man and would maybe have been a great Dad he certainly showed a lot of fatherly love for his altar boys but he couldn’t have the family in the way he fantasized about and in the end it was that fantasy that made him act the way he did.   

Riley Flynn causes his parents a lot of pain. Him killing that girl in the beginning, his alcoholism, him simply not liking the place, the home they build for themselves through hard work causes the Annie and Ed so much pain and financial loss and you can see how tired they are, how much guilt they feel for failing their son. Ed calls out his own guilt and says that he doesn’t belive it could be Annie’s fault because ‘your mother’s a saint’ but what I truly love about Annie and Ed Flynn is that they both aren’t saints. As a mother Annie is very much overprotective and suffocating, wanting to keep her children on crocket island and hating the notion that they might leave her, even though she is kind and sweet and loving. And while Ed seems rather checked out as a father but he is the more honest parent, never talking down to Riley and telling him as it is, telling him about the pain he caused him while also admitting to the guilt he feels. The Flynns are flawed people even in their religious practice (I think the way Annie speaks about Ali showing up at church when Hassan seemed to be nothing but nice to her spoke very loudly to the fact that Annie is rather misguided sometimes) but they are good people at the core of it and their parenting might have been part of Riley’s way into alcoholism but it wasn’t only them. There were things they couldn’t change and things they had no influence over like his heart being broken by Erin running away, the sort of people he went out on parties with and so many other things...  Yes, they may have shaped their son in a way that made him vulnerable to addiction and the party scene of the stock and tech market and brought him to the point where he killed a child but it doesn’t happen through parenting alone and they also shaped him in the good ways. Him not losing himself when Pruitt changes him, him being brave enough to warn Erin, him standing up for what he believes in those things were also shaped by Ed and Annie. They are one of the best example of flawed but good hearted Christians I have seen in recent media and their portrayal was one of the most heartbreaking ones. 

Now the kids: 

Let’s start with Leeza. Little Leeza Scarborough who before it comes to her wonder gets treated with pity and overprotectiveness from her parents and the island community at large. Leeza was injured by Joe Collie transforming him into the island’s villain and her into the ever present victim.  What happened to her is without a doubt horrible and I understand why Wade and Dolly started to become these overprotective parents, why they were so easily sucked in to John’s and Bev’s scheme. Their little girl was almost taken from them eventhough Wade is the mayor, one of the most powerful people on the island he had no influence over what happened to Leeza even was the one who took her out that day and what followed the accident was as we can gather from their conversation with Sarah a lot of pain and financial burden though they say they would have done it all over for Leeza. In fact a lot of places in crockett island are wheelchair accesible and I am sure that Wade as mayor made it so (I can’t really imagine that a small place like the island was very inclusive though I may be wrong).  After Leeza is healed they don’t want to question in don’t want to think about what might have been the cause for it. In fact they stop questioning anything after that point, after Leeza walks again they are completely vulnerable to Bev’s manipulation and them letting that happen, them just going along with everything, Wade protecting John after he kills Joe long after Leeza forgave him and with her forgiveness send Joe on a better path is what in the end makes them lose her. Because Leeza isn’t that little victim who needs pity and help, she is a strong minded, strong willed young woman with a lot of wit who similar to Erin finds strength in her faith but in a way that isn’t devotion without question and when the Easter vigil is held she doesn’t follow her parents eventhough she loves them deeply. She forgives them I think, because that’s what Leeza’s character is about in it’s core but her parents were two of the instigators behind what happened on the island, without Wade’s protection John and Bev couldn’t have come as far as they did and they put their trust in them because they loved their daughter so much they didn’t stop to question if maybe what made Leeza walk again was also a bad thing. 

Ali and Hassan don’t have it easy and I as a white person really can’t speak much on the racism and religious discrimination they face.  I can say this I think: The first line spoken about Ali before we even really get to look at him is “You didn’t invite Aladin” and already sets us up for what both of them know: They are the outsiders. Not only because they just moved to the island but also because in their faith they are different from their peers and religion can often be a community building event for people before it is anything else. Ali starts balming his father a little for that, for not trying to fit in more with the community, for moving after his mother’s death and then not trying to be closer to the people around them and for the pain all the pain the two of them went through before Crockett island. It isn’t oly peer pressure though of course that brings Ali to St Patrick’s. Sure, Ali wanted to be part of the community but also desperately wanted to believe that there was a devine power who could if he just did it (it meaning faith) the right way he might find a way to avoid the pain of his parents. Hassan knew that and he warned him that that wasn’t how it worked. Hassan was a protective Dad and maybe he overdid it from time to time but his worries were never without reason, his need to keep his son safe from a world that hated him for a crime that happened when he wasn’t even born yet never unfounded and him wanting to make sure his kid kept the memory of his mother alive never anything but the wish of a griefing man and loving father. In the end when they pray together there is peace in them. They face their ends with the dignity Ali’s mother would have wished for and they face it as father and son. While Beverly the true religious terrorist of the story burns away without it. 

Warren is the youngest Flynn and it is never directly stated yet omnipresent that his coming of age happens in the shadow of his older brother’s mistake.  Annie warns him away from drinking when he goes out he in fact doesn’t drink. He never drinks because of what his brother did.  Warren would have been 12 when Riley killed that girl and so he would have seen and felt what his brother’s actions did to his parents fully without being yet old enough to maybe see the nuance.  Annie and Ed probably try to right the wrong they believe to have done in parenting Riley with Warren and that’s a lot for a kid. I do think it’s pretty usual that parents of multiple children especially when there’s a larger age gap try to do better with the younger children, but that isn’t fair is it?  Warren is his own person not a second chance to do it over.  And yet seemingly he does what is asked of him. He’s alter boy, he’s charming and helpful and sweet, he doesn’t drink (even when he does smoke pot) and he helps his father where he can with his work.  But in the end he feels guilty because he thinks he wasn’t enough and says at that last dinner he would have been different if he had known he wouldn’t see his family again. But Leeza is right they know and they love him and Warren deserved to not be perfect all the time. 

Littlefoot saved Erin and Erin payed her back with all the love she had. She was never born but she gave her mother the strength and willpower to leave.  In her speech to Joe Leeza said he reached through time and took things from her she didn’t even know she had yet.When Erin left her husband she reached through time and saved Littlefoot from a childhood like hers and when John gave Erin the angel’s vampire’s blood he reached through time and took away her child, a child who would have been loved and cared for. A child with an amazing mother and probably a great step-dad.  Littlefoot’s story is tragic because she never got one. 

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

This Sarah Everard case is so terrifying for women. But not only am I terrified - I am furious.

⚠️ tw for mentions of r*pe, sexual assault, violence against women, murder etc. ⚠️

She was just walking, including walking by busy roads and not dark alleyways. She was dressed in winter clothes. Even if she HAD walked down a dark alleyway or been wearing something short or “revealing”, she still wasn’t doing anything wrong - she was just walking somewhere.

Her murderer - a police officer named Wayne Couzens - plotted to murder a woman to live out his perverse fantasy. He didn’t plot to kill a specific woman - he knew he would murder a woman, any woman he thought he could abduct, any woman who would be out at night on her own. Sarah was just there.

Not only did he drive miles and hours to kill a woman, not only was he a police officer… he used his badge, police belt, handcuffs and credentials to fake arrest her to get her into his car. If a police officer tells you to go with them, we’re told to not resist, to be obedient or we will be in even more trouble. Even if she HAD done what the MET have just said women should do - “question non uniformed officers!” - it wouldn’t have helped her because he was a police officer. He had the credentials. Why would she run away and resist a police officer? And if women do resist, the police commit violence against them (like at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah).

He handcuffed her, drove her for hours, then raped and murdered her. This fucking monster strangled her with his fucking police belt. He burnt her body and disposed of her in a pond.

A police officer did this - a fucking police officer, a MET officer, the MET we’re supposed to trust. And you want women to trust them?!!

And I don’t want to hear that “don’t judge the whole profession based on one bad apple”, because guess what? This is not the first time a police officer has harmed a woman. There is misogyny rooted deep in the MET that needs to be addressed. Wayne Couzens was literally nicknamed “The Rapist” by other police officers and had offended in the past by flashing people, and that’s just what we know of - and yet not a single person did anything. The police joked about it. Several officers gave character references supportive of Couzens during the hearings for his sentencing, and female officers told the press that they did not feel as if they could report concerning behaviour by male colleagues.

It’s thought that at LEAST 15 serving or former police officers have killed women in UK since 2009, and HUNDREDS of UK police officers have convictions for crimes, including assault. There are many cases that do not go reported, and so it’s likely the numbers on both counts are actually higher. Why are they still allowed to serve? Why is our government giving them more power and freedom to arrest whoever they please? “It’s not that many” - IT SHOULD NOT BE ANY.

If you can’t see why there’s a huge problem with our police force and why we say “fuck the police”, you’re part of the problem.

And the fear and anger we feel isn’t new - this has been a problem for literally all of our lives.

At 11, I learnt to come home before dark, and if it was dark in the winter on my way home (meaning: every night in winter), I was taught to not go down any dark lanes, and if I was walking the dark lane I had to go down if I got the bus home, I was to walk as fast as I could and to not have earphones in because i wouldn’t hear attackers. Every day from September 2009 to July 2014, coming home from secondary school, I was told to either wait for my dad or grandad to pick me up or to walk down the busiest road that ran near my house and had constant cars on it. I couldn’t take the shortcut down the public footpath on my way home from sixth form college because it was too dark and isolated - I had to go around it and through the village instead, which took more time but was vaguely safer. Since university, I’ve made a point of waiting for the hourly bus that stops just round the corner from my home and on the busiest road, even though I have to wait up to an hour for it usually, because getting the bus that comes every 15 minutes means walking up the dark quiet lane.

At age 13, I learnt not to talk to even very friendly men, even not in broad daylight, even with a female friend, when some old man approached us and started complimenting us, telling us we had “nice smiles” and “I can hook you up with someone who can help you get into acting” and “here’s £10, you go down to the garage down the road and get whatever you girls want”.

At 14, I learnt not to sit in trees in the park by the gate, not even during the day when it’s sunny, when an old man entered the park, took one look at me, and said “you’ve got a nice arse”. I couldn’t prove he had said anything, and I would see him on my way to school sometimes and panic.

At 19, I learnt that I could not trust friendly men online. Apologies to any decent men I have spoken to online - there’s a few who are nice and not weird, I’m not talking about them. I learnt this when a guy I was speaking to on my old blog - who had for weeks just been generally nice and checking in on me - started to send intimate and sexual messages that started with “*hugs you*” and became “*spanks your ass*”, “takes your clothes off”, “f*cks you hard”, just to name a few (and these were the milder ones). When I asked his age, he merely said “older” than me - “more than twice as old as you”, actually. I learnt to not talk to men online, and if I did then I had to set very clear boundaries in a way that wasn’t too obvious - not say it outright but make it clear I am “unavailable”.

I have to carry a rape alarm on my keys, just in case. I could go out to bars if I wanted to, I could have at university when all my peers were - but doing it meant risking the chance of being harmed while intoxicated or on my way home. I have to send my location to my mother if I get any Ubers, if I go out to theatres or cinemas in the evening I have to text my mum to say I’ve arrived safe. I only feel safe out at night if I’m with a man that I trust like my dad or grandad - I got very lucky at Uni because not only did one girl make sure I got home safely at 1 in the morning by calling me a cab, but one boy even stayed with me on another night until my dad arrived to pick me up, because he knew leaving me intoxicated at 2:30 in the morning was dangerous. I have even phoned my grandmother while walking home in the dark because being on the phone to someone means you’re less of a target to an attacker.

Men do not have this experience - or, if they do, it’s nowhere near the fear and worry women feel every day. Women can’t even walk somewhere without being worried of being attacked - we cannot go anywhere without asking ourselves “am I safe?”. Are we wearing the “correct” clothing, so as to not give off the wrong idea? Are we walking down the well lit roads where it’s busy? Are we aware of our surroundings, of every single person nearby? Do I have my keys in my hand, ready to defend myself if I’m attacked? Women are blamed if we are attacked - not men, but women. “She was dressed slutty” “she was passed out drunk” “she was walking down a dark lane” “she was out late”.

When doing safe guarding training at my current TA job, I came across this phrase: “always think it can and will happen”. Just as a teacher or TA should not think “none of my students will be victims of abuse”, women should not for one second believe that they are safe and “it will never happen to me” - every day we have to think of how to prevent our own assault or murder, just in case.

Every time I’m walking home in the dark, I have the fleeting wonder of “what picture(s) of me will they use if I’m attacked or go missing?”. I was not really surprised when I saw that other women said the same thing. Women wonder it so often it’s almost a joke, an absent minded thought. But it’s not a joke - it’s real life for us, every single day.

Sarah Everard is not a one off case. Sabina Nessa, a 28 year old primary school teacher, was murdered on 18th September this year, her body discovered the next day by a dog walker. So far in 2021, 110 women have been murdered in the UK by men (or men are the prime suspects). Only a handful get national attention because at this point, violence and murder against women have become normalised in this country.

I am not only heartbroken for all of these women and their families - I am scared for my own safety; I am scared for the safety of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I am scared for the safety of my 20 year old sister, the safety of my 17 and 14 year old cousins, for the safety of my older male cousin’s two daughters who are only 4 and 1. I am scared for the safety of every single girl and woman I have worked with, the safety of every woman I have ever spoken to.

But I am also furious and filled with rage. Women should not be scared to go out or have fun, we should not have to take such precautions or measures that still won’t completely prevent our assaults or murders. I am sick and tired of the victim blaming when a woman is murdered, of the indifference of “oh another woman”, of this being how women are expected to live their lives.

I’m tired of this problem being ignored by our government, tired of no one giving a shit about us or our safety.

[shprka]

So I broke down the Video Store Fridays list into categories and thought I'll explain my reasoning when it comes some of them, and especially the characters

Here's Eleven to start with!

- The Book of Henry

(SYNOPSIS: With instructions from her genius son's carefully crafted notebook, a single mother sets out to rescue a young girl from the hands of her abusive stepfather.)

It's the biggest title on the board with several exclamation marks so it's obviously important, possibly the most important film reference for s4 and who else fits the description of "a young girl from the hands of her abusive stepfather" as well as El does

- Pan's Labyrinth

(SYNOPSIS: In the Falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world. She must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.)

Another step-father giving Dr. Brenner vibes. Also some ppl have the theory that El made up the Upside Down, or that it's her reflection of sorts, a place she can travel or escape to. Also one of the most important movies I feel because it's a fairy tale world but with a dark twist which The Duffers like to do

- Labyrinth

(SYNOPSIS: Sixteen-year-old Sarah is given thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother Toby when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King Jareth.)

Another girl, another trial, another imaginary world. She has to go on trails, travel to this magical world to discover her identity. Identity is a big thing with El in season 4 and the movies below prove that

- Carrie

(SYNOPSIS: Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.)

I feel Carrie is always at the back of The Duffer's minds when it comes to El bc it's Stephen King and she also has telekinesis. Also we know El is bullied at school.

- Inside Out

(SYNOPSIS: After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school)

Pretty self-explanatory. El has a hard time adjusting to her new life in California

- Karate Kid

(SYNOPSIS: Teenager Daniel LaRusso is bullied by Johnny Lawrence, who is adept at martial arts. In order to defend himself, he tries to learn karate from Mr Miyagi, his apartment's kind handyman.)

It deals with bullying and self-defense and having a mentor. That's a speculation on my part but Eleven might find a mentor this season in terms of her powers. Someone who might be able to teach her how to get her powers back perhaps. Or she's gonna learn karate and kick the MF ass

- Kingsman

(SYNOPSIS: A spy organisation recruits a promising street kid into the agency's training program, while a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.)

Another struggling kid with an abusive dad who gets a mentor and his life changes for the better. Could be about El

- Little Miss Sunshine

(SYNOPSIS: A family decide to travel across the country when their daughter wants to participate in a beauty pageant, unaware of what the journey has in store for the)

Haven't seen that film but it has another young girl as a protagonist, a road trip and a road to self discovery

- Little Women 1994

(SYNOPSIS: After their father leaves to fight in the Union Army, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, the four March sisters, and their mother, struggle to live in a 19th century America amidst the Civil War.)

It's giving me Hopper is gone now so Joyce and El have to live without him and support each other and grow. It has Winnona in it so I think it may be about Joyce and El

- Peter Pan

I feel like El is both Peter Pan who knows, lives in and travels, and refuses to leave, the Neverland (Upside Down) and Wendy who has travelled there but ultimately decides to leave and grow up through a road of self-discovery. Another thing that's interesting is that in the 2003 movie Jason Isaacs played both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook so again we have this Dr. Brenner-y interlocking theme of father and villain

- Step Up 2

(SYNOPSIS: Orphaned teenager Andie lives with her mother's best friend, Sarah, and does not care much about school. In an attempt to figure out where she fits, she discovers that her passion lies in dancing.)

El discovers that her passion lies in dancing... lol. But no, there's more self-discovery for a girl with a troubled background

- Stoker

(SYNOPSIS: After the untimely death of her father, India and her mother are left alone in their estate. Soon, the arrival of her uncle Charlie, who she never knew existed, is followed by unexpected developments.)

Death of a father, troubled female protagonist trying to figure herself out, discovering she's not as good of a girl as she thought

- Tangled

An abused girl with magi powers breaking away from her tower/prison and going on adventures and discovering who she is outside of her past. Evil step mom trope, again very Dr. Brenner-y

- Terminator Dark Fate

(SYNOPSIS: An augmented human and Sarah Connor must stop an advanced liquid Terminator from hunting down a young girl, whose fate is critical to the human race.)

A young girl, whose fate is critical to the human race? Well...

- The Wizard of Oz

Magical land of Oz and a young girl who travels there hmm

- Willow

(SYNOPSIS: Willow, a farmer, is entrusted with the task of delivering Elora, a princess who is destined to defeat the evil Queen Bavmorda, to the humans to keep her safe.)

At this point if there's a special young girl who can save the world/defeat great evil then it's about El

- Welcome to the Dollhouse

(SYNOPSIS: Middle-school student Dawn Weiner faces degradation at school -- where she is teased constantly -- and at home. The middle child between nerdy older brother Mark and perky younger sister Missy.)

Bullying, struggling with school and insecurities, and being a weird girl. Hello, El

- Return of thr Jedi

(SYNOPSIS: Luke Skywalker attempts to bring his father back to the light side of the Force. At the same time, the rebels hatch a plan to destroy the second Death Star.)

I don't remember anything from this film but the synopsis says it's about Luke and his evil dad which is very Dr. Brenner-y if you ask me. Also El and Luke have powers and are chosen ones so it fits

- Empire strikes back

(SYNOPSIS: Darth Vader is adamant about turning Luke Skywalker to the dark side. Master Yoda trains Luke to become a Jedi Knight while his friends try to fend off the Imperial fleet.)

Again, bad dads who want to turn you evil, don't we all know it. Also Luke training under Yoda. The mentor trope is strong with this one

- The Orphan

(SYNOPSIS: After losing their baby, a couple adopt a nine-year-old girl. However, they soon make a troubling discovery about her mysterious past and uncover several traits of her disturbing personality.)

Haven't seen the film but the synopsis is pretty self-explanatory. I firmly believe it's a reference to El

- Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors

(SYNOPSIS: The victims, who survive the attack of the dangerous killer Freddy Krueger, learn to control their dreams in an attempt to fight back.)

Victims of the MF vibes. I wonder if that's how they're gonna fight back against it? That they so gain some sort of shared powers? Is it the sort of mind walking we saw El do before? Hmm

- Long kiss goodnight

(SYNOPSIS: Samantha Caine suffers from amnesia. Her mysterious past begins to haunt her, which sets her off on a search to discover her true identity.)

Self discovery and identity!!

- Let the right one in

(SYNOPSIS: Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.)

Haven't seen the film but a special girl named Eli??

- Girl interrupted

(SYNOPSIS: A directionless teenager, Susanna, is rushed to Claymoore, a mental institution, after a supposed suicide attempt. There, she befriends a group of troubled women who deeply influence her life.)

Another Winnona movie! Which makes me think it's about El. Finding weird friends? Idk. Finding herself? It seems like

- Edward Scissorhands

(SYNOPSIS: Edward, a synthetic man with scissor hands, is taken in by Peg, a kindly Avon lady, after the passing of his inventor. Things take a turn for the worse when he is blamed for a crime he did not commit.)

Another Winnona movie. Another dead dad (Brenner and Hopper), another orphan taken by a kind lady. Edaward is a special boy so is El

- The Craft

(SYNOPSIS: A new student befriends three teenage girls from her high school who practise witchcraft against those who irk them. However, the consequences of joining the coven turn out to be disastrous.)

Magic, a new girl at school and bullying? El vibes

- Amelie

(SYNOPSIS: Despite being caught in her imaginative world, Amelie, a young waitress, decides to help people find happiness. Her quest to spread joy leads her on a journey where she finds true love.)

Amelie is a special girl who is defined by her imagination. She sees the world how she wants to see it. And she has a lot of things in common with El in that aspect

- Daryl (Movie in theatres at the mall in s3)

(SYNOPSIS: Daryl is a normal 10-year-old boy in many ways. However, unbeknown to his foster parents and friends, Daryl is actually a government-created robot with superhuman reflexes and mental abilities. Even his name has a hidden meaning -- it's actually an acronym.)

Well... foster parents again, a kid that is not what they seem, an government experiment with a unique name relating to their purpose

- Return to Oz (Movie in theatres at the mall in s3)

(SYNOPSIS: Back in Kansas, Dorothy is rescued from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl. Soon, she finds herself back in Oz to fight a vain witch and an evil king intent on destroying the land.)

Psychiatric experiment hmm. And aspecial girl who has to go back to the magical land to defeat a great evil that wants to destroy the world. Maybe we'll see El actually going to the Upside Down

- Firestarter (movie advertised in the Video Store)

(SYNOPSIS: A couple who participated in a potent medical experiment gain telepathic ability and then have a child who is pyrokinetic.)

Parent(s) who participated in an experiment. Having a child who has abilities. And bad guys chasing her, wanting to explore them

- Fifth Element

(SYNOPSIS: Korben Dallas, a cab driver, tries to secure four mystical stones and a mysterious fifth element that alone can defeat a cosmic evil force during an apocalyptic war.)

Leeloo is another special girl, a part of experiment and on a journey to defeat evil.

CONCLUSION:

I don't think it's a big revelation but El will definitely take this season to discover herself, who she is in the "normal" world and deal with normal teen problems, like bullying, as well as discover/deal with her past. I hope there will be some revelations about her past that will be connected more to her opening the gate and her connection to the Upside Down. A few films mention a mental institution and experiments so that's also something to look forward to. She is also the savior and will be detrimental to defeating the MF. I also hope she will travel to the Upside Down this season

[getlitaesthetic]

I’m interested to see what the brothers would be like if they had a child (probably with the mc purposely or accidentally) and the fucked up family dynamics that would come of it, like would they full on discard the child? Raise them to be just like their dad? I wouldn’t be surprised if Beel pulled a full on Kronos from Greek mythology

Also asked by an anon: “What if mc somehow got pregnant? How would the brothers be towards them during their pregnancy and how will they deal with the child?”

(Undateables version found Here)

Lucifer

It is on purpose, and Lucifer is the most excited to be having a child.

Will carefully monitor MC’s diet, exercise, leisure activities, everything they do to an extent far surpassing anything he’s done before.

He becomes obsessed with the child’s health.

Not that that stops him from injuring MC, but now he’s very careful with what he does to avoid any harm coming to his child. After all, they can’t get comfortable here.

When the child is finally born, it’s immediately taken from MC.

“I can’t have you passing on your weakness to my daughter, can I?”

He names her Lilith. It was always going to be Lilith.

Lucifer is a loving father, and abusive partner. MC only gets to see Lilith as a prize for a job well done. They become the most well-behaved human in the realm for a chance to see their child. It is such a rare occurrence, their daughter rarely remembers them.

He teaches Lilith to be a true demon, despite their half human nature. Raises them into the Devildom and is a careful protector to ensure that no corrupting influences touch her but his own.

Eventually, Lilith is ready.

MC is so excited to see their daughter, as soon as she enters the room, she’s swept into a big hug. 

MC gasps, and gurgles as they choke on their own blood, Lilith giggling in their arms. 

“Did I do a good job, Daddy?”

“You did perfectly, Princess.”

Mammon

This was definitely an accident

Not only was it an accident, but he may or may not have freaked out a little bit.

“Do you KNOW how expensive children are?”

But then he realizes that everything has a value.

So he sucks it up, and helps MC get through the pregnancy unscathed... Although he may or may not have chained them to the wall so they didn’t get into trouble while he was handling business.

When the boy is born, Mammon doesn’t bother to name him. He leaves MC to take care of the child. They name him Najjad, and dedicate all of their time to raising him to be happy, and healthy, and as human as possible.

He is a handsome child, born with a head of pale white hair, and MC’s eyes. Skin smooth and unblemished, with an easy, happy smile. They love him. They would do anything for Mammon in order to continue being allowed to raise their son.

But the fantasy is short lived.

Mammon quickly grows tired of MC’s time being split between him and the boy, growing greedy once again for their full attention. 

It isn’t long before he has lined up a buyer. It is only days after that that, without warning, Najjad is taken from his parent’s arms, and delivered to a shady demon willing to pay a pretty penny for the offspring of one of the Avatars.

“Finally! About time I got you to myself again, eh?”

Leviathan

This was long since planned. It was only a matter of time before one of his brothers had a child, and Levi wanted one first. Maybe it was the envy in him. Okay, okay. Probably it was the envy in him.

MC is already locked in his room, so it’s easy to hide the pregnancy, just in case something happens. After all, the last thing he wants is for his brothers to know it was a race, and then for him to lose.

Or worse, for one of his brothers to hurt MC while they were still pregnant.

Levi forces MC to do a lot of floating during the pregnancy, and to have a water birth.

However, he is less careful than most of the others. Constantly forgetting to be gentle, always pushing and grabbing MC a little too hard.

Still, the baby boy is born healthy. He doesn’t look quite human, even at birth. Long ragged gills cut sharp lines along his throat, and his eyes are slit. A long black tail extends from his spine, with a fin on the end. The rest of him looks human enough.

Leviathan eventually settles on the name Mizuko. MC is not given the chance to disagree.

MC is still not allowed to leave the room, but is given ample time with their son, helping to raise him, as long as they follow Levi’s strict instructions. He often takes Mizuko away for significant periods of time, disappearing along with him. MC can only imagine they are in the Devildom’s waterways, their son learning skills they’d rather him not know.

Oh, but how good to be alive, and a parent. Even if they were chained to this room, to the torture of being Levi’s plaything. Mizuko makes the whole thing so much more bearable. In fact, they consider trying to get Levi to have another, if only so that they may have a chance to always have one at home.

“I did it, MC! I won! I wonder what Lucifer will have to say about that.”

Satan

A pregnancy with Satan was planned, and actually suggested by MC.

They wanted to show their devotion to him, still so unaware of how he had manipulated every aspect of their life.

He seems so excited when MC tells them that it’s happened, they’re pregnant.

He treats them so sweetly throughout their pregnancy, but continues drugging, manipulating, and casting spells on them without their knowledge and without regard to their child.

It is only luck that none of them hurt their baby.

MC gives birth to a beautiful daughter, who will grow to have soft blonde ringlets and beautiful blue eyes, just like her father. She glows softly. 

Satan and MC agreed to the name Ismene for a girl early in the pregnancy, and once she arrived, it seemed just perfect. 

She grows to be smart as a whip, but cruel. Satan is so proud. MC begins to realize they don’t know everything about their husband after all.

They sit in the garden, Ismene practicing a spell to set a flower ablaze. MC tries to frown, to scold her, but their face does not budge.

“How lovely,” they hear themselves say, as if far away. “Our little girl is growing so quickly.”

Satan kissed their forehead and knelt in front of their daughter.

“Remember, you have to want it to die, with all of the rage in your heart,” he instructs her.

She smiles, looking at MC as the flower begins to burn.

Asmodeus

A child with Asmodeus is unplanned, but not unexpected.

With all of the unprotected sex he has with MC, and how frequently? It was only a shock it took so long.

Besides, MC no longer had the brain capacity to agree or plan anything. All they wanted was more of their demon master, filling them up, using them, making them worth something.

What could possibly fill them more than a child?

Asmo thinks it’s adorable, to watch MC’s stomach grow as they lay there, mindless and drooling. Desperate for anything Lust could offer.

It does not affect his daily routine in the slightest. He continues to use and abuse MC as he sees fit whenever he desires, and still disappears for weeks at a time, leaving MC’s health up to whatever brother happens to remember to feed them.

They give birth alone, confused as to why they are in pain and what is happening.

When Asmo returns, he leaves MC in their pain and filth, taking the baby girl away to clean her up and dress in lovely silks.

He names her Bellerose Fayre, and is the only one of the brothers to give his child a middle name.

She is perfect, and would pass for human if it wasn’t for her long, winding tail that reaches and grasps with it’s velvety texture, pulling in anything it can touch.

What happens next is... incredibly disturbing, to say the least. If you are particularly sensitive, I would recommend skipping to Beelzebub.

Asmo is inseparable from his daughter. Always keeping her dressed in beautiful clothing and teaching her everything he knows. Bellerose is a very quick study. It isn’t long at all before she has fully tapped into her father’s power and begins to work at his side, seducing souls to Hell. Only a child. 

How MC would have died to stop it if they could have. But they remained in that room, no mind left to care.

“Good job, Rosie! Another worthless wretch condemned to the pits. You’re a natural!”

Beelzebub

Unplanned. Unplanned. So unplanned.

Anon, you are unfortunately quite correct.

Beelzebub can smell it on MC before they even know. He had been holding back on feasting, saving them for a special occasion. 

But now that they were pregnant? Their blood, their body, all of it was extra nutritious as it prepared to build his child.

He waits, for a while. Staying far away so as not to be tempted, despite MC’s desperate attempts to get him involved.

The day comes for the gender reveal.

A boy.

Since Beel refuses to be involved, MC picks out the name. Akuji. 

It’s an apt name. 

MC returns that day to attempt to tell Beel the news, only to be met by the lumbering form of the starved man that strikes fear into their heart. They eat MC whole, and their child with them.

But that isn’t the end. Awake. Akuji screams from inside MC, inside Beel. Tiny claws begin to scratch and dig.

Eventually, his son rips through his stomach and into the world, severely underdeveloped. Time would take care of that. The boy had curled hands with bloody claws, blindingly violet eyes, and the concave stomach of his father. He would eventually grow fly wings and a head of MC’s hair, but he would never gain a full human form.

Beel tried several times over the years to eat his son, to no avail. Every time, he would just have to sew up his stomach and continue on his endless stalk for sustenence.

Belphegor

A child with Belphie is so unplanned that he doesn’t even know about it until a thousand years after they are born.

He had trapped MC in his lair for his nap, but his grip had loosened in his dreaming, and while they remained locked in the room, at least they could roam. Food was stockpiled to hide from his twin brother, which MC subsisted on.

They had become pregnant after a slow, elongated night of fucking with Belphie as he gained their favor to get them where they were now. And they had no way to tell him without ensuring their own death in the process.

So MC coached themselves through the pregnancy, always careful not to wake Belphegor.

It was a close call during the birth, as he huffed and stirred, but MC bit down on their own arm to shut themselves up.

When their son was born, he looked perfectly human. Blinking slowly up at their parent. MC fed him only once, and whispered his name to him before he drifted to sleep. 

Eventually, the food ran out. Their son did not wake, no matter how they tried. MC sobbed quietly at their loss, as surely he was dead. Starved and exhausted, they laid down to die.

Hundreds of years passed. In his sleep, the child grew, gaining more demonic features. Growing longer, sharper. Lithe wings extending from his back and sharp teeth appearing past his lips.

Their dreams began to intertwine, the boy learning so much from the Avatar of Sloth’s thoughts.

Finally, Belphie awoke, immediately spotting his son in the corner, strangely familiar, and the young one stirred at the movement.

“Who are you?”

“Cimon.”

“Hmm. Good morning.”

[fandom-imagination-ss]

Clark Kent imagine

Author note: I cannot remeber writing this..and since i haven’t wrote anything for a while. I figure hey why not!!!!! So Sorry if it doesn’t make sense LOL 😂😂 I will be posting more soon promise.!!

Did i proof read: .... I honestly dont remember writing this soo.. you BET your tooth i didn’t proof read

Rating: fluffy!

Fandom: DC

God your such a big Dork!”

Laughing loudly your sides hurt , Clark just tripped and slide right into a lamp and somehow managed for the shade too be on. His head. You reached over helping him chuckling softly tracing your hands over his broad shoulders making sure he wasn’t hurt. Those Hurting Clark was physically impossible. You still worry.

He chuckled softly saying sorry, you just laughed giving him a quick kiss on the shoulder as you shifted too move too your sofa.

Loving Superman had it’s perks and downsides, the biggest one was that Loris Lane was Furious that you “stole” her profit. Clark always said that Louis never abused their relationship too get articles or too gain more popularity. But she was literally the Only reporter in the entire City that Had Full access too the most talked about man in the entire world.Getting raises left and right when She got a “in-depth “ conversation with Superman and ally he deets on a attack. Whatever way Clark spelt it out. You hated that she abused her relationship for gain at work. It felt wrong. She was literally Sleepign with the subject too information.

It didn’t help that your relationship with her was tense even before you knew she knew about Clarks double life. You were one of the few humans too know about Clarks ability before he became Superman. You grew up right down the road from Clark, same grade, best friends all thru school. Clark would show off his powers too you when you were younger and you were the only one outside he’s family too know. After he left and ran off too find himself you stayed and helped his mom and then Superman arrived and you reconnected with your oldest friend and you moved toot he city after a awful breakup and you just always were around. And Louis hated it. You tried too be friendly towards her. But once Clark discovered she was In bed with lex Luther. (Right in the middle of the Act.) he was furious And heartbroken and he broke up with her and you were secretly glade you didn’t have too pretend too be friends with her anymore.

Dating the man of steel happened so naturally you can’t even remember when it started or how it started who made the first move it just felt Right. Clark was smiling cupping your face looking at you “what you thinking about?”

Poking his stoumch you look up at him grinning, “how I’m so lucky too have my Dork.” He chuckled reaching over kissing your head. “I have too go surveillance with Bruce you be alright tonight?”

Nodding your head weakly. You were use too having too share Clark with the world. Honestly how can you complain when he’s Saving the literally world?

“Oh Ask Bruce How The Hell do you connect the light too the speakers? Too do that flashy thing.he’s instructions Suck!”

He chuckled saying okay.

He walked off. As you grinned excited too have the apartment too yourself. You walked over too your room getting out of your Jeans and into Shorts and a shirt of clarks you always steal it had he’s favourite football team. Making dinner for you, and a dessert. You grabbed your Tablet (making sure too put sticky tack on both lenses after reading how easily the cameras’ are hacked you always put Sticky tack on it if your gonna watch something in the tub.

Getting the Tub ready you started binge watching a the musketeers. When you finished having a relaxing bath you got into your cloths again and watched it on the tv. The actors were Hot as Hell. And the voices. Melting! Clark had that affect on you. He’s voice was smooth and deep and Hot. Those every aspect of your boyfriend is Hot.

You looked around realizing the place was empty as you went too the freezer as you pulled out your container of Icing. Before retuning too the sofa and warming it up as you had your spoon from your ice cream and mixed it as you watched tv. An hour passed when jumped gasping at some scenes. Then you heard the deep chuckle of your boyfriend.

“what are you doing?” You turned looking at Clark seeing him in his uniform as you had a spoon sticking out of your mouth as you spoke, “I’m- what are you doing here? I thought you were going too be late?”

“I came too check on you- what are you watching?” Getting up as you grabbed the icing container as you spoke, “Mustkeers.- what- aren’t you suppose too be hanging with a bat?” He chuckled walking over pulling you into a deep kiss it was unexpected as he pulled back as he spoke, “good icing.” You laughed hitting his softly as he grinned holding your head. “You smell nice.”

“had a bath with my good stuff.” He chuckled softly rubbing your cheek with his thumb.

“thank you.”

“For. Bathing?”

Clark chuckled kissing your forehead as he spoke, “No for being you.”

“thank you?”

He kissed you again before dashing off as you got ready for bed.

Standing in the shower in the morning getting cleaned you turned seeing Clark standing in the bathroom smiling as you spoke ‘what?”

Seeing him pulling off his Shirt, which even after a year of dating. Still left you breathless seeing him shirtless. He was curved and caved from the Gods! It still took you back that he was yours. That this guy. Who looks like a god, has powers As if he was one. Was your you giggled seeing him quickly undress and Joining you in the shower. Quickly pulling you into a deep Kiss,

Perfection can only last for so Long.

It was wrong place at the wrong time. You were In a Church helping your friend choose a location for her wedding when a machine came Crashing into the Chapel destroying it. And the impact flung you backwards and you were pierced thru the stoumch by a pipe it slipped thru you like butter. You were pinned too the wall as you looked up seeing Lex Luther appear from the robotic machine he laughed loudly seeing you.

Superman arrived instantly you saw him just in time too loose vision from loosing so much blood. You heard him screaming No! As you drift.

Clark Dashed over too you seeing you impaled and pinned too the wall. He’s screams broke windows of the church as he fell down onto his knees realizing that you were gone. The girl who Never treated him like anything then a boy. The boy she has known her whole life. Who once learning about everything about him. Simply asked if she kissed him could she get the ability too be super strong. The girl who use too help him practice how too control who would sneak over too play with him. Who was his first kiss. The women who idea of a fun night in is. Watching a fantasy show and be bare legged and as comfy as possible. Clark felt his soul breaking seeing you. The Girl he was going too marry.have a family with.

“Opps.”

Luther said giddy seeing Clark in so much pain. Before Clark could find the strength too move. Luther dissapeared.

Clark screamed NO. You were gone..

Weeks passed with No sighting of Luther, Bruce ended up going toot he funeral, so did Diana , and Berry who you once meeting the flash instantly wanted too bet that Clark was faster. And you and him would have in debut conversations about Harry Potter. Wonder women was close with you also. You worked in a museum , and she would telly you stories a bout the greek gods. And the Amazon women. Cyborg was amazed a girl of this time. Couldn’t figure out how too do anything technical. You were as clueless as a 80 year old man trying too make a call on a smart phone.

Arther arrived toot he funeral with the others as he stood up too talk.the funeral was beauitful, and the wake was Sad. Clark’s Mom invited all the justice league too her house. Where Clark was staying since Luther has been MIA.

“when I first met that feisty women. She asked if I could really talk too whales and asked what they liked talking about. Then she told me I this insane theory of whales being fictional. Apparently that girl lived on the coast for two years. And Never saw a whale.Clark took her too my dads lighthouse and I got a few too pop up too show them off. I never seen a happier person in my life. She acted like a kid on Christmas Day .she was- something special.”

They all chuckled as Clark was silent holding his hands tightly as Diana stood up. “When I first met Y/N. she was covered head too toe in dirt and Mud. She was playing football with Clark.- She looked like the happiest girl in the world. I knew excatly at that moment she was madly in love. I remember looking like that at Steve. She asked me too help scare Clark it was- apparently her mission in life too scare him Once.-“ Diana went quite Seeing Clark was stiff. She knew excatly how he felt. Hallow inside with going thru the motion.

Bruce was about too speak when the front door opened. Seeing Y/N covered in dirt. You stood in the front entrance covered in dirt wearing the dress you were buried in. You coughed loudly as Clark Rushed over too you griping your face tightly, “how- How is this possible?”

“what the hell happened?”

Everyone looked at each other stunned as Diana heard a fast beating sound.

“Y/N? Is that you?” Clark was crying too hard too hear anything as Diana stepped over as she kneeled down pressing her ear too your stomach.

“it’s a heartbeat.”

“WHAT?” Gasping loudly as Clark was too stunned too take any of that information in. But your ears were working. “Shut up no it’s not! I- I was. In the church wasn’t I when that bastered- how- I woke up in the graveyard what the fuck! Is going on?!”

“how did you get out of the grave.. you were just Barried this morning.”

Rolling your shoulders you shook your head, “I woke up up above ground.. I wans’t- you buried me? What the Hell why!” You hit Clark as he gripped your face tightly as he spoke, “you scared the Shit outta me! How- I don’t understand you were died.”

You rolled your shoulders, “Don’t look at me! The last thing I remember was being in the church.. what- what happened?”

“you died..But I think your baby protected you.”

That’s when Clarks ears started working as he turned too wonderwomen. “Excuse me? Baby?”

“Oh Boy..’

[strideofpride]

DAIR APPRECIATION WEEK 2021 DAY ONE: Why do you love Dan and Blair?

I broke down what I love about Dan and Blair into five parts under a read more below. The tldr is: their compatibility, their parallel arcs, their slow burn, the larger message it would've given GG if they were endgame, and finally their mature, adult relationship (aka "pure and simple love").

Warning: I basically wrote a fucking essay lmao. Cited my sources and everything.

I. Compatibility

Dan and Blair have great chemistry sure, but they have something that I don't think any other pairing on the show really had: common interests. They were pseudo-intellectuals who could talk about books, literature, art, etc. with each other ("Dan and I have a real connection. We did things like visit the Dia and debate Charbol versus Rohmer..."). And I know in TV world all anyone cares about is chemistry, but in the real world the key to a long lasting relationship is common interests.

And yet they are also still an opposite attracts pairing, just in the best way, where they are opposite in personality and background, but still share lots of common interests. Blair was the rich mean girl from the Upper East Side and Dan the "poor" loser from Brooklyn, but they still can relate to one another, they can still find stuff to talk about together, they still come to enjoy each other's presence and friendship.

And back to their chemistry: it isn't steamy chemistry 100% all the time (although they can certainly go there). Their's is a sweet chemistry, a chemistry where it's clear that they respect each other, that they know each other on a deep level, that they understand each other more than anyone else. It's a chemistry that you believe could lead to a satisfying marriage one day.

And I know I've said this before, but to me Dan and Blair are just soulmates.

II. Parallel Arcs

I am such a sucker for when two characters' life journeys parallel one another and Dair had that in spades. In season 1 especially, they were both dealing with the abandonment of a parent (Dan's mom/Blair's dad), they both lost their virginities and entered into sexual relationships with much more experienced partners (Serena & Chuck), and they both had their sights set on one school (Yale & Dartmouth - although come season 2 this became Yale for Dan, giving them even more in common).

I've also already talked on here about how you can parallel all of their other romantic/sexual relationships to one another, as well as how they both were abandoned by their best friends sophomore year. And, they both have a bad habit of going back to the same person over and over again (again, Serena & Chuck).

To me, Dan and Blair are almost narrative foils. Dan's relationship with his father starts out pretty solid but deteriorates over time - Blair's relationship with her mother is the exact opposite. Dan pines, while Blair loves to live in denial. Blair sees her life as a movie, Dan sees his life as a novel.

And that makes it all the more satisfying to see them come together, to learn to appreciate their differences, to accept their similarities, to see them grow together (albeit briefly) over seasons 4 and 5.

III. Slow Burn

A lot of people on here use this word incorrectly. If the characters kiss during season 1 (unless it’s under false pretenses) it’s not a slow burn! But Dan and Blair are a true slow burn (whether or not that was intentional).

From that hallway scene in 1x04, it's clear that Dan and Blair have a deeper connection and understanding of each other than they are letting on. We get brief glimpses into that in 1x15, 2x08, 3x18, and 3x22. All of that very slow build up makes it all the more satisfying when they become friends in season 4.

I truly think the W arc is the best written arc of the entire show. You very slowly see them accept their common interests, grow to begrudgingly respect one another, even begin to accept that there might be an attraction there. It never feels rushed, when they kiss in 4x17, it's earned (I use this word a lot - buckle in).

And then, yeah, the Louis arc was fucky (I stand by that they should've kept the love triangle Dan vs. Chuck, or Dan vs. Louis, all three was too much). But Dan standing by Blair through everything she went through that season was beautiful, to see her depend on Dan in her darkest moments, to see her realize that he's the one who will always be there for her...it just really, really worked.

And so that moment when Blair finally calls him "Dan" to his face, when it becomes clear they are finally going to be together...it's one of the single most satisfying moments in the entire show. Because, again, it was earned.

IV. Larger Message

As this video essay posits, the showrunners were left with a choice after the 2008 economic recession: "Either adjust to the times or lean further into an escapist fantasy where extreme wealth is the status quo...and lean they did. For the sake of providing their audience with an escape, the dark underbelly of extreme affluence became the show's core theme. The more it began to sell cynical opulence as standard escapism, the more the writers and fans turned on the less wealthy characters."

Furthermore, by revealing Dan as Gossip Girl, "It transitions him from pretentious soft boy to borderline sociopath, actively ruining the lives of his friends, family, and crush just to get a foothold in Upper East Side society. And then the show did something it had seldom deemed to do for a less wealthy character: it rewarded him...And thus, the show presented us with the most insidious message of all: wealth, privilege, and power corrupt...and that's okay."

By having Chuck & Blair and Dan & Serena as endgame, GG became one of the most cynical shows on the planet, where (to quote Constance Grady) "all relationships are transactional".

But yet: "The sole bright spot in the midst of this cold universe in which relationships are bought and sold like real estate came in the form of Blair’s brief season four romance with Dan...it marked the last hurrah of the first version of Gossip Girl: In a world in which money is so powerful that it makes romantic relationships indistinguishable from prostitution, Dan and Blair were working to create an authentic, meaningful bond outside of the influence of wealth and privilege."

If Dan and Blair had been endgame (and Dan hadn't been GG - although we all know that one is bullshit anyway), it would've been a rebuke to that ideology, it would've shown that there is more to a good marriage than a shared tax bracket, that a genuine connection is more important than wealth and privilege. That abuse does not equal love.

But alas, that was not the story they wanted to tell I guess.

V. Mature, Adult Relationship (aka "Pure & Simple Love")

I am personally not much of a fan of grand romantic gestures. I often find them shallow, childish, and showy. To me, it is far more romantic for Dan to have secretly written a book about Blair, for Blair to submit Dan's article to Vanity Fair, for Dan to say "it wouldn't to me" when Blair asks if it would matter if she was pregnant with another man's child (especially since this moment is (take a shot here), you guessed it, earned - we know he's being honest because we already saw him do this with Milo).

Now, I am personally not as much of a fan of the Met Steps moment as everyone else (Blair's desire to be royalty is probably the thing I like least about her), but that was probably Dan's grandest romantic gesture and yet...it's still so simple. It's really just a plastic tiara and a cab ride. Which is what makes it so beautiful. Because it's not about the money or the extravagance or showing off to anyone else...it's about Dan showing Blair he truly knows her. And to me, that's the healthiest way to do a romantic gesture.

I also love their bad sex arc in 5x18 because a) it's real - most real world couples don't have earth shattering sex the first time together, it takes time to learn what your partner likes and needs and b) because they actually (after getting drunk at Dorota's & Nate's) communicate about it and work out their problem like adults.

Because that's the thing about Dan and Blair - it's a real adult relationship. It's not a never-ending game of cat and mouse, it's not a fallback, it's not a bad habit...everything else just melts away when they're together. They grew and changed together...they learned to put aside their prejudices and see each other beyond their facades. They became better people together. They always had someone they knew they could turn to.

And that's what true love is supposed to be.

[chase-the-ladybug]

For @fast-moon, happy holidays! It’s your one and only lovely secret santa here for the @noragamisecretsantas event! Here I am on Christmas day to proudly present: your 🕺🙌gift! The prompt I was given for your present was also wonderfully full of potential, perfect opportunities for some fluff AND angst aha… with that, I hope you enjoy reading this. At the very least, I certainly enjoyed writing it x

~

It only took once for him to want to use his ability again. Then again. Then again. He felt he had to test and see if it really was true, the power he’d discovered. Even still, he couldn’t quite believe what a difference it had made, what it can make right now, what it could make in the future.  There was so much potential to what differences he could make.

He could do so much good.

Hagusa had never had much presence while he was alive. That tends to happen when you come from a poor, abusive, broken family; people tend to ignore realities they can’t handle. And yet, with his newfound ability as father’s shinki, he discovered an astounding ability: he could influence people’s actions.

That first encounter at that restaurant is almost like a dream. That poor little kid was getting so much verbal smack from his dad for some pathetic excuse. He was arguing with his son over the change he carried, and that it was not enough for him to drink himself into an even steeper drunken mess. He was already pissed as it was, and the surrounding servers and patrons could only judge and watch as they struggled to intervene.

God, it reminded him so much of his memories of when he was alive, he wanted to puke. But somehow, the room’s atmosphere suddenly changed, like a switch flicked on in the minds of all the bystanders. The waitresses snapped down on him, the customers all defended the poor boy; before he knew it, the drunkard was thoroughly sobered by the audience he’d acquired, with the kid looked after by the rest. They had wanted to do so from the beginning, really: they just didn’t have the courage.

Hagusa, he had discovered, could give the people courage to act. And he just did so for the sake of a poor bullied kid. If he had an ability like this, there was no way assholes like his dad could get away with the way they acted. He could oust every abuser out there, track down exactly where he’s hiding, and finally confront him for the wrongs he committed.

He had to keep going.

The next opportunity he found was outside a convenience store. There was a high school girl who was wearing the uniform belonging to the establishment, being harassed by an apparently frequent customer. He kept insisting on walking her home, much to her adamance that she was fine. Anyone could tell he was not a trusted acquaintance of hers in any sense. Hagusa could feel the unease of passer-bys, latched onto them, and cast them into play.

Next thing you know a co-worker took a moment to step outside of the shop and ward him off. Another bystander, a woman who was passing by, offered to share her cab so she’d get home safely without a chance of him catching up to her. There was a nearby group of other schoolgirls too; they suggested commuting together anyways, since they recognised her from the same bus stop and finish their club activities at a similar time to her work commute.

Another opportunity occurred in a similar time frame: a working-class man was being extorted by his landlord for money. You could tell it was a common occurrence by the way he struggled to turn her away. Even still, the landlord started making a racquet, as entitled as a baby, it seemed. All the neighbours were getting increasingly frustrated, but mostly, just feeling bad for the neighbour. He wasn’t exactly made of money, none of them were in that apartment block.

The empathy was distinct among the neighbours, so it was easy to get a hold of their feelings, and with those he spurred them to do something about it. The residents all headed to the door of the victim, where the landlord had been looming, and pushed him down the hall. One of the people next door threatened to call the police, another claiming to have recorded his previous excursions to extort money unjustly. He was gone in less 5 minutes. The residents all discussed investing in a recording camera to put around the complex, so they’d have a defence if he were to continue coming back.

It carried on throughout the night. For every misdemeanour that he could find, Hagusa could always find at least one other person who wanted to help, to act. And often even, it wasn’t just one person, but many nearby who had wanted to help. The volume of people with the desire to help was simply a marvel!

To be honest, he wishes he could share this discovery with Yato and Hiyori. Knowing them, they’d be so proud of his discovered power, born of the desire to help people. But he shut down the thought. Hiyori wouldn’t approve of it coming from the means of Father, someone who apparently is the enemy of all. It was something he had heeded, cautiously, but also doubted. Afterall, would someone so bad really allow him to inflict this much good? And Yato... He would only be a distraction along his path right now. In this situation, he just can’t see them at this point. Even if he does miss them a whole lot. Father is the only one he can rely on to realise his path now.

Upon seeing these abilities, Father had given him encouragement; he was somewhat expectant towards his newfound power. And still as supportive as ever towards helping him find his dad, it seems. But he doesn’t oversee the entire extent of it, either he’s too busy or it just seems to bore him so. Hagusa almost couldn’t understand why- these continuous acts of good was reaching a phenomenal scale, and yet they never ceased to amaze him every single time. There’s nothing, to him, that was unremarkable about saving people, even if it was occurring so often by his help.

I guess, from his standpoint, Hagusa could understand what it meant. To be helped. In a way, he has been helped by the people around him since he became a shinki, and that’s something he’ll always be grateful for. But, he also started to think about his time before that.

He doesn’t remember a lot from his past yet, but from what he does remember- he was generally neglected. He could’ve come across any kinds of people in his day-to-day life: neighbours; store clerks; teachers; anybody really. If he somehow had this power when he was alive, maybe he could’ve gotten the help he needed. He would’ve been ok. He would’ve been free from his dad, and possibly able to reconnect with his sister. And he definitely wouldn’t’ve winded up where he is now-

He started to shake off his train of thought, which was beginning to wind down an impossible fantasy. That’s all it was: a fantasy. He was dead, he always would be.

The present is what was more important. Closure is something he can achieve, and these abilities help him with that. He could find his dad among all the abusers, the wrongdoers and perpetrators, all the people being confronted for their misdeeds. There is no chance he can’t be found, considering the violation that he had committed. Even if it is a past discrepancy, Hagusa knows that there is no chance he wouldn’t act just as vile as always. He must do, he was sure of it.

He can’t even tempt the idea that he’s not. If he’s dead, there’s no way he can get answers. If he’s changed, if he’s become someone capable of good… that means he can’t be found. And worse, he always was capable of being good. And that is a reality Hagusa truly cannot face. That would only be a reality of despair.

He can’t think about it.

Not in the slightest.

Not at all.

…

He senses a new encounter, ready to be turned around into a better outcome. He follows it. He doesn’t look back.

~

[sonicthecringehog]

you think me saying someone doesn't care about you is really abusive? yeah i see you posting about me in your discord.

TW: ABUSE; R*PE, SUICIDE, GASLIGHTING. Alrighty gather 'round children - I think I know exactly who you are now so I'm going to lay it down for you, maybe this is me being a sociopath with a victim complex as ableist as that sounds to my followers. Allow me to educate you, even if you think this is manipulation too~ Now, I may have grown up very privileged - considering my mother had escaped literal poverty, and my father escaping a cycle of intergenerational trauma from actual abuse. I will never deny that and I am grateful for all of the things I have and have worked hard for myself. But dude I have clinically diagnosed PTSD that I only just found out about last week after spending a few days in an actual psych ward - they genuinely thought I possibly had either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia because of how bad of a state I was in, I couldn't eat or sleep for days. I learned that when I rushed into a convenience store crying and shaking, and just apologizing constantly because I didn't even have a mask and my phone was dead, so I had no idea how to get to the hospital. I did not want to be turned away yet again out of looking like a walking stereotype (looking at you, Karens). And just before that, confession I broke into a friend’s house because I took his word literally that the door is always open, and someone convinced me I was gaslighting the both of them which is exactly what sent me spiralling to begin with. But anyway, the people at the store were really understanding even if it was just a liability thing, and they called the police for me, and the police contacted a social worker for me to get my story out and they all reassured me that I was doing the right thing - and eventually, I got the help I needed and I realized it's time to take back my life once and for all.

Not even strong antipsychotics like olanzapine, what I'm currently prescribed with, helps me in those times. I wake up with cold sweats, I have constant nightmares I don't tell people about because I don't want to fuck them up the way I got this way. And now I understand why my aunt from my dad's side of the family who was apparently schizophrenic took her own life, and never told anyone her struggles either. And why my dad was so overprotective of me for so long. You see, I live in constant fear for my life because I have dealt with actually violent, clinical psychopaths who only think for themselves and will instead lie through their teeth to make it seem like they'd changed. And they stalk you or just cling onto you, to try and find every little detail about you to use as ammo against you because they know they can, and will manipulate people into thinking you're the one abusing them and manipulating everyone around you until they have no use for you anymore. Lots of shit happened but honestly if I just accepted that "no one cares" and I just learned to "shut the fuck up and think before I speak," like my actual abusers would say... I'd be a single mother living in poverty right now, and I would probably have lost custody of that child to my one abuser at that time because he is exactly like this. I don't like talking about it because I know how triggering it is for some and this might blow up again like a lot of my "controversial" posts, but if I didn't accidentally stress and overwork myself into having a miscarriage in the bathroom at my work, I would have become the walking stereotype my other abusers would try to implant in people's minds. And I feel horrible and responsible for all the shit I'm causing now, because I know of people with diagnosed NPD or ASPD and they're trying to better themselves, and do their part in the world without hurting people. You really can't win no matter what side you're on. Hell, I developed a saviour complex over the course of a few years because I've seen some vulnerable people get taken advantage of like this, too without ever understanding why so they constantly find themselves being abused without realizing it, it's heartbreaking to me. I was r*ped at 7, not from the stereotypical creepy uncle. But a girl my own age who I'm pretty sure was abused herself, which is why I never held anything against her. Maybe it's my Stockholm Syndrome talking again. Regardless, I learned that you can't change a person. The only person you can change is yourself. However, sometimes those strangers who show basic human decency knowing one's past, are that ultimate kick in the ass to motivate people to save themselves.

So let this ask post be a lesson to all of you. These kinds of abusers I had also knew exactly how to dogwhistle me to try and get a reaction, exactly what to say and how to act in front of authority figures - to manipulate them into thinking I was the abuser or whatever ableist walking stereotype they wanted people to think. Hence, I was gaslighted into thinking I was on the autism spectrum my whole life by the people around me growing up, and that my close family and friends were the “real” abusers even though they were trying to help but didn’t know how... without these people even realizing who the real culprits were. Growing up being The Girl Who Cried Wolf even when you did nothing you were aware of, fucks you up for life, my friend. And that's exactly what they wanted. Maybe I do need a break from social media as even my family doctor says, maybe I do need to let myself be "cancelled" again to grow stronger from this. Because I'm not saying you specifically are abusive or a bad person per se, because I don’t even know who you are, I could have easily deleted and ignored this. But just let people live and stop trying to take away what little innocence they have left that they lost at a very early age... out of being too comfortable in your own magical fantasy world of self-pity to get your own shit together. Because shit like this is exactly why I overwork myself and get these "manic" episodes as my abusers called it, as live in fear that I might actually get shot one day when things seem to finally be stable and peaceful. Hell, I might never be able to get a real job because of shit like this. But if you want to report my posts again on my Instagram which I'm pretty sure was you at this point, go right ahead. Because you need to grow the fuck up... and to the other people reading this, don't ever let anyone tell you that no one cares or your feelings aren't valid, because there are people who do understand and will help you, even if to them you're just a passerby on the street. Because people do care.

This kind of cancel culture and bullying people out of getting help without giving them a chance to explain themselves, while doxxing and overanalyzing every post one says to use against them... has been so normalized in our society that we often do glorify the people who show basic human decency. When it should have been the standard all along. On to the point, I wish you all a wonderful journey to a beautiful recovery too - I might not be active for a bit because I think I need a break ^_^'

TL;DR: Don't feed the trolls, kiddies, but don't let them win out of fear that no one will believe you even with concrete proof. To make a bad Sonic reference - if you see someone abusing their power over you and doesn't want you to thrive because they think you're nothing more than some welfare queen attention whore... THATS NO GOOD~

(Also excuse all the edits, I’ve been spiralling mentally because holy shit I don’t appreciate being stalked and doxxed y’all regardless of who is doing this... so I’m keeping this post up as a reminder to all of you to just not feed the trolls and keep moving forward. Hell, someone on Snapchat kept stupidly adding me by my number for a few months on and off, so this is why I get in these situations where I’m kiiiinda scared for my life. I admitted myself to the hospital but ended up leaving after asking for resources for these kinds of situational crises. Oof. ^_^”)

Anyways, toodle-oo fuck you too bitch. ;)

~ Serena

[nobodyfamousposts]

You know I was watching a video by overly sarcastic productions and I’m pretty sure that from that definition Adrien is a Mary Sue. The episode was Trope Talks: Mary Sues.

Pretty much Adrien is this to a T.

I hear people throwing the term around a lot and complaining about the term being thrown around a lot but I think what ends up being missed is what actually constitutes a Mary Sue in the first place.

A Mary Sue is not a character who is overpowered or “too strong” like the complaints about Captain Marvel. If that was true, then literally every anime protagonist or super hero that exists is a Mary Sue by default. Every one. Ever.

Nor is it someone with a tragic backstory like Batman or any other long line of superheroes or anime protagonists. Whether it’s dead parents, a past trauma, abuse, bullying, or just a conga line of horrible circumstances, plenty of characters have had bad things happen to them. That’s kind of part of life and what makes them relatable and sympathetic.

It’s not even someone who is loved by many people. Or is a good judge of character. Or whom manages to talk someone into a heel-face turn. Regardless of what claims may come, these are not what make a character a Mary Sue.

What makes a Mary Sue—the central core aspect of what makes a character problematic all boils down to how the narrative itself treats the character.

The narrative is generally indicative of the author’s own preferences or leanings. We see it all the time with stories that create straw characters to symbolize people the author doesn’t like or things the author doesn’t agree with in order to belittle it. The opposite can just as easily occur where a character or position is hyped up to look better or promote what the author wants promoted.

Those previously mentioned tropes are a sign of that. For a Mary Sue, everything from powers to past traumas to relationships are all just “things“ for the character to have. Whether to emphasize their importance or to highlight their greatness. While they’re not necessarily what automatically makes a character a Mary Sue, they are often utilized as tools by the narrative for the sake of propping the character that is a Sue. That’s why they’re easy to pick out and attribute to a Mary Sue as well as used to claim characters are Sues. Because they are tools used to try to make people support a character instead of actually making a character people can like and WANT to support.

A Mary Sue is given powers for the sake of making the character awesome without the character actually doing anything to be awesome. A Mary Sue is is given a tragic backstory for the sake of making the character sympathetic without the character actually doing anything to warrant sympathy. A Mary Sue is given relationships for the sake of being the center of attention and adoration by other characters to shell how awesome they are without having to do anything to show how or why anyone would or should actually like them. Any relationships a Mary Sue has are NOT legitimate connections between two or more people, they’re just labels to slap on the Mary Sue to make the character seem more relevant and important.

Ultimately, a Mary Sue supplants the story for the sake of having this character BE the story, and it’s a major reason why they are despised in most fandoms. A reason that, sad to say, was actually deserved in the early days of fan works.

That said…

Adrien IS a prime example of a Mary Sue because of the way the narrative is going out of its way to portray him. Even the creator has come out and said he is “perfect” and that any flaw he could have isn’t actually on him so much as an indication of something being wrong with the world around him. Anything bad that happens, even as a direct result of that character’s own actions, is portrayed as being the fault of anyone and everyone else but that character, in this case Adrien. That, RIGHT THERE is pretty much the epitome of what a Mary Sue IS.

Some call it an ego trip. Some call it a power fantasy. Many consider it as a sort of reality warper. It’s ultimately the case when the story is being turned in on itself to make this character look good without the character actually DOING anything to BE good and even when the character is specifically doing things that AREN’T good.

This is why Bella Swan from Twilight is a certifiable Mary Sue.

This is why it can be argued that Rey from Star Wars is a Mary Sue.

This is why Anita Blake is definitely a Mary Sue.

And this is what separates Adrien from Marinette. And Adrien from pretty much everyone else in the series.

It’s not that he has superpowers—if anything, I think he got cheated in the powers department, all things considered. No, it’s the way he doesn’t seem to take those powers or the responsibilities that come with them seriously. Given that he has had THREE instances already in which he threw a major fit in the middle of an akuma battle because he wasn’t happy about something only for him to be shown as being RIGHT to do so even to the detriment of his partner, his Miraculous, and ultimately all of Paris.

It’s not that he has a missing mom and a neglectful dad, it’s how the narrative keeps emphasizing how sad Adrien is without actually DOING anything with it so they can milk the “Sadrien” angle. Because let’s face it, seeing Adrien looking sad sells.

It’s not that he has multiple girls who like him. I mean, he’s a model, and is rich and famous. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have multiple girls who were into him.

No, it’s in the over the top emphasis of his supposed greatness. It’s in this consistent impression the narrative is giving that the female lead we are supposed to be rooting for—whom we all KNOW has gone well out of her way to do things for him, try to make him happy even to her own detriment, and has struggled more than any rational person should be willing to just to try confessing to the guy is somehow the one side of the love square that “isn’t trying hard enough”.

It’s in the way he is always portrayed as being the “moral voice” and the one in the right in any situation regardless of how little he’s involved or even understands what’s going on. Whether it was lecturing people on how to deal with a bully or for being happy when their bully was leaving (when he was never actually a target of that bully). Or lecturing people on how to deal with a liar (when again, he wasn’t the one being played or threatened). Or threatening to quit when Paris was flooded by an akuma all because he wasn’t being told secrets that he wasn’t showing he was ready to know and that his tantrum CERTAINLY didn’t show he was ready or mature enough for.

It’s in the back and forth on whether he is supposed to be the epitome of “perfection” and the wise person everyone should listen to only to suddenly be made out as the innocent victim of everyone else when his less than noble or heroic behaviors are pointed out in order to excuse or justify his behaviors. (I call it the Standard Adrien Defense and it follows this trend each time.)

It’s in the clear and blatant double standard between what Adrien/Chat is allowed to do and get away with vs what is allowed from anyone else. It’s in the way that Adrien can do things that anyone can agree is wrong without getting so much as a lecture but anyone else in his place will—and have been raked over the coals by the same narrative that gives him the equivalent of a pat on the head and a cookie.

It’s in the way he’s just…there. He has the plot connections. He has the relevance. He has the position of being at the center of quite literally everything from the villain’s plans and motivations to the adoration of the female lead…and he does NOTHING with any of it.

And it’s in the way that no matter what he does or what side he takes, the narrative always ALWAYS frames him as being the one in the right when there’s a conflict, the one to sympathize with when he and another character are hurt, and the one we as the audience are supposed to agree with and support more in any situation.

And the truly sad thing is that Adrien as a character has potential. From a humorous character to a serious one, from the wise and introspective person to the wide-eyed innocent being thrown into the hero job, there was SO MUCH that could have been done with his character. Instead, Adrien is reactionary. Anything involving him is less a matter of what he personally is doing and more about what is being done to or for him. He has no dreams or aspirations other than being with the main female character, has no interests to speak of, and his other relationships actually seem pretty lacking—again, based less on what HE’S doing and more on what other people are doing to and/or for HIM. He somehow has a wide-ranging impact without actually taking action.

As it stands, Canon Adrien is about as real as the cardboard cutout or wax statue of him. To the point he might as well be either for all that he actually seems to accomplish. Because nothing annoys fans or creates salt quite like wasted potential, and that’s all canon Adrien is at this point.

That’s why Fandom Adrien is awesome, whether he’s portrayed as being dense as a brick, showing a polite exterior while internally screaming, acting like a massive dork, or just acting passive aggressive in how he deals with his father and people like Chloe or Lila. Because however way he’s being made to deal with the crazy situations the fans put him in, he’s at least doing SOMETHING besides standing there and looking pretty for people to fawn/fight over.

Strangely enough, this may be the first case I’ve seen where fans have taken a Mary Sue and made him a real character rather than the other way around.

[autumnblogs]

Day 5: Imaginary Friends and Repressed Subconsciouses

https://homestuck.com/story/836

We open to Dave having the shit - and the softness - beaten out of him by Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/838

These are exactly the sort of things a void player would say. This page lends itself to the interpretation that Rose is inverted and acting more like a Witch of Void than a Seer of Light, exactly the same way that Jade is acting like a Seer of Time. (Of course, Rose is either being sarcastic or placating herself. The reality is that, as she pretty much immediately demonstrates, she can’t help but pry for the true underlying meaning of what Jade is saying, grasping at information, and with it, power over her situation.)

I’ve already called attention to the dearth of conversations between these two characters - they’re not going to talk a lot between now and when Rose goes Grimdark. I think it’s just a shame. I wonder if it’s because Rose feels like Jade has her life under control, yearns for that, and in typical Rose fashion, decides that Jade is judging her for her lack of control? She is remarkably cool toward Jade, and I expect that to at least some degree, it’s because she feels inferior to her.

@volatileleporegina​ and I had a discussion on Discord where they guess that this is like, the dichotomy between Seers and Witches.

Rose probably envies the fact that Jade has her shit together. Witches are at their best and their happiest when they can go apeshit, seize control of a situation, and act completely on instinct. Seers are at their best and their happiest when they have inner peace, control of their situation, and control over their emotions.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/845

More speech patterns here. John does not use a lot of prepositions, and his language is very hesitant - he rarely asserts anything important, and has a pretty strong tendency to use phrases like “I guess, I figure, I think, I might” and so on and so on.

John also talks like he’s from the west coast of the USA, at least in a caricaturish way - he uses a lot of old school surfer slang that got co-opted into generic cool culture, like rad, although not nearly to the same extent as later parody character Latula.

https://homestuck.com/story/855

As a character who will eventually be revealed to be a Hero of Hope, Grandpa Harley dwells in the realm of fantasy. While he fills the mould of the idealized adventurer-hero - a true Pulp Fiction Macho Genius Archaeologist in the mould of Doc Savage or Indiana Jones, his relationship with other human beings is more... theoretical.

I wonder if it says anything about Hope in general that all of the Heroes of Hope in the story are practically incapable of having positive relationships in their lives? Before I tended to chalk Jake’s failure up to being a Page, and simply needing more time, but Eridan and Cronus sabotage all of their relationships as well.

Perhaps I’ll come back to this train of thought in the future. For now, Grandpa and Jake alike are characters who I consider wretches, and pitiable wretches at that. I have far less patience for Grandpa though. More of that as we go.

I should be open about the fact that, while I’ve been a bit more forgiving with Mom Lalonde, the fact is that, with the exception of Dad Egbert, I consider all four of the Beta Guardians to be abusive parents; Nanna is an exception as well if she is counted to be one of the guardians). Their conduct in raising their children is at the very least inexcusable, although if they demonstrated any repentance, it would perhaps be forgivable; in all their cases, by the end of the comic, it is too late for that (although they get another lease on life through the Alpha Kids, which if you don’t mind me showing my hand, I think is the entire point of the Alpha Kids from a storytelling perspective- reconciliation of the parents with the children.)

https://homestuck.com/story/859

One thing I have always liked about Jade is that she does not negotiate with terrorists. You go girl :)

https://homestuck.com/story/874

Rose lives in either Ontario or Upstate New York. I think someone found that the coordinates of her house are in Rainbow Falls.

It seems odd to me for no reason at all that Rose would be a Canadian when all of the other characters in the comic are ambiguously American, and there are a number of other reasons it would fit for Rose to be from upstate NY, not the least of which is that it is a part of Lovecraft Country, and the home of the principle madman from HP’s “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” a story about a hick from Upstate New York who has insane dreams that he cannot express with his limited vocabulary. It turns out that this unassuming crazy person is actually a mortal manifestation of an extra-dimensional star-god, and he forms a friendship with the viewpoint character, an intern at the hospital where he has been institutionalized. While the magic dreams ultimately prove to be too much for the mortal frame and give him a heart attack, he contacts his friend the intern via a dream to express to him that he dearly hopes that the two of them meet again one day beyond the wall of sleep.

Another reason is that I’ve always viewed Rose as being an extremely affected person. Nobody talks the way that Rose talks - her words are all extremely deliberately chosen in a way that doesn’t fit the pattern of the other characters’ more stream-of-consciousness writing styles. Rose thinks in Prose, whereas her friends all write like they talk. I like to imagine, for this reason, that Rose has a transatlantic accent like Katharine Hepburn, which is to say, a learned accent. Back in old-timey times, actors, newscasters, the wealthy, and so on would take classes to learn how to pronounce words in a sophisticated way that nobody naturally spoke in - a bit like Received Pronunciation on the other side of the pond. It’s long since died out, but it fits the sort of affected, stuffy, faux-aristocratic manner that Rose styles herself with. It’s a blend of Manhattanite and Londoner pronunciation, and I think it suits her.

Anyway, there you go. There’s something that you just learned about my inner life and how I think way too much about tiny details like “What would Rose’s voice sound like?”

https://homestuck.com/story/876

Dave lives in Texas. For this reason, I have decided that he sounds like a cowboy. No particular cowboy, just some cowboy.

Jade lives in the Pacific Ocean, and I have a very specific head voice picked out for her - Anna Paquin, particularly young Anna Paquin who portrayed Sheeta in Castle in the Sky, although I’ve always imagined Jade to have a much broader kiwi accent.

https://homestuck.com/story/879

I wonder if Nanna’s oven works at all like Biscuits’?

https://homestuck.com/story/893

Nothing ever really came of Dr. Brinner’s mail. Law of Conservation of detail tells us that he might be one of pipefan413′s coworkers (maybe fedorafreak?) but we’ll never know.

https://homestuck.com/story/905

It’s not totally clear to me exactly what’s going on here, but I have a couple of theories.

Theory #1: This is Mom Lalonde’s childhood room from when she grew up. It makes sense to me that the Lalonde House and the Lab might be a package deal, especially since we see Roxy growing up in a similar setting, but with far more prolific modular structures.

Theory #2: As theory #1, but this is also Mom Lalonde’s current accommodation. Tea parties and tea seem to be shorthand in Homestuck for immaturity and avoidance in particular - characters like Nepeta, Mom, and Grandpa use Tea Parties to retreat into childish fantasy instead of confronting the real, hard problems they have to deal with.

https://homestuck.com/story/919

Jade’s strife with Grandpa might lend some credence to the idea that she uses imaginary friends (who are also us, the audience!) to cope with her loneliness.

https://homestuck.com/story/926

Even the extraordinary cynicism and antipathy of Rose Lalonde can’t resist adorable kittens.

https://homestuck.com/story/935

Jaspers’ secret seems to be the genetic code of a First Guardian, although whether Rose actually got it from this mysterious kitty-cat, or whether it was buried in her subconscious all along is probably a coin flip. (I would put my money on the subconscious thing.)

https://homestuck.com/story/938

For all her pretension, Rose Lalonde is a sad thirteen year old girl whose mother spends too much time sozzled to help her make sense of a confusing and chaotic world. It would be nice for her to be able to make sense of the world and get some sense of constancy, but then part of the point of Sburb is to teach its players that nothing in life is constant.

https://homestuck.com/story/949

Resolving some of the uncertainty around his Dad will allow John to consciously perceive the graffiti he’s been subconsciously scribbling around his room. You knew that already, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a big deal for him. I’ll take a stab at why this is the case - one of the recurring motifs in Homestuck is characters avoiding uncomfortable truths through avoidance and stagnation - if they don’t want to think about something, they really really don’t think about it, to the point of not being able to perceive it at all. Here, John magically gains the ability to see some of the graffiti drawn by his dream self by being confronted with the truth about his Dad. For other characters, I think, it will be less magical.

https://homestuck.com/story/965

Calling attention to John’s lexicon again, I feel like it’s an overlooked fact that he uses turn of the decade hacker slang a lot too - just peppers his language with it.

https://homestuck.com/story/980

Jade, like John, actually has two separate Guardians - her deceased bio-parent, and this devilbeast. The terminology for these white-and-electric-green monsters, First Guardians, suggests that from a mythological perspective, they function as Ur-Parental figures, raising a civilization to adulthood so that its members can go on to play Sburb, participating in the reproductive cycle of the Universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/988

The fact that Mom Lalonde’s “Room” is full of booze supports my hypothesis that she still lives in her little girl’s lab bedroom.

Rose doesn’t make a big deal out of what’s in her Mom’s bedroom the way that John is, but I think that her exploration of the laboratory serves as effectively a long-form version of the same experience that John has just had. They’re both learning plenty about their enigmatic guardians.

Rose is a smart girl. She’s figured out what is going on, even if she hasn’t thought about it at the surface-level of the narration yet.

https://homestuck.com/story/1004

John Egbert is a young man who does not really like himself very much.

https://homestuck.com/story/1023

The very first time Rose shows genuine vulnerability to pretty much anyone in the comic. “Maybe I am just being a friend?”

https://homestuck.com/story/1028

Dreams in Homestuck are material events than can have material effects on the characters’ reality - but on the other hand, spending loads of time dreaming can prevent you from having a meaningful effect on your session.

Homestuck is a little ambivalent about dreams but I think it’s safe to say that something close to is stance would be to say that what goes on unacknowledged inside of your head is still a part of you even if you can’t perceive it. Characters who spend all of their time in dreams though, paradoxically won’t make all that much progress toward actually understanding it. Tavros and Jade both spend loads of time in their dreams on Prospit, and while Jade does it because she has Vriska-induced narcolepsy, I think we’re supposed to draw a line from one to the other.

Neither of them is in an emotional state to tough out the process of digging up what’s beneath the surface, and resolving the tension between what’s inside of them and what’s outside of them.

https://homestuck.com/story/1049

This creepy little guy is here because Gamzee sent him. I’m going to pay careful attention to the sequence of events that leads him here, because I have a hunch that John’s weird clown fixation somehow leads to Gamzee’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/1064

The fact that the Joker only has two holes in his punchcard suggests that clowns come very close to being elemental in the Homestuck universe.

That is not a surprise.

https://homestuck.com/story/1069

We’ll conclude the day with John’s alchemy session, and come back tomorrow where I’ll finally get around to stating another one of Homestuck’s major throughlines. For now though, I’ll point out that pretty much everything John has created here has some kind of Dad imagery or another (Although all the Cosby gags have aged incredibly poorly, don’t forget that at one point he was America’s Dad!)

With the possible exception of the Bunny Wizard hat which combines some Rose imagery with some John imagery! No wonder she thought it was as cool as he did.

For now, Cam signing off, something something not alone.

[thejonzone]

Riverdale is the Best Show You’ve Written Off

About once a month, a tweet will go around, reading something like “I can’t believe Netflix cancelled [SHOW X], but Riverdale is still on?!? *eye roll emoji, angry cussing emoji*.” It can be difficult to read tweets like these, because I like Riverdale. But I understand why it has struggled to keep an audience-- there is a perception that the show has gone completely off the rails, a chaos of hot actors in their mid-20s playing glamorous high school sociopaths, with the show choosing excess over narrative cohesion. That perception is pretty accurate. It’s an easy show to write off and easy to make fun of, especially because, as a CW show, it’s ostensibly geared to teens. So it brings me no pleasure to say that Riverdale, currently in its 5th season, has reached a renaissance, and its episodes so far this season represent its high-water mark. 

To appreciate how stunning and exciting Riverdale’s new direction is, it’s important to understand how we got here.

In the first season, a murder in the titular town revealed an underbelly of thugs, power brokers, and shady backroom rulers, all vying for control with gothic morbidity. What followed after that season though, was something else entirely. 

Riverdale, ramping up during Seasons 2 through 4, became a beautiful mess. I think it’s important to state that no other show on television is even attempting to do what Riverdale did/is doing. The show is, at any one point, 5-7 wholly different shows. There is a season’s worth of plot per episode. It’s storytelling mania and in-real-time dementia. I don’t remember what happened at the end of last episode because SO much happened. And besides, coherence is overrated! Give me hot actors, give me drug-addicted mobsters, give me creepy principals! On Riverdale, the parents are both former teen heartthrobs and serial killers, children operate underground speakeasies, and for some reason not one therapist has realized they could make a fortune helping our cast work through the intense psychological terror and emotional abuse they receive every episode.

This show is beyond pastiche, hyper-loaded with reference. My roommate and I had a joke that the show’s third season could be mapped to a quadrant of influences: Twin Peaks, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Gossip Girl. At any point Riverdale was acknowledging and playing into the influence of one of these shows. Season Four doubled down on the show’s horror anthology tendency. No one wants you to miss the references being made. You know that menacing boarding school Jughead attends in Season Four? You’d be right If it reminded you of Donna Tartt’s A Secret History. After all, consider Jughead’s classmate, whose name is Donna Sweet. Maybe you picked up on the violence simmering underneath the surface of Jughead’s other classmate, Bret Easton-Elli--  I mean, Bret Weston-Wallis.

Every week, the show seems primed for failure, attempting to juggle more storylines than possible or even necessary. The show is like a house of cards that has already fallen, and yet the writers are somehow still haphazardly adding more cards to the top. “Be reasonable!” I would plead. To no avail. And that’s the thrill of it. The plotlines are secondary to the spectacle. The show is a celebration and parody of violent legacy dramas, camp, teen horror, canonical literature, and anything else it can stuff under the hood, as much an ode to other pieces of media as it is an original work itself. 

But now, something completely different is happening. The beginning of Season Five brought an end to the seasons-long saga the show felt trapped in. Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead graduated high school, and the show flashed forward seven years. What might be considered a hokey technique was one of the best decisions the writers ever did. Because now we have a blank slate for our main cast. The writers effectively cut the fat from three seasons of violent, ridiculous maximalism. And it’s psychically refreshing.

At the heart of any good sitcom, we just want to see our main characters hanging out together. Change is part of life, but it shouldn’t be in television. Which is why this new season is so exciting-- Riverdale is now in the process of bringing its four main characters back from their adult lives and re-engaging them in the deadly politics of their hometown. Pop Tate, the owner-manager of Pop’s, Riverdale’s diner, is retiring, and Archie gets the gang back in town to celebrate the man who helped make the diner such a great hang-out spot. In the words of Jughead, “You gave us a home, Pop.” Like so mant other sitcoms before it, Riverdale used Pop’s to establish its characters and their relationships to each other.

I grew up on Seinfeld so I’ve always been attracted to the idea of the diner. The pandemic has made me yearn even harder for the sitcom diner, that idealistic place where all my friends are, where people enter with problems to be solved, drama to be explained, good news to be celebrated. Riverdale’s acknowledgment of Pop and his diner as the show’s connective tissue is a grounding and human choice. It works fantastically to set up this upcoming season, where our gang must confront the newest nefarious plot for control over the soul of Riverdale.

No doubt the show will continue its pattern of naming and spoofing genre. Veronica, in her adult life, had an Uncut Gems-style few scenes where she works as a charismatic (of course) diamond merchant. She married a possessive, boring guy who’s only characteristic seems to be that his voice is *exactly* like Veronica’s megalomaniac dad, Hiram. Something something Freud, something something daddy sexy. And credit where credit is due, Mark Consuelos is really hot.

Jughead is a writer now, in the most white guy college freshman fantasy of being a writer possible. He attended the Iowa Writers Workshop as an undergrad, something that is definitely not possible. He’s written a hit book but now suffers from *gasp* writer’s block?? He’s a cool guy writer who, in his opening montage, gets recognized by, hit on, and then has sex with a college-aged fan. Back in Riverdale, Jug writes a speech for Pop’s retirement and sends it to his agent. His agent is smitten with the work, calling it “tragic americana” and proclaiming that Jughead’s next book will be titled “Elegy for a Small Town”. This is almost certainly a reference to J.D. Vance’s bad book, and I’m sure the show will be bringing in more elements of “tragic” “americana” as the season unfolds. 

Betty is FBI in training, because as the show has loved to tell us, Betty has “the serial killer gene”, but is using it for good. For the record, her dad was a serial killer, and her brother was a serial killer. And it’s not like her mom or sister can cast the first stone. Betty’s endured enough trauma to fill 100 lives with unending pain and I’m sure the show will have no trouble heaping more on top. Already in the new season we’ve seen flashbacks to some point during the time jump when Betty was taken hostage, in what’s clearly a homage to The Silence of the Lambs. 

And then there’s Archie. I don’t know if anyone knows what to do with the guy. Played by K.J. Apa, who is both really good-looking with his shirt off and a god-awful actor, Archie has been in the army. The show is using him to shill for the military-industrial complex. 

I’ve long joked that the Riverdale writers have no idea what they’re doing. But through a global pandemic affecting TV production and *the* major narrative complication in any high school-set show (graduation), the Riverdale writers have seamlessly transitioned the show to a new stasis. Past seasons are informing this one, but we aren’t bogged down by the details in this new season. The bigger joke, of course, is that the writers have known exactly what they’ve been doing this whole time, and I’m just an idiot. Well I mean, of course I’m an idiot. I use television to regulate my emotions and simulate a static friend group that doesn’t leave or change. And Riverdale is perfect for that. If a renaissance is a rebirth, well then my friends, cut the umbilical cord and save the placenta to put in pills, because Riverdale is cranking out episodes that are better than ever.