#where in pll it was romanticized

[shayveridekidd]

i just finished cruel summer (binged it in a day) and i genuinely cannot recommend it enough.

[thelastcetra]

The reason I love the Nancy Drew writers so much is how they actually put thought into the changes they made to the characters. Especially in Nick's case I admit that I was prejudiced about their choice of making him an ex-con. You make a white rich jock boy from the books black and suddenly he is an ex-con! How very racist of you! Adding fresh out of high school George's affair with an older married man, I noped out of the show in the pilot episode. (Knowing CW's track record, I don't blame my old self.)

Then when I finally watched the show, I was so surprised about how thoughtful they were about Nick's black identity in the show. They just didn't make him black for diversity points, they put thought into the consequences of it.* If Nick had been white like he was in the books he would never have gotten convicted of what he did. He would have been seen as a good young lad helping a friend out instead of the scary black guy who attacked someone. The show makes it a point to show that it was the witness who was the racist who misread the situation and Nick has to deal with the consequences of it.

Same goes for George's "affair". Instead of it being like a romantic story (*cough* PLL *cough*) she actually goes to the man and tells him he took advantage of a teenager and messed up her self-worth. The show doesn't romanticize it.

I just love that the things they added weren't just for shock-value. They committed to the changes they made and that's what made it so special.

*I'm middle eastern and I live in a country where there is a vastly different paradigm of race/ethnicity/minority groups than the US and my exposure to the US racism issues is via the Internet and books I read. So if I misspoke, I apologize and please feel free to correct me.

[woofdrm]

// grooming/ inappropriate age gaps

Superwholock anon, another bad fandom was Pretty Little Liars except it was a supernatural situation where I never watched, never plan to, and vicariously know stuff about it. Specifically Mike's mic series on it (which is good, I do recommend even if you know nothing about PLL).

The problem with PLL is that the show has a shit ton of issues, especially with inappropriate relationships of all kinds but especially teenage girls with twenty something year old men. My friends loved it when it was coming out and back then we were dumb 14/15 year olds who bought into the romanticism and I know the fandom did to. Idk if the fandom got better as the audience grew up but yeah.

A bit similar to Harry Potter which has a massive shipping issue with teachers and students, like snape and Hermione or harry. I was in the fandom and honestly you're better off only reading fics on ao3 where you can filter out weird shit

Oh I’ve seen pll clips and yeah. Yeah. And ao3 reigns supreme always, I’m a huge snape anti

[tasia-reader]

if there’s anything more romantic than having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl who then goes missing and is presumed murdered, deciding to capitalize on this by writing a book which you research by seducing her equally underage and emotionally damaged friend, dragging her through your own personal drama including but not limited to the child you thought you had, while she herself is targeted by an omnipresent psychopath then I don’t want to know what it is 

[dowoonie-namjoonie]

All You Need is Confidence

Paring: Teacher!Jae x Student!Reader x Teacher!Wonpil

A/N: IDK why but I’m on a student-teacher kick, probably because I’ve been watching PLL again so...ENJOY! BTW, if you like this I’m probably going to make it a series because why not! If this does make you uncomfy, I suggest you don’t read it. 

Warnings: Student-teacher relationships, poly relationship, slight age gap, minor language, and suggestive themes. 

(Unedited, and also there will be a second part!)

High school was not fun, you know how people say it’s one of the best times in your life, well you have reason to disagree. Senior year was the most stressful to you, purely because of the inevitable change from childhood to adulthood when you go to college. That pressure to instantly grow up scared the ever-living shit out of you without fail. 

However, school wasn’t always that bad, your senior year was bad, yes. But, three people in your life made sure on their lives that you’d have the best year ever. Number 1, your best friend Kang Younghyun. Both you and him were senior this year, Younghyun always had a higher work ethic than you. Motivated to do anything and everything, honestly, his main goal was to travel the world by himself. By far, he was the most daring, independent person you’d ever met, he had confidence practically radiating off of him. So, you can imagine that there was never a dull moment with him. 

Number 2 and 3 go hand in hand. Mr. Park Jaehyung and Mr. Kim Wonpil, they made sure the hallways were a safe place and more importantly that class was never plain. Mr. Park and Mr. Kim are best friends from what you know ever, they even went to this high school just like you and Younghyun. Even though they were best buds, they were complete opposites. 

Mr. Park’s english class was eventful. Mr. Park hated homework so he rarely gave it, said he “doesn’t believe in it.” Most of the time he’d spend class talking to kids about video games, giving so advice to novices to the games he liked. Of course he actually taught...once a month maybe! Mr. Park was just one of those cool teachers who didn’t teach, but yet someone taught you everything you need to know about the world. Weird how that happens. Commonly, people knew him as a young teacher-same with Mr. Kim-even romanticizing the man. Most of your girlfriends swooned over either one of the teachers: But, hey you had to admit it, you definitely had a crush on Mr. Park. 

Mr. Kim, on the other hand, taught a tedious government class. Mr. Kim seemed to always be second whenever compared to Mr. Park, it kinda made you feel guilty having liking the one out of the two. They both were equally good people, but since Mr. Park is barely a teacher people just like him more. You see, Mr. Kim taught, there was nothing he loved more than giving 30 slides worth of a powerpoint, making you take pain-staking notes every-other day. Mr. Kim was popular more on his visuals and how shy he was. Mr. Kim could get flustered about anything and everything, once a kid in your class asked to go to the bathroom because he needed to take a shit, and Mr. Kim blushed rocking back and forth on his chair all because how the kid worded his sentence. Mr. Kim was adorable in a I-can-make-fun-of-him way, maybe it was teenage hormones but you had a crush on him too. Ah, but the crushes you had would never go anywhere...right? 

Anyway, the theme between them two was that you always went to them when you were upset. Both teacher took a liking to you because of your playful nature and natural sense of what they taught. Your intelligence seemed to impress most people, but you had to admit when you had your downfalls, especially when learning what the difference of absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy. Civics wasn’t your strong suit. In english class, Mr. Park would make you stand out from the class making fun of every detail about you, Mr. Kim had empathy for you. Tutoring you in a heartbeat whenever you had trouble in his class, which seemed frequent. No matter how much Mr. Kim would hate to admit it, but he didn’t mind your merciless teasing, so of course you were his favorite student. Still, they both helped you through thick and thin. Like today.

Today, today was not your day. Earlier this morning Younghyun told you he was going home early sick, so you needed to get another ride home. Or you’d have to take the bus home, which was a no-go for you since taking the public bus freaked you out. You don’t know, the fact anyone could sit next to you made you paranoid. What if it was a serial killer, who planned on following you home and killing you? See, paranoid. 

Then this girl in your class ruined your whole project, a fucking group project, those you despise. Why was it fair to be partnered up with people who, simply, didn’t care about their grade just like you did. This girl proved this fact almost definitely, for your chemistry class, you were supposed to build a representation on how electrical currents go through objects. You being you, took on the roll easily, priding yourself with most of the difficult things. The one thing she needed to do, that ignorant bimbo, was to bring a potato and toaster. So, the chemistry project was left with an F. 

When you got frustrated you cried, unfortunately this flaw was seen by everyone in your chemistry class. Leaving you the laughing stock of the school for at least the next few weeks. The stares from people-even the mocking laughing, made your spiral. And why, all because of a stupid girl who couldn’t do her part in a simple project. Embarrassing yourself further, you decided to run out of class to the nearest person who could help calm you down. 

Panic filled you as you ran through the, just nearly, populated hallways. As you sobbed down, people looked at you like you were some crazy person on the brink of a full-blown breakdown. In these situation where you had minor panic attacks, you would run to yours and Younghyun’s meeting place. The janitors closet that no-one dared to go into, no one but you and Younghyun. Since, he left earlier because he’s sick, there was only one other place where you could go besides the unhelpful guidance counselors that would give you shitty life advice and send you back to class. No, Mr. Park could help you, he always managed to make you feel better. 

People were insatiable, desperately trying to shatter you into a million pieces as you made your way to Mr. Park’s english room. Thankfully, and ironically, for you the bell had rung in the knick of time. Mr. Kim noticed a heap of students outside his classroom, crowded together whispering insults at god knows what. When he heard your name strun into the mix, he realized you were standing in the middle of this crowd, holding yourself trying to hide your tears. 

“Alright, alright,” Mr. Kim exclaimed, grabbing the attention of the students, who seemed more flabbergasted than anything. Mr. Kim never yelled. “Clear out, now!” 

The man had never looked more serious, a demanding tone riddled in his voice, his eyes like a black-hole to those who opposed him, and his hands put on his hips. So, this is what he’s like when he’s angry. His anger helped you, students cleared out into other room, lingering students were shoved away into the bathrooms fearing of a write up. Still, you stayed on the ground hiding your tears, Mr. Kim coming up in front of you, the tap of his shoes alerted you. 

“Y/N,” he started, voice getting closer as he kneeled down. Sure, he’s seen you upset thousands of times, but out of those times you haven’t cried once. There was no time due to your whining and yelling about whatever set you off that day. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” 

Mr. Kim was concerned, per usual he had empathy for you, upset himself because you were crying. He could never tell why, but he hated when you were angry or sad, he just couldn’t stand it. 

“N-No...,” you whipped a tear, looking up at his face. Being met with pure handsomeness, but there was no time to be entranced by his record-breaking looks. “Can-Can you take me to Mr. Parks...please, I need to talk to him-to both of you. Is that okay?”

Mr. Kim was taken aback, luckily for him and Mr. Park had no class, lunch break comes with perks. “Of course it’s okay, let’s go, everything will be okay.” Mr. Kim put a hand on your back, tapping you lightly to encourage you to get up. Complying, both of you made it to Mr. Park’s, just catching him in the middle of taking a bit of his tuna sandwich. 

“Oh hello...oh no,” his sandwich dropped onto the desk upon seeing you blotchy face. Uncomfortable sight to see. “Y/N, Wonpil what’s going on?”

Mr. Kim lead you to a nearby desk, out of all the empty ones he put you directly in front of the teachers desk. 

“I’m not sure,” Mr. Kim started, backing away from you as you convulsed with a sobbing fit. “I found her like this in the hallway.” 

Mr. Park clicked his tongue, looking around his desk for some unused tissue and a free water bottle. Oddly enough he had both of those things tucked away in his desk. Strutting over to you, he gently held the tissue up to your face, dapping off some stray tears, in the process placing the water bottle next to you. 

“Just calm down okay,” Mr. Park muttered, focused on cleaning you up. 

Mr. Kim came up behind him, reaching for the water bottle and opening it up for you. Carefully, Mr. Park withdrew his hand, letting Mr. Kim give you some water. Even then, you didn’t calm down, concerning both of the men when you started hyperventilating. Today was just one of those days. The whole ordeal rang through your head, no one could ever look at you the same ever again. Look at you now crying in front of two men, who you adore, sullying everything they knew about you. The thought that your life was over made your panic attack protrude, increasing your talent of overthinking.   

“What’s going on Jae,” Wonpil kept his eyes on you with pure worry in his eyes. Wonpil has never experienced a panic attack before, let alone even seen one in person. 

“She’s having a panic attack um...I’ve got this.” 

Mr. Park stepped up to you again, making sure you could only focus on him. He placed his hand on your lower thing, squeezing lightly, placing his forehead against yours. Both him and you made a deep eye contact, calmingly he said “Y/N, calm down, everything’s going to be okay.” When you didn’t respond to him, instead you ignored him, he began tapping in a pattern on your thighs. 

“Y/N,” he tried again, keeping up with the pattern. “Focus on my fingers, okay? Focus on how I’m tapping you, okay?” 

Listening to him, you began to calm down, feeling his tapping. One time on the right, next on the left, then on the right, then on the left...

“That’s it,” he began, not giving up on the tapping, pulling you back to reality. 

“I’m okay...okay...I’m okay,” you spoke up, swallowing back the horrible panic you just felt. 

Mr. Park pulled back, proud of himself that his efforts to calm you down worked, Jae was experienced with panic attacks. Although it killed him to see you like that, he’s just glad you came here for him to help you. 

With the tissue, you rubbed your face and nose of any liquid that came out of you. Both men looked at you in waiting for your next move, they didn’t know what could throw you off. 

But, someone had to speak up at some point. “Do you want to talk about it Y/N?” Mr. Park’s question made you shake, Mr. Kim noticed this nodding him off. 

“Let’s not talk about that,” Mr. Kim spoke, putting a loving smile on his face to hopefully not start up another panic attack. “Um...Why don’t we do something? Yea, like...” Wonpil was at a loss, looking over to his best friend for something that could distract you in this moment. 

“Y-Yea,” Mr. Park perked up, jumping to his desk to find anything to help you regulate yourself. The only thing he had that was remotely fun and not school work, was a Christmas word search he’d given the freshman class he taught yesterday. “This, we can do this word search!”

“Yes, a word search!” Both teachers yelled excitedly, Mr. Park placed the word search on his desk, Mr. Kim beckoning you to come over to them to do the word puzzle. 

You knew what they were trying to do, but really you were in exactly no position to deny the men who just helped you through that. After all, they were making you feel better. Like a snail, you slid off the desk, trudging your way over to both of the enthusiastic men sitting in Mr. Park’s spinny chair that they pulled out just for you. Mr. Kim placed a pencil in your hand, sliding the paper more towards you, meanwhile Mr. Park pulled up two chairs for him and Mr. Kim to sit in next to you. Sitting down next to you, the both watched you complete the puzzle, randomly helping you throughout. 

Mr. Park and Mr. Kim had a secret, an unspoken secret between the two of them. Even if it was left untouched and talked about, both men new that both of them had a crush on you. They were disappointed, even discussed in themselves that they liked you, but you didn’t make it any easier either. They felt the need to protect you, constantly, the need to make you happy when no one else could are their duties. For Jae, he started to like you when you promptly scolded him for being a horrible teacher, but an amazing guy. From that day forward, you and Jae formed a bond where you made fun of eachother with hidden love. For Wonpil, it’s when you defended him when people were making fun of the way he got flustered. He just knew you were the one, no ones ever defended him that way. The more you came to talk to them, the more their feeling began to grow for you. Ditto, same thing happening to you. 

All of it happened so fast, Mr. Park was lost in thought about you. Delicately, he watched you as you tried to figure out the puzzle. Even though your face was red, eyes swollen, and nose runny Jae still admired your looks. The way your face was scrunch up in determination to defeat the puzzle, the way you bit your lip, or the way your soft looking hair fell on your face-

Reaching out his bigger hand, he wisped a stray piece a hair from out of your face, getting a better look at your beauty. But then you turned to him, with your wide E/C eyes and a cute pout on your face, he just couldn’t help himself. His hand moved from your, now proven, soft hair. Stroking his way to cup your cheek, his callassed thumb ran across your bottom lip. The plumpness fueling him more, before you both knew it his lips were on yours. His lips encased yours, the sudden feeling making you whimper under him, the only word to describe how it felt was euphoric. First you were shocked, not expecting your teacher to touch you, let alone kiss you. Then, a feeling bubbled in you, your stupid crush and all the fantasies you’ve had about him made you melt into him. Closing your eyes, beginning to kiss him back, your hand met grasped his shirt, pulling him further into you. Kissing Mr. Park was something else. 

[grapesodatozier]

Opinion on adults writing nsfw content involving or surrounding canon minors (aged-up or otherwise)?

okay i’m putting these answers under a cut bc they got v long lol 

i think “aged-up” vs “otherwise” are different, so i’m gonna separate my answers bc i feel im answering two different questions

tbh I think they’re fictional characters so as long as they’re adults I think it’s fine, I don’t really see how that hurts anyone yanno? Like idk at first when I was just into canon I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but like then I started writing about the party (and losers, but that’s a bit different) as 20 year olds in modern aus bc like… that’s where I’m at in life lmao so I think it’s really fun to think about my favorite characters in my situation I guess? Like what music they’d like, how they’d dress, what memes they’d like, what they’d major in, what their jobs would be, how they’d act as college kids, etc. I do this with the It characters as well, like you never see them as 20 year olds in the book, but I like to think about it and put them in modern settings bc it’s fun (and also easier to form ideas bc that’s what I know lol, no research required). and once you get to that point, I feel like fanon has been so far separated from canon, yanno? and some people might not understand why you’d wanna get so far away from canon, but I think fanon is so fun and such a great place for creativity. and then once you have these incarnations of these characters that are unique to you and your imagination and such, like, that’s just v fictional and far removed, I don’t think I’m phrasing that well but idk how else to put it lol. and also, characters are not their actors, they’re not real, you inherently imagine them along with the imagined story if that makes sense. I view movie/tv characters the same way I view book characters, like, outside of canon you can picture them however you interpret them. and I can only speak from my own experience, but that’s how I view fiction and fandom and fanfic, is like taking things fictional things into your own hands I guess, and just kinda leaving canon behind bc that’s the fun part of creative fanon lol.

not aged up tho I don’t wanna go near. like I have no interest in underage stuff, it doesn’t sit well with me, I don’t understand the interest in it. and I’m gonna get a little off topic here for a sec but I think our entire society is so saturated with images and stories of teenagers having steamy sex, like with riverdale and pretty little liars and stuff, and everyone has grown up being told they need to have sex in high school, but we really gotta unlearn that bc it’s v weird. like sure teenagers have sex sometimes, and most teenagers are interested in sex, so that sells in teen TV, but it’s just strange that these shows are created by adults making sensual scenes between such young characters. and no one else that I’ve talked to about that irl thinks it’s that much of an issue, so sometimes that makes me think maybe its not?? but it still does kinda weird me out?? so sorry to get off topic but I’d definitely want to hear thoughts on that lol. bc like!! why do adults want to make shows about teenagers having sex? why is that normal? I get that no teenagers gonna create a tv show like riverdale, like you need money and adults for that, but like I watched all of pll and 2 seasons of riverdale, the sex scenes are almost never goofy or reasonably awkward, they’re always supposed to be hot, and it’s so strange to me how common and mainstream it is for adult creators to view their teenage characters like that. and to come back to the question you asked, I just have the same question about underage fic, like why would you want to create smut about teenagers? I get that we all have this romanticized image of (highly sexualized) high school romance that media put in our heads, and that maybe some people feel they missed out and want to live that fantasy they’ll never get the chance to actually live through fiction, and I get that that’s hard to unlearn, and I get it’s all fiction, but like… idk man, I feel like you gotta reach a point where you realize how young teenagers are and how that’s all a media myth anyway. and again i get that teenagers i have sex, but i don’t think that adults should be involved in that any further than making sure those teenagers are educated and safe. sorry I have a lot of thoughts on that lol. but yeah basically I don’t understand why someone who’s older than teenagers would be interested in that, and that question is not limited just to the internet or fic, its everywhere. in terms of fic, I just handle it by avoiding it.

[jaskiersbard]

Why the switch from loving 13RW to hating it?

Hi, anon. Sorry for not responding before now, got extremely distracted and I didn’t really want to go into this until I felt ready.

I’ve made a few posts on why I’ve gone from loving it to hating it, including a major blog post on my wordpress, and there’s also a YouTube video/vlog I uploaded last night to explain:

http://captain-daniels.tumblr.com/post/173750561968/probably-unpopular-opinion-on-13-reasons-whyhttps://meganlovesfbawtft.wordpress.com/2018/05/13/why-a-second-series-of-13-reasons-why-is-a-bad-idea/https://youtu.be/aDpw24Y3PUg

(Warning; in the YouTube video I look like shit)

But the long and short of it, as I explained in my vlog, is that over the past few months while I’ve been working with my counselor towards recovery, I’ve started to look at the things I watch/read and how it affects my mood, how it can possibly trigger me.

When I watched the first series last year, I was not in a position where I recognized this. At that point, I wasn’t in the mindset of getting better - though I denied it - and so I watched 13 Reasons Why. Looking back, I know the reason I watched it and replayed THAT scene was because I was in a bad place and not wanting to get better.

Since I’m actually making an effort this time around to get better, I re-examined the show, and the trailer for the second series then came out. The fact that there IS a second series goes to show that it’s not about mental health awareness or helping people - it’s about money and views. They already adapted the book’s plot - there’s NO reason whatsoever to make another 13 episodes.

The show is extremely dangerous and triggering to people dealing with depression, self harm, suicide, rape etc. There’s a reason mental health experts have denounced and criticized the show - the people who made the show ignored the advice from mental health experts and actually SHOWED Hannah slitting her wrists open in the most painful and gruesome way possible. In the book, it’s mentioned it’s pills - instead, the show chose to use wrist slitting and actually showing it to appear “edgy” and be gory.

Moving on, the show also romanticizes suicide/mental illness; Clay says that Hannah died because he didn’t know how to love her - which, I’m sorry, is fcking bullshit. Also, when I was at my rock bottom, I wasn’t making some ridiculous mastermind plan that involved blaming 13 people for my suicidal decisions - Hannah takes literally no responsibility for her actions (like the fact she sat there watching Bryce rape Jess) and, at the end of the day, no one on those tapes actually killed her. She made the decision to end her own life, just like anyone who commits suicide does. When I was planning to end my own life, that was MY decision, even though other people may have impacted my thoughts/feelings - I decided, no one else, and to blame other people for it is toxic and disgusting. When i was considering ending my own life, I couldn’t even get out of bed or anything, let alone make all those goddamn tapes blaming people.

Adding on that the show offers no alternatives to suicide; she visits ONE school counselor and decides to give up. And, to be honest, he didn’t actually say anything that bad. Yes, he could have phrased the whole “move on” thing differently, but she refused to tell him the name of the guy who raped her - what can he do? What is he supposed to suggest? Is he supposed to force her into giving a name, potentially triggering her? Yeah, he probably should have gone after her when she left the office, but that still doesn’t make it okay that she then blamed him for being a reason she committed suicide.

This whole second series looks like some Riverdale/PLL bullshit and it’s awful. It’s disgusting.

If the people that are represented in the show (ie mentally ill people/rape victims) can’t watch it, then it shouldn’t be made.

Finally, since I’m talking longer than I planned to, this show DOES romanticize suicide; why the fuck is Hannah still following Clay around as a ghost? Suicide is FINAL. You do NOT float about as a ghost seeing your revenge fantasy playing out if you kill yourself. When you die, you DIE. Gone. There is NOTHING after you kill yourself. This show makes it seem like if you kill yourself, you can see your revenge playing out. (And the revenge fantasy thing is disgusting omg)

This answer is already too long as it is so I’m going to leave it there but feel free to check out the links above, and also the more recent posts in my “13 Reasons Why” tag to explain why I’ve changed my opinion on the show.

[prettylittleliarsxxxx]

This is the shot: A slim, twentysomething white man, pale and dark-haired, waits in the center of the frame, head tilted fractionally to catch a glimpse of something (someone?) the viewer can’t see. He is wearing a dark jacket with a high collar, and a dark ball cap, even though he is inside, even though it is night. The collar is pulled up to obscure his too-romantic silhouette; the cap is pulled down to obscure his too-soulful eyes. This is the kind of man who literary heroines—or at least literary-minded ones—swoon over, but with so much of his face obscured, it is only his cheekbones, high and almost too pronounced, that signal such classic desirability.

Such a signal is important. Because everything else about this shot shouts that this man is a stalker: From the blurring of important details in the background, to the juuuust too-closeness of it, to the shadows cast from odder angles than seem natural, every aspect makes us want to scream at the heroine, RUN AWAY, LEAVE, HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE WHO THIS PSYCHO IS???. And so we need something, some small thing, to remind us, when this man is not actually dressed to kill, when he’s not staring at the device he’s got tracking her every digital step, why she can’t see what we see. And that small thing is: He is attractive.

Duh.

This, of course, is why this man’s story works. The fight-or-flight reflex his behavior should provoke in the object of his obsessions is counteracted by his charming physical appeal—lust, at least initially, wins out over fear, and as it does, provides the tension necessary to drive the narrative we keep tuning in for.

The trick is, how the show wants to resolve that tension is a question of cultural time. As in, when the handsome stalker was Ezra Fitz (Ian Harding) in Freeform’s teen thriller, Pretty Little Liars, just four short (long) years ago, the romantic hero vs. predator tension was invoked only as a means of creating a temporary road block to eventual nuptial bliss between A Good Man and his (high-schooler) sweetheart. Now, when the handsome stalker is Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) in Lifetime’s adult thriller You, here in the year of Goddammit Are We Collectively Still Not Taking #MeToo Seriously (a.k.a. 2018), the tension is very clearly meant to resolve not only in Joe’s psychopathy being found out, but in his sweetheart’s (and our) delusions of obsession-as-romance shattering completely.

Understanding that this is You’s endgame is helped, of course, by the fact that (spoilers) Joe straight-up whacks a romantic rival in the skull with a book mallet in the series’ pilot, then kills him with peanut oil after holding him hostage for all of episode two. But even if he didn’t go that far, that early, series creators Greg Berlanti (of the Arrowverse) and Sera Gamble (of The Magicians) make no effort to suggest that we in the audience should be ambivalent about Joe’s character, who addresses the narration of nearly every sequence to an idealized fantasy of Beck (Elizabeth Lail), the “you”-object of his affections, whom he spies from the other side of the book shop he manages in the series’ opening scene and immediately starts scheming to own. In fact, if Berlanti and Gamble make any effort in any direction, it is to keep reminding us that Joe is bad: Take centuries of art romanticizing the unwavering fixation of a handsome man on a single woman and add to it the sea of mundanely callous dudes in the modern dating scene, and you get an audience that’s been trained out of any ability to keep an attentive, clever, present guy, who likes books and making jokes and who is, on top of it all, moppily handsome, at any kind of wait-and-see remove. Like cognitive behavioral therapy, but for the propagation of violent loopholes in rape culture—without intervention from the puppeteers behind Joe’s dark adventures, we might trip over those loopholes and fall to our Joe-shaped doom.

It’s tempting to think that they aren’t doing this, as so much of You is staged as the exact kind of dreamy romance Joe imagines himself to be facilitating and Beck believes herself to be living. Each episode opens on a series of slow, bird’s-eye pans of New York City in early autumn, set to some kind of unobtrusively sweet indie-ish acoustic background music. Scenes with Joe and Beck together are filmed with a warm, golden filter, the background details and even the edges of the foreground taking on a comfortable kind of soft-focus that seems to snuggle them together like a big, metaphorical duvet. If they are outside, the melody of bird song is prominent. If they’re inside, the shush of pages turning and life being lived together is turned high. But when juxtaposed with the brittle, hard-focus, doom-soundtracked reality of the scenes of Joe’s life outside of his and Beck’s “romance,” the delusionally fantastic nature of those softer scenes is made obvious: They are all in Joe’s head, and while Beck may be living in the same fantasy at the moment, Joe’s head is a bad, dangerous place.

“Yeah, but he loves her, but he’s sweet, but it’s a love story!” Badgley imagined eventual fans arguing when he and Lail sat down for an interview with E! News earlier this summer. “In what world?! I don’t believe that’s love. I don’t think that love equals this, so I think we have to question, what is love, and if we think this is love, where are we mistaken?”

Where is throughout all of hetero-romantic pop culture. More acutely, where, I would (and already started to) argue, is in Pretty Little Liars, which not only features Joe’s stalker ancestor in the form of Ezra “I’ll Be Watching You” Fitz, but is in actuality one of the two other shows about attractive young people swept up in cyberstalking that every elevator pitch of You invokes. (The other, of course, is Gossip Girl. ) I spent the better part of three years and many hundreds of thousands of words arguing exactly how many rape culture/toxic masculinity balls Pretty Little Liars and the creator-blessed endgame of #Ezria dropped, so I neither need nor want to retread rageful ground here. But I do need to point out that none of those elevator pitches invoking Pretty Little Liars are doing so for the fact that You is finally juggling all the poisonous balls PLL, and, in its earlier way, GG, let fall—they’re doing so because stalking is a superficial thread throughout all three, and because You’s stars include PLL’s Shay Mitchell and GG’s Badgley. That’s it.

The thing is, the fact that You is treating the subject of violent masculine entitlement and obsessive, possessive “love” with more deadly gravity than either of its teen predecessors isn’t subtle; watch the first five minutes of the pilot and you’ll get that. But that’s the point I’m trying to make: You have to watch the first five minutes of the pilot to see it. If you just look to the promo interviews and red carpet soundbites and fluffy entertainment news tweets and headlines, our collective inability to accept the violent potential of the bad men in our midst is laid bare: Joe’s psychopathic character is translated as him being a mere “creepazoid,” according to the photo caption in Vulture’s review, while You itself is cheerfully summed up as a “messy, murderous romp.” According to a teaser interview with Entertainment Tonight last fall, Mitchell declared the show to be “juicy… It still has all those elements that PLL had with it being sort of a mystery, there’s a romance part to it and it’s just exciting.” Back on E! News, while the article anchoring Badgley and Lail’s interview sports the title, “Penn Badgley Is ‘Really Troubled’ By Anyone Thinking You Is a Love Story,” it eventually can’t help but suggest that, “What Joe does is not really harassment from what Beck can see, but from the viewer’s perspective, it’s not quite not harassment and also not quite not [sic] love.”

!!!!!!!

It’s true, as Kathryn VanArendonk argues in that Vulture review above, that the tone of You isn’t steady, but I’d argue in response that this is less an indicator of the show not being serious enough to be more than a romp, and more a reminder that we are not, as a species, that great at metabolizing the idea that multiple, contradictory things can be true about a person or a situation at the same time. Especially if that person is a man, and especially if the contradictions involve a woman. I am filing this piece on the weekend before the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hear testimony in the alleged violent attempted rape of a 15-year-old girl by then-17-year-old Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and likely no one reading these words is unaware that “boys with be boys,” “that was just horseplay,” and “what is harassment anyway???” have resurfaced, in response, as an apparently reasonable foundation for the debate between men’s ability to gain fame and fortune and women’s basic humanity. “Two things can be true at the same time” has become a kind of clarion call across justice-minded social media, but that doesn’t mean it has been absorbed by everyone, on every level.

And so we get: Romp. Juicy. Romance. Not quite harassment. We get Ezra Fitz as pop culture’s most recently successful romantic stalker model. We get the urge to make excuses and carve a path for a bad man’s not-all-badness, even being inside Joe’s head in a way we could never be in Fitz’s, even knowing how he thinks, how he watches, how he transgresses Beck’s digital and physical privacy—even knowing how he murders people to get closer to her. We get that urge because we are also getting Joe swinging from murderously delusional to relatably jokey (his inner monologue as he disposes of his romantic rival’s body in episode three, and later as he picks up jogging to better follow Mitchell’s Peach, is particularly funny) to empathetically invested in making the daily life of his neglected kid neighbor just a bit richer and safer and less sad in a way that isn’t inconsistent so much as it is human, and in its humanity is challenging for us to accept.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most emphatically unequivocating take I’ve found on the non-romance of You comes from Badgley himself, whose every interview has centered his utter rejection of anything positive one might try to shake out of Joe, or Beck, or Joe and Beck’s “relationship.” One of the most illuminating is the one he did with Devon Ivie at Vulture. It is worth reading in its entirety, but his response to why he took on a stalker role now, in 2018, stands out:

“Now that we’ve made the first season and I’ve been gauging reactions with critics and friends and viewers, I can say there’s a certain accountability—an emotional and psychological responsibility—that we hold the viewers and Joe to. It’s not this wildly irresponsible, escapist fantasy at the perfectly wrong time. I think the show came out at the right time, because any other time, we wouldn’t have had the courage at a social level and have conversations about why we’re drawn to it, but also why we know we shouldn’t reward it. We don’t want to reward Joe more than how he’s already being rewarded.

And as to whether or not he thinks that “viewers will cheer on this depraved man for being a self-described ‘fool in love’,” Badgley responded, “To me, a conversation I hope it starts is, What is it about the show that’s compelling? Why am I watching it? Am I enjoying it? Am I agreeing with Joe? What about all of this do I enjoy most? […] The degrees of which you’re enticed and excited by a show, there’s a lot more scrutiny in terms of the stories we’re interested in telling and consuming—the things we’re still charmed by and attracted to. Because Joe shouldn’t be allowed to behave the way he does. But only the viewer can decide.”

Shortly before Pretty Little Liars was set to air the last half of its seventh and final season, I flew out to Los Angeles to join my co-recappers at the show’s final PaleyFest panel. There were still ten episodes to go before the finale, and we held out hope that the series that had, in its bravest moments, been the most subversively anti-rape culture on television, might be about to burn the whole of Rosewood’s toxic patriarchy to the ground. The viewers who congregated in our comments section every week had certainly decided that that was the only way Pretty Little Liarscould end with integrity. Ten episodes! Ezra could STILL be A! His stalking could be revealed as the toxic danger it always was! But then we got to PaleyFest, and the entire theater was filled with fans whose only interests were the romantic lives of the cast, both onscreen and off, with the #Ezria endgame front and center.

Reader: #Ezria was endgame. And after giving fans like me a single fever dream of the show’s best character beating the daylights out of a jailed Ezra before letting his high-school sweetheart forgive him, the show was so proud of its own cleverness.

It’s 2018 now. #MeToo is only growing stronger as it complexifies, and as more projects like You get made by people who, like Badgley, Berlanti and Gamble, are entirely disinterested in giving bad men a path to not-all-badness. Joe is an outlier, but our willingness to soften the evil of his—fictional, patently obvious, easily condemned—violent obsession is the water we’ve been swimming in for too long. We can decide, as viewers and as people, to start demanding cleaner pools.

You airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime.

[thearabkhaleesi]

YOU - NO SPOILER REVIEW

“You” follows Joe Goldberg, a New York bookstore manager (Penn Badgley) who meets a customer named Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) & quickly falls in love & becomes obsessed with her. - Welcome to Pretty Little Liars for adults! Just kidding that’s 2018’s A Simple Favor. “You” is not as bad as PLL was, but it definitely reminded me of it (& it’s not just because Shay Mitchell is in both). My point is, if you ever had any interest in Pretty Little Liars, you’ll most probably be interested in “You”. There’s a very similar direction & themes. While it’s not a fantastic show, it’s binge-able. - The show was originally made by the US TV channel Lifetime (which in my opinion is sort of a B-list channel), but it was acquired by Netflix, where it became extremely popular. - If I had to wait week-to-week for new episodes, I would have lost interest very quickly & never would’ve finished the season. But with it being on Netflix, me hearing about it all the time & needing something to play in the background, I ended up finishing it in a few days. - It’s interesting to see this type of story from the villain/stalker’s perspective, but at the same time I hope people realize that and don’t romanticize his creepy, toxic behavior or think it’s justified / okay just for the sake of love. - I didn’t really care for or connect to any of the characters, I thought most of them were… not that clever or interesting, and the story is quite over the top. - Final verdict: it’s a creepy, okay show. Not too boring to make you turn it off, but won’t blow your mind either. I’ve seen people compare it to Gone Girl & American Psycho, but that’s SUCH a reach and You DEFINITELY isn’t that good. - Apparently Netflix is developing the second season instead of Lifetime, so I hope they refine it but I can’t guarantee right now that I’ll be watching. Guess we’ll have to wait & see! - 6/10⭐️

[austinskam]

did OG skam have 1 million views per ep in its first season? bc i dont think so tbh. i remember reading that 1 million ppl tuned in for eps of noora's season, after that mess with wilhelm's brother went down. if skamau is doing over 1 million for eps in its first season alone im sure there will be more growth in season 2, and esp in s3, regardless of whether its shay or tyler's season (though i hope we get one for both of them!) (1/2)

skamau isn’t an expensive show to produce and its viewing numbers are better than some televisions shows targeted at teens on bigger networks. for ex. some of the skam numbers are near pretty little liars in its later seasons and that show cost a lot more to make and lasted several seasons (and is getting a spin off). skamau just needs time to grow the way OG skam did (2/2)

but US is much bigger than Norway and so the numbers does matter. like, Austin alone has almost 1 million population and it does have a lot of viewers where facebook watch is available, right? so it’s just not for American audience. SKAM was for Norwegian teens so they didn’t aim for a wider audience, at least at first I’m guessing. i don’t know how it works for a facebook show, if they have competitions with shows with similar themes and demographic and all that. But, for a show with not that much promos, it’s doing really good. And it is defs better than PLL haha. Wasn’t that the show that romanticized a teacher-student relationship? Ew, no. These are the kind of shows that gets popular. Not the realistic ones.

[zalrb]

How do you think the predatory relationship between Angie and chris was portrayed? Maybe like in comparison to Archie and ms grundy (which i still find so insulting to her original character) or aria and ezra. I feel like the media romanticizes these messed up dynamics because they are "taboo"... idk where this ask is going lol basically just wanted to ask your thoughts on all of them, especially Angie and Chris

I didn’t watch PLL but from what I’ve gathered of Aria and Ezra, they were portrayed as this star-crossed forbidden love and I don’t exactly remember the way that Archie and Miss Grundy were portrayed but Archie was consistently manipulated and preyed on by adult figures in the show and we just never talked about it and with Angie and Chris, I don’t think their relationship was romanticized in the same way as Arya and Ezra but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it wasn’t problematic  but I also take into consideration that Skins was written by young adults and teens:

Jamie said: “As it’s my idea, I want to be a writer.” He’d just dropped out of university, so after a rather heated conversation, he joined the writing team, along with every member of his student flat. We got into this groove where everyone was young and inexperienced – apart from the tired old hack who was nominally in charge, who was me.

The average age of the show's writers is 21, and there are several "teenage consultants". "We're always having people miss meetings because they've got A-levels or even GCSEs," Elsley says.

And so certain storylines like Angie and Chris I’m like, yeah I can see how a 21 year old would write this.

[lesbomatriarchy]

I don't watch pretty little liars but like whys it gross dude

There are a lot of problems, but my biggest one is without a doubt the obsession with unhealthy relationships. One of the main characters (who is in high school) has an ongoing relationship with her English teacher, and like…it’s romanticized? Like it’s seen as oh so romantic or w/e and like??? NO??? So many teenage girls watch this show, and for them to see a student/teacher relationship romanticized like that is unhealthy and irresponsible. And then in the books that same character’s dad hooks up with his student (in college, but still) WHILE she is HIS STUDENT and STAYS WITH HER. THEY HAVE A CHILD TOGETHER. In the tv show, they make it a little better by having her be a substitute teacher rather than a student, but she is even more manipulative and gross than she is in the books, and blatantly disrespects the daughter when she (the daughter) questions her. Like…what the fuck? And then the whole show is full of cheating and lying and inappropriate relationships and it’s like ok heterosexuals time to calm down.

Of course, there is the one gay, the lovely Emily, who is by far the least annoying character in the entire show, who is, of course, treated like shit. A happy relationship? Time TO FUCK IT UP. We got homophobia, girlfriends being killed, girlfriends lying, girlfriends manipulating, girlfriends cheating on their husbands, queen bee crushes who treated literally everyone like shit coming back from the “dead” and everyone treating it like it’s oh-so-romantic bc AT THIS POINT we’ll settle for a relationship where two people actually like each other, that’s how desperate we are, and like…Give Me a Break. Let the child be happy maybe? 

The whole show make me want to tear my hair out. Love yourself and don’t watch PLL.

[woozapooza]

I mean clearly I have to ask PLL for the fandom ask

Laura continues to be cool

(Everyone keep in mind that I have NOT seen the whole show. I’m 13 eps into s3. Don’t spoil anything.)

My OTP: Spencer x Toby!!! So pure. I refuse to believe anything bad about Toby for now. As I recently said to my friend who has seen all the episodes, they could find a video of Toby murdering Alison in cold blood and I’d be like wow photoshop sure is amazingMy NOTP: Aria x Ezra. Or any relationship with such a big age difference (there are a lot of those on this show) but this one is the most prominent and romanticized. MY OT3: Uh. Spencer x Toby x Alex? A currently canon ship I’m okay with but don’t prefer: Hanna x Caleb? Both have drawbacks as people but they’re okay togetherA ship that would only work in an AU but would be awesome: Emily x Spencer because they’re my favorites of the girlsA ship I’d like to see explored but not stick around: I sort of liked the idea of Caleb x Lucas tbhA ship that may as well be canon: I have no ideaThe ships I’d give my OTP pair if the other died: Spencer with Alex, Toby with…Aria?A crossover ship I’d dig: Well, Emily x Mathilda Reid from Ripper StreetA ship that would work great in a Coffee Shop AU: This is a hard question for a fandom that takes place in the modern-day real world where there literally are coffee shopsA ship that would work great in a sitcom AU: Hanna is probably the funniest character, so who would be a good humorous match for her? Maybe Mona. Or, for a more “opposites attract” approach, Spencer. Oh my god, or Mona x Spencer.

(Send me a fandom!!!)

[prettylittleliarsxxxx]

I know you get "it's just a tv show" all the time. Please don't take this as hate or anything because I do love your blog but why do you think fiction influences reality???? Like I'm 15 years old and i know that if an older man let alone my teacher came onto me I know that it's wrong and I know that I would go straight to my parents and tell them and watching ezria doesn't change that in anyway because I know that it's just a tv show :)again this isn't hate I'm just interested because I disagree

No I understand what you’re saying and I’m happy you’d like a bit more of an explanation! 

Everything we consume influences us, at the very least we internalize it. People have used the Bible as gospel. It influences a lot of peoples day to day life which is the easiest way to explain this. You see people analyze the Bible and act out what they believe the Bible is saying to them. And it’s different for a lot of people. I don’t want to call it fiction so as not to offend people, so I’ll say fiction and non fiction influences us in ways we don’t really understand or know at the time. 

There have been movies, such as Jaws, that have negatively impacted the way people view sharks. After the release, the finning and killing of sharks increased dramatically. It’s said that hunting decreased after Bambi was released. There’s even a movie called Sideways that hurt the sales of Merlot and increased the sales of Pinot Noir. I think there was something like how after Fight Club was inflicted on the world, that’s when people saw actual fight clubs start popping up. 

I’m glad that you know that’s wrong, but I think the reality is is that it depends on the environment you grow up in, you know what I mean? If you’ve grown up knowing that a teacher coming on to you is wrong, or even just an older man, if you’ve had that education in your life that it’s morally and legally wrong, of course seeing Ez/ria on screen might not make much of a difference to you personally. 

But there are other people who have grown up seeing things like that romanticized. If nobody tells you it’s wrong to begin with, obviously there’s an issue with parenting and environment, but at the same time, if no one has told you it’s wrong because they don’t think it’ll ever happen to you or they don’t think it’s a big deal, etc, if you see a relationship like that on screen and they make no effort to show you why it’s wrong, then you’re going to come away thinking “huh, so if that happens to me, as long as we’ve in love, it’s okay”. 

For me it’s not necessarily even that seeing ships like Ez/ria on screen necessarily influence reality. It’s also the message they send when they excuse abuse and say abuse is okay as long as you’re in love. I think it’s especially hard for girls and teenagers and women to see media and not internalize it because there’s so much abuse in everything we consume that it does get under our skin even if we try not to let it. If a guy on a tv show talks down to the girl -- repeatedly, we see them make up because the guy says he loves her and he cooks her dinner or buys her a present and then it’s fine. Until it happens again. A lot of shows, shows like PLL, tell us that as long as we make up, abuse is fine. That all the good in a relationship outweighs all the bad and that’s not always true. 

Also, I really, REALLY, hate to be that person but when I was a teenager, I didn’t think fiction had any bearing on reality. I could separate the two! For sure! Until one day in my 20′s, I realized that I couldn’t. Not on a deeper level. 

There are even cases of people who watch TV and end up speaking similarly to people on the show, like adding mannerisms they see in their favourite character. It can be something as innocent as that to something as harmful as being told that abuse is okay as long as you’re in love. That’s something abusers use to keep abuse victims in their abuse.

And just to add, like, I’ve had literal teachers and people who work at schools come into my inbox and have told me they’ve had students who want a relationship with a teacher just like Ez/ria. 

So I hope that helps explain a bit kind of where I’m coming from! :)