#the way i understood that “inconsistency” with his character without knowing why

[purplepixel]

Getting to hear Cole's thoughts in 'Way of the Departed' and--

IN MY DEFENSE, THIS IS MY NORMAL OK.

@cottoncandywoof is only on like episode 7 of the series and Im knee deep in s12, and it barely crossed my mind until I watched him fumble a password spoken like 15min ago 💀

And then reading him getting lost in his thoughts before going off on an unrelated tangent until he realizes he derailed and tries to remind himself to get back on track had me going NOW WAIT A MINUTE

Bonus points that about 5 of these mind wanderings was him circling back to thinking about Jay. He's not beating the gay allegations either

[chriscolfxr]

i don’t usually post on tumblr but i need to vent for a second. first of all, let me take my buddie goggles off for a second, okay? okay. what happened this season was atrocious. it was sad. it was a lot. cause i felt like i was on such a high. even the episodes/things people complained the most (hotshots/brad) i decided to put it past me. gave them a pat on the shoulder saying “we can’t ALWAYS be perfect. still, you’re doing a good job”. and i mean, considering they’re on their EIGHTH season, they really were. they had so many people tuning in, tweets that would blow up occasionally would get 3k likes at most and now they were getting 15/20k. so yeah, i’d say that even if most episodes since s7 haven’t really felt like og 911, they were doing a good job.

and then it all fell apart.

so many inconsistencies and choices i don’t think i’ll ever understand. let’s start with henren. and mara. cause even back in s7, i got mad that 911 didn’t show mara’s ever evolving relationship with the wilsons. one day she was catatonic and wouldn’t talk to anyone, the next she was talking, smiling and happy hen was winning a medal. and then she was taken away. i was like “okay, we only had 10 episodes to tackle this issue, maybe we’ll see more of that next season”. episode 4 is focused on hen and karen trying to win mara back, i thought it was great. okay, now we have time to explore mara and her feelings. nada again. we see her getting officially adopted in the season finale, which was sweet, but also bittersweet, cause we just don’t get to see her and denny a lot of the time, if not in the background with one or two lines. i actually had a lot of fun w the episode where they forget it’s hen’s birthday, i know a lot of people got mad and said it was ooc, but i do think this kind of stuff happens sometimes, and it was at least a silly storyline they had that didn’t involve family drama.

now… bobby nash. i could write so many things about this storyline. WHY????? this is something i’ll never understand. “to move the plot forward” you can’t think of anything else? and okay, you did that. at least write an emmy worthy farewell episode. what the hell was episode 16? so disrespectful to his legacy and the work peter krause put into playing him for 8 years. you wasted what could be an incredible tribute episode into almost making a mockery of the people who still believed he was alive. and mind you, i didn’t think he was, but i understood people who still had faith in it. the show will never be the same and i mean that in the most negative way. this doesn’t feel like any other departure. i watched 18 seasons of grey’s, i know how to say goodbye to a character. to be quite honest, i think killing meredith grey back then wouldn’t leave the same bitter taste on my tongue as killing bobby did, and her name is in the title of her show. episode 18 showed the 118 showing up for each other, and that was beautiful, but there was something missing. i don’t think time will make this feeling disappear. you can’t live without a heart and that was what bobby was in the body of work that is 911. why did athena sell their dream house? where is she going? what’s gonna happen to her? why make her lose another man? how is that gonna move the plot forward? how are you gonna keep the GA invested if they watched it for them?

eddie. oh god. i can’t even say everything i want to say about him here. it just boggles me that his life got blown up at the end of s7, he was given the most ridiculous and outrageously bad storyline that have ever been given to anyone on the show (besides maybe… bobby death) and you’d THINK s8 would be dedicated to addressing the elephant that decided to enter and stay in the room. but it wasn’t. his relationship with chris got increasingly better from what we saw in 8x01 to 8x08. not great, but better. but we don’t know how that happened. we didn’t see it. then eddie decides to move to texas, i wonder how chris feels about it since he decided to move there to get away from him essentially. oh. he’s happy? he’s proud and loves his dad? that’s so great. except we didn’t get to see how that change in his heart happened. well, what about the elephant? kim? shannon? well, that was also resolved offscreen. WHAT? WHY? i wanna know too!!! we don’t know why!!! he’s miserable in texas but he’s there for chris. he comes back for bobby. he gets an offer from el paso fire station and now he needs to choose: stay with the 118 or go back there? we don’t get to see him making this decision, he accepts the job offscreen. he decides to help the 118. but then, as they’re getting back to the station, he’s looking up flights back to texas. “you’re not going anywhere” says chim. so he stays. and chris? stays too! but how was this conversation? we don’t know, we didn’t get to see it. but they’re moving back. what about him choosing his family? THE MUSTACHE??? THE JUICE OF IT ALL??? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF IT ALL??? let me not even go there.

and buck? well, he’s back at the hamster wheel. the one he’s been stuck since maybe season 2. i don’t think he ever left actually, his wheel just got changed to a pink, purple and blue one. and good for him, that wheel is bigger, more beautiful. but it’s still a wheel. what the hell was happening with him this season? he got dumped, overbaked, went crazy cause his best friend was moving to texas, started living in his house, got accused by two people including his ugly ex that he was in love with said best friend, fought with his best friend a little, lost his father figure, seemed to be doing “okay” about it - but he wasn’t at all - asked for a transfer cause “the 118 was just a number now” as if he also didn’t have other family there also going through grief (and okay, maybe that was his grief manifesting itself but still…) and ended up moving out cause he was “just subletting. that was never really my place” okay.

madney baby… jesus. storyline completely sidelined and then out of nowhere the baby was born. robert nash han. lol. okay?

i like the idea of captain han but it’s still odd to me that they’ve built for years that hen was bobby’s substitute (and that chim was not… the best leader hdjsjdjs) and then not follow through. traumatizing chim the way they did is also so cruel. how can he ever move forward knowing bobby sacrificed himself for him. just so so so cruel.

and now… putting the goggles back on. look. i don’t fucking care whatever it is the reason you decided to not follow through with buddie, you shouldn’t have written episodes 9 and 11. don’t put the IDEA of buddie in the show if you’re not gonna do anything with it. what happens outside of the show, it’s our own fault. what happens inside of it, it’s tim minear’s. maybe one could argue “there’s still season 9” but it’s season NINE. people are tired. just say it with your full chest tim. “it’s never gonna happen”, “it’ll happen but it’ll take time”. stop giving vague answers. queerbait isn’t cute. queerbait isn’t nice. especially in the year of 2025. stop stringing queer people along, we’re already going through a lot as it is. DON’T WRITE EPISODES LIKE 8x11 AND THEN DECIDE TO DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. OR WORSE, KILL A CHARACTER IN THE PROCESS TO DERAIL THE DEVELOPMENT OF OTHER TWO CHARACTERS. the buddie press tour is also something if nothing’s ever gonna happen… i knew from the beginning they were trying to do damage control after everything with bobby but wow. that’s gonna be a new low. no conversation between them in 8x18 even if the longing looks. eddie doesn’t decide to stay for buck, buck moves out. the only thing i was certain of was that they were gonna be roommates. and maybe that might still happen. maybe season 9 will start with buck still not finding a new place, who knows. i doubt it, but let’s see.

in short, this season could’ve been amazing. hell, episode 17 was pretty good compared to 15, 16 and 18. we needed that type of energy. i don’t know what’s gonna happen to this show. this is sad. this is CRAZY. i’ve never seen a downfall quite like this, because like i said, they started off good. loved the beenado, the plane thing, the new cinematography. would even dare to say that bobby alive and buddie canon all in the last episode would’ve been DIVINE. actual masterpiece. but what do i know. let’s see where they’re going in s9, but god, i’m terrified of it rather than excited for it.

[msbunnat]

sorry if you’ve been asked this before but how do you interpret Zeus in Greek mythology?

I know you like to keep the details of your comic a secret but can you at least elaborate on your perspective about his canon?

Like me personally, I see Zeus as kind of a force of nature, probably cuz he kind of is. He’s the man made character created in order to further understand that which man did not know, like all the gods. And also like the other gods his actions are hard to rationalize cuz they’re so dam inconsistent. One moment he’s treating women as disposable then the next he’s giving Hestia the respect and permission to never marry without any question.

sorry for the Yap sesh lol, love ur art and ur comic btw!

I think this is the first time someone has asked this and I am very happy to answer!

*THIS IS TO BIG SORRY!! ;-;

First, I need to make it clear that the Zeus of ancient myths and my Zeus will be different, even though its based on mythology. I am just contributing with my two cents to this range of fanfics that have existed since ancient times.

I truly believe that all the myths we love and explore are basically fanfics based on a religion and that people in the past used them to spread knowledge, comedies, tragedies and just to have fun while keeping the image of their gods alive. That is why the gods are so inconsistent in mythology, since we have many variations even of a single myth and it will always depend on who is telling the story (I wish it were easier to make fics like this about my religion, but I am afraid of the reaction of extremists).

I interpret Zeus in mythology like all the other gods, I no longer make a distinction based on the prejudice of him being a compulsive pervert, he has many sides. As all gods re natural forces, natural as in animal and plants, but also human feelings and urges.

Zeus has some basic pillars that myths tend to respect: He is THE father, he is the fairest one, he is the executioner, he is seductive, he is good-humored (sometimes he makes some bad jokes kkkkkk), he defends natural balance more than anything and he respects the will of others (this seems ironic, but calm down!!). After reading more myths about him and different interpretations, I understood that this modern view of him as a player is completely distorted and ignores all the other myths he participates (I understand that it became his joke, but… some people take it to seriously). So I started to form my own view of his myths.

Most of his adulteries are consensual and when they are not, they remain in that confusing area of ​​what was once consensual, since it is always mentioned that he seduces (for example, how he turned into an bull or a shower of gold because he knew that his potential partners really liked those things - and I find it hilarious that it seems like he didn't even intend to get Danae pregnant kkkkkk, but it ended up happening). This doesn't mean we can't understand that some of these seductions are abusive (like taking the form of a husband to have a night with Persephone or Alcmena), but saying that he discarded them doesn't seem right either. He often protected his lovers and bastards in the most intelligent way possible and sometimes he just walked away too for the good of others. And in a way, as the father and lord of the sky, he is always watching. I also hate how we take away any woman agency when it comes to Zeus, like, there re myths that they wanted a casual nigth with a god... stop ignoring that!! (the bad thing is that Zeus is also a pilar for fertility ;w; so if he sleep with someone with a uterus... they will get pregnant).

Going to the non-literal side, we have to remember that Zeus is a god and his adultery should not be seen as the same as that of mortal men. He cant acuatlly be with a mortal on the mortal realm and be a husband there... I also want to say: Hera wasn't that jealousy (I think she herself knew that Zeus needed to spread his blood/goodness in the world - yes, a strong interpretation is that Zeus' affairs are a metaphor for spreading goodness). On the contrary, she respected the bastards who faced their challenges and thus deserved to be close to them on Olympus. Hera tested the heroes for two reasons: So they understood that she and Zeus were in charge (so that no one would think they could usurp the throne, and she protected both her and Zeus, as well as Zeus do his best to also prevent the bastards to die and have some help - both Zeus and Hera do all this from a distance, they want to be fair with eachother) and to see if they deserved to be with the immortals.

It seems ironic today, but Zeus respected everyone's will, but it was in the Greek terms (more of in atenians terms, bc we don't have much of the other states). He accepted the decisions of Hestia, Athena, Artemis… I don't remember seeing him laying a finger on them or wanting them to get married. On the other hand, we have versions of him as father of Persephone, 'selling' her (but the myth was about an arranged marriage and I think it makes sense that it's Zeus, since the focus ends up being Demeter's suffering and this encompasses more complex feelings when losing her daughter because her 'husband' gave her away, while he is still respected and loved socially).

Now the bad side of Zeus in how fair he is. He punishes Apollo in some situations, even though I understand why he needed to do it… But he is not shallow enough to be evil for the sake of evil… It left a impression on me when he killed Asclepius and hurt Apollo (obviously), it is sad and I doubt he enjoyed killing his grandson, but if he didn't do it… the balance of the cycle of death would collapse and he is the one who sustains this cycle with the greatest respect. In fact, my theory is that he doesn't face Nyx, not because he fears her, but because no matter who wins the fight, the world will end (if Nyx dies, the night and everything that comes from the night, for the Greeks like sleep and death, will be disturbed / if Zeus dies the throne will be empty and no other god would do what he does, maybe Athena, but the world was too sexist back then to let her become sovereign and I also think she would be colder than Zeus when making decisions and would have no descendants…). But sometimes he just wanted to prank and have fun! So like, no straight answer here.

In the case of Ganymede, I believe that his myth is more one of those in which Zeus is merely a narrative tool, more than an active role. People just started shipping them and that's when the pederasty boom happened, but before that Ganymede was just a boy who was handsome and got a 'dream job' (poor thing…).

[emmitaaa4]

Addressing some fandom BS inconsistencies

Gwyn was shadow mommy, Az was shadow daddy, they were gonna have shadow babies with her extra super pliable bones.

I audibly chocked when I read this @nikethestatue (btw everything said in this post was on point). No but seriously this is how they sound, too many of them insisting that there is nothing wrong with basing the likelihood of a ship on who has the more suitable uterus to be with a man... cause supposedly they're just picking up on the hints SJM wrote for them? She likes babies for HEAs so ofc children are the end all be all of a relationship, plus there's absolutely no way that she could ever write an adoption plot SJM is literally adopted and has done it in other series. Selective reading strikes again.

A minimum amount of critical thinking would tell you that 1) the infamous *magical uterus change* scene was about nessian (& feysand), not about any ship; 2) if SJM had written Nesta changing Elain's uterus, it would have given too much away, not to mention 3) how disturbing/violating it would have been for Nesta to change her sister's reproductive anatomy WITHOUT HER CONSENT?! None of it makes sense narratively; my girl Nes would never, especially given the trauma they both suffered from having their bodily autonomy--and so much more--ripped away by the Cauldron.

This argument is so trivialized that I see it every other day on reddit/tiktok/*insert media app*, and yet elriels are the toxic side of the fandom? The ones whom people are allowed to insult, to ridicule for theories all made in good fun, the women that are villainized over a difference of opinion? Don't get me wrong, there's assholes on both sides and people keep calling one another variations of delulu (and the nastier personal attacks). But by painting this fandom-wide villain there is such a lack of accountability for the plethora of harmful talking points spread by other portions of the fandom. (I've been silently reading the anti-elain & anti-elriel tags for like a year, and I'm on tiktok. Yes, I have self-destructive tendencies).

Anyways.

I never understood either how people ever actually thought (or well still think) that gwynriel would happen BEFORE elucien?? It makes no sense logically, narratively, or in terms of characterization & the arc she's set up for Elain, Azriel, and Lucien. Yet it took one controversial bonus chapter for people to decenter Elain in her own story, that is make her choice of romantic partner--which SJM spent 3+ books setting up--Azriel's. It took one bonus chapter that soo many readers are still unaware of, to brush Elain off as a "sexual object" Az is using to distract himself until his therapist-extraordinaire Gwyn comes in and heals him all up. Because ofc she will: she's badass and not the "passive and weak and boring" Eplain (aka "Plant" or "brain dead gardener"), she fits the YA archetype of the spunky warrior-girl so she can handle his darkness, and SJM supposedly spent time fleshing her out because she wrote her as a LI for Azriel; she's made for him, she is what he needs to grow (I actually enjoyed Gwyn's character btw, just pointing out how silly it all sounds). “Next book is a love triangle between Elain/Az/Gwyn” “Elain will turn evil or is secretly evil”. So you're telling me that SJM would pit Elain & Gwyn against each other in a love triangle over a man... all because of a necklace that was not even mentioned once in the actual books? Please, let's be logical for a second.

All this because instead of reading the bonus chapter in the context of the books, some people are reading the books in the context of the bonus chapter. Which now that I think of it is probably why so many people mischaracterize Az the way they do--because yes we know enough of his character to know half of the stuff the fandom diagnoses him with is questionable. Azriel? Entitled incel x fuckboy hybrid (gotta be the first of his kind, minute slay ig)? Interesting tell me more. No joke I saw a semi-popular post on here where a gwynriel said they read the bonus WITHOUT HAVING READ ANY OF THE BOOKS. I'm sorry, ship wars are silly and believe it or not idc who ppl ship, but it makes it hard to take some of the things they say seriously.

All this to say that the fandom isn't even debating the right thing. If you consider everything SJM has said in her interviews:

(she's been planting seeds for Nesta & Elain's book since acomaf; she knows who she is writing the first 2 books about + is keeping things open for the 3rd one--with 5 different ship options--which automatically rules out "Elain will close the series"; she said she's doing research for Elain's book in the ACOFAS bonus & there's seeds for future bookS in acofas; all she said recently about her beloved *heroines* and the themes of fate/true love/choice she finds *very* interesting & wants to discuss)

and if you also consider all she's written in the actual books (elain's characterization + the overarching plot in general & how she fits into it), then it's pretty evident that Elain's book is next.

The question then would be who is the MMC / 2nd PoV in her book, aka would acotar 5 be an elucien or an elriel story? Because logically, gwynriel was always a consequence of elucien. I honestly do not understand how people don't see that.

Oh and they always think they're gagging elriels with the "obviously Azriel is the next MC" as if elriels aren't saying the same thing? And we're the ones twisting info and not making sense. It's just funny at this point.

---sidenote: I realize that this post generalizes some things, and I just wanted to say that I have interacted with lovely eluciens / people on either side of this headache of a ship war. My hard limit is Elain haters though... back off I say 🤺 BACK OFF 🤺

---sidenote 2: I would have written this as a reblog except im not entirely sure how tumblr works and I get no visibility from them rip.

[actual-changeling]

I’m sorry if this is stirring things up as I really don’t mean it that way I’m just new into the fandom and getting a bit confused between posts.

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that people are switching Crowley and aziraphale’s personalities, perhaps to make aziraphale seem a bit more forgivable? Or just misunderstanding their characters entirely….im just finding it a bit hard to catch on to what people mean and what characteristics are being switched

It seems to me that aziraphales behaviour is quite inconsistent and confusing anyway 😅 (intentionally written that way)

I guess that’s what people are getting caught up in

You're not stirring up anything, don't worry!

I can definitely understand that for someone who didn't experience all the developments as they happened, it's hard to understand where we landed and why.

Everything that follows is my personal opinion and how I interpret the posts and discussions I am seeing. There are a few different kinds of topics:

some people "sided" with either Aziraphale or Crowley in the divorce and are treating anything that doesn't align with their side as wrong or outright offensive

a few of them are outright vilifying one or the other, going so far as claiming that they're abusive towards the other character

there are people excusing and justifying Aziraphale's behaviour in the final fifteen minutes, the final fifteen as they're commonly called, and are freeing him from any responsibility for his actions

then there are people who (imo for good reason) take issue with posts like that and that's how we get either respectful discussions or immature arguments, depends on who's doing the talking

if you happen to have some basic reading comprehension and have touched grass sometime this week you will probably find yourself with in the "we have nuanced opinions on complex issues and discuss them like adults" corner, which is my personal favourite

I want to add another, more... potentially inflammatory type of post, which is people 'defending' Aziraphale against accusations that people who 'hate Aziraphale and love Crowley' spread—but, and I am not lying or exaggerating, I have yet to come across ANY of those posts they claim exist.

Maybe it's my corner of the fandom, I don't know, but all I see is people vehemently defending Aziraphale and at times ruining both his and Crowley's character, but never any of the posts that supposedly sparked it. On top of that, the only hate I've gotten (which is a surprisingly large amount) is from people 'defending' Aziraphale against me because obviously I hate him and everything I do and say is against him. Go figure.

Aziraphale IS contradictory, it's what makes him hard to understand for some because he holds seemingly opposing views at the same time without settling on one or the other. Crowley can seem more forward or easily understood, but once you get down to it they're both complicated, layered characters you cannot break down to angel good and demon bad (which yes, is actually takes I see floating around more than I'd like).

[bgbrry]

@pikslasrce you asked for my review of ivtw so i wrote up some of my thoughts! been quite busy for a few weeks but i have a few spare hours in the car so i wrote down everything i had brewing in my head. might do a revision some day because this is quite disjointed both with when this was written and having only one (and a halfish) watch. iwtv spoilers dia don't look everyone else probably watched it already.

it's definitely a very intense experience of a show, with the writing probably being the singular most standout thing about it to me. i really enjoy the process of storytelling as a narrative device, so this framing worked super well for me and i was invested the entire time. i liked the way both seasons built up to their explosive finales, with S2 being the one i personally liked more. the theatricality of that particular season really set the tone for the story, highlighting how the way the narrative is told affects our viewing experience. it acts as more something more rehearsed compared to the simple personal conflict of season one, really demonstrating how different the interview is with and without armand's involvement. with that being said, im really curious to see what the particular storytelling style of lestat will be in the coming season, how his certain persona will affect the story being told, and also what that would be.

as a note on the writing - i enjoyed the way the show discussed ones "humanity" and personhood as concept inextricably linked to how they interact with the society around them. you can feel a very personal connection the writers had with the question of taboo, morality and how it affects your perception in society, others you in a very internally understood way. there are a lot of moments of small symbolism but this big overarching theme ended up being my favourite, and im curious how it'll progress with daniel being turned.

i very much loved the characters, they're all fleshed out in a way that feels more "real to life" than just understandable archetypes of a certain character, with the performances elevating this, small moments of expression or reaction i didn't even notice on my first watch but that either elevated the depth of these characters (specifically with daniel) or re-established their innate characteristics (very much with claudia). i don't think i can pick a favourite, as all of them worked incredibly well in the narrative as tools to progress the story, but also the fact that the narrative is largely just a study on how these types of people interact with each other and their relationships definitely helps. and the relationships here are definitely the strongest part, affecting every part of the work. so while there's is a bit of a sadness in, for example, not knowing much about claudia or daniel in the same way we know loius, it adds to a uniqueness in the way the narrative functions. in this way this show is a very carefully crafted and intricate mechanism, with every character, no pun intended, playing their part.

i am curious if they will develop how exactly their powers are supposed to function, as (at least for me) it seems that they work on the rule of cool, which, while not always good, can be frustrating. i don't think a long winded lore dump would fix my problems, but maybe a more in depth exploration of how (for example) one vampire can teach something to another one, and why exactly ones blood can be more powerful in a tangible way.

i had a small problem with the way the show was filmed, while all the shots are very deliberate in the framing, some were quite poorly lit or sloppily executed (ie the nails on the vampires being kinda inconsistent in the appearance?? maybe i missed something but that stood out to me), it was rare but they stood out to me when i saw them.

but to balance out there were a lot of visual elements that i loved or appreciated (specifically the costuming, not an expert but it looked delightful to me). both cgi and practical effects worked well, and i loved the multimedia integration of animation in the theatre sequences in particular. it's such a small detail but it elevated every scene set in a theatre for me tenfold.

overall, it is definitely a show that leaves you with room for thought, i do not think one can walk away neutral from this, which is always a compliment to a work. i can't speak on faithfulness of the adaptation, but as a standalone i was left impressed and curious to see more! honestly a really good time

[cherokeecharles]

What U Watchin’ #8: The Idol (2023) (lol it sucks)

While on my hiatus from posting, I’ve had some time to catch up with things in pop culture whether that be music, TV shows, or the recent gossip. The TV shows I’ve caught up on range from children’s shows that I forgot existed and current tv shows that are being heavily talked about on Twitter. The one show that was heavily anticipated by everyone whether they liked it or not was The Idol. The Idol follows the life of Jocelyn, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown that led to the cancellation of her tour. The show follows her life while she tries to reclaim her stardom and become the public’s IT girl. Along the way, she catches the eye of what seems to be a cult leader, and they just can’t seem to be away from each other.

Sounds interesting, right? I thought so too until I watched the first five minutes of the first episode. I often think of all the things that The Idol could’ve been had it been written properly and not by two porn-obsessed freaks. The idol presented an opportunity to accurately represent idols who have been exploited from their childhood, and confront the feelings of their ever-changing image as they grow up from childhood starts, and now adulthood. Jocelyn was introduced to us as she was making an album cover for her, comeback after having a mental breakdown for the public to see. The first episode progresses with seeing a glimpse into the glamour and some of the darkness that resides in the industry. We are introduced to most characters who play a pivotal role in the storyline and as the show progresses we see why Jocelyn is in this predicament.

From what I understood from the series, Jocelyn had a breakdown because of her mother's death where she spiral out of control. It seemed like her team comprised of Destiny, Xander, and Leia wanted her to succeed and get her back to the ‘People’s Princess’ they once knew and loved before the breakdown. While that seemed to be the case initially, The Weeknd’s character, Tedros, seemed to upstage Jocelyn’s storyline, and not in a good way. The show progressed and we see Jocelyn’s character slowly unravel upon keeping Tedros in her circle. Things suddenly go wrong, sudden creative direction changes, her team who are closest to her doesn’t even recognize her, opportunities vanish before her eyes, and inconsistencies in her life story. Jocelyn was a victim at the beginning of the series, but then she turns into a villain, in the most unsurprising way possible.

Without going further into the storyline in case you guys want to watch it yourselves (lol) the show was awful, to say the least. The time when the show was bearable to watch was when The Weeknd’s character wasn’t on screen, anytime his character would appear it would almost immediately decrease the quality of the show. The Weeknd’s character, Tedros, was supposed to be a cult leader and have the ability to command anyone’s attention and use his charm to get you to do anything he wants, frankly, whenever he had my attention I cringed at whatever he had to say or his physical gestures. I watched this show with my friend (brave souls, I know) and we both agreed that The Weeknd lacked the charisma to be a cult leader and relied upon his poor judgment of what a cult leader is in an attempt to pull off the character. When I first heard of the show I thought it’d be easy for him to tap into being someone charming, charismatic, and somewhat sexy due to the music he releases but I found myself looking at The Weeknd differently as an artist. He came off as sleazy, unattractive, and corny for the most part. His portrayal of Tedros kind of reminds me of what Wattpad was like back in 2013, a 16-year-old girl, writing her fantasy about what a dominant man is while not knowing or having experience with a dominant man. He was initially introduced to us as a villain, and at the end of the series, he ended up being somewhat of a victim. It was hard to like him as a villain or a victim because that’s how poorly written his character was.

It wouldn’t be a Sam Levinson original if you didn’t sprinkle in misogyny. At the beginning of the show, I stated that Jocelyn was being photographed for her new comeback album after having a mental breakdown. The album featured her with just a robe on and she has an intimacy coach on sat with her to make sure she doesn’t push any boundaries that she doesn’t want to. As this episode progresses, the intimacy coach is trying his best to get Jocelyn to cover up and not possibly ruin her image by making her album cover trashy, she was just a child star, and now to possibly see her naked on an album cover may not be the right move for her. In response to that they hide the intimacy coach in the closet and proceed to make Jocelyn take her clothes off in front of everyone. I would’ve just written that off as weird, but knowing the history of Sam Levinson, and how everyone is naked on euphoria unprovoked, it didn’t sit well with me. In the same episode, a picture of Jocelyn has been leaked of her with cum on her face during an intimate moment with whoever. They’re panicked and they don’t necessarily know what to do or how to stop his picture from going viral. This again showed the reoccurring theme with Sam Levinson with the unnecessary lewdness of his writing. While I know, children aren’t watching the show, it was unnecessary to put a cum shot of a woman where it didn’t necessarily need to be. He could’ve leaned into how revenge porn can affect a female celebrity but of course, he wouldn’t go that far, because this picture becomes a reoccurring theme in the show where they want to use a picture where Jocelyn is vulnerable as her album cover. Between wanting to use the picture of Her having a cum shot on her and her naked it was a bit careless, to say the least, especially knowing how much power men have over women in this industry. I don’t expect much from Sam Levinson, but I immediately need him away from portraying women's stories.

The biggest misconception about the show was the fact that it was labeled a r*pe fantasy. I remember the reviews coming out before the show came out and the biggest story was the cum shot. Picture of Lily Rose Depp. While I found the show tacky and distasteful. It was not a r*pe fantasy. The show is not too far off from the storylines and concept of Euphoria, poorly written with some glimpses of hope due to side characters. The sex scenes were non-consensual, just unnecessary. Whenever it was initiated, it will automatically be an eye roll as the sex scenes had no place in that particular storyline. It led me to believe that Sam Levinson doesn’t know how to write a proper drama without including unnecessary sex scenes that make everyone uncomfortable. I kind of imagine it like a weird teenage boy, who just discovered sex, and now is looking at life through an over-sexualized lens. And because of this, this is why The Idol and even Euphoria will never reach their true potential.

The Idol is a direct result when you let men take over to tell women stories. The idol had amazing potential to portray the actual behind-the-scenes story of a child star navigating her way through adulthood and the obstacles that come with changing your image and finding yourself after being told who you were for your entire life. A positive thing I can say about the series was the characters that I was introduced to aside from Tedros. Jocelyn, Xander, Leia, Chloe, etc. we’re all redeeming characters that could have possibly been an amazing showcase of the support system that you have in Hollywood how ever their characters were reduced due to poor writing. The shining light that was supposed to be the idol dimmed as soon as the Weeknd and Sam Levinson fired the original writer. Looking at the behind-the-scenes pictures of the original plot of the show you could tell it was supposed to be so much more, but was unfortunately, reduced to a six-episode series without direction or a proper end. Take this as a lesson to not speak over women and tell them what their experiences are, or you’ll end up with the failure that is now known as The Idol.

The Idol is available for streaming on Max!

What do you guys think? Was The Idol worth the watch? Are you interested in watching? What could have been done to make the show better? What direction could the show have gone if the direction was still under Amy Seimetz?

Ugh I’m finally back to my roots (writing) I needed to get this off my chest and what better way to break my hiatus! So excited to be back and writing about pop culture! More coming soon💓

I’ll see you guys next post✨

Cherokee🩵

[tabsters]

Okay, so I tried thinking about how to tell you my thoughts about you're book, had this idea of writing down full blown pages of analysis, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I don't have enough energy for that (though I might still do it occasionally) and instead would just send you random thoughts in your asks. So congratulations, now you get two types of asks from me.

Okay: so first chapter: I really like how you can understand the narrator via how others treat him. The first emotion they show when referring to him is fear, and also respect, telling us that this is powerful. And the way the narrator refers them back with almost disdain and lack of care, signifying that they are, or at least he sees them, as fundamentally unimportant. And we get this from just a few lines of text. I really like how much we can understand from just that little bit. However, I do critique the relationship between the two lackeys - at the end, you said that they seemed like good friends, but we got nothing from that in their interactions. They either ignore each other or seem like they don't like them. You could say that's because of the presence of the narrator, but they do interact a few times without acknowledging him, so you need to make it more obvious that it's his presence that makes them like this. In general, I think you used a tell-don't-show tactic here. Secondly, descriptions. You almost didn't use them, and the ones you did use were kinda all over the place. First of all, where were day? Unless I'm forgetting, you offered little to know environmental details, they could be sitting in the void for all I know. And in character details, why did you give CS (in case you didn't notice, I still need to memorize the characters actual names) an actual, in depth character design, while barely mentioning how the two others look? This would imply that she's the most important one here, or simply important, but once again, the narrator treats her as unimportant, creating inconsistency. And lastly, the mask. This is, if I understand, MC's main design detail, yet you barely gave it a description? This is awkward, especially with your earlier methods of description. It needs to be read as important, not just understood as important. If lack of details is your style, then you have to commit to it, removing extra descriptions so that the ones that do exist are more impactful.

Wow this was longer than I expected. I'll write my thoughts on the second chapter later, after I've sorted my thoughts, this is fun!

HUZZAH MY FIRST CRITICISMS!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH HUMAN!!! I'LL DEFINITELY KEEP THESE IN MIND!!!

[infinitelycomplexpuzzles]

// one thing people who follow me probably notice is that my autism hates inconsistencies in writing

I very much have a hyperfixation on storytelling and the process that you use for it

because storytelling isn't like painting, it's very precise and there are reasons for conventions that exist

for example, I am very much a believer that Chekov's gun is one of the most important rules of writing well. I believe internal consistency is more important than nearly anything else. And I believe this, because writing is the only form of creation where the creator has total control over how the consumer understands things.

In visual mediums, you don't have that. An actor can turn your villain into a hero simply because they're hot, see Loki in Marvel. A drawing of a character can entirely change how they are perceived, because visuals are a facet of how we understand things.

But in writing, a reader cannot know anything that you do not tell them. Their window to the world is entirely controlled by you, the writer.

A character who is vicious and mean and spiteful can be described as such, and the reader will have no reason to think otherwise, because their mental picture is entirely painted by you. There are no accidental elements added to it. There's no 'oh the actor interpreted this scene this way, the viewer took something else away from it, ect.'

For example, there are lots of people who interpret the protagonists of Fight Club, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad as aspirational figures. In the case of Fight Club, you would never take that away from the book, because there's no way for a reader to take away anything about these characters or their interactions beyond what they can see through the writer's eyes.

But beyond this, writing conventions exist for a reason.

A long time ago, I did a couple of years in film school. A waste, honestly, lots of debt from that. But, at the time, one thing I saw a lot was that people wanted to make pulp fiction but none of them understood why the director was able to make the movie without using the three act structure. It's because the director wrote the book on how to use the three act structure. Meaning that he understood better than anyone how to break the rules without destroying his story.

I think that now, there are probably other movies that have replaced Pulp Fiction in the 'non-linear narrative' movie slot that young people all think they can do without understanding how it actually works. You cannot simply replicate a thing without knowing why it is the way it is.

Here's an analogy that fits. My landlord worked as a fabricator for heavy machinery. While constructing such a machine for a client in China, something broke, and they couldn't simply take it apart or remake it. So they improvised and shipped it out. Later, they began to get questions on how to fix this part that was improvised, because the Chinese company that bought their machine had copied it without realizing that they had messed up, and so when they recast it, they recast it with the error included.

That's what it's like when people try to circumvent storytelling conventions without knowing why they exist or why people have used them for so many centuries.

Writers who have been doing it forever aren't perfect writers. But before you can improve upon what they've done, or innovate, you have to actually understand what they're doing and why.

Otherwise, you're doing the storytelling equivalent of adding salt instead of sugar to the cookies because you think that the only reason people are using sugar is because no one has ever considered using salt before in the history of baking.

'What makes writing good' is up to personal tastes a lot of time.

'What makes writing bad' is usually not, because it's often blatantly obvious when writing is bad in a way that it isn't in a lot of other mediums.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

how do you feel about tai because i feel like crwby try to write him to be a good dad but genuinely dont know how? i genuinely dont know what theyre going for with tai?

i love aus focussing on qrow and tai co-parenting the girls because fanfic writers are, as a whole, better than crwby at writing.

First off anon thank you for this ask I’ve been hyper focusing on Deltarune again and this ask gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about it again (it’ll make sense I promise lolZ)

Tai is a very complicated character and not in a good way unfortunately. CRWBY wanted to have their cake and eat it to in a manner of speaking with wanting Ruby and Yang to have a good and loving father while also having Yang be the one to care for Ruby for so long but couldn’t really be bothered to come up with a good story reason to balance both and not have the story feel muddied and hypocritical. This is the man who was so depressed and unfocused on his children that his two toddler children where able to just leave the house for hours and almost be killed by Grimm seemingly without him realizing forcing their Uncle to come to their rescue. But we’re also supposed to applaud him as a super loving and devoted father?

Tai is at first at least portrayed as having been very neglectful of his daughters after spiraling into depression after Summers death. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing and is a realistic response to trauma. The issues come in when the narrative also wants to paint him as a good and loving father Yang and Ruby adore and don’t have any hang ups about how absent he was from their childhood. To me at least from my own experiences….it doesn’t make a lot of sense. As a kid I always kind of resented my dad for being at work all the time and it wasn’t until very recently that I understood all the nuance of why he was at work and on business trips all the time, it’s something that as a kid I really couldn’t understand. Now maybe Yang is at a point where she can understand and is emotionally mature enough to look back on it all and understand but Ruby? She’s still a kid at the beginning of the show and is a little naive about these things which is not a bad thing! It’s realistic and makes sense given her age and how socially awkward she is.

A much better example of how this kind of parent is handled is in the Hunger Games books wherein Katniss calls out her mother for shutting down when her dad died and told her she can’t do that again if Katniss doesn’t come home. Katniss is allowed to be angry at and resent her mother for shutting down as she did and forcing Katniss to raise Primrose and, most importantly in my opinion, the narrative doesn’t treat Katniss as a bad person for having these feelings. The narrative understands that their mother abandoned them when they needed her most, forcing Katniss to do a lot to keep their family alive.

If CRWBY really wanted to have Tai absent so Yang was the one to basically raise Ruby while also allowing Tai to be a loving and devoted father, they could have done something similar to Noelle and Rudolph in Deltarune.

Within Deltarune Rudolph is Noelles father and is hospitalized due to his deteriorating health leaving her to be mostly cared for by her mother who is implied to be on some lovely emotionally abusive to Noelle. We don’t have anything directly confirming this but we have hints like how Noelle would rather stand outside her house unable to get in for hours and hours rather then admit to her mom she forgot her key or how Rudolph mentions it’s been hard for Noelle with him in the hospital because he balanced his wife out.

Now obviously CRWBY can tell the story they want to, but as they have it currently Tai is a confusing and inconsistent character with characterizations that just don’t really work. I think if they wanted to go with the loving and devoted father angle they needed to make some changes, either by changing why Tai was absent or remove that aspect entirely or allow the girls to be frustrated by his absence and have Tai realize his mistake and be working to repair his relationship with the girls.

The plot line can work technically but as of right now the writing just doesn’t work. Generally in fanfics I follow this arc about him becoming so depressed he abandoned his kids is cut and usually I see it replaced instead with Yang more filling in the mother figure role for Yang which allows her to have a hand in helping raise Yang while also allowing Tai to be a devoted father. I won’t tell anyone the best way to rewrite Tai obviously but for me at least something needs to change and as you said anon fanfic authors do so much of the work CRWBY refuses to do for some reason.

[waitmyturtles]

Um, WOW, okay, ha -- I did NOT see an Ohm-and-Film fight scene happening in my lifetime. Thoughts on Double Savage, episode 7: 

1) I wrote this morning that I’m just beginning to dive into New Siwaj’s oeuvre, and I’m wondering for this screenplay, if New Siwaj is really New Siwaj-ing himself here. The writing in this episode was choppy at best. Vignette after vignette with not the most connective tissue. 

I’m not convinced by Win’s continued and growing intensity against Korn -- although I like that Korn finally talked back, but again, without context (unless he was commenting on Win’s sheer IDIOCY for flashing a gun at a funeral, which fucking makes TOTAL sense). 

We’re also not getting enough of WHY Rung would make such a drastic change in her life to go to the same life that Korn is living. Plus, she knows something about her parents that we don’t, I think, but that’s also not made entirely clear.

With that crazy-ass test at the end, along with the previews for episode 8, I am thinking that episode 7 can’t stand alone without episode 8 (Li taking care of Ah’s wound?! What?). Anyway. 

2) Back to Win for a second. Does he continue to spiral because of the pressures at work? He’s clearly NOT getting pressure from his (very good-looking, cough) superiors to, like, arrest his own brother. 

I’m trying to figure out if there’s supposed to be a parallel between Win’s temper and his father’s temper. A patriarchially-inspired temper, basically given unto a man through societal expectations and not through, say, merit or empathic love for his family.

I mean, in other words, Win’s fuckin’ it up left and right, but I honestly am not sure how convincing it is on screen. UNLESS -- because he’s written so choppily -- if he’s MEANT to come off as inconsistent and terribly weak, then THAT’S working. That’s REALLY working. (Again, this might be New New-ing himself -- using an unfamiliar order of operations to make a character look like a fucking lame ass.)

One thing that I can think of on Win’s part is that Win never HAD to learn how to control his temper, the way Korn had to, in order to survive during their childhood. Win received all the praise. We continue to see it in the previews for tomorrow’s episode. Win hasn’t learned self-control -- and we see it emanating.

3) You know what I liked the best of this episode? (Besides Film’s drip, which WE’LL GET TO IN A SECOND.) 

I liked that the mother finally, FINALLY SAID to Win: “But why are you acting like you don’t know why [Korn] chose [his way of life]?”

And petty Win retorts: “You’re taking his side like you’ve always done.”

Come awn, Win. Maybe THAT’S what’s missing for me.

Win clearly understood the trauma of what his family was facing when they were younger. I think I’m realizing that I don’t believe, convincingly, that Win has TOTALLY forgotten it. I wrote last week that what Win is the most influenced by, at this adult time of his life, is the extrasocial factor of jealousy that’s driving his worldview. 

But I appreciate his mom calling him out for straight-up FORGETTING that it was patriarchal ABUSE that caused all of this. His mom is like -- COME AWN. YOU KNOW THIS. And you used to love your brother so much.

And Win is like, aw, Ma, I’m a tired old man, wah wah, I’m going home.

Weak ass. I mean, again, if the writing is SUPPOSED to shape Win like this, then great job. But I think the writing (COME ON, NEW) could have been a lot sharper and more convincing. Perth is like, electric with talent in this and could have had a lot more to work with.

4) Quick note on Korn. Korn’s failing in life is that he lacks subtlety, and I think Ah is taking advantage of it. Korn would be a much smarter and wiser person -- and maybe he’s gonna get there with Rung back at his side -- if he could be more sophisticated about the life he’s living and the illegal things he’s doing. He’s still holding onto a child’s black-and-white perspective, like almost everyone else around him (EXCEPT Ah, Mek, and Rung) -- and I wonder if his maturing into the gray is going to be a storyline for the rest of the series.

5) I have thoughts on the Asian compulsions for saving face and playing the blame game vis à vis Korn’s father, but I might save those for tomorrow -- I’ve been crazy writing the last couple of days. Let me just say this about Korn’s dad, and that interaction they had in the apartment. 

I understood it all. Very unfortunately. As HORRIBLY as that dad has treated Korn for the entirety of Korn’s life, I understood why Korn continued to help his dad, even when his dad went silent. I have that filial piety guilt on me every minute of every day. 

Seeing the dad shed a tear was a touch of karmic satisfaction, but it didn’t make me happy. Ugh. It was painful to watch. 

6) Let’s appreciate Film’s leather-and-eyeliner era. And those CARGO SWEATPANTS! And MOCK TURTLENECK gym shirt! I will submit a request to GMMTV to please get Film some muscle tees and a strength trainer, because I’d like to see some poppin’ biceps on my girl. I LOVE YOU, FILM, I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH.

7) Finally, I just want to note that I have previously loved Foei in the few shows of his that I’ve watched on GMMTV (most notably Dirty Laundry, which I was obsessed with; his work in 10 Years Ticket, and the few episodes of Midnight Museum that I watched), and I’m really fucking horrified and disappointed by his social media behavior this weekend.

[logicalbookthief]

Things Left Unsaid -- An Analysis of Rei & Touya

Apparently Rei has been getting a lot of flack lately, all of it undeserved, and since I had a post analyzing her relationship with Touya in the works already, I figured no time like the present.

Disclaimer #1: There are a lot of issues with the writing for Rei’s character that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with how the storyline is using her, which I will address and examine.

Disclaimer #2: I’m someone who, while always curious as to what kind of relationship Rei had with her oldest son before he died, never thought it would be revealed that Touya was close to his mom. I don’t think you get the Dabi we see in Chapters 290-295 without him being so warped by his relationship with his father yet so dependent on his attention that he was willing to kill his brother and himself simply for his father’s acknowledgement.

But that’s what I find so interesting about Rei and Touya -- it’s a relationship that mainly consists of regrets and things left unsaid. There isn’t the anger or resentment Dabi feels for Endeavor, because that intense level of emotion sprung from the loss of the father who used to be his whole world. His feelings toward his mother seem more amicable, but also more distant.

And while she could’ve done some things differently in regards to her oldest, I want to make it clear that the distance between them was very much by design.

After all, Touya was the end goal of their marriage. It was never any secret as to why Enji wanted to marry her and to some extent Rei must’ve realized that this child was not meant to be hers: the child was the transaction, the thing she was needed to create, to give to her husband. Of course she loved Touya and was likely his primary caregiver for most of his life, but there was no doubt that once his quirk manifested and he could begin his hero training, his life would be dominated by his father. Which is what happened.

Here, I would like to point out something I noticed in the flashback chapters. We never see any panels of Enji alone with any of his children during their infancy -- even with Shouto, the perfect child he longed for, we see Rei holding Shouto, sitting by him as he sleeps. Enji is there tangentially. Once Shouto begins his training, that is when we see him with his father.

So to see Enji with Touya when he was a baby, prior to his quirk manifesting, strikes me as a big deal. But it makes sense if you remember that he’d placed all his hopes, dreams and expectations on his firstborn. Initially, it doesn’t look like he even considered the possibility that Touya wouldn’t be his successor or that his little eugenics experiment would fail; this was his first, most optimistic attempt at a masterpiece. So I don’t believe it’s far-fetched to see him spend more time with Touya right off the bat (it’s what will make the eventual abandonment all the more crushing).

However, Rei isn’t seen at all in the snippet of Touya’s infancy, despite us knowing she was relegated to the caregiver role. Rei is literally out of the picture. Compare this to how she features prominently in Shouto’s infancy or how we see her holding a baby Natsuo. You could argue that, hey, we don’t see her holding a baby Fuyumi either, but there’s other scenes where Fuyumi’s attached to her mother’s hip or crying over her being hurt. Things that suggest a closeness, when the only scene we get of just her and Touya is one where they’re at odds. 

As we move further into Touya’s childhood, though, Rei becomes the only voice we hear advocate for him against his father. I’m referencing two specific instances:

When Enji coerces her into having more children to replace Touya now that his father has deemed him a failure, something she knows will hurt their son deeply.

And after Touya lashes out at Shouto, which Rei doesn’t blame on Touya, but rather on his father. She delivers such a satisfying condemnation of his actions, probably the most cutting one Endvr’s received to date, and it so accurately sums up one of his major character flaws.

How can you call yourself a hero when you can’t even face your own son?

The tragedy of it all is that Rei never said any of this in front of Touya -- it was always said in private, just to her husband. That alone took courage, yes, but it would’ve meant everything to Touya to hear her condemn his father aloud. Instead when she does speak to him, she says this:

It’s why I can’t wrap my head around that scene in Ch 302, where after Enji admits he didn’t know what to say to Touya, Rei replies, “Neither did I.” 

When we’re shown in flashbacks during that same chapter that she did understand her son. “He just wants to be acknowledged by you” is quite the indication that she, at the very least, understood the cause of Touya’s turmoil even if she couldn’t fully relate to it herself. So why can’t she say any of this to him?

The answer is in the way she addresses Touya, as it is nearly identical to how Nao addresses Tenko in this scene:

Both Touya and Tenko grew up in similar households: the father had all the power, physical and financial, so the mothers were left to try and comfort their children in a way that didn’t go against their husbands’ desires -- and so, to use Tenko’s own words, they would “reject them with kindness.”

So it’s no wonder that Touya lashes out at his mother after she suggests he pursue other things. He isn’t five like Tenko was, he’s thirteen and has a much clearer understanding of why she says this and why it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s aware of her situation, too.

Just as she was bound by her family, who wanted her to marry Endvr for the money and status, he’s bound by the expectations of his family. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anyone else touch on this detail, but when Touya states that he knows his grandparents sold his mom into marriage so his dad could have a child, we could infer that Touya knows enough to realize that his mother might not have necessarily wanted him.

Not him specifically, but any child — the story has neglected to flesh her out beyond her marriage and motherhood, so we have no idea if Rei wanted to become a mother prior to this arrangement, despite how much she loves her kids now — although it is possible that he might’ve internalized it this way.

So you have Touya, who at least knows with certainty that his father wanted him to exist, yet he comes to understand that his father only wants him if he can meet a specific set of expectations, and if he cannot, he’ll be discarded. If he can’t surpass All Might, he can’t fulfill his reason for existing and his father will have to replace him. So to have his mother urge him to follow a path other than becoming a hero would mean, to Touya, accepting that he is the mistake he fears he is. Of course he isn’t going to respond well to that.

I don’t like when people try to compare Touya’s reaction in this moment to Shouto’s when Rei tells him he isn’t bound by his father’s blood, using that to paint Shouto as the “good” child and Touya as the “bad” one. They didn’t react differently because of any innate sense of goodness or lack thereof -- they reacted differently because the situations are different.

Telling Shouto that he didn’t have to be like his father comforted Shouto, who only knew his father as the bully who hurt his mom. He associated his father, and his father’s fire, with all of that fear and pain -- and thus, he associated the part of himself that took after his father with those feelings. She wasn’t denying his dream of becoming a hero, only assuring him that when he became a hero it could be whatever kind of hero he chose to be, that he wasn’t doomed to be like his father.

Whereas what she tells Touya sounds a lot like what his father told him, which was to give up on being a hero and pursue other aspirations.

Encouraging Shouto to become his own version of a hero still falls in line with what Endvr ultimately wants, which is for Shouto to be a hero capable of surpassing All Might. Whereas this is what happens when Touya continues to train to do that against his father’s wishes:

This is where the framing begins to bother me and where Rei’s characterization becomes inconsistent. 

So in this scene from Ch 302, we see Enji abusing his wife for “letting” Touya continue to train, punishing her for her “failure” to stop him. Obviously, none of that is Rei’s fault. If anything, Enji would be more responsible for preventing Touya from hurting himself since he’s the reason his son is hurting himself in the first place.

Moreover, the fact that he hits Rei over this sort of muddies the water of an previously-established narrative. Since the Sports Festival arc, we’ve known that Endvr abused his wife because she tried to interfere with Shouto’s training. It got to the point where she was terrified of her husband and it drove her to a breakdown. Why introduce this new aspect to the abuse, when it was already established that a) he was physically abusive and b) his motivations for abusing her were explicit to the audience? 

I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense that a man who hits his wife for one reason could find another reason to do it and justify his actions to himself. And while the scene does portray Endvr in a bad light to show how wrong his actions are, literally draping his figure in shadow, why does it even dare to suggest the idea that Rei was remiss in her duties as a mother? Again, the scene isn’t even necessary, since the narrative has long-since showed the audience that Enji abused his wife. 

By itself, the scene would read as further exploration of how Rei was victimized and how it affected her children. When you look at it with the chapter as a whole, though? Remember, this is the chapter where Rei claims that all of the family shares the blame in what happened to Touya, displacing some of the blame that rightfully rests on Enji. 

But my major gripe with this scene is how it reframes the sole moment we get of Rei and Touya alone. Because we know that Rei understands Touya, based on her confrontations with her husband in Ch 301 & 302. Rather than encourage him to be what he wants or acknowledge that his father is in the wrong, however, her advice falls in line with what Enji wants -- to stop Touya from training. And this comes after a scene where we see Enji beat his wife when she doesn’t stop Touya from training.

With all that in mind, it could potentially be read as Rei trying stop Touya for the sake of protecting herself and the family -- I don’t think it’s coincidence that in the scene where he hits her that we see Shouto, Fuyumi & Natsuo all as witnesses who are very distressed by what’s happening to their mother -- at the cost of Touya’s need to be validated. And if executed well or at least better than it has here, that wouldn’t be a bad choice of narrative per se, and it would fit into the pattern where the households the villains were raised in -- notably Shigaraki, Dabi & Toga -- mimic the society they live in, just on a smaller scale.

Except. Does that sort of narrative make sense based on what we already know about Rei?

Certainly, it is natural to want to protect yourself under physical and/or emotional duress by appeasing your abuser. This sort of complicated dynamic appears in the Shimura family, too. Just like in the house that Kotaro built, the Todoroki family revolves around the desires of the abuser and is dictated by his whims.

I would argue that Nao does give us a well-written example of this narrative. From the beginning, it’s established that she loves Tenko dearly. But in the house her husband built, there’s no room to love her son as he deserves. She prioritizes the feelings of Tenko’s father for the sake of maintaining peace in the household and this is established quickly and plainly.

Early on in the flashback, Kotaro exerts his control over the house, while Nao + her parents look uncomfortable. Despite this, we watch as they comply with his rules, all at the expense of Tenko’s feelings. When she stands up to Kotaro at last, it is not where Tenko can see and already too late. It’s a painful story, full of regret and sadness, but it is consistent from start to end. Nobody feels out-of-character or there to prop up anybody else.

So why doesn’t Rei feel as consistent in this narrative?

Because it doesn’t fit with everything we knew about Rei prior to her abuser’s subpar redemption arc.

The way she interacts with Touya would make sense, if this was how she was portrayed from the start. However, her behavior in Shouto’s flashback -- where she was first introduced -- contrasts what we get in the later Todoroki flashbacks.

Let’s compare this to the scenes in Ch 302. Here, Rei interferes on Shouto’s behalf. She advocates for her son in front of Shouto where he can hear. She stands up to his bully/villain and tries to protect him, while also validating his feelings in the process. Directly after this, Enji hits her, not for failing to comply with his demands, but for defying him. 

It is difficult to reconcile this Rei with the Rei we get in Ch 302. And if you try to find an in-story reason for the inconsistency, the options either do a disservice to Rei or make things even more painful for Touya. But I’m sure most of you have realized that I’m going to suggest a reason for this inconsistency that goes beyond the canon.

Because when Rei was first introduced in the story, Endvr was unequivocally the villain in the Todoroki family, not some misguided patriarch trying to atone for his “past” mistakes. Years later and in the midst of his redemption arc, the narrative seems to be intent on making this man more palatable to readers, and it’s used Rei at every opportunity to prop up his efforts to be better. Often, though, it takes some of the heat off Enji by displacing it onto other family members, most significantly Rei & Touya.

Like, you can literally see the difference in the frame from early in the manga to now:

Ch 39: Endvr trains his five-year-old to the point where he’s throwing up due overextension and being punched by a fully grown adult who is also his father. Rei tries to protect her son and gets slapped by Endvr. All the blames rests squarely on Endvr, who is clearly the aggressor and painted as the villain here.

Ch 302: Endvr hits Rei for not preventing Touya from sneaking out to train, knocking her to the ground. Again, Endvr is clearly the aggressor, but oh this time it’s not driven solely by his selfish desires it’s also cocnern for his son; Rei is the victim but oh she also should have been watching him more closely, and oh well why was Touya going out in the first place, when everyone has told him to stop and he knows his mom will get punished for it?

Honestly, I can understand where some people have mixed feelings over Rei’s character, particularly since the writing has done her such a disservice recently. With that being said, however, it takes a minimum amount of critical thinking to recognize that while you can criticize some choices she made, you cannot hold her to the same standard of accountability as Enji, it’s absurd. The power imbalance was obviously tipped in Endvr’s favor, always.

It is a shame, too, that we can’t have more discussions that don’t turn into some readers (a lot of whom are attempting to make Endvr sound less horrible than he actually was) trying to demonize her. It’s doubly a shame the story itself doesn’t bother to flesh her out as a person, instead using her as a prop, because the complex relationships she has with Touya -- with all her children, really -- has plenty of room for exploration. 

Like, there was no reason to add this new dimension of resentment due to her spouting Enji’s words back at Touya, when there was already a source of tension supported by previous canon -- the neglect the Todoroki kids suffered because Rei couldn’t be the parent they needed, due to her declining mental health and eventual breakdown.

Or, if you want to complicate their dynamic further, why not add something that focuses on Rei and has nothing to do with Enji? We learn in the flashbacks that Rei agreed to the marriage more-or-less to please her family, lamenting that she “intended to smile through it to the end,” essentially admitting that her hope was she could grin and bear it. It is telling that she had this attitude before entering her marriage; evidently, she was raised with the idea that she should be acquiescent to her parents’ whims and not express herself if she was only going to be contrary. Maybe she didn’t know how to deal with Touya’s very expressive, very emotional outbursts as a result. And her inability to respond would be the exact opposite of what Touya was seeking.

Not to mention that Touya died, and for the last decade, Rei was under the impression she had lost her son forever. He died while she was hospitalized, torn up with guilt over what she did to Shouto, only to find out that her other son died in a frankly horrific manner, and she could do nothing. By the time she would’ve found out, it was too late to even try to do anything. I can’t imagine what she must’ve felt in terms of regret alone, plus her grief. And I’m still mad we were robbed of her reaction to Touya being alive, because now suddenly there is a chance to do something, to change what was once written in stone.

Or what about Touya’s feelings for his mother, that have yet to be given much depth? As the oldest and most aware of his existence, it seems like he was the first to truly understand his mother’s situation and I can’t help but wonder: If Touya knew he vessel for his father’s ambition, and his mother was sold into role of creating/caring for him, did he question her love for him? Once he found out one parent’s love was conditional, it wouldn’t be a leap for him to consider it for the other. And yet if that’s true, Dabi doesn’t appear to hold any ill-will towards her for that. He was angry at her hypocrisy, because he knows she should understand, but her words to him didn’t reflect that.

All of that is fascinating and so much better than what we got in canon, so far at least. I’m hoping for them interact in the present at least once before the end of the series, and I think they will, but as to how satisfying a reconciliation it’ll be, I guess we’ll have to wait to see how the Todoroki plotline progresses from here on out.

[jin0]

Hiii Jin ❤️❤️

Ok first of all I hope your weekend is going super well, making sure you take downtime between your work and free time!! Rest lots and make sure you’re hydrated 😘😘

Second, as I was scrolling through tiktok I heard an audio cap of high school sweethearts by Melanie Martinez and it got me thinkin 😏😏 dont these lyrics literally scream y/n and peters relationship dynamic? I remember bringing this up to another writer a while ago because I felt like this needed to be heard in varied styles: Imagine they’re at a crossroads in a will they won’t they relationship, y/n is clearly a bit inexperienced (ofc) and she wants to go all the way romantically (and sexually) w Peter but feels so equivocal about her relationship with Peter because of its inconsistencies! I feel like the tugging back and forth between if it’s worth it to be with her despite his spiderman related responsibilities (and yes taking this right from TASM plot— her dad not being peters biggest fan) and between raging hormones and future goals post grad??

Could you hold me through the night?

Put your lips all over my mine

Salty face when I start cryin'

Could you be my first time?

Eat me up like apple pie

Make me not wanna die

Love me rough and let me fly

Get me up, yeah, get me high

Tie me down, don't leave my side

Don't be a waste of my time

I just feel like it’s so synced to their situation and rlly reminds me of the mixed emotions in their personality arcs in not only what was made in the films and screenplay perspectives, but also with what you’ve written, essentially mirroring the evolution and future perspectives of the character traits that you’ve created!

-silent treatment nonnie 🥰🥰

honestly nonnie, this whole thing is absolutely mind blowing and i hope you know how fucking well put out this is ?? like genuinely, i had to reread it a few good times to grasp everything cause it's an analysis that needs to be well understood so thank you so much for blessing me with this !!

and honestly the tugging back and forth part and the dilemma about whether it's really worth it is a point that is basically necessary whenever i think of a relationship with peter ?? like i don't mention it but it's kinda the preview to the relationship i write about and again, like you mentioned, the screenplay translates !!

like peter and gwen got together in high school and the many obstacles standing in the way brought them at a point where they ended up doubting their relationship. when i write for peter, i imagine the after of these events, what it would be like if you'd managed to go through this whole thing and come out loving each other more than ever ?? what would it be like if you'd concluded that it was worth it yk ??

most of the time, i write vigilante/hero!reader and college!peter/reader because it feels easier for the characters to handle a relationship in college where you already got to question your life and your goals and it makes it kinda easier for peter to choose both life as peter and as spidey because he's with someone who understands and goes through the same yk ??

but the song and mostly the part you quoted feels like the internal battle they had to go through before getting in a relationship. and that's why I write them so in love and dependent on each other, so passionate and desperate for each other. they had to go through so many obstacles before actually getting to the point they're at not, between the spidey life, post grad goals possibly separating them, the weight of judging parents and other shit getting in the way.

they had to go through all this shit and i also like to think that while reader kinda k ew she was ready to take the leap and peter was worth it, he was the one to voice it first because his life and the things he does were way more important at the time to her. she's never seen her life as equivalent to his mission as spidey but he was the one to be like 'yeah no, you're worth it all and i won't keep doing this without you. I'll bend myself backwards to make sure you stay and understand how worth it it all is, how important and influential you are to me doing all i do'. when she had the greenlight, they were basically all over each other all the time.

one other thing i like to picture on the same note, is that both were basically best friends before getting in a relationship. i feel like the whole dilemma would be easier to deal with if they had a past that already linked them together. they knew each other better than ever and know the obstacles standing in the way because they've been here since the beginning of the friendship and they managed to ge through it still. doing it again as lovers won't change the outcome yk ??

but yeah, you're absolutely fucking right in everything you said omg ??? like this is something that's violently translated in the movies, how confusing and inconsistent the beginning of a relationship with peter would be. but after that confusion fades and you basically force the universe to accept that yeah, you're sticking together, it get's so violently loving, it's gross lol !! like both of you turn into the most hormonally loving and passionate people ever and it seems like really weird to some but the truth is you already went through hell and you're ready to face whatever the fuck is coming next !!

side note : i like to think that in all this dilemma, if one if you ever thought it might not be worth it and decided to step away, it would be fucking difficult to truly keep yourself away ?? like peter promising gwen's father to stay away but he can't really, even when he tries or when he breaks up with her again but loves her too much to stay away ?? it would basically be the same with peter and reader (might wanna write that omg ??? like peter breaking up with you but he can't really stay away ?? did it already but wanna try it again 🙈)

anyways !! this got so long but you had me THINKING nonnie !! genuinely thank you again for this cause i loved explaining the way i write a relationship with peter !! it makes a little more sense now for the codependency vibe (i hope it explains it a little more cause im a little stupid)

[sushi-rat]

I'm gonna go on a MCU rant. I know at least a few people have felt this way and have prolly made their pieces online, but recently (I don't know why NOW it is but whatever) has been knocking on my brain. I hope I sound coherent

I hate Civil War. I think it is my least favorite movie to date cause I think it is one of the major culprits to why some later parts of the franchise fall flat or have some inconsistencies in characters (there a LOT of reasons why there are inconsistencies or scenes don't have as much impact such as constant change in writers/directors, actors not being given their full scripts, directors leaning almost purely on callbacks without their proper contexts like what happened in MoM like "I can do this all day", ignoring audience honest criticism, ect. but I do think Civil War's plot directly resulted in some later character and plot issues).

I feel Civil War ruined Tony Stark. In Civil War, the premise is that the Sokovia Accords are presented, which are documents stating the governments that signed it will have control over superhumans meaning that they can only operate under the consent of a council and all their actions must be cleared through the council as well. Outside of that, superhumans are essentially stored away like weapons; an obvious breach of human rights which is what causes the Civil War amongst the Avengers. Steve Rogers believes it inhumane, and Tony Stark believes that they need to be put in line. I personally believe having Tony Stark fight for the Accords is contradictory to his character built out of 2 specific previous scenarios. The first being what is shown in the court hearing scene in Iron Man 2 where the government sees Tony as a threat because he operates on his own. The government wants power over him and uses scare tatics of other countries replicating Tony's tech to get the public to see their side. What they don't show (until Tony hacks their screens) is that these countries majorly failed and one of these attempts was actually by the US Government themselves. Tony, through his tech and snarky remarks, clearly states that he has no real interest in his tech or himself being owned by the government and outright states he will continue to operate on his own, "I've successfully privatized world peace". This built a foundation of a belief in Tony that is the opposite of the Accords, that he holds confidence in continuing to defend the people on his own and not under someone else. The second scenario started in Avengers 1 and has continued even to today as seen repeatedly in the (god-awful) sh*-hulk series: Tony's friendship with Bruce Banner. The control from the government is something Bruce explicitly is against as seen in the Hulk 2008 movie where he is on the run from the US Government that wants to use his condition as the Hulk as a weapon. If he was involved in the Civil War he would've been so obviously against the Accords. Why is that important, and what does it have to do with Tony? Because Tony and Bruce had a deep friendship and bond, and Tony understood Bruce's condiition better than anyone right from the get-go. Everyone showed intimidation or straight-up terror of Bruce in Avengers 1, everyone except Tony. Natasha was absolutely terrified of him, Steve didn't want to live let alone deal with anyone and his hardened personality made him bitter towards Bruce's condition, Fury had a cage built for him which is the one he put Loki in, and even Bruce let the fear of the Hulk and the damage that could result control his life, but Tony? Tony joked around with him, was constantly in close proximity, invited Bruce to his lab, and even lightly shocked Bruce at one point which Steve chastised him for because everyone treated Bruce as though the smallest thing would summon Hulk (again, even Steve saw Bruce as purely a danger for the first half of the movie). Tony knew different, though. He held faith that Bruce had more control than even he was giving himself credit for, and treated him like a normal human being. Tony believed that Bruce had control over himself and didn't need the constant fear and control over him from others. TONY BELIEVED A SUPERHUMAN COULD CONTROL HIMSELF AND SHOULDN'T BE FEARED OR POLICED. Having Tony fight for the Accords completely goes against EVERYTHING he did for Bruce, and is prolly one of greatest betrayals of one of the best friendships in the MCU. In Infinity War, when Bruce sees Tony for the first time in, I think, years Bruce immediately hugs Tony. They had such a deep bond from the beginning, but you might as well have had Tony reject the hug and tell Bruce "I lied, I'm scared of you and what you could do".

Sort of piggy-backing off of the previous point about Tony Stark's character being ruined, Civil War made Tony Stark into a complete asshole. The Accords were a clear invasion of human rights. Tony Stark openly fought for them. To me, Tony is clearly the villian in that movie. In the past, Tony has been a snarky, quick-wit, egoist sort of asshole where it's clear he hides pain. Yes, he had done things that I would say are clearly just asshole behavior such as the blind-eye he turned to the destruction his weapons brought in Iron Man 1. Characters are meant to develop, though, and Tony was kinda developing past his asshole traits and had the potential to do so further. That comes to a complete halt with Civil War. This choice for Tony's character I think also greatly diminishes the plot of the later movie Endg*me. During the Blip, everyone is in shambles including Tony. When the remaining Avengers come to Tony to try to fix what had happened after not ever once checking up on Tony in the past 5 years, Tony gets upset that people just want to use him and don't actually care about him. This sets a precedent of everyone else essentially being an asshole to Tony and they need to make this up to him, but why should they? He wanted them all to be nothing but weapons/objects, now he's mad when he's treated like one instead of a human? It seems unjust to have everyone else basically suck up to Tony and it makes his outcry fall flat. It even ruins his sacrifice at the end of the movie, for me. He was a villain but is suddenly treated like the hero without any show of development on his end from Civil War to Endg*me. It's just everyone else sucking up to him which, again, is unjust to the Avengers. If Tony didn't fight for the Accords, it would've made those scenes so much better in my opinion

Another plot to why the Civil War happens is Tony finding out that the Winter Soldier, the brainwashed and hypnotized Bucky Barnes, killed his parents and Steve withheld that info. Tony is angry at Steve for not telling him this rather important info and sees Bucky as the sole villain rather than blaming Hydra as they were the ones that brutally tortured Bucky to make him forget who he was and turn him into the mindless weapon, the Winter Soldier. I believe that Tony treating Bucky like the villain is what set the current idea that Bucky needs to atone for 'what he's done'. We see this idea in the FATWS series (another one I hate) where Bucky is being solely blamed for the missions he was on while under Hydra control and he is constantly trying to 'make amends'. BUCKY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG, THOUGH, IT WAS HYDRA. We literally see the electro-torture he went through, the hypnosis that Hydra used while resetting him, the constant in-and-out of cryo to slow down his brain's recovery from the torture so he wouldn't remember who he was, ect. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and in Civil War. I could understand an initial anger and wanting to point fingers out of in-the-moment rage and being upset at the withholding of information concerning the death of loved ones, but never ONCE is there a moment where Tony has clarity and admits that he's wrong. He never just stops and looks at the real issue being Hydra. He just blames Bucky. I think that caused the recent wave at forgetting Bucky's torture and just treating him like he was a villain which has completely ruined his character. I believe even Sebastian Stan himself expressed concern with his character during the filming of FATWS that it seemed out of character

Those are the effects I can think of at the moment. Supposedly, Civil War wasn't originally a civil war movie but was going to be about finding Bucky and possibly the Avengers fighting against the soldiers Hydra created, but the idea was scrapped because it was believed it was going to be too boring to just make another superhero movie. But the MCU could've benefited much more if it was just another superhero movie, and if they really wanted to, could still include the civil war aspect a tiny bit. Steve and Sam are able to find Bucky, Tony finds out about the death of his parents, he's initially mad at Bucky and Steve and blames Bucky cause "He was holding the gun!", maybe an actual physical fight breaks out, but they then have to band together against Zemo and the soldiers and through that does Tony finally have clarity where he learns of Hydra's methods and realizes it's not Bucky's fault and he's innocent. Bucky can still go to Wakanda, Steve can still give up the shield as a fugitive and become Nomad, and then Tony could also become a fugitive staying on the downlow with his family like Clint does with his. It would much better solidify them actually being friends, it wouldn't ruin Bucky or Tony, it would allow Tony to develop more, the establishing of Steve and Tony being better friends would make the scenes in Endg*me more impactful (though that alone would not fix the movie), ect.

[saby-chan]

Fire Lord Ozai: A blood thirsty monster or the less fortunate “Zuko” of his generation?

Hello again and thank you as always for clicking and allotting some of your time to read my humble post! Since I’ve happened to notice quite an increase in posts lately regarding the controversial character and nature of the former Fire Lord, the now imprisoned fallen prince Ozai, and I’ve personally promised in my previous post that I will share my own analysis on him if people asked me to do so (which actually happened), I am here to deliver my own take on this very intriguing man’s character, while also building a potential past for him based on stuff gathered from the show’s cannon.

I would like to start this essay with what I find to be my favorite quote ever: ”Monster’s aren’t born, they are created.” ~ Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto) What I like about this quote soo much and find very inspirational is the truth it holds within its short, yet powerful message. We are often fast to judge a “book by the cover”, to reduce others to what we assume of them by their appearance or latest actions that we’ve seen them do, but never actually take a moment and wonder where they come from, if this person we soo harshly look down upon really has been this way since their very beginning?

I’ve come across many comments on social media related to ATLA, especially on YouTube videos on which people would throw with harsh comments such as “Aang being a coward for choosing to spare the villain just because they saw a dumb baby pic of them” or “Ozai is the essence of evil and even as a baby he’d been a monster”. I can’t help but wonder who hurt these people to make them be so cruel? Like, how messed up must you actually be to say that a baby, a friggin baby, is the embodiment of all evils? Or that a child was a coward for choosing to see his opponent’s last bits of humanity and opted to spare them?

Aang was soo morally conflicted about the idea of killing Ozai not only because it contradicted the morals of his people, but because he himself understood that this man hadn’t always been the cruel beast he came to met in their first and final showdown. It’s important to note here the fact that upon finding that picture, Aang was actually convinced it had to be Zuko as a baby since it looked so innocent and cute and was actually surprised to learn it was Zuko’s father. And that’s the thing, Ozai was born like us all as an innocent and sweet baby. Babies aren’t in any way evil or twisted, they don’t even have the notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined in their small, still developing minds. In fact, the very choice of the creators to add this picture in the show is meant to tell us this very thing: this man wasn’t always like this. But if he wasn’t always like this, then what happened to make him become this way?

Well, in order to find out the reason, we must go back in time to the very beginning: Ozai’s childhood and upbringing. For this next part I am going to solely focus on the show cannon, as the comics aren’t the products of BryKe and have a lot of inconsistencies to the source’s cannon (you can go and read my other post on why they fail when it comes to Zuko’s character and his family).

 From what we know and can easily deduce by ourselves just from their appearances, Ozai and his brother Iroh have a huge age gap between them (somewhere between 10 and 15 years). This has to be our first red flag: isn’t it soo odd that this family opted to have their children at such a long distance between pregnancies? It almost feels as if Ozai hadn’t actually been part of his father’s actual family planning... In other words, he was a ‘mistake’ child (I actually hate having to use this terminology, but it will become relevant to when we expand on Azulon’s relationship with his sons). Sure, some may argue that Azulon actually decided to have two sons in case something were to happen to his first born, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to have his second born at 2-3 years max distance from his first? Why choose to have your second child when you are much older and thus risk having a baby with issues, if your sole purpose of this child is to serve as an insurance that you don’t ‘run out’ of heirs? It just doesn’t make much sense, so let’s go for the moment with the possibility that Ozai was an unplanned pregnancy.

This perspective actually gives way to another very interesting aspect: remember the infamous “Born lucky...Lucky to be born” quote? What if I tell you that there is a possibility that this quote wasn’t Ozai’s personal wicked invention, but actually something he himself heard from his very own father? It had been puzzling me for a long time why he choose to say “You were lucky to be born” to Zuko, which implies that Zuko wasn’t supposed to exist. I mean, it’s soo odd that Ozai went with something implying that Zuko was an unplanned pregnancy, since Zuko was the first born. So my theory is that maybe Ozai wanted to convey a different message to Zuko when he said that quote, but due to his anger he ended up replicating the same line he received from Azulon at some point in his childhood. We never got the exact flashback when the line was delivered from Ozai to Zuko, so we don’t have the exact context that lead to it (remember, we are excluding Yang’s take on the matter from the comics).

I mean, this feels like something that wicked old Azulon would have said to his least favorite child. Okay, so let’s go with the scenario that Ozai was an unwanted child, to which we could also add the possibility that Ilah’s health deteriorated after the first birth, which makes plausible the family’s initial decision of stopping at 1 kid.

Moving on, we know from the old ATLA character wiki’s that Ozai’s character design was made with Zuko in mind, being meant to be a grown up version of Zuzu, without the scar. An interesting choice indeed and even Iroh’s letter to Zuko on Ozai from one of the ATLA books describes Ozzy in a similar way to teenage Zuko in book 1: stubborn, feisty, determined and with a volcanic personality (easy to anger and competitive), so it means that these were intentional choices to imply that Zuko and his father are more similar than we were led to believe at first glance. Maybe Ozai was the “Zuko” of his generation. Also, in one of the interviews on the royal family, BryKe stated that Ozai worked very hard to get where he is in book 3, referring to his firebending specifically (we all know how Ozzy got the throne, so clearly, he didn’t “work hard” for that), so maybe he wasn’t always the strongest man alive, with the most exceptional firebending skills out there, like Azula who showed ease in her learning, but rather someone closer to Zuko’s weaker performance as a child, building his way to success through endless hard work until he became the prodigy we know today.

Continuing with our theoretical scenario, after his birth, the second child show’s lesser skills compared to his brother Iroh (by that I don’t mean that he wasn’t gifted at all, but that maybe Ozai wasn’t as fast and great of a learner like his big bro), so Azulon opts to just ignore him and continue focusing solely on his golden child. In my headcannon I actually think that Ilah survived the birth and so she was left in charge of the younger child’s education and upbringing. At this point Iroh is already 10 or older, so he is forced to focus on his development, which prevents him from spending time with his lil brother, but just for the sake of being positive, let’s assume that Ozai still had both his mother and his big brother to keep him sheltered from Azulon’s darkness for a small portion of his childhood.

I choose to believe that Ozai had his mother’s love for a small bit of his childhood due to his willingness in the show to allow Ursa (who mind you, as the granddaughter of Roku was considered a treacherous individual) to spend a ton of time with both Zuko and Azula and share her philosophy with the children, as seeing his wife playing with their children probably reminded him of his own bitter-sweet memories he had with Ilah. They also probably spent a lot of their time near the turtle-duck pond since that pond’s existence prolly dates long before Ozai and Ursa married and had their own children.

Unfortunately, Ilah dies and little Ozai remains all alone, to be influenced negatively by his father (and even by his grandpa Sozin, we don’t really know for certain when the old man died, so he prolly was there for a short time when Ozzy was still a child). Azulon most likely blames Ozai for his wife’s death as the second birth might’ve really had a huge toll on Ilah’s already fragile body, bringing her closer to death, so he still neglects and ignores the child, if not straight out bullies and abuses him for not being on par with Iroh. This prolly leads to Ozai becoming jealous of his brother since Iroh has their father’s love, pushing them further apart. I headcannon that this jealousy between the siblings led to Ozai complaining to his dad when he finally had too much of their father’s discrimination (at a similar age to when Zuko prolly did and got the infamous line, if not younger) only to get the “Iroh was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!” line with the sole purpose of hurting him since now the child knows that he was never wanted.

When Azulon scolds very furiously adult Ozai in Zuko’s memories for daring to ask to be named crown prince, he literally says something like “What, you dare ask me to betray MY own son?!” (this is like red flag number two), line that pretty much testifies how Azulon chose to pretty much treat Ozai as if he wasn’t his son too, showcasing how much he despised his second born and favored the first child over him. Since we are on the topic of their last conversation, the punishment Azulon gave to his son alone proves this man’s level of sadism, which leads me to be believe that Ozai’s childhood was full of this type of punishments for bad behaviors that could be easily corrected trough a long serious lecture or a lesser punishment focused more on teaching him an actual lesson. 

The old wikis also mention on the page about the hall with portraits of the previous Fire Lords that it was the place where Ozai chose to spend most of his time in his youth, seeking advice from his ancestors. I mean, seriously now, if he had a good and supportive father and a present brother in his life, would Ozai had chosen to seek guidance from the dead instead of his living family? That piece of information that was easily overlooked by many proves how lonely this man was in his youth.

So for the most part of his life, Ozai grew up under the toxic influence and abuse of his tyrant father who refused to acknowledge him. Yet he managed to grow up still full of determination to one day prove his worth to Azulon and gain his acceptance (just like we saw with Zuko in book 1, who was desperate to regain his honor and be accepted by his father). But unfortunately, no matter how strong he became or how good of a firebender he was, Azulon was unmoved and unphased by his second son’s performance.

From what we could gather from the little info we received in the show, it seems that Ozai was never sent to the battle field to aid his older brother, being kept as a stay home prince, with the only occasion he actually left home being to search for the Avatar (I don’t think Iroh was sent to do his part on searching the Avatar since he strongly believed that there wasn’t going to ever be one, so it’s safe to assume Azulon assigned Ozai with this mission just to get rid of him for a few years) and the only purpose he ever served to his father was to become part of the old man’s genetics experiment in order to create strong unparalleled firebending offspring (which I am pretty sure were meant to be ‘biological war machines’ used by Azulon in the war, as he didn’t really seem to give a shit about Ozai’s children compared to Lu Ten). So just imagine the level of disappointment and dishonor Ozai must’ve felt as a man and young aspiring soldier to find out that he was going to be used like a ‘non-bending daughter’ in a strategical marriage and never get to serve his country in what he’d been taught was the greatest and most important war for their Nation.

All in all, this marriage didn’t really end up that badly because it seems he and Ursa were actually very compatible. The old wiki for Ursa states that she was a noble woman and the perfect match for Ozai, which leads me to believe that show Ursa was intended to be a very strong willed and determined woman who earned his respect. The show never stated that Ozai never wanted his first born or that he was disappointed with Zuko from birth like the comics say, so it’s safe to assume that Ursa and Ozai actually ended up falling in love at some point since they had not one, but two kids with relatively a short time in between pregnancies. 

There are actually many signs in the show that actually prove that these two loved each other and Ozai didn’t abuse his wife: from the fact that they went every year to see Ursa’s favorite play despite Ozai hating the poor performance of the Ember Island Players (I mean, what man would do such a sacrifice as to endure the same torture every single year just to make his wife happy if he never loved her?), Ursa’s undeniable and sincere love for their children (in the show it was never stated that Ursa saw Zuko and Azula as someone else’s children, so if she were indeed an abused woman who was forced to have these children, she wouldn’t have ever loved them to such an extent, especially Zuko who resembled his father the most physically), the fact that Ursa had equal rights in their marriage and raising of their children (her even scolding and grounding Ozai’s favorite child without hesitation), to the most significant scene to the Urzai ship in Zuko’s flashbacks: Ozai sitting troubled all alone in Ursa’s favorite spot by the pond, in a sad and brooding atmosphere, after he lost her, instead of celebrating what had to be the happiest day of his life since he was finally crowned Fire Lord (it’s clear who had more importance in his heart: Ursa meant more to him than the throne, so losing her outshined his achievement). In fact, Ursa must’ve been the only thing that still kept him outside of the darkness that threatened to swallow his heart and once he lost her, Ozai had nothing else to keep him on the right path.

And even as a father, it seems that Ozai wasn’t always cold and distant to his children, as his true self depicted in Zuko’s memories on Ember Island shows him caring for both of his children, even holding Zuko close to him with a protective arm on the boy’s shoulder. Except the Agni Kai, there don’t seem to be any instances in which he was physically violent towards his son before the banishment (Iroh literally let Zuko in to join that faithful war meeting willingly. Would’ve he done that if he knew his brother to be very violent towards his children in case they disobeyed? If yes, then it would make Iroh actually very questionable on a moral standpoint) and even on an emotional level, I don’t really think that he was actually abusive to him (at least while Ursa was there) because from Zuko’s conversation with Zhao, he’s adamant that his father will take him back and even states "You don't know how my father feels about me. You don't know anything!", meaning that the father he used to know showed him a level of respect and genuine affection (if Ozai were to bully Zuko since the boy’s very early childhood, do you think this kid would grow up to be so sure that his father wants him around and would he defend this bully when someone badmouths them in front of him?).

Even with Azula, despite people demonizing her from early childhood and saying that she was manipulated since birth by Ozai to become a war machine, I do believe that she shows genuine love and affection towards her father. I do choose to believe that back in the good times when the family was happy, Ozai spent quality time with his daughter, filling in the gap left by Ursa’s neglect. I theorize that the reason why kid Azula badmouthed her grandpa and uncle was because she was being very protective of her father: since she used to like spying and eavesdropping, it’s safe to assume that she prolly witnessed many instances in which the old man bullied or insulted Ozai, favoring Iroh over him. It’s a bit harder to see it that way since her snarky comments involve dark topics, but since they live in a society governed by power and war, I see them as something similar to if Azula would’ve said “Uncle sucks and he will surely be fired from his job!” or “Grandpa is old and weak, he should leave the family business to dad!”. Even the fact that the only thing capable of shattering her to pieces was her father leaving her proves how much she cared for him. Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was a big blow on Azula’s control and sanity, but she didn’t breakdown until Ozai discarded her after his coronation as Phoenix King. There’s nothing more painful in this world than to be left behind by the person you loved the most and was there by your side your whole life, whom you wanted to follow to world’s end and back. That was the moment Azula finally realized that the father she used to know and love was actually gone and had been in fact, long gone for years at this point.

But if Ozai cared for his family what made him change? Easy, it all comes back to the fact that his father never acknowledged him. The throne doesn’t seem to be his ultimate goal in life since Ozai discarded of the Fire Lord title very easily, tossing it to Azula without any remorse or hesitation. It was more about the meaning behind getting the crown: replacing Iroh in the line of succession was the ultimate proof of his father’s acceptance, that he wasn’t only a “mistake” and “failure” in his father’s eyes, but since Azulon ended up saying and doing what he did, backfired Ozai and made him understand that no matter how hard he tried, the old man will never see him for what he is. So yeah, for a proud man like Ozai this was a hard defeat to swallow, which in turn sparked his strong desire of winning the war and becoming the king of the world: if Azulon wouldn’t accept him even in death, then Ozai will prove to the whole world that he was above his father and his “perfect” brother by accomplishing what they never could and even better and no one was going to stop him, not even his own family.

This is what differentiates Ozai from Zuko: while both had similar upbringings, Ozai never broke away from his obsession of gaining his father’s admiration, allowing himself to fall prey to the darkness left by Azulon in his heart and abandon his true self, only to become the copy of his abuser, while Zuko stood up to his dad and chose his own destiny. If Aang were to come back around 20 or 30 years earlier, then he might’ve actually been able to save Ozai just like he saved Zuko, but unfortunately it wasn’t this way.

Do I think that Ozai could still be saved and redeemed even after the events of book 3? Definitely! Since he’s actually a broken man and still has a tiny bit of humanity left within, I think he still has a chance to change his heart. The only thing is that it’d be a long lasting process: first off he needs to spend a long time in solitude and reflect on his life’s choices and his past, understand where he went wrong and that what happened to him in his childhood is called abuse, which he ended up replicating on his own children. After he understands his wrongdoings and becomes willing to rediscover his true self, he needs to understand the truth about the war, that everything he’d known was fake propaganda and that there was nothing glorious in what he, his father and Sozin did under the excuse of “sharing their Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world!”. But most importantly of all, the only remedy that could possibly save him is love. It sound cliche, but by responding to hatred with more hate like Zuko did in the comics would never change the world “for the better” or bring it “to reality”. The only way to save both Azula and Ozai would be trough showing them the power of love, hope and empathy, how they don’t have to struggle alone and push everyone away. And especially by redeeming Azula, she would be a very important piece in Ozai’s redemption: since he had a closer parent-child relationship with Azula and cared for her the most when he did care, realizing how much he made her suffer through his actions, that would probably break Ozai enough to make him admit that he was wrong all along.

So yeah, this is my analysis on Ozai’s character using the cannon information from the show and old wikis and why I think he is just the product of a very bad environment and an abusive parent who never showed him love (if there’s a reason for why Ozai might be uncapable of showing a healthy parental love to his children is because you can’t show what you’ve never learnt yourself), being the Zuko of his generation who never got to experience the positive influence of an “Uncle Iroh” to guide him on the right path. 

You can agree with me or not on this one, but this is what I choose to believe. Maybe I am way too good by choosing to see any potential good in anyone, but I feel it’s a better way than to counter hate with more hate like Yang did in his monstrous portrayal of Ozai in The Search.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you agree with anything I’ve said, feel free to leave a like and to reblog this post.

See you next time and stay safe! Bye-Bye!

Saby out.

[prince-of-elsinore]

Sam and Dean: psychological analysis and headcanons

In response to this anon ask from the 66 SPN Questions:

6. Do you have any psychological headcanons (or canon interpretations) of the characters?

Anon, this is probably not what you asked for. But I started writing, and kept finding more I wanted to say, until I thought--why not just say it all? And by all, I  don't actually mean all--this is by no means exhaustive. But it was a wonderful, self-indulgent opportunity to organize my thoughts on Sam and Dean's psychologies, and even find some new ideas as I was writing, and to put them out there so others can read and discuss. (Always happy to discuss any of this! Inbox is open.)

As a disclaimer, I know most of these thoughts are probably not original and may be retreads of many things fandom has been discussing for years. I'm not claiming to be breaking new ground here. Also, I sorta float backwards and forwards chronologically in my discussion--some parts pertain more to them when they're young, some to when they're older, and I don't always clarify which. Also, these are generalizations! I point out patterns I notice; that doesn't make them all hard and fast rules, because Sam and Dean are each human and complex!

Here's what you'll find below:

1. Core motivations 2. Happiness 3. Approval and secrets 4. Approval from authority figures 5. Need and attachment re: others 6. Sympathy and empathy 7. Walls—hiding vs. performing 8. Need and attachment re: each other 9. Ambitions and goals 10. Normality and monstrosity 11. Guilt and self-loathing 12. Autonomy and sacrifice 13. Personal identity 14. Concluding observation

1. Core motivations: Dean’s purpose is to protect Sam, obviously. Sam’s purpose, though a little less clear, is to save Dean. Sometimes it’s explicit, as in s3 and s9-10. But I think Sam also wants to save Dean, in general, from himself and from the life. It’s why he pushes against Dean’s obedience to their father. It’s why he tells him to get out and go to Lisa after he jumps in the Cage. At a certain point, I think Sam accepts he can’t “save” Dean without changing who he is, so he chooses to stick by him—because at least then he can make Dean happy.

2. Happiness: Dean’s happiness—or perhaps contentment is a better word—is knowing that Sam is safe and alive. Sam’s happiness is Dean being happy. In Sam’s world, things are good when Dean’s good. I think that, conversely, Dean wants Sam to be happy, and Sam wants Dean to be safe, but they both know and to an extent accept that those things are not within their control, so they focus on what they feel they can control.

3. Approval and secrets: They are each other’s north stars, guiding principles, in different ways. For Dean it’s “look out for Sammy,” for Sam it’s “what would my big brother think/do.” Dean doesn’t need Sam’s approval. Sure, he loves it when Sam admires him, but if he feels he needs to do something against Sam’s approval, he doubles down because approval from Sam is not the top priority. He’ll do what he thinks is right, especially to keep Sam safe, no matter what Sam thinks about it. Sam, on the other hand, does crave Dean’s approval and cares very much about his opinion. It doesn’t mean he won’t go against Dean (all the conflict of s1-5!), but it affects him differently. This leads to different kinds of secret-keeping: Sam goes behind Dean’s back to avoid his disapproval; Dean goes behind Sam’s back so that Sam doesn’t interfere with what he thinks needs to be done.

4. Approval from authority figures: Dean does crave approval from others—specifically, respected authority figures. The big one is obviously John. I think in a way it’s Mary, too, when she comes back. But it only applies as long as the person has his respect. Sam doesn’t crave approval from other authorities in the same way, perhaps because his primary authority figure growing up was Dean.

5. Need and attachment re: others: Sam is the only person Dean cannot live without, but he also makes outside connections of a friendly nature fairly easily. He’s the more socially outgoing brother who latches onto people like Gordon, gets friendly with Ash, and forges connections with Jo and Charlie, just to name a few (and Castiel at times—though their relationship is so inconsistent and often convenience-based I hesitate to include it in this category). Though Sam is Dean’s core need, I do think Dean thrives with other friendships. I’m not talking about found family, though I’m well aware of Dean’s tendency to call people “family” quite readily. Honestly, I think this is a manifestation of his craving for connection with others. Dean has an affectionate and playful nature, and let’s face it, Sam isn’t always super receptive to that—so naturally, Dean seeks out people who are. (I think this is also, in some cases, related to Dean’s craving for approval from others). Of course, none of those other relationships come close to the depth of his relationship with Sam, and when his relationship with Sam is at its best, I don’t think Dean really needs anything else to sustain him. But in reality, it can’t always be at its best.

Sam, on the other hand, doesn’t forge outside connections easily—but when he does, they tend to be deeper than Dean’s easy casual associations (even when Dean has real affection for someone, he tends to keep the tone of the relationship light). It’s pretty clear Sam was a loner kid, and I imagine it took him a while to find friends at Stanford, and even though he loved Jessica he still clearly kept many secrets. That’s the thing with Sam—he’s got walls. Dean’s got his own walls, but they’re different. Sam can seem emotionally open, but he protects his innermost self very carefully and rarely puts his emotions out there in a truly open way—even less than Dean does. I think this is a consistent personality trait for Sam, not one born of trauma (though perhaps exacerbated by it at times). In fact, it’s in later seasons that I see Sam finally, in rare moments, let down those walls, with Rowena and Jack. When he’s young, I think this was partially a coping mechanism he developed for hiding his desires/feelings, even from himself, because he was so unhappy with his life. It means that even though he’s an introspective guy, he’s not as self-aware as he thinks he is until he’s older and more mature. He’s very good at self-deception when he’s young, because as a thinker, he can convince himself of just about anything.

To circle back to attachment, what this means to me is that Sam, while he certainly appreciates close friendships and has a lot to offer those he cares about, doesn’t crave friends in the way that Dean does. I think he desires to be understood (this is a natural human need) but he’s much more comfortable with himself than Dean is, and is somewhat of a loner by nature. This means he’s also not (usually) going to be too affected by the status of his relationships with others. Dean is much more volatile and easily hurt by others (this is where Castiel is a great example).

6. Sympathy and empathy: On the surface, Sam appears to be the caring, sensitive brother, while Dean is brash and insensitive. This is a very incomplete picture, however. It mostly comes down to the difference between sympathy and empathy. Empathy is an involuntary response, whereas sympathy is something that a person chooses to express, though that doesn’t make it necessarily superficial—it also comes from an emotional place. Dean tends to be more empathetic, and Sam more sympathetic. Dean, despite his performative walls, is more easily affected on a visceral level by others’ emotions. He is more sensitive, more easily hurt or swayed to anger, and also more easily experiences empathy. This has nothing to do with what Dean thinks is right—it’s another involuntary emotion. He is sometimes moved to express this feeling, but he’s not generally concerned about appearing sympathetic. Sam, with his careful emotional walls, isn’t generally so viscerally affected by others, but he is kind. This is expressed as sympathy, because he cares about others’ feelings, and he wants to be good/morally right. On the one hand, it comes from an intellectual place—“it’s socially acceptable/morally right to express care for this person” (which Dean is less likely to care about)—and on the other, it is an emotional response—“I know what that feels like”—but a more regulated one than empathy, where one almost directly experiences another’s emotions.

7. Walls—hiding vs. performing: It’s interesting that both brothers have their own walls, which they construct as a form of self-preservation, but they have different levels of effectiveness in protecting themselves from outside influence. One difference might lie in what the walls were built in reaction to. Sam built his walls at a young age to separate himself from the outside world because, ironically, it was precisely what he desired, but was not allowed to have. He therefore consciously distanced himself from it, to dull the pain of not having it. The goal of those walls was to have something to hide behind, where he could remain generally unnoticed, so he could conceal his pain from outsiders and even from his family.

Dean took a little longer to build his walls—or at least to consciously do so. He already no doubt fashioned himself after his dad as a kid, and often put on a brave face—for Sam, for his father—when he was not feeling brave. He therefore became accustomed to performing at a young age, and performed many roles for both Sam’s and John’s benefit. He was unconsciously building walls with these performances, concealing his true feelings and desires. Later, I think this started to become more intentional, especially in relations with women/sex partners and especially after the Stanford split, as Dean realized how vulnerable to hurt his sensitive nature made him. It was much safer to perform all the time, and never let his real feelings show. For Dean, even more than Sam, I think he often lost sight of what those real feelings were behind the walls as he tried his best to be the performance he was putting on.

For a visual metaphor, I think of it this way: Sam is a boy at the center of a self-constructed labyrinth. He is almost always able to maintain control over how close people get (except when a few slip past his defenses, at which point he may be susceptible to manipulation). Despite all those elaborate passageways, though, there’s still Sam at the center. It’s lonely there, but he knows himself pretty well at least. Dean is a man in a mask who wants the mask to be his real face. He does everything he can to fuse himself and the mask together. They probably are fused at this point, so it would hurt to take the mask off. His memory of the face under the mask is hazy. He’s afraid, if he looks under the mask, he’ll hate what he sees. He’s lonely because no matter how close others get—and he lets them in close, can surround himself with people—none of them will ever see his true face. But he’s convinced himself it’s better this way, because if anyone saw his face, they’d hate it.

8. Need and attachment re: each other: Clearly, both brothers need each other. Sam’s need for Dean is different than Dean’s need for Sam, though. The way I see it, Dean’s need is one that requires reassurance. Perhaps it traces back to the concern about Sam instilled into him at a young age. I think it was strongly exacerbated by the Stanford split, when Dean realized his and Sam’s desires didn’t align. In Dean’s mind, Sam left once and can do it again—he’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sam, on the other hand, has always been able to rely on Dean as a rock, a constant in his life—to the point that, in a way, he takes it for granted when he’s younger. Not in a spoilt, ungrateful way, but in that way that we, as children, might take our parents for granted—they’re always going to be there, right? That’s why, on the few occasions where suddenly, Sam isn’t sure of Dean’s devotion, the rug is ripped out from under him and he’s completely adrift and distraught—seasons 4 and 8 come to mind. Sam needs to be the center of Dean’s universe. When he fears that that’s shifted, that Dean hates him or has chosen someone else over him, it turns Sam’s whole world upside down. For Dean, the fear is that Sam will leave, but it’s a constant, background worry. For Sam, the fear is that Dean will hate him, but since he can usually count on Dean to be obsessed with him, it only comes up now and again. Only Dean can truly hurt Sam, while Dean is vulnerable to hurt from others—though, as always, the deepest hurt can only come from Sam.

9. Ambitions and goals: Sam is the one with greater needs and ambitions outside the scope of their relationship. For Dean, if he’s got Sam and he’s got hunting, he’s content. His greatest accomplishments are taking care of Sam and saving people, and that’s all he needs. I see Sam as craving other sources of fulfillment, though—academic/lore study for its own sake (the pursuit of knowledge), and a leadership/mentorship role. I thought it was very fitting that Sam finds these in late seasons, with leading hunters against the BMOL, then leading the apocalypse AU hunters, then mentoring/nurturing Jack. Dean has always had (and needed) a mentor/leadership/nurturing role with Sam, but Sam also thrives when he’s able to step into that role for others.

10. Normality and monstrosity: I’m just going to link to this post rather than repeat myself.

11. Guilt and self-loathing: This is something they both struggle with and at times, are defined by, but it manifests differently. I think their Hell traumas exemplify their different brands of guilt: for Dean, it’s perpetrator’s guilt. He knows he did something terrible and feels he can never atone for his past actions. For Sam, it’s victim’s/survivor’s guilt. He may not have done anything wrong, but there’s a certain amount of self-blame, especially for perceived weakness. This is another theme for Sam; one of the main faults he sees in himself is weakness—too weak to save Dean from Hell for instance—and as a result tries to shoulder things alone (killing Lilith, Hallucifer, etc). Sam has a need to fix things, to prove to others and himself that he is capable. Dean, I think, sees his main fault as neediness, but really, it’s a deeply buried sense of innate worthlessness. He was taught from a young age that his brother’s life—not his own—was of the utmost value. He internalized that his life was only worthwhile if he could save others, and has trouble with the idea that he, himself, has value beyond what he can do for others.

12. Autonomy and sacrifice: The above leads Dean to have a very constrained sense of his own autonomy. In general, he values duty/loyalty to others over autonomy (although when it comes to cosmic beings, he’s all about free will—see this post if you want more thoughts on that, and Sam’s autonomy). Often, his desire to control others comes from a place of frustration when Dean feels they are neglecting duty/being selfish. I think partially duty towards others is really a deeply ingrained value for him, but there may also be some buried jealousy at play, in that Dean wishes he could act with more freedom, put himself first every once in a while, but doesn’t know how to. Sam tends to value autonomy over duty (this doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in any sort of responsibility—he’s willing to sacrifice for the greater good, after all).  This means he also tends to respect others’ autonomy, though we all know he can get plenty unhinged where his brother’s safety is concerned. The theme of Sam and autonomy has been talked to death so I’ll stop there, but you can click the link above if you want more.

13. Personal identity: One of Dean’s biggest struggles is with how much of his personal identity is received rather than self-determined. He is tasked with taking care of Sam and he is trained to be a hunter; these become the foundations of his identity. He says it himself: taking care of Sam is not just what he does but who he is. Then in season 3, his own subconscious mocks him for his lack of originality, styling himself and all he loves after his father, showing that this is a source of deep insecurity. This discomfort with himself contributes to his fear of being abandoned and left alone with himself. He doesn’t know who he is without Sam—or rather, is convinced he is nothing without Sam, which is why he fights so hard to keep him by his side. It also contributes to his general desire for friends, or better, family: people who won’t abandon him.

Later in the series, I think Dean has come to embrace his genuine self more. He’s nerdy and excitable and playful—and I don’t see this is as regression, but rather a healthy embracing of what makes him happy—not tastes inherited from his father. If it seems juvenile, it’s because it’s the first time in his life he’s allowed himself to express and explore these things. I think his relationship with hunting is also healthier; it’s no longer something he does because it’s the only thing that can give him worth. He does it because he believes it’s right and genuinely wants to help people. He has a more complete sense of self, and while it’s still totally tied up in Sam, he has gained some self-worth.

[I should note that basically everything I’ve written about Dean supports the headcanon that Dean has BPD—a headcanon I accepted after I realized this. For some more great writing on Dean and BPD, see this post by @venhedish.]

Sam has always known what he wanted for himself and rejected what was given to/allowed him. Wanting what he couldn’t have, from a young age, helped him develop an individual sense of self, not defined by others. I think it’s this difference in their sense of individual identity that leads some viewers to think that Dean loves Sam more than Sam loves Dean. He doesn’t, and losing Dean is just as huge a loss and a grief for Sam as losing Sam was for Dean. Dean is central to Sam’s life, and he can’t feel complete without him; however, his identity and every desire has never revolved as entirely around Dean as Dean’s has around him, so Sam has a foundational sense of self that even losing Dean can’t completely destroy. It’s what allows him to rebuild in grief and carry on (whereas I have no doubt Jensen’s right and Dean would waste away in the back of a pool hall without Sam). Dean’s central role in Sam’s life never disappears, though, and it is, in fact, what allows Sam to carry on; an effort to honor his brother’s memory, living in a way that would make him proud. There’s continuity in that for Sam; the craving for his brother’s approval and happiness never disappears. Seeking those things is what makes Sam happy, both in their domestic years together before Dean’s death and in the years after. They are both, after all, co-dependent!

14: Concluding observation: Sam and Dean have many similar issues, desires, and insecurities: the desire for a normal life, the fear of their own monstrosity, the desire for love and friendship, their need and love for each other, their desire for approval/to be admired, resentment at their childhood, the feeling of being impure and unworthy, the desire for freedom, issues with bodily autonomy. Sometimes these are seen as the purview of one brother or the other exclusively, but that’s almost never true when you consider canon as a whole. The difference is in how these things are internalized, sublimated, reflected, and expressed for each of them. It makes sense they would struggle with so many of the same things, because their lives are deeply intertwined and they are in the same boat most of the time.