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bookofmirth · 3 years

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ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol

i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol

i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?

Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.

To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.

This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.

I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.

I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.

Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.

Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.

What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.

This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.

However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.

People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.

You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.

Here are the facts as of right now:

ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.

If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.

His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.

Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.

So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.

There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.

Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.

Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.

I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.

I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).

There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.

idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.

#ask #gimme-mor #acotar #antielriel #gwynriel #elucien #acotar fandom #fandom things #fandom history

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popcultureoverdosed · 4 years

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Youthful Dystopia of Narutaru

Narutaru was beneficial enough to have been made in an era where deconstruction series was gaining traction. If it were to made now, it'd probably be labeled as edgy without any mention of the actual quality of the story. Notably, the genre being deconstructing is the Mon( Digimon, pokemon, etc) genre. Unlike magical girl and mecha shows of today, Mon anime are still generally fluffy and childish so a darker take on the genre was definitely in order.

To give a little backdrop on the creator Mohiro Kitoh, he's pretty much a nihilist that rivals gen urubuchi in cruelty. His other works include a giant robot that steals the life force of children to destroy the multiverse and a psychic teen whom mass murders anyone who drives irresponsibly. He's that type of guy.

The main appeal of the story comes from the interactions between the children and their shadow dragons, rather than actual plot progression. Shadow dragons are mysterious creatures who bond to the characters with a psychic link, sharing their pain and inner thoughts. The names of the shadow dragons are often reflective of their user's psychology. For example, Norio's dragon is Vagina dentata representing his feminine appearance and inability to become intimate with the man he loves.

Our first real look into the world of Narutaru comes in the form of Tomonori Komori. The first few chapters spend time lolly gaging and establishing a vaguely foreboding mood, but, Komori establishes how this world operates. He a textbook level sociopath. A charming young boy who is revered by those in his neighborhood. All that charm is simply a facade he puts on to hide his true sinister views. He wants a Darwinistic world where all of the educated and well to do members of society are killed off, leaving the world in a survival of the fittest state. " Those who are weak and can't fend for themselves deserve to die," he says despite having a sick mother to take care of. He's ironically killed off by hoshimaru, one of the weaker dragons.

Komori is far from the only disturbed child in the series. The children have few qualms with murder and treat it casually. What sets this mon series from those of the same genre is that it treats its children character like actual humans. They aren't saints who only use their abilities for good. They're selfish and use these dragons to suit their own needs. It seems that being psychologically damaged is a requirement for having a dragon. Even upbeat Shiina has her hang-ups about her identity. This theory of trauma giving birth to shadow dragons is more or less confirmed with Hiroko.

She's a shy girl who's constant physical and emotional abuse from her bullies and parents allow her to awaken Oni. Her parents are representative of a common problem in Asian society. They only value their daughter for her academic status and chide her for being anything less than perfect. Her bullies torment her for being too smart and standing out during class. Both parties have opposite reasons for hating Hiroko, but, they both wish to strip away her individuality and turn her into a submissive slave of society. Awakening her shadow dragon allows Hiroko to finally get revenge on her tormentors, even if it means becoming a serial killer in the process.

The manga is definitely a character-driven tale that dwells deep into the psyche of highly disturbed children. You have Akira who has depression and suicidal tendencies, Aki Honda who raped a girl with a test tube and the girl in question who snaps and goes in a killing spree. You could say that all of this bleakness is a bit too much but honestly, it felt refreshing. Mon series are generally really cheesy with bland one-note characters and a story that only exists to sell merchandise. Narutaru breaks the mold and presents characters who are multi-faceted and lifelike. Contrary to popular belief, children aren't always innocent and they can be just as cruel as adults.

One major gripe I have with the manga is the art. Mohiro sure can write but his art isn't winning any awards, that's for sure. Character designs are bland and minimalist. I admit the military paraphernalia is drawn in extensive detail and the dragons have cool designs but that's about it. Other manga artists can do sketchy manga art perfectly but Mohiro isn't one of them.

I also wasn't too particularly fond of the second half of the manga. It drops elements of deconstruction and character drama to replace it with military affairs. I understand the writer is a military nut but having chapters littered with walls of text of JSDF members reacting to the shadow dragon was just so tedious. It would've been better if the plot focused solely on the children and how their actions affect their environment. The second half of the manga lost what made Narutaru so special. It started as a character study of how immature kids react to newfound power only for the story to get Monopolized by adults. some characters like Mamiko Kuri, Norio Koga, and sudo desperately needed more screentime and character development. Mamiko is the worst offender as she only exists to be overtly cryptic until the final volumes.

I highly recommend anyone curious to please read the manga. It's ultimately a story of children thrown into an adult world of violence with little room to grow up. It's a thought-provoking social commentary on the nature of humans and how far their cruelty can go. There's an anime adaptation that isn't as good but is still a fun watch. Even if it's unlikely I'd to see the anime get a remake with a bigger budget and completely adapt the manga. If it did get a remake, here's whom I'd want to work on it:

Studio Mappa/ Geno studio- They seem more willing than other studios to work on nontraditional anime. They also tend to have high production values, something the Narutaru anime desperately needed. Producer twin engine would probably need to be involved

Sadyuki Murai(scriptwriter)- His work on boogiepop Phantom and Juuni Taisen has shown he excels at character drama and psychological thrillers. His style would work perfectly with the narrative and maybe even give the side characters some much-needed development. Taku Kishimoto would be my second choice

Takahiro Kishida( Character designer)- He has a sketchy and rough art style that can perfectly encapsulate the feel of the manga. I'm sure he'd improve on the demure character designs and make them more dynamite.

Takahiro Omari( Director)- He directed Durarara and Baccano which tells me he knows how to work with an ensemble cast. He also directed Hell girl, which had heavy social commentary poised at Japanese society, something Kitoh would love.

Yugo Kanno(Composer)- This guy knows how to how to Composer dark and suspenseful tracks that can amplify the intensity of the manga.

Be sure to check out these two other blogs that went far more in-depth than I ever could.

https://hanagasaitayo.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/analysis-narutaru-mukuro-naru-hoshi-tama-taru-ko/

https://manymanytoes.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/narutaru-shadow-star/

#narutaru #deconstruction #manga #review #psychological #Shounen Passion

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another-sonic-blog · 5 years

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The Dark Prince: Chapter Three: My Old Blue Friend

"Let Amy go, Shadow!"

It was raining heavily in Hasvely but the silhouettes of Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog were still visible. Their furs were soaking wet just like their clothing. The townspeople hiding in their own homes, but still, there were ones who their curiosity had gotten the best of them and took up the courage to peek through their window. After all, it wasn't every day that you would see Sonic The Hedgehog, 'retired' world hero and Shadow The Hedgehog, the best world spy and recognized hero, together.

Tales that only kids would hear about when they were about to sleep. Superheroes that they only thought of meeting in their dreams.

"If you want her...come and get her."

Shadow walked slowly but confidently towards the blue bur. Amy could only appreciate from afar, unable to do anything as she was tied down to a chair, mouth taped and she could only hope that this didn't end the way she was imagining it.

The blue bur just stood there waiting for the black one to make a move. Sonic's eyes had changed over the years, it wasn't like him anymore. Once they used to be filled with so much life, but now it seemed like that is a long time forgotten memory.

And so, the first impacted happened.

One day before the events

Hasvely was a small village. Around 5 thousand of population, in which the most dedicated their times in agricultural jobs to sustain themselves. Shadow and Amy had finally found their way to the village as they try to hide their looks to the other villages.

"Where do we start now?.", Amy questioned as she took a moment to look at Shadow.

"Well, asking around might be a good start but we don't want to give out too much of our information or how we look...A cup of black coffee it is then."

"Shadow!.", Amy stopped herself as she had realized that maybe she had said his name way too loud. Shadow walked away, pretending as nothing had happened, and looked around for the closest coffee shop, Amy couldn't do anything but follow him.

Is this real life? Or is just fantasy?

Was Amy Rose really stranded in another village with Shadow The Hedgehog? With no other place to go? Yes, she was. And the only thing Shadow was going to do about it was to look for coffee. Or at least that was his plan so far.

Shadow opened the door for Amy and she walked in as she thanked him. It was a small place, more of a breakfast/restaurant kind of establishment. None the less, still pretty cozy and the smell of food had already made its way into Amy's nostrils, waking her senses up.

They took a sit on the corner of the restaurant, and shortly after the waitress came up to them.

"Can I get you both something to drink?.", The waitress said as she put down the small menus on their table.

"Cup of black coffee.", Shadow said simply.

"And for your girlfriend?"

"Umh, I am n-", Amy was about to correct her but was interrupted shortly after.

"She would like an Americano."

"All right, I'll be back with your drinks."

The cat waitress left with a smile. Amy saw her leave and turned to Shadow who was reading the menu in front of him. Not really bothered by his own previous commentary.

"Um...Shadow?."

"Yes?." He said, still not parting his eyes from the menu.

"Why did you say that?"

Shadow looked up as he took of this fake round glasses. "Was I wrong?"

"Well... I mean...you and I never talked about those things." Amy said as she looked down to the table, blushing a little bit.

"We don't need to talk about it, for me to know it's real."

Amy's heart stopped for a second. Was the Dark Prince really insinuating that there was something more than just friendship between them?

"I know that your favorite coffee is Americano. That's why I order it."

Well, at least he wasn't wrong.

Amy sighed in defeat, "Anyways, don't you really think that right now is a good time to be drinking coffee? Shouldn't we be looking for Sonic?."

"You would be surprised to know that you can find a lot of information by just sitting and drinking a cup of coffee."

"What?."

Shadow smiled at her and looked shortly at the group of friends across from them, inviting Amy to do the same in a secret manner.

"I don't believe you, C'mon! We all know that Sonic the Hedgehog retired after the events of Eggman conquering the world.", A blue fox said, loud enough for them to hear.

"I am telling you, I saw him with my own eyes! The farm was on fire but there were still kids inside and then boom! The blue bur went inside and save them all! It was so fast! He left the kids in a safe place and left right after. There are people in town saying that they have seen him recently running around the fields too!", The other friend told his story, excitement on his voice.

"If there's no picture, it didn't happen."

"Ah, come on, don't you know how hard it is to get any piece of technology around here?."

And the group of friends was going around and around about the topic. Amy and Shadow were concentrating on their conversation so much that they didn't notice that thirty minutes had passed just like that until their waitress had made a comeback with her personality backward.

"Sorry for the long wait." The cat girl said as she placed their drinks on the table, almost spilling them. "Just found out I am pregnant again. What can I get you?."

Where Amy saw misfortune, Shadow saw an opportunity.

"I can't believe you gave that lady more than half of our money Shadow!.", Amy whispered to his ear as they waited patiently for her to come back.

"Did you want to sleep on a cave again? On the cold floor? With no warm food on your belly?."Shadow responded back.

"Couldn't we just have gotten a hotel room?."

"It's Hasvely, they barely have a drainage system."

Amy wanted to respond back to that but the sound of small feet running towards the dining table was way too noticeable to keep talking.

Yes, Shadow had given most of their money to the cat girl in exchange for one night at her house with a comfortable bed to sleep in. She was pretty desperate and needed the money, so she really couldn't say no.

----

In a flash, three small cats appeared in front of the couple. One girl, two boys. The girl was red just like her mother and the boys shared a brown fur, which they both thought came from their dad.

Running around the dining table, screaming and playing between them until their mom showed up with what seemed to be tonight's dinner.

"Kids stop it already and sit down. Please don't bother our guests." The mom, which her name was clarified as Diana, explicitly told their kids who they obeyed.

"I am sorry, my husband passed away a month ago and it's been quite hard for me to control my kids without his help."

"We completely understand."

"Seems like your husband left you a present before he left," Shadow said as he looked directly at her tummy. "To be honest, I would of prefer something else. But I guess this is pretty nice too...A bit scary, but nice." Her face was filled with a nostalgic expression. Her eyes gleamed and twinkle as she softly placed a hand on her belly.

"Where are your babies, Mr. Angry?."

The group of adults was interrupted by the youngest, the small girl could barely see beyond the table and focused her eyes on Shadow. "Emilia!" The mother tried to correct her but Shadow laughed under his breath, making it clear that he was far from being mad at the little girl.

"Mr.Angry doesn't have babies, red-one," Shadow responded.

"Why not?"

"I don't have a wife."

"What about Ms. Pretty?" The little girl then fixed her eyes on Amy who blushed at the moment. "Me-e?"

"You should marry her... Oh! I'll plan the wedding after dinner!"

"We will be looking forward to it then," Shadow said as he placed a hand on the small girl's hair.

It was things like this that made Amy question Shadow sometimes. Amy smiles softly at him, really glad at the moment of her realization. Besides looking for a place to stay, Shadow was actually looking forward to helping this lady because, at the moment, her children needed the money more than they needed it.

Shadow was just good like that. A real-life Prince.

It was a peaceful dinner. The kids would do the normal play. The food was warm and homemade and to be honest it had been a while ever since they both had a peaceful night.

"I am so sorry, I need to leave for my night shift already. Do you mind putting my children to sleep?", The red lady said as she finished watching the dishes alongside Amy.

"Sure, it's no problem but....we just met each other. We are basically strangers and you are trusting your kids to me?", Amy said as she looked towards the living room, Shadow on the floor as the three kids played with him.

"Actually, it will be my honor if you and Shadow the Hedgehog stayed and took care of my children."

Amy flinched a little, realizing that their disguise had failed. "You... you know us?"

"I don't know if he remembers but... Shadow the Hedgehog helped our village two years ago. We were on the blink of starvation. The government wouldn't help us but one day we just received a vast supply of seeds, machinery and other resources to help us grow. Everything was donated under the name of Shadow the hedgehog." The cat girl said smiling.

"How do you know it's him?"

"He personally came to distribute his resources. If it wasn't for him, I don't know what would have happened to the kids in this village, to be honest."

As she finished to dry the rest of the dishes, Diana smiled towards her kids in the living room. Happier than ever to have someone else to play with. "I know G.U.N is looking for you both, but don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

"All right kids, just thirty more minutes!"

Amy sat down on the floor alongside Shadow and kids who were brushing Shadow's quills. Amy noticed a black bow, crookedly attached to his white fur and a small black hat that was ok the verge of falling from his head.

"We need to get Ms.Pretty ready, fast!." The kids moved to 'work' on Amy's look as fast as they could. At this point, Amy just let it happened and let the kids have their fun.

"No looking at the bride while she's getting ready!." The oldest boy said and at this Shadow nodded and turned around. His back, now facing Amy's. Shadow played with his fingers as he waited for the kids to be done with Amy.

"So...you haven't seen Sonic since he 'retired'?" , Shadow decides to start a conversation to one, let time pass and two get more information that might help them in this mission.

Amy sighed, knowing that sooner or later the topic would come in hand. She closed her eyes as she saw the small red cat girl ready to put on some eye shadow on her.

"After the Resistance disbanded, Sonic left. The world was at peace again and without Eggman, there was no point on continuing saving the world and he quit being a hero. Or at least that's what I saw on the news..."

"That was around five years ago..." Shadow said as he felt one of the boys put some type of gel on his quills and began to play "crazy hair" on him.

"Last time I saw him was a year ago...when Cream's mom, Vanilla passed away...on her funeral. I saw him in the distance. We looked at each other...and then he left again. Without saying a word...That's why I am saying that it's going to be really hard to find him." Amy opened her eyes and saw the little girl place a small tiara she had made with paper on her head. Even now, talking about it hurt Amy on her inside. She couldn't hold it in much longer as she left her nose get watery due to the fact that she wanted to cry.

"Oh which reminds me," Amy added as she tried to change the subject. "Cream talked about you going to Vanilla's funeral and you told her something about-"

Shadow pretended not to hear her sniff and his heart began to raised at the fact that may be a year ago, he had made a mistake by talking about his feelings to that rabbit.

"And we are done! You may look at the bride now!."

Shadow was literally saved by the little girl and made a note to himself to thank her later. He turned around to face Amy this time and it took him a lot of courage to stop himself from laughing.

"You look...beautiful." Shadow tried to sound serious but Amy knew what meant. Her make up was all over the place, lipstick on her thee and on areas where they shouldn't be any. Blush as pink as her fur and eye-shadow all the way up to her eyebrows.

"Well, I am going to marry a very handsome hedgehog as well," Amy said as a take-back and Shadow could only guess how terrible his quills look at the moment.

"We are here today to marry Mr.Angry and Ms.Pretty so they can have babies." The third kids said as serious as he could. Standing in front of the couple while his brother and sister sat down next to Shadow and Amy as if they were guests of honor.

"Do you, Mr. Angry, swear to be with Ms.pretty um uh-." The cat boy pulled out a paper out of pocket as he had forgotten his lines. "-Forever, even if she eats your food without you knowing?"

Shadow looked at Amy directly on the eyes and his expression had changed. His eyes sparkled and he had a soft smile eating on his face. Softly and peacefully, an "I do" scapes from his lips and was heard loud enough for everyone to hear.

"And do you Ms. Pretty-"

Even if it was just a game, Shadow's reaction at the moment had completely baffle Amy. He sounded so sensible and sincere that Amy's emotional self was on the blink to let down a tear, but instead a quick "I do" was said and such action of confidence never seen in her before had awed Shadow to his limits.

"Ladies and gentlemen... I know declare this two...husband and wife... may you both have a lot of babies we can play with!"

The kids clapped all in different unison.

The little girl then gasped as she remembered something she had forgotten.

"Ah! Mr. Angry forgot to kiss Ms.Pretty!"

Wow did this kids have pretty big adult ideas uh?

Shadow looked at Amy as she blinked at him. She wasn't sure if it was because of the heat coming from the fire or was it because Shadow was...blushing?

"Wait...you are not seriously thinking..."

Oh, but he was; and as he tried to get back his composure, he got closer to the pink hedgehog as they felt the kids' eyes on them. Shadow placed his hand on Amy's check slowly chanting towards her and Amy tremble in all of her beings. The excitement, the fear she had never felt before because even at her 20s, she had never kissed anyone before.

But now there she was. About to kiss the Dark Prince, no other than Shadow the hedgehog.

She closed her eyes ready for the impact...but felt the impact in another place... her cheek. Shadow had kissed her cheek softly, quick and once.

What else could she expect from him? He wasn't just gonna steal a kiss, it wasn't like Shadow to do those kinds of things.

"There, now you all need to wash your teeth and head to bed," Shadow said as he stood up from the floor and looked at the kids.

"Fine!" The kids said in defeat as they all went to the restroom to get ready for bed.

"Well, that went nicely." Amy stood up as she took off the paper tiara from her head.

"Wait, leave it." Shadow interrupted her action in which exchange she gave him a concerned looked. "Why?"

"I think I just got an idea..."

And so, that's what brought us to this moment. The plan was simple. Use Amy as bait and hope for the blue but to come. The townspeople helped a lot too by spreading the rumor pretty fast that Shadow had taken Amy as a hostage. They knew it was risky since rumors run fast, they could expect a G.U.N militia coming for them any time soon. The best they could do now was to wait for the blue but to show up.

It began to rain heavily, thunder and lightning struck the village. Dark grey clouds above them and Shadow and Amy did their best to be patient.

"I am telling you he won't come," Amy said as she sat down on the chair Shadow had provided her. He was as standing next to her, holding an umbrella big enough to cover both of them. Even with it, they still manage to get their attires wet since the wind would throw water at them once in a while.

"Well, I want you to tell him that right now."

Lighting struck and for a moment everything was visible in front of the couple and to the ones who were peaking through their window.

There he was in all of his might.

The one who has saved the planet multiple times. The one who runs as fast as the wind, the blue bur.

The worlds hero...Sonic the Hedgehog.

"It's been a while faker," Shadow said as dropped the umbrella and walked towards the blue one.

"Cut the chitchat, let Amy go and I'll be on my wa-"

Sonic then felt a punch on his face.

"Shadow! We said no fighting!"

Sonic heard Amy from afar as he let the rain touch his body. "That's for making her cry." He saw Shadow looking down on him and walked away as he saw Amy approaching him. She covered his face with the umbrella as he recovered from the punch and sat down on the ground.

"What do you both want from me?, Sonic said as he stood up away from Amy's umbrella, acting as if she wasn't there.

"We want information. I don't know if you have heard but they are chasing Amy down for a murder she didn't do." Shadow sat down on the chair Amy used before as if there was no rain to worry about.

"Who did she 'murder'?"

"G.U.N's commander."

Sonic looked at Amy with fiery eyes. For once in her life, Amy felt shivers run down her spine when he looked at her. And it wasn't like the 'electric' type she used to feel when she was younger; it was more like the 'scare' kind of type and that alone...terrified her.

"Well, you are screw"

Just what the heck had happened to Sonic the Hedgehog these past years? He sounded more like Shadow in his teenage years, all edgy and dark. No, this wasn't the Sonic Amy had chased so many years ago.

"Sorry to inform you, but I got nothing. Now if you excuse me, I'll get going."

Just like that. Sonic began to walk away. Shadow speed up and faced him. "I know you are lying."

"Good to know you are as perceptive as ever." Sonic walked past him, ready to make a run. He hesitated for a bit and sighed.

"Look, it's not only the commander. According to my informants, G.U.N's leaders around the world have been killed as well under mysterious circumstances...as well as expert engineers, astronomers, scientist...mechanic geniuses."

Shadow noticed that Sonic had stopped his movements. He turned around for a second to give Amy a comforting gift as he continued.

"You left for a long time...Tails Miles Prower became the top director for G.U.N's elite mechanic's team...I wouldn't be surprised if he was on the list of fatalities next."

Sonic turned around and if looks could kill, Shadow would be long dead.

"Follow me."

Amy recognized the place as soon as she stepped on the base. A vast long memory she had wanted to forget but until this day, it hunts her on her worst nightmares.

"This is where you have been...all of this time?" Amy asked more to herself than to Sonic, who in return gave her a small growl.

"Take it or leave it"

Yeah, in fact, it didn't take Amy nor Shadow to figure out what was going with him. A tragedy had occurred in that place, more than 100 soldiers from the Resistance lost their lives in that base. Pictures of not just them but of all other soldiers who lost their lives at the war with Eggman were plastered on the walls. Newspapers, articles, objects, everything was there.

"You are torturing yourself.", Shadow said.

"Its the only way to redeem my mistakes." Sonic sat down on a small cushion, near it there were blankets and small pillows, obviously the place he will sleep in. Shadow and Amy sat down as well, but on the cold floor.

"When I was looking for supplies, I met this hedgehog boy. He was kinda weird looking, white fur, golden eyes. He sounded really desperate...anyways, he was asking people to take him to G.U.N.'s main base. He said that the commander was going to die soon and that would cause the destruction of his future. Of course, nobody believed him."

Sonic finished his story, Amy and Shadow looked at each other, waiting for more but nothing came out of his mouth. "What did you do?"

"I left, it wasn't none of my business."

"When did this happen?"

"Around a week ago."

"Where did you see him?" Amy asked the blue bur this time. "Persepolis, you can get there by foot in two days. But I am sure with Shadow's speed, time won't be a problem."

"It's not about time, it's about whether that white hedgehog is still in Persepolis or not" Shadow stood up from his place and took the freedom to walk around the place.

"It's our only clue now. Maybe someone in the city knows where he went." Amy quickly looked at Shadow who seemed in deep thought, reading the newspapers around him.

"We will leave in the morning, thank you for your cooperation, Sonic."

"Morning?"

"Oh yes, we will sleep here. Now if you don't mind, I'll go get us some food."

"Wait, Shadow don't leave-", Amy stood up fast, not wanting to be left alone with the blue one.

"I'll be back soon."

Ten minutes passed, and no sign of Shadow yet. Just the quiet and strange calmness that came within the base. Amy looked at the floor as she played with her fingers. She could feel Sonic's gaze at her. Just staring at her.

"How did you do it?"

Sonic's voice stumbled on Amy's head. "What do you mean?"

"How did you get your life back together after what happened?"

Amy took the courage to move towards the blue hedgehog. She could see it on his eyes, the silent suffering, the sleepless nights, the nightmares. Just like how she was years ago.

"I never did. To be honest, I stopped doing the whole heroine stuff when the war was over. I just couldn't see myself having people's lives depend on me again. I decided on a much simpler life. I opened a small cafe, actually."

Amy took a moment to look at Sonic who was waiting for more of her story for him to hear. And so she continued.

"Therapy helped. But the nightmares are still there. I don't think I'll ever forget. You just gotta...see life with a different outlook."

A few seconds passed and Sonic was one the one to moved closer to Amy. He grabbed her hand delicately, trembling and Amy noticed this.

"I am sorry...for leaving you for so long. It seems like I am always leaving you when you need me the most. Just like how I did with the rest of the world."

"You may have left me...but you never failed me."

It got quiet. Very quiet. They didn't dare to look at each other because they knew what would happen if they did. They just stared at each other's hands, holding each other. Sonic softly caressing Amy's and she just let it all happen. She soon felt her chin been touched by Sonic's hand, making her look directly at his eyes and then at his lips who looked so tempting to touch.

Way too tempting.

And it seemed like Sonic thought the same way about Amy's. He was craving it, her touch, her presence, her everything. If he hadn't been so shy, so cowardly, he wonders if things could of turn this way, years ago. When he wasn't so broken, when he was worthy of being with Amy.

"Am I interrupting something?"

It was Shadow.

Amy and Sonic separated as fast as they could. Their faces showed their evident blush, they couldn't hide it.

"We are leaving."

"Shadow, wait-"

"We are leaving!"

Amy stood quiet, Shadow had never talked that way before to her. It was shocking in a sense to find out that maybe her dark prince wasn't so 'princey' after all.

Shadow gave Amy one last look before he walked back out the door he came from.

He waited a few minutes for Amy to come out and she did. As soon as she came out, Shadow began to walk away, slowly.

"Umm, Shadow...are you angry at me?", Amy couldn't just leave things like that. She needed to find out the reason for Shadow's sudden mood change.

"No, I am not... I just felt something.", Shadow said, still not looking at Amy on the eyes. It wasn't all lies, but at the moment he wanted to hide the fact that he was jealous on the inside. It was just so stupid of him to think that Amy was starting to feel the same way he does about her. He hated the part of himself that told him there was hope that he could be loved.

"You felt...Something?"

"We are being followed. G.U.N.'s agents are already questioning the people in Hasvely. If we don't move quickly, Sonic is going to get involved as well."

"Oh...so that's why."

Amy needed to stop herself from having stupid ideas. There was no way that Shadow could ever-

"You sound disappointed...were you waiting for a different answer?"

Amy's thoughts were interrupted by his voice. They were now entering the woods, although Shadow was walking slowly, his walking pace was still way faster than Amy's. She ran a little to catch up to him once in a while.

"No, I was just thinking of Sonic...he still not ready to come back...when all of this is over. I promised him, I'll come back."

In a sense, she was saying the truth, but she also wanted to hide her disappointment somehow.

"And what about me?"

"About you?"

"Yes, about us"

Shadow stopped for a second, realizing that Amy was a behind him, trying to catch up to him. Shadow grabbed her hand as to stop her from falling behind. However, Amy took this as a sign to have a conversation.

"What do you mean, about us?"

"I think after what I am doing for you, I reserve a reward, don't you think?"

Shadow noticed that Amy was starting to get nervous. He turned his body towards her, as to give her more comfort, but Amy had taken it the wrong way. She began to walk backward as Shadow unconsciously walked towards her, still holding her hand.

"I mean yeah, um, uh what about, I don't know, mo-money?", Amy's voiced cracked as she looked away.

"I was thinking of something more...personal."

Amy's back touched a tree behind her, and Shadow placed a hand above her as, making it clear that she couldn't go anywhere. For Shadow, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. But to Amy, it felt a whole different way. It was as is Shadow was teasing her on purpose.

"What-what do you want?"

Shadow moved his face closer to her. Taking a breath as he appreciated her aroma. He looked at her in the eyes, and Amy felt her knees tremble.

"I want y-"

"Um, I am sorry."

They were both interrupted by a white hedgehog, spiky, weird looking hair. Golden eyes, white chest fur, and his shoes looked weirdly...futuristic.

"My name is Silver and I think I am lost."

Next Chapter: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/185967014480/the-dark-prince-chapter-four-believe-in-him

The Dark Prince: Chapter Four: Believe In Him

Previous Chapter: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/185966809995/the-dark-prince-chapter-two-the-way-he-is

The Dark Prince: Chapter Two: The Way He Is

#Shadamy #shadow the hedgehog #shadamy fanfiction #shadow and amy #shadowxamy #Amy Rose #sonic fanfic #sonic fanfiction

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commentaryvorg · 5 years

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(This isn’t the moment Kokichi falls into despair. This is the moment he figures out that everything is fiction.) I think this is a bit of hindsight bias. I mean, just because Kokichi figures out something is a lie doesn't mean that it's purely for entertainment. That wasn't the case for dr1, after all? It absolutely was apocalyptic as hell out there, and Tsumugi could easily be lying about it being a "set" as well as peoples talents being fake (case in point Miu, no way in hell was hers fake)

Also about Hope's Peak like, even Shuichi doubts that it's fiction in the end? I doubt Kokichi would ever come to that conclusion when he had the book in his lab, and for a special reason? And yeah, people may have enjoyed the game and screwed with them, but that doesn't mean it's just about the outside world or whatever but the organization responsible for arranging this (TDR) since they're really corrupt and sadistic. Idk, I feel like there's a lot more to this judging from the evidence

Sorry if this is flooding you I'm just really bothered because you said it's 'the only thing that makes sense' and I'm like nooooo, no no no no it's not?? There's more worth looking at especially around Kokichi, it's super vague about him even in the end

(If this is the same anon as before, thank you for being more polite about it this time! I am quite happy to have a legitimate discussion about this.)

Okay, so, of course, this whole commentary is running under the assumption that everything is fiction because that's my interpretation of the story. The awkward thing about that for people who aren't necessarily ready to buy that interpretation is that most of the parts where I get to actually discuss why that's my interpretation happen towards the end of the story. Until then, I'm just kind of casually assuming it's the case without getting much chance to back it up, at least if I don't want to go off on massive tangents unrelated to what's actually going on. I'll be talking a lot more about this in chapter 6 (and a little bit in chapter 5) when we reach the parts where the narrative starts actively focusing on all of this. Hopefully then it'll become clearer why I think what I do. (Hopefully. I’m not quite so far ahead in writing this that I’ve reached chapter 6 yet, so I don't know exactly what I'm going to say when I get there, but.)

I acknowledge that my interpretation isn't the only possible one and that there are some holes in it. I talked about a few of these during the prologue and also briefly mentioned the talent thing when we saw Angie's waxworks. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure there isn't any single interpretation which has absolutely no holes in it. I've certainly never seen one which doesn't make me go "okay, but what about this, though". Not even mine, admittedly, yes.

I choose to go with my interpretation for two reasons, the first being that, in my opinion, it has the most supporting evidence and the fewest holes. (And most of the holes it does have can be put down to the fact that the out-universe writers probably couldn't do much about them if this was the story they wanted to tell. For example, the pregame characters being kidnapped and then so slow on the uptake about being in Danganronpa is awkward, but the alternative, assuming this is the truth of the story that the out-universe writers are trying to tell, is either that they make it very clear what's going on and spoil the entire plot twist for the out-universe audience before the story's even begun, or we don't get to see the pregame characters in the prologue at all and therefore have no potential proof that there even was a "pregame", which would make it seem even more likely that Tsumugi was lying about that.)

But my second and probably more important reason I go with this interpretation is simply because I like the story best this way. I love metanarratives, and I find it absolutely fascinating to think about and discuss the ways that this being treated as a story within the story affects how things go. If this wasn't something that I could genuinely believe is the truth of the story, I wouldn't like Danganronpa V3 anywhere near as much as a narrative and wouldn't have as much fun talking about it to the point that I might not even be doing this commentary.

Obviously not everyone's going to feel the way that I do, and that's fine. But I think it's perfectly valid for me to use "this is what I want to believe" as a reason to believe it when that's an actual message that the story promotes. The narrative towards the end makes a point of the idea that sometimes you can never be sure what's a lie and what's the truth. That's almost certainly why Kokichi as a character is as ambiguously presented as he is (as much as I keep expressing my frustration at the lack of a concrete backstory explaining why Kokichi is the way he is, I do understand that the writers did it for this purpose, even if the result is that it makes me less able to like him), and why the plot itself is so ambiguous and there are multiple interpretations that are plausible. The player is basically invited to choose whichever interpretation they want to, so that's what I'm doing.

I gave you this general speech instead of addressing some of your specific points since I'm going to be talking about most of those points in more detail later when they come up in the main commentary (and I'd be happy to discuss them further through asks if you still want to once we get there). I will talk a bit about Kokichi here, though, since I won't be doing so later - because I'm honestly a little confused as to why you appear to be so sure that Kokichi is the key to figuring out the whole truth of the story. It seems apparent to me that the reason things are so vague and ambiguous about him even at the end is simply because the narrative purpose of his character is to be an embodiment of that theme about lies and truth, like I just discussed, not because the real truth about him would somehow give any answers about anything important. Kokichi is just as in the dark as any other character except for Tsumugi, and anything he might figure out is nothing but a guess. I admit that when I said "the only thing that makes sense" re Kokichi's view on the outside world, I was running under my assumption that everything is fiction, and, yes, him having hypothetically guessed that doesn't prove anything about what's really out there. That entire point of mine was less about using Kokichi to back up my interpretation of the real truth of the situation, and more about using my assumption of the real truth of the situation to back up Kokichi's state of mind. I still stand by my observation that the comments Kokichi makes in that scene do seem to be hinting that he thinks everything is not only a lie but specifically fiction, though, regardless of whether or not he's right about it.

I'm also not sure what Hope's Peak has to do with Kokichi, since Kokichi never learns about it at all. He never sees inside his own lab, so he never gets to read that book. Even if Hope's Peak was real, his memories of it would have been just as wiped as everyone else's, and he never gets exposed to that one Flashback Light.

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #reply #thanks for the ask!#don't worry about flooding; i am happy to talk about anything if you're being respectful about it #Anonymous

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itspatsy · 6 years

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Part of me thinks JJS2 didn't want to acknowledge they'd majorly dropped the ball on race in S1, so in S2 they amped up the "Jessica is a part of a minority group" aspect, had a black woman say "you people," to turn the narrative even further away from Jessica's own white privilege, and destroyed Trish, who was a viable target because she wasn't a traumatized white woman like Jessica - she was a RICH white woman. And they were desperate to avoid their fuck-ups so they made Patsy a patsy.

okay, so this turned into a long, generally incoherent rant that starts with “this show absolutely fails at dealing with race” and ends with “wtf were they even trying to do with trish’s story,” and it should probably be separate posts or better yet just not posted at all, but it’s all generally related to this ask, so whatever. it’s a mess, i have a lot of confusing thoughts, ignore me.

rather than acknowledging the mistakes of s1 regarding race and trying to course correct, the show definitely seemed like it decided to double down. before the season started, as it was becoming clear they were going to do this “prejudice against powered people” thing, i was really weary about how they would handle it, and apparently my instinct was right.

to start with, it felt kind of pulled out of nowhere. realistically, sure, people would be weary of powered individuals, but it hasn’t really been fully built into the fabric of the mcu or the netflix mcu as a realized form of bigotry. it was also really only a thematic element in the first half of the season, and they made no effort to really explore it and its implications before they tossed it out and changed gears. it was just there to be used as a device for conflict and drama.

and it’s such a ridiculous thing when you only have one powered person in the show that’s experiencing that bigotry and she’s a skinny white heterosexual cis woman? like, the most direct parallel for this wasn’t misogyny or homophobia, but racism, and they didn’t try to tell multiple perspectives about it. having a black woman say “you people” at jessica was the most tone deaf bullshit, like, i could not fucking believe it (and then they later killed her off in the most disposable way, which is a whole other issue, and something this show has done repeatedly). they had oscar, a moc that had been in prison (of course), start out the same way, seemingly expressing bigotry and getting “righteously” called out for it by jessica. then there was pryce, another moc, aggressively going after jessica, trying to steal her business, calling her an animal because of her anger and powers, and he “never takes no for an answer” and jessica gets to be like “how rape-y of you” in what was supposed to be a moment of #femaleempowerment. but it just feels like white lady empowerment at the expense of poc.

but hey, gotta pile on to show how very oppressed jessica is in every aspect of her life, right? which, yes, she has absolutely been oppressed and violated and traumatized, and that is so important and real and should never be diminished, but the show didn’t attempt to contend with the ways she’s also privileged and the ways she’s been able to use it to her advantage and having her acknowledge it (including the fact that having powers, being able to protect herself, is an incredible privilege instead of only the awful burden it’s been portrayed as and she’s always interpreted it as). i probably wouldn’t have even said they’d need to explicitly deal with this under other circumstances, if they were focused on telling a different story, but they’re the ones that decided to make analogies to racist prejudice and have poc express it towards a white woman, so they put the expectation on themselves to tell a nuanced story about oppression and privilege and intersectionality, and they didn’t do that at all. they clearly weren’t actually interested in talking about prejudice in a serious, meaningful way.

but here’s the even bigger issue: the show tries to present itself as being feminist, but it can’t be feminist when there are no women of color in main roles or even supporting roles. it makes no effort to tell the stories and perspectives and experiences of woc, and that is an absolute failure. it’s inexcusable that they made no effort to fix this. it absolutely doesn’t help that the woc that are actually present in small roles keep getting killed off unceremoniously. i had some hopes when i saw that they had females directors that actually included some woc, but i don’t think they have any in the writing room, and that matters SO MUCH. it makes such a difference, and they could’ve probably avoided so many of these missteps if they just had other voices represented in the creative process. i just saw a headline with melissa rosenberg where she says, “oh yeah, i totally agree with the criticism we don’t have enough women of color,” okay, except this is not a new criticism, people were saying the same thing after s1, so if she agrees with it and cares about it, why didn’t she do anything about it while they were making s2?

the show has sort of attempted with men of color, in that they actually exist in the cast, but it doesn’t handle them well at all, some of which i mentioned before. then you’ve got malcolm. the only lead character of color in s2. he was set up to be the moral center of the show, but there was no real follow through. he was ultimately treated like an afterthought in most situations. he just? disappeared? constantly? when shit went down? i lost count of the number of times i was like, “umm, where the fuck did malcolm go? is he all right?” and the characters around him were pretty consistently awful to him. jessica almost always treated him like shit. his relationship with trish was a train wreck they both kind of contributed to, but trish turned on him pretty epically, and the emotional fallout for him wasn’t really dealt with. and the writers told his “proxy addiction” story in the laziest, grossest way possible (sex? really? that’s all they could think up? and then to use it as excuse to have him treat women like they’re disposable and faceless?). they just clearly have no respect for him.

it’s such a mess, and s2 was probably worse than s1 in this regard, and there’s no reason it needed to be. this isn’t an impossible thing. when people tell you, “hey, you fucked up. this is how,” you don’t double down or pretend it didn’t happen, you listen and you do better. this should be a show for everyone, not just white women.

turning to trish, since you mentioned her: i’ve mostly tried to avoid post-s2 reviews, but one of the few i read described her character arc as a critique of the white savior mindset. i highly doubt that’s what the show had in mind. as we established above, careful thoughtful commentary about race is not this show’s strong suit, and writing a critique of the white savior mold wouldn’t even occur to them. i could kind of see where the reviewer was coming from, there were some flavors of white savior-ism in trish’s behavior, but they had to pretend she had never experienced an ounce of hardship in order to make it fit. this was basically the conclusion: “trish is rich and has a family and could never under poor traumatized orphaned jessica’s life.” nevermind that money doesn’t stop you from being abused and traumatized, that a family member was her primary abuser, and that living in poverty and wanting money was the motivation for her abuser to sell her out. this take also ignores the thing driving trish the most. it wasn’t “i want to help people, and they should listen to me because i know best” or even “i want to be special, i want to matter.” it was “nobody touches me anymore unless i want them to.” she was tired of being the victim, of never feeling safe. that’s why she wanted powers. it was muddied by the writing, but it really is as straight-forward as that.

i think trish being rich has likely had some influence in the audience diminishing how she was violated and abused in most every kind of way (physically, emotionally, sexually, financially), but i definitely don’t think the show went after her for being a rich famous white lady as a cover for its various racial fuck-ups. i don’t think the show even really tried to contend with or acknowledge her rich white privilege anymore than it tried to contend with jessica’s privilege. if anything, it tried to do the opposite by showing her to be belittled and demeaned and disrespected by everyone around her, similar to how they were upping the ante on jessica’s oppression by having her face bigotry about her powers. granted, it’s clear the audience had an easier time relating to jessica (probably partly due to the money and fame aspect again; also partly because the narrative backed her up more: for instance, the dynamic of having trish envy the privilege of jessica’s power, but the show seeming to say “oh, gosh, trish just doesn’t understand it’s not a privilege at all, it’s a terrible burden” even though that’s kind of ridiculous, as i mentioned earlier). the execution was shitty, but they were definitely still trying to show that trish’s life was not good and people treated her like she was nothing and worthless in a way that paralleled jessica’s treatment.

tbh, rather than punishing trish for being rich or whatever, i sometimes got the vibe they were actually punishing her for daring to have ambition, but that probably wasn’t on purpose, just an unfortunate implication of the way they treated her in general. at first, i’d assumed they were trying to tell a story about addiction and the ways it can destroy your life, and they just sucked at handling it with any kind of thoughtfulness, but now i think that’s being too generous. they didn’t even really try to grapple with the reality of her addiction and mental illness, so much as use it as an excuse to make her more unstable and put her in a position where she’d keep escalating things.

i read an interview before the season dropped where melissa rosenberg talked about female anger (or, as the reality of the show is, white female anger), and anger definitely was a theme for all the female characters. if you recognize trish’s main motivator as mentioned above (protecting herself from further abuses), you can see where it fits into this theme, and that it wasn’t just senseless anger and was driven by vulnerabilities and never feeling safe. so, i don’t know, i guess trish’s story was maybe intended to be about an abused woman finally being so goddamn fed up with victimhood and disrespect and belittlement that she decided to take what she needed instead of quietly waiting for other people to acknowledge her humanity and treat her accordingly. that she finally said “fuck it” and tried to find her own power and become her own hero. except, if that was the story, the way it was executed was, wow… exceptionally awful and not remotely clear and not at all done in a positive way. a storyline like that could’ve had the potential to be powerful and affirming and perhaps empowering (once again, for white women at least), but that’s not the story they ended up telling.

like, i honestly don’t get what i’m supposed to take away from it. they seemingly gave her what she was after, but they spent the entirety of the season shitting on her and had her destroy everything good in her life to get what she believed she needed, which was really just to feel safe. what’s the point here exactly? you do you boo and fuck everybody else because it’ll pay off? don’t have dreams and ambitions for yourself because they’ll make you heartless and selfish and you’ll hurt other people? the desire for power always corrupts even when you’ve been a victim and just want the power to protect yourself? trauma doesn’t go away and can make you do terrible self-destructive shit that you think is helping you but actually isn’t? drug addicts are awful, amirite? what. are. they. trying. to. say?

#anonymous #replies #my thoughts about s2 are a constantly shapeshifting shadow monster #and it's hard to settle into any specific feelings that aren't just 'honestly fuck the writers in general and m rosenberg in particular'

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kazlifeadventures · 5 years

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Malta, and the hunt for the Maltese falcon..

Only kidding. There aren't very many birds of prey left here anymore. Although there is a falconry place where they are successfully breeding them in captivity. Or, am I seeking the jewel encrusted version made famous by Humphrey Bogart's character, Sam Spade in the 1941 classic???

The Republic of Malta is an Archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and as its such a strategic naval location it has been inhabited since about 5900 BC. There has been a succession of powers who have contested and ruled the islands. The usual suspects line up: Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and lastly the British. The British made Malta an independent state of the commonwealth in 1964, with the country achieving full autonomy as a republic in 1974. This explains the very Britishness that you experience here (if that’s not a real word it should be). They have retained a lot of the English parliamentary procesess, education, and driving on the left hand side of the road. That being said, Malta still retains its own identity and that identity can be found out and about anywhere on its islands.

Maltese food is its own uniqueness. Rabbit, seafood, potatoes and tomatoes feature prominently in a Maltese diet. Their 'street food' is Pastizzi, traditionally made with either cheese or mushy peas. Now they have such a variety of them it's hard to choose! I went with the exceedingly delicious cheese, crunchy crispy pastry filled with gooey cheesy goodness...yum. I will admit I was quite surprised at how much of an array of food is available here. A lot of Mediterranean influences mixed with classic British fare are all available at most outlets. This surprise could also be steeped in the fact I'd spent the past two weeks in Sicily which is very much only Italian food!

The historic buildings like the Citadel in Valletta, or in Victoria on Gozo are like little time capsules, beautifully restored and an intriguing way to spend some time in history. The town or fortress of Mdina is astounding to wander around. Fortunately for me it seemed that I picked a time that but wasn't teeming with people, making it that much more remote to be walking down a tiny roadway with no one else in sight. It was during a chat with a cab driver that I discovered the cost of progress here. Unfortunately only some of the old buildings in strategic locations are being preserved. The rest, it seems, are being pulled down with multi storey appartments going up in their place. Same as everywhere else unfortunately...

The Churches are something else here. Catholicism is the main religion, but they actually have freedom of religion and choice of worship written in their constitution. During Spring/Summer there is a religious festival involving feasts, parades and fireworks in a different village each week. There are deities positioned on street corners, in alcoves, in prominent places in courtyards, I’ve also noticed they name their houses after saints or important religious figures. I've seen about 50 houses named with either simple or intricately decorated name plates: ‘Madonnina’. Religion is very strong here, and they love to include you in their celebrations (with no pressure!) The church of Mosta was amazing. The design of the present church is based on the Pantheon in Rome. At one point in history it had the third largest unsupported dome in the world. (I have given up confirming any of these claims anymore..😂) The cool part of the story is the church narrowly avoided destruction during WWII. On 9 April 1942 a German aerial bomb pierced the dome and fell into the church during a packed Mass, but failed to explode. This was seen as a miracle by the Maltese. On Gozo amongst their churches was the incredible Basilica of the National Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Ta' Pinu. Yeah yeah, I know everytime I think I'm churched out, I come across some fantastic ones.

On Malta I stayed in Silema which was in an area with easy access to public transport. Not quite the party area like St Julians but close enough to it. I also stayed on Gozo for 3 nights in the beautiful Xendli bay area. It seemed more logical to stay over there than going on day trips to get there. Both have very good public transport systems. On gozo the buses are every hour as opposed to every half hour on the main island. But hey, you're on island time so what's the hurry?! I also used the hop on off bus on both islands and regretted it. Although it has a commentary, It's way cheaper to take local buses to see the sights. There are a variety of transport passes you can purchase that can make it even cheaper depending how long you are here. I loved taking a harbour and rivers cruise (very handy that they all leave from Silema...😁). Somehow I lucked out and picked the cruise that had us just below the saluting battery for 12 noon. The battery forms the lower tier of the fortress overlooking the Grand harbour. Every day at 1200 and 1600 a replica SBBL 32 pounder Canon is fired. We were under it when it fired...awesome!

View of where I stayed in Xlendi...

Heads up, when booking accomodation in Malta it's more often than not cheaper to go directly to the hotel's website. It's either cheaper or you get breakfast included, often both! (This does not always happen in other places!)

I've had a blast on Malta! It's been mega hot (summer and all that!!) I've still been trying to kick this bug that's been haunting me, so feel that I haven't quite given Malta what I could have. All the same it's a fabulous gem, packed with history, stories, traditions, fabulous food and great people. According to Google translate: nirringrazzjak u narak id-darba! (thank you and see you next time!) As usual there's more photos to come!!

I'm off to Italy today, heading to the lakes area, to catch up with an awesome couple I met on the RUM (Romania, Ukraine, Moldova) tour I did all the way back in May (oh so long ago now!!) Can't wait!!!

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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(1/2) I can literally understand all of your bi-dean meta except for the male siren thing. The siren literally was trying to be the perfect little brother for Dean. I mean the siren literally says "I should be your little brother. Sam. You can't trust him. Not like you can trust me. In fact, I really feel like you should get him outta the way, so we can be brothers. Forever." as well as "No. I gave him what he needed. And it wasn't some bitch in a G-string. It was you. A little brother."

(2/2) I mean I’m NOT against bi-dean, everyone has the right to their own opinions. And A LOT of your analysis is interesting and valid, but if your suggesting that bi-dean is proven through “Sex and Violence.”, I’m lost, cause that seems to have incestuous subtext rather than bi-dean subtext (not that there’s anything wrong with shipping Wincest). I mean Dean could get any girl (and probably guy) if he wanted. The siren revealed what he needed/wanted most was family(specifically Sam)…

(3/2) Cause at this point, tensions were high between the brothers due to Sam’s powers/secrets and Dean needed someone he felt he could trust by his side, a little brother who was devoted to him, some one who understood him (which is why Nick shared the same tastes and interest). I mean I have a little sister and every time she likes something I enjoy, I’m fucking ecstatic. I mean I’ve watched this episode so many times and I fail to see how this is anything but an episode meant to solidify…

(4/2) and push the point that the brothers were not on the same page, and it foreshadowed the future fight and subsequent rift b/t them in “When the Levee Breaks.” I mean y'all say that Nick was a sexual being meant to seduce Dean, but it’s still weird cause he’s trying to being the perfect brother in canon. Sorry this got so long, I’m just curious at why so many people think the male siren has anything to do with bisexuality (of the non-incestuous variety, cuz I can see tht meta 4 wincest ship)

Heya!

I think this is really to do with something I was talking about last night about suggestive subtext, when trying (incoherently) to explain why I didn’t think Dean getting his memories back was textual - I think it can be taken as a strong reading and I wouldn’t disagree because I literally make the same reading, but I think it’s implied canon. Ditto the bi subtext around Larry this latest episode. We all know it’s a mechanical bull with a gendered name, not a human male, but between Dean being told he “had the hots” and the ridiculously pornographic riding sequence, and the general phallic nature of the bar they were in, it all still is overwhelmingly suggestive of queerness.

When it comes to the siren we actually had some more of this suggestiveness this episode which sort of repeats my point I’ll make about it: we only heard Sam say that there could be male sirens. No context, about brothers or even the context of the case for the easiest surface reading that it was just trying to get some hunters off its back by any means necessary. If you’ve forgotten the siren episode or it’s only a dim hazy memory and you sort of connect it to Dean but don’t regularly chug the entirety of canon and then yell about it with strangers online, the episode is not as memorable. So it’s really just posing the point that sirens aren’t all hot chicks, and giving us Dean’s reaction because, right then, he is the casual viewer, and all he knows is the concept that a siren could seduce you as a guy as well, and he just says, “huh.”

Its surface text reading (and I checked this with my mum after watching because she’s admitted she has 0 queer subtext reading skills but is a very smart, character-driven writer who knows how to read a text) is platonic, not remotely sexual, and when I told her that some of the fandom takes it as proof of Wincest, she burst into hysterical laughter at the concept, and explained to me the reading that Dean is just concerned about his brother and it was an obvious exploitable emotional weakness.

(So the rest of this answer is like a more than usual implied “sorry Mum” :P)

To me, this episode works by sorting out several layers and understanding that any reading of it you make has to have at least the surface text pasted firmly on top at all times. It WAS a platonic brother thing, and that’s the only way to wring a successful queer reading out of it, because if you start to suggest too far, you immediately cross over into wincest territory, by suggesting the surface text has the sexual element and that it was actually present in the episode as like, feelings and shit the characters were dealing with.

If you look at it as SUGGESTIVE subtext, accept that the siren is “just” Larry the mechanical bull, then you have exactly the right angle on it for the “huh” of your own.

So, I guess you’re bringing up the meta I wrote about Bobby and 4x06/4x14 - in that case Bobby is the perfect little “huh” angle into it. No one tells him on screen about the brother thing. He definitely knows the siren was presenting as male when it attacked Dean. He killed the thing :P He was the one who sussed it out by checking Nick’s FBI alias out. He knew for half the episode that Dean was being stalked by a male siren, came in, killed it, and aside from some pointed looks from under his hat, didn’t mention it.

There’s a popular text post about the episode that goes:

remember how sam and dean both thought that the siren infected its victims through sex

and when sam walks into the motel room to find dean with nick-the-siren and dean’s totally under the siren’s control sam just

rolls with it

This is the suggestive subtext at work. Nothing here affects the actual text of the episode: it’s about both our interpretation and interpretation within the text of the episode about how this situation might be read. (Obviously this mentions Sam but it goes doubly for Bobby who didn’t see the talky part of the fight, and is never corrected on screen about what he just saw.)

It’s not about wilfully forgetting that the episode has a main text about the brothers, but to see beyond it, within that text. I think it’s probably the causes of the biggest misunderstandings about this episode when you see arguing about it because I think an all or nothing “it’s literally about bisexuality” gets usurped by “I should be your brother” but saying “it’s just about these surface text platonic feelings (because the show would never make it about surface text wincest)” also means you block yourself off from analysing it. The wincest reading of the episode exists in the exact same liminal space of the subtext as the bisexual reading, which means they stumble all over each other and makes the arguments incredibly difficult to untangle because two people can both stand there pulling on the arms of the same moment arguing it means different things in a way most episodes don’t have when it comes to direct, sexual subtextual readings. (e.g the Dean & pie/cake subtext if you don’t agree can just be discarded, rather than it being directly suggestive of the completely alternative reading.)

Like, stuff your ears to the other subtext and sail right on past :P (When I did the rewatch I actually did essentially lash myself to the mast and demand to hear the song while obviously letting the ship sail to the proper place without getting dashed on the rocks, and I think it’s compelling but not my subtext and most importantly, since I read 0% of other episodes as having overt Wincest readings but many many episodes as having overt bi!Dean readings, I’m utterly secure in literally watching the siren episode and picking out the Wincest subtext and being like “yeah okay then”)

If you don’t assume that the show is saying anything profound about Wincest, though, and the “i should be your brother” is just a deflection away from overt sexual readings, it’s much more interesting for the bi Dean subtext. An example I’ve compared it to before is in 2x03, which follows a very similar emotional pattern to this episode with Dean and Gordon. Before Sam and Dean fight, we’ve seen Dean get VERY buddy buddy with Gordon, and there’s a wealth of suggestive subtext in their very brief interactions since they bond alarmingly fast at a bar, thirdwheeling Sam, and that’s immediately got hook up connotations. When Sam confronts Dean he has a sort of “I know what this is about” moment and there’s a real “Oh shit he’s going to tell Dean he’s crushing on Gordon and his judgement is impaired” moment, before Sam tells him it’s because Dean misses John and is filling the gap. I do not think the suggestiveness of Gordon and Dean’s interactions suggests that Dean had the hots for John, just like I carry on not thinking that when Crowley starts his official seduction in 9x11 comparing himself to John, or later in 10x01, to Sam.

Once I’ve got a surface reading and the deflection and the way it was read in the aftermath (yeah we’re working backwards through the episode here :P) then there’s a kind of solid place of understanding my own interpretation to examine the rest of it.

There’s this article which would be kind of pointless as evidence in other cases of actor commentary on the story because PR is not showrunning, etc, and we can’t really depend on them to answer with a proper understanding of what WE are listening out for, or what the show has crafted around their understanding, but in this one when we’re looking at suggestiveness is fascinating:

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/147614438213/bluestar86-findmyjaffa-mishabethyname

“yeah, at that point I thought he should be ambiguously sexual. As an FBI agent he was a guys guy, but this creature wasn’t a guy or a girl. I tried to find something in between and enjoyed having control over these boys in a sexual way”

This is not describing anything between Sam and Dean, but how the actor played it between himself and them - he saw the siren at work, as using sexuality as part of its control. This reading applies to the entire episode, with all the cases of the siren at work, but obviously those were all “hot chick” siren moments, and so exerting control over the men was a given that it had been using a strip club full of female dancers as the lure to find them, so they’d be understandably into hot women. Which means the overt reading of sexuality is oh so much easier to make and credit and honestly having him say even this much about it is pretty dramatic, though of course as a killed-off one time character, he’s got a lot more freedom to chat about the process and admit to playing up sexuality in a room with 3 male actors.

I’m just going to grab my laughing from the rewatch I did for the next point, about the gap between Nick commenting that he was the siren and had trapped Dean, and the brother line:

That glorious, glorious moment of floating amazement where the it-was-a-actual-legit-seduction text peaks, and you’re allowed a moment from which most bi Dean peeps never recovered. (There’s a three strikes and you’re out policy here: Playthings, this, Dr Sexy. :P)

Because of course, whatever comes out Nick’s weasely mouth once I press play again, the question has been asked. The idea has been planted. It doesn’t matter what they say after this even setting aside all the logic of siren lore explained in the episode or any of the other circumstantial stuff which leads me to my text of the episode conclusion this is a bi Dean episode through and through.

They gave Dean a male siren and gave us these few seconds to let us reflect on that in its pure, this-was-a-seduction in the main text of the episode moment. There’s a level outside the text here where they set this all up, and threw this at us, and handled it in such a way as to leave it open to going on 7 years of fandom arguments about what interpretation was the correct one of the 3 on the table. This is the thing about these fandom arguments: when it comes to people trying to tell those who see Dean as bi that they’re making it up or something, or putting it into the text themselves, the response is usually, no, we’ve got it from the show. Even if you immediately go along with one of the other 2 alternatives (it was platonic all along despite the siren’s sexually charged MO: it was about a sexual proxy for Sam all along despite the fact the siren textually does not have to replace like for like objects of affection) THIS MOMENT before we know it’s officially about Sam, the show is textually letting you think about it for 3 seconds in a deadly serious context.

It’s like 2:30am I need to stop waxing on about this but seriously this fucking moment.

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/125513601548/spn-hellatus-rewatch-4x14-or-honestly-this

If I ever try to explain to myself WHY this episode is bi Dean, it’s all resting first and foremost on those few seconds of screen time, because in that point, no take-back has been offered. Knowing there IS a take-back a second later doesn’t actually detract from the raw suggestiveness of this moment, which let us think, if we picked up on it immediately, that Dean had a male siren and had been seduced just like all the men and their “hot chicks”. It allows a whole moment where it seems like the show is telling us that Dean is *just* into men and the siren managed to snare him that way by catching him unawares. After all, Sam and Dean are looking for a siren-cum-stripper so getting in under their noses would be important. Dean didn’t trust Cara because she was female despite her being in a generally more socially accepted job, and she was used as a deliberate false lead by Nick (by planting the flowers) AND the show to imply that someone in their general vicinity that they’d been having a thing with that episode could be the siren. Sam’s new female character hook up was not, in fact the siren. Dean’s new male friend WAS. Admittedly it’s a lot of thinking to do in 3 seconds but if you’ve been waiting for the blow to fall that the siren has been worming its way in romantically as Cara, and going along with the surface text of the episode so far, then the instinctive “wait WHAT” is enough to do the work here before the show comes back out of slow mo and carries on like usual, establishing a nice safe cushion-y layer of no homo.

The show DOES however offer its own reading on TOP of the no homo, within the episode, to make it absolutely unequivocally clear there’s a “no incest” reading too - the surface text is EXTREMELY fragile this episode and they do a lot of hard work and backpedalling to try and maintain the fragile surface tension, so, still working backwards through the episode, we get to this:

DEANSo whatever floats the guy’s boat, that’s what they look like?

SAMYeah. You see, sirens can read minds. They see what you want most and then they can kinda, like, cloak themselves. You know, like an illusion.

Cut to the siren seducing the next dude and cue the sweet relief of the subtext that shatters the first interpretation offered by the subtext so far. Sam n Dean have had their relationship portrayed a certain way (overtly: the lying and ongoing season 4 angst, subtextually, a little odd framing and more stray comments beyond the norm) and the episode will come down about said relationship, but this random bloke is the key to what happens next.

Siren:

Disappointed mom and Jesus judging this guy:

The siren emphasises not that she’s a sexual rival (although we don’t know if that guy has Oedipal issues) but mentions that she is a sink on his time and an anchor stopping him from running away with them to be alone together forever and ever and ever, which, with their line about him not sticking her in a care home yet, suggest that she is ill and frail enough to be a full-time job for the guy, much like Dean is stuck with Sam as part of their full-time job and ongoing “look after Sammy” mentality.

So before Nick ever shows up it’s clearly shown that “floats the boat” has a surface level disconnect to the target of murder (and it’s just that statistically the siren is going after mostly hetero dudes with wives, given where they pick the men up and how lends itself to the typical MO). This scene is obviously the “lol no incest” for the end of the episode once the siren tries to drive them apart. […] Both sexualised interpretations live on: the massive logic leap to say “yeah well what if there were Oedipal undertones to this relationship?” which is a headcanon you can float which will mean the siren can still get Dean for that reason, but at this point, the main text of the episode becomes: “the siren will use sexuality to seduce the man, but the target closest to the man that will be the victim is that of unfortunate proximity, not necessarily a sexual rival to the siren.” And therefore, until the reveal after Dean drinks from the flask, we have a long stretch of episode where Nick is main-text seducing Dean with no argument, and the only counter-argument offered is Nick’s own words.

[…]

DEANWait, he killed his mom?

SAMThe woman he was closest to.

Dean’s thoughts go there. Sam shrugs it off, having either not noticed this is weird because new info makes sense to him, or he’s already worked this one through and come to the realisation the siren’s pattern isn’t strictly sexual or that this was a thing but he’s not going to judge. :P So we have two conflicting interpretations at work here; Sam’s chill attitude which surface level suggests there was nothing odd about it, and Dean’s ‘ugh wait but with the information I had available to me I have come to an incredibly awkward realisation!’ tone of voice. (And the subtextually buried one contradicted by the main text of Sam’s dialogue where it is also possible he assumes like Dean this was incest but that it isn’t weird/gross enough for comment.) Sam is implied to be ahead and be offering a rational explanation for this to Dean, i.e. wow that was an unfortunate interpretation, Dean! Fortunately, I, a better-informed individual who has had more information to work with than you before we started this conversation, have come up with a rational alternate explanation which does not involve incest!

This one particular death has pretty much the whole episode riding on it when it comes to interpretation because it is used as the way to confirm non-incestuous relationship replacement with the siren (which along with the siren still showing sexual control over Sam and Dean when he has them under his control backs up the way it seduces the man and says they should run off together romantically - Nick also makes them fight in order to be in love with one of them ~forever~ (a.k.a until the spell wears off and the survivor comes to his senses and probably kills himself over what he did)) - of course because despite the focus on the mother, the man still sleeps with the siren and it’s still framed as a romantic/sexual seduction to get him to the point of murder. The sexual element persisting after the siren says “I should be your brother” is a point I’ll get to better in a minute when I recap the conclusion from my rewatch but does essentially give you the choice of reading that he was talking crap there :P

There’s also the implication of the empty beds/back and forth of the episode, where Sam and Dean’s time management parallels back and forth. There’s suggestive subtext here between Dean and Nick because Sam has wall-banging sex with Cara, and their part of the story is directly back and forthing with Dean and Nick - we have some serious gaps in time, and when Sam returns to the room just before the fight, Nick and Dean are waiting, on those neatly made beds that seem to see no action. I don’t think they slept together. BUT the suggestiveness is right there and people have commented on it and picked it up, so it’s a valid part of the subtextual layer.

Here’s the conclusions I came to in my rewatch:

Aw, Nick, no. We were having so much fun.

MUNROEOr it could be her saliva… You really should have wiped the lip of that thing before you drank from it, Dean. I should be your little brother. Sam. You can’t trust him. Not like you can trust me. In fact, I really feel like you should get him outtta the way, so we can be brothers. Forever.

DEANYeah. Yeah, you’re right.

So, what’s left on the table?

Completely valid if out of left field for the episode’s subtext alternate reading of Dean as somewhere on the Aro spectrum so the siren doesn’t affect him at all romantically, and goes for filling the emotional void it creates from a different angle (several season 3 moments imply Dean has a void in himself for romantic love as emphatically distinct from his need for Sam, but I’m pretty sure I clocked them all coming from Sera as an ongoing subtext about Lisa as endgame, including foreshadowing of what happened with Lisa in the long run when Gamble got to write that full arc, so you could argue A: it’s all from one source as with the many contradictory writer impressions of Dean’s sexual/romantic identity, and B: it wasn’t even as straightforward as that even when she was implying it existed, as that relationship eventually wrecked itself upon the shores of the brotherly bond too, by her pen).

The interpretation that this was just about Sam, platonically, because this is his closest relationship, and the siren, recognising he was a hunter, needed to get to him fast (the other victims took a lot of softening up and a hefty blow to their bank accounts first because this is clearly how the siren makes a living: like the shifters it doesn’t need to kill to eat, just for fun, using its powers for personal benefit and amusement) and so it took an alternate approach to get under his skin in a day using the available tools: Dean is all fucked up about Sam’s secrets and sneaking around talking to Ruby and being a monster and so on, creating an ideal weak spot to get at him: Nick creates an uncomplicated ideal other human for Dean to adopt as a brother in the shortest time possible, because he fully intends just to make the hunters kill each other/themselves on realising what they did and leg it out of town before anyone comes to finish him off and so to Nick the sexual side of it is an unnecessary complication to tidying up the situation.

As above, but the wincest reading, with the siren’s sexually charged MO included despite the only proxy-kiss because of all the subtextual implications and the apparent links between Nick and Sam.

As point 2 again, but with the siren’s sexually charged MO still counting in the background of why Nick, because Dean’s repressed bisexuality made him a double easy target. Dean would not suspect the dude, while thinking he was hunting a stripper, and yet the siren’s MO still works on him as Dean’s “float the boat” umbrella is very wide. The “brother” thing goes back to the main text platonic reasons, and Nick just needs to say something to get Dean on his side that’s still broadly in character for Dean (like, he would not have just magically got through his whole gay panic in that moment: the other victims were all aware of who they were and what they wanted throughout [see also: the first man they interviewed at the start]: part of Dean’s horror in this moment is probably realising the siren affected him AS Nick and having the same moment of wondering about himself before Nick’s reassuring words ease him along - oh, this is just about Sam). So in this case Nick finds it easier to go for the surface reasons Dean was emotionally vulnerable with the emphasis on his lack of trust in Sam, because Dean IS emotionally vulnerable in his most important relationship, and creates an ideal other person is someone who represents Sam just enough to show he fits the emotional void, but is sufficiently different enough (fun, common traits and interests to Dean, trustworthy) to count as a separate identity to Sam (because Dean does have a ton of issues which do not necessarily have to be incestuous but can be to do with the most important relationship in his life having an overbearing effect on everything he does and the way he relates to other people, as constantly shown elsewhere without demanding we pay attention to the alternative reading unless the viewer is inclined to like it and look for it).

And I am aware that after talking about how the incest subtext takes the most leaps along the way, it’s the bisexuality argument which, by being debunked by platonic bros main text, gets relegated to the back seat, now needs a strong counter-argument to its own “debunking”, while the main text is more compatible to the other subtext’s conclusions.

This is why there are fights. :P

Obviously I choose to believe the very careful mental meanderings that back up my reading that there is a suggestive element to the episode that can imply Dean’s bisexuality without having to credit that the sexual element includes a wincest reading, and as I said, this is because the episode is highly suggestive, but everything it tries to tell us in text is broadly the platonic bros reading, so it is left to choice, favoured interpretation, emotional preference, whatever, to pick out what you want. There’s a valid in-text suggestion that the siren does NOT work incestuously even when the most important relationship is a family one, and if you use these as the guidelines, the rest of the suggestiveness about the sexual elements can just be read as the fact that Dean was into Nick as a person rather than having been attracted to him because he reminded him of Sam.

Although honestly it really just comes down to part 23346346 of infinity under the same heading as:

why I’m on the dean is bi train:

we’d never get a two minute montage of sam “riding larry.”

http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157196244593/goodfemalecharacters-why-im-on-the-dean-is-bi

#Asks #4x14 #references to #12x11 #Dean is bi #long post for ts #incest for ts #suicide mention cw

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