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I should draw rouge the bat. But in what circumstance

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SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN dir. Stanley Donen + Gene Kelly 

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some random angel: congratulations on the successful mission into hell, castiel! the righteous man has been saved, it truly is a glorious day for heaven!

castiel, thinking about laying a hand on dean winchester’s sexy sexy soul: i think i’m gay

some random angel: what

castiel:

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pet peeve is when a fellow hater conducts their haterism such that they leave the hater community vulnerable to attack. “i think characterizing Character A in x way is boring and annoying” = beautiful, flawless, unimpeachable haterism. no one can tell u that u aren’t allowed to find a certain characterization boring. “it is morally/objectively wrong to characterize Character A in x way” = sloppy, reactionary, overcommitting. you have left our eastern flank open to attack girl what the hell….now my dedicated hater troops are taking fire from YOUR enemies fuckkkkk

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GOOD NEWS FOR CRAB FANS EVERYWHERE

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have you been naughty?

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buttoning up this dress and singing and smiling while the mortals laugh and point, i relive every condescending look or fucking comment i have ever had to suffer.

there's something broken in me.

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I think what I love most about mythology is that the “Trickster God/Spirit” is an archetypical character found in almost every body of folklore. It’s like “Oh, here’s our God of the Sun, our God of the Sea, our God of Fertility, and our God of Being A Wretched Little Gremlin Who Causes Problems On Purpose”

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One of details that makes “Adolescence” so extraordinary is its camera work. Each of the series’ four hourlong episodes is a oner, meaning it was filmed in one shot with no breaks for editing. It’s a style of filmmaking that Barantini, who’s known for his work on the movie “Boiling Point,” has mastered. But the Stephen Graham-starring series doesn’t just use its one-shots as a cheap gimmick. Every minute the show progresses without cutting away from its cast, the tension of this high-stakes story racketing up another degree. So incorporating a drone shot into the mix is extra impressive.

According to a thread posted by Netflix’s U.K. and Ireland X account, the director of photography carried the camera and followed Jade (Fatima Bojang) as she walked to a traffic light, a shot that helped indicate that the school day had ended. That’s what the audience sees. But behind the camera, the team attached the camera to a drone before Jade crosses the road. That camera then flew roughly 0.3 miles to the murder scene where a second team was present. That team of grips along with a camera operator then caught the camera just in time to capture a close-up shot of Graham’s grieving father, Eddie.

“Easy,” the post joked. (x)

Adolescence (2025) - Episode #1.2

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No Dog Biscuits Today, London 1939.

Photography by Vivian Mayer

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Adolescence (2025)

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Adolescence Review (by someone who used to work in child protection)

Recently watched Netflix's Adolescence and it was probably the best TV series I've seen. It's superbly acted (how was this Owen Cooper's first role?), fascinatingly filmed (every single episode is shot in one take), and brimming with empathy and nuance.

It also resonates personally with me. Once upon a time, I worked in child protection for a year. I've worked with kids like the main subject of the series, Jamie Miller. I can't and won't give details, but this series probably captures the heart-wrenching, soul-crushing reality of what it's like to work with kids who do horrific crimes.

Episode 1 is an excruciatingly detailed account of the dehumanization of arrest and imprisonment, and that's even with everyone doing their best to be kind to Jamie because he's a child (13, but looks younger). I guarantee you most cops don't try to be nice to most intakes.

There's really only one moment where a cop is cruel until the interrogation, and that's when Jamie's being strip-searched. The man conducting the search tells his father, who asks, in essence, "how would you feel if you were thirteen and strangers wanted to do this to you?" that "I was never accused of a crime." Well, bully for you, jerk-face.

Yet the viewer also understands the cruel necessity of having to conduct such a search, while also wanting to throw up. I do think a lot of the discourse around juvenile criminals resorts to "throw away the key" without considering what that means, and what humiliation and abuse kids go through when they're arrested (rightfully or wrongfully). The show following each and every motion and forcing the viewer to observe the father's face rather than the actual search forces the viewer to face their own thoughts on juvenile justice (especially because, at this point, you don't know whether Jamie did it).

But at the same time as Jamie is dehumanized in this way, you're confronted with the reality of how much he's dehumanized his victim at the end of the episode, when you see that he absolutely, 100% did do it. This thread of how Jamie dehumanizes women in particular continues in Episode 3.

Episode 2 is easily the weakest of the series. It's still great and offers, via a chaotic school with checked-out adults who can't care anymore and adults who do care completely overwhelmed and limited by their own humanity, a symbolic picture of what teenagers face. How can they learn when they aren't willing to listen? At the same time, how can they learn when no one is teaching? How can people teach when they are drowning themselves?

My criticism here is that the school appeared not exactly unrealistic, but also slightly hyperbolized. I think they could have stressed the struggles of trying to care when there's too much to care for even more than they did via an additional episode, an episode I think the second one almost introduced and then left dangling--one that focused on Katie's loved ones.

We hear about Katie's mom, and we meet Jade and see her rage over losing her best friend. We even see one detective voice how frustrating it is that Jamie will be remembered but Katie won't be. I wouldn't quite call this lip service because I do think the aim of the show isn't quite about this, but I do think the show should have spent an episode on Jade and/or Katie's family.

We know Katie isn't perfect as a victim, but that doesn't mean in any way that she deserved to be stabbed to death (or to have her pictures leaked). In fact, the show makes this emphatically clear. But I still think they missed a chance to make her more human, to show the loss through her loved ones.

If Episode 2 is the slightly-less-than-the-others episode, Episode 3 is the standout. The psychologist examines Jamie and he vacillates between inappropriately flirting with the psychologist to childishly requesting more hot chocolate to terrifyingly screaming in rage to sobbing in fear like a child in a nightmare to condescendingly mocking her like a rabid fan of Elon's would to desperately trying to wrench away the reality of what he did and trying to talk himself out of facing reality. And Owen Cooper, the child actor, makes all of this believable.

The reality is that the cruelty of what Jamie's done sinks in during Episode 3. He tells his psychologist that most other guys who have assaulted their victim, but he didn't, so he's better, right? And then he screams and sobs minutes later begging for someone to tell him that they like him, anyone. I found myself wanting to grab the psychologist and beg her to say that she "cared" (something I said in a similar moment during my work doing child protection). But I also understand why she didn't--not just professionally, but in terms of Jamie having to realize that he can't be entitled to people liking him when he's so cruel to women.

The psychologist also asks Jamie if he understands what death is. While he says all the right words to show he does, everyone over the age of 20 knows that he doesn't, and the show knows it too. I genuinely think that, until you get older, you cannot fully understand what it means for someone to be gone from this earth.

And therein lies the paradox of the show: Jamie doesn't fully understand what he's done. At the same time, what he's done has permanent, gruesome, irreversible consequences for everyone around him--and beyond that, because of the internet's influence beyond local boundaries.

Episode 4 is an episode I would call beautiful in a lot of ways, despite the fact that it's jagged and raw. We follow Jamie's family (dad, mom, and older sister) as they try to celebrate the dad's birthday about a year after the crime. We see how they're wrestling with the fallout and agony of knowing they raised Jamie--but they also raised Lisa, who is kind of an awesome kid.

And while Episode 1 actually has detectives musing that the parents might be abusive and that might explain it, this episode removes any doubts: Eddie and Amanda, Jamie's parents, are good parents. They are not perfect. Eddie has a temper. Amanda should have monitored his computer use more. But also? No parents are perfect. Arguably, the detective who interacts with his son in Episode 2 is a worse parent than they are. Yet his son is great, and Lisa is great.

There simply isn't a good explanation. Jamie was hurting, yes, but his pain can't be pinned down to a singular cause. The internet hurt him and gave him messages about masculinity that were harmful to say the least. But he also got those messages at school, even if he wasn't on the internet. And he got love at home, as well as some flawed interactions with his parents.

So who is responsible for Jamie's actions? Jamie himself. He chose.

Yet, the series also acknowledges that Jamie is a child, and he is not just "born bad." We see how other kids, like Jade punching Ryan, and Ryan loaning Jamie the knife, and Tommy joking around, and the bully leaking Katie's pictures--they have no comprehension of the extreme ramifications of their actions... but some of them also don't appear to care to learn. Normally, society would demand they care to learn, but that's not happening.

So then what? If society creates these kids, then what does society owe them? That's a question the series wants viewers to walk away contemplating, rather than giving a simple answer.

And there is some hope: Jamie deciding to plead guilty and accept responsibility. In that, we see how kids are supposed to be able to make mistakes and learn and grow. Yet Jamie's "mistake" is so shattering that Katie will never get to grow beyond it because of him, and to what degree Jamie can after pleading guilty isn't clear either. And in an era where their every action is captured online, can they ever really grow beyond?

I don't know that I have an answer to that. I've seen some kids I worked with grow up to be awesome. And I've lost touch with others, particularly those whose cases were more serious. There is no agony like seeing a child who has done something horrific and is suffering themselves and knowing you can't save them, and not knowing what the future holds for them. All you're left with is being able to hope that they'll learn to accept responsibility and grow, but in a system and society that makes that really impossible, is that even much of a hope?

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Adolescence is that rare thing, a Netflix series that aims high and hits the mark, but you have to be in the right mood to watch it; each episode puts you through an emotional wringer in a slightly different way. Superb acting (Owen Cooper is staggeringly good in his first role) and script, tackles the issue of male violence head on without oversimplifying it. An unusually honest portrayal of the justice and education systems, the family unit and the pressures of the job market and social media. The series is shot in one continuous take per episode, it's technically dazzling and the camera feels like a silent actor, a fly on the wall moving deftly through the chaos of arrest, detention, schoolyard fights and chases, taking you inside the characters' heads in police interviews, psychiatric assessments and family car rides. One of those shows that stays with you.

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I need some time to wrap my head around this scary shit.

🎥 : Adolescence (2025)