#(aka more in line with the s5 characterization)

[quietwingsinthesky]

Lucifer and Sam, post canon. Everything is different when there aren’t any stakes.

“Tell me what I did,” Lucifer says, and Sam knows that what they’ve had isn’t enough to get an archangel drunk unless he started long before he stumbled onto Sam’s doorstep, where Sam would have shot him rather than let him in if not for the haunted and awfully familiar look in his eyes.

“You don’t remember?” Sam asks, wiggling his fingers until Lucifer hands over the bottle for him to drink from, and he tries not to flinch too hard when Lucifer’s head thunks onto his shoulder.

“I remember all of it,” he slurs, “every torture you went through and I inflicted and- Is this what possession feels like?” he finishes, staring at his hands and looking so horrified that Sam has no choice but to believe him when he claims that he’s not had any control since they fell into the Cage.

[emblazons]

*rattles the bars of my cage*

Mike Wheeler's emotional/moral ambiguity actually makes him one of the more fascinating younger characters in this show. Why?

Because he isn't following the same simple linear narrative line that Will and El are because of their supernatural interactions, but rather existing as a special, third thing that often exists in contrast to the villains in the story, where he gets to be messy and confused and insecure—and where he has spent entire seasons moving in the direction of what has always been the true enemy of characters in Stranger Things: conformity—and STILL CHOOSE WHATS RIGHT. Y'all are just so used to caricatures in television / thinking that "heroes "& "villains" exist in two entirely separate, non-overlapping camps (rather than existing in shades of gray) that you over-simplfy him...and miss the forest for the trees.

Mike being the one who struggles most with conformity and wanting other people to fill the gaps of insecurity are why all those goddamn Brenner parallels exist. It's why Vecna, who is paralleled to El in many ways, said something to El when she was tied to that door about a "mediocre man looking for power in someone else great" and it applies as much to Mike calling her a Superhero 2 seconds later as it does Brenner trying to use her powers. It's why the tension between him trying to "act normal" / date El (who exists on a pedestal for him) and him being the kind/loyal nerd who exists in "being human" with Will does—that love triangle exists to showcase his flux between his two sides, the one that embraces himself and the one that follows the path of the things he's always been told to want (like S1 Jonathan/Nancy/Steve).

Its why Mike is such a confusing mix of heroic energy and an immature chaos—why his insecurities have pushed him into some oddly toxic mindsets even at a young age...like thinking "a girl" will solve all his insecurity problems which sounds a hell of a lot like beginning of modern incel thought processes if you want to get into it, but he was 12 so we'll let that go and why he seems so wishy-washy now. Mike is just now aware enough of how his desires compete within him (and how they affect the people around him) to start making a choice about how he will respond to them...but we had to present all the sides he was conflicted by first, because for him, those conflicts almost always come at him in the form of relationship, like it does in most of our own lives.

Mike is not "under-characterized." He is not "poorly written." He is written human in a space (and two people) steeped in the supernatural, and is learning to accept himself for who he is in the midst of that. He is messy and morally ambiguous at times just like his mother and sister—and more interesting for it, because he isn't so easy to pin down as an "everyman central protagonist" that way.

If anything, Mike as a character is harder to follow because he exists as an entirely relational character in a show that often allows you to easily put all its other characters into caricatures (aka the superhero (El), the gay kid (Will), the final girl (Nancy), the POC kid (Lucas), the Guy in the Chair (Dustin), etc) and why, as the character that required four entire seasons to be fleshed out, he will probably be as central in the final season as the first. Mike has always needed external action to move through character growth...and Vecna, the being literally designed to push people to their limits, is the way he will probably go through that.

By S5, he will have to face his ongoing confusions and fears (aka major insecurity) and come into himself...for the sake of himself, his party and the one he truly loves. Mike's ability to make mistakes over the course of five seasons and still make a difference to defeating the ultimate evil in real life (and not just in the games he played as a kid) is what will give him the courage to self-actualize, admit that he is important even surrounded by people "more special" than he is, and come into his own—while embracing what makes him different.

You don't have to like him. You don't have to relate to him or even enjoy what The Duffers have done with him as a character (or any character tbh). But damn if you're gonna roll up and act like he doesn't even have a character because he's not Will or Eleven LMAO

Sidebar: to all the people mad m*leven went romantic...Mike would have never been able to realize that a girl wouldn't solve his problems...without having ever been in a (however poorly executed) romantic relationship with one. As a character motivated to learn through interaction with other characters, Mike needed to experience for himself that El—or any girl, really—wasn’t ever going to fill the hole of his internal insecurities. If he never got the thing he thought would solve his problem, he would have either never grown...or fallen into resentment while in the closet even longer, like men do about that in literal real life. Just saying.

[raayllum]

While I think the show could easily make a plot line where Callum leaves to try and protect his loved ones work quite well characterization wise (although I do lean towards it either not happening or not lasting for more than an episode or two, but who knows), I think said plot line wouldn’t actually bring about the conclusion people have typically had in mind for it.

1) Rayla leaving was a trauma response. It wasn’t a good decision and it wasn’t a healthy decision. The crew has gone on record several times that it was a form of self-punishment for ‘failing,’ how it plays into her martyr/saviour complex, and that it was brought on partially by tortured dreams. If Callum leaves in S5, then, it will also be a trauma response. Not the right thing to do (and I’m sure if he does he’ll get in deep narrative shit for it in some capacity, unless Rayla stops him), but an understandable thing to do.

2) Callum always understood why Rayla left. This is more opinion based, but I think we see it clearly in TTM (he wanted to go with her, he got why it mattered to her so much) and he also knows Rayla loves him. Rayla being a hero and protecting others (even protecting him) is one of the things he loves most about her: “She does what’s right even when it puts her own life at risk [...] That’s what makes her a hero. That’s what makes her Rayla.” His big issue was that he felt abandoned by her because she didn’t let him go with her. In S4, then, he’s making this behavioural pattern she has about him, even when it existed long before him (and has existed long after). In 4x09 with his, “I know,” he’s accepting that this is outside of his control. He does understand where it comes from, to a degree. He’ll just never entirely like it (or want this to be her path). 

3) Possible repetition in Callum being brought, physically and emotionally back from the Brink, in a space he’s cognizant of. Like Callum being tempted or forced to join Team Bad Guy, this could also veer into similar territory of being too similar to breaking him free of brainwashing, if/when the show takes that direction as well. Now, TDP loves its repetition amid escalated stakes, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility, but it will mean either Rayla or someone else trying to talk him down twice, if not three times (aka he has to eventually be able to throw off the brainwashing, soo). 

4) What conclusion does it actually leave us with? Presented in this capacity, Callum leaving would mostly fuel Rayla’s character arc, not necessarily his own. Callum does not need to leave to understand why Rayla did; and as stated before, no amount of understanding is going to make that the right thing to do. The lesson that needs to be learned is for Rayla to realize that this pattern and cycle is Not It, even if it’s what she’s seen in her family, and to acknowledge how much she hurt Callum in doing so, yes, but also that she hurt herself. While Callum leaving would make Rayla realize how much it fucking sucks, perhaps, in full, it would still give her a deeper understanding of either 1) Callum’s pain or 2) her own pain by proxy of seeing someone else repeat her self-destructive patterns. Her choosing to break this pattern because of seeing Callum playing it out, and both of them finding healing together could be very cathartic, but it would still ultimately be (as far as I see it for now) a Rayla centric arc. Which I’m not against whatsoever, but I see this plot beat framed as a Callum centric moment, and I just really don’t think it exactly will be, if it goes this way.

[the-nysh]

BONES poked the bear/pulled the lion's tail too much this time. Bakugou's fans have been the most tolerant (at least compared to Deku's subset of vocal JP Mom fans) considering what they have had to put up with from the adaptation, Movies and OVAs, and its interesting how the mischaracterization started from day 1, died down a bit in S2+3, then has flaired up again to get steadily worse since. Its probably more intolerable for JP fans considering what Kacchan is going through in the manga too.

Early departures in characterization could be dismissed/ignored as typical 'anime adaptation weirdness,' but then those occurrences kept adding up, to the point how back in s5 (during the peak of the World Heroes Mission movie weirdness affecting production) the inclusion of him saying 'ore-sama' there was immediately jarring like he was an imposter even then. And NOW the way BONES chooses to reintroduce watchers to the core 'essence' and 'appeal' of his character in the first two eps of s6 is thru that very same, most shallow, disrespectful way possible (by insisting on giving him a worse narcissistic trait than what his middle school self never used even at his nastiest, while trying to sell that as something 'good'/cute/funny his fans will even like), DURING the very season he's supposed to display his biggest sacrifice and selfless growth as a hero, concurrently while he's fighting on his deathbed in the current manga - OH YES even his Japanese fans lost their tolerance in confusion/anger at BONES continuing to mishandle his character this carelessly & late in the game for no reason - because that ooc distortion's now unacceptable. You'll see how even his most avid manga lovers will admit they hate his anime counterpart, because who tf is that; the difference in personality at this stage, in the opposite direction of who he's supposed to be, feels like a rancid mockery of everything positive Hori's labored to show he represents.

The characterization of Bakugou is the number 1 reason I don't support the anime (and most of the merch) unless I know Horikoshi has been involved (aka Heroes Rising). It feels so arrogant and disrespectful of the writers to actively undermine the managka's carefully crafted characters so crudely especially as Horikoshi has made it clear Bakugou and Deku's relationship is the important core of the story with Bakugou's character on his own being a huge part of that.

It really does, that his character's handling, which is a fine line to accurately portray already, feels like a litmus test to gauge the overall quality, and you can immediately tell the difference in 'official' content where Hori's involved or not, as he conveys his heart & soul (including the projects he shows his passion & support for) vs shallow imitations that lack that which endears fans to his work in the first place. Anyway, only Hori can be trusted to 'handle his own characters with care,' because we see the glaring result of what happens when BONES doesn't - when they're given free rein to write flanderized derivations without his input...but this has been the case we've known since forever. :') It's just unfortunate they have to repeatedly cut corners double down on tired stereotypes and additions for the worse that no longer fit or work in favor of the story he's trying to tell, rather than improve or meet Hori with the same level of care/respect his work deserves.

[sol1056]

three anons: what the hell was all that in S7

Picking out the three that are most to the point for this answer, but I’ve got another dozen or so that overlap. Not sure I’ll have time/energy to answer the rest individually, so hopefully this meta will be sufficient. 

I mean it could be that they had different execs back then who were better at their jobs and kept Shiro around. No one disliked black paladin Shiro, even the DotU fans were ok with it, and the writing in s1-2 was mostly very good. Changing all that was a bad idea. I would have left on the spot if Shiro died or was benched, like now, I'm only around for closure. Maybe they were different execs with this decision & the EPs leaped at the chance. Well, we know who's also gonna be in trouble if that's the case.

With your theory on how storyboards were reused and characters shuffled around for cost cutting, might this not also partly explain the Adam flashback scene and how it was staged? I mean, they were originally supposed to be roommates and the scene was meant to appear in season 2 but got cut. What if they just reused the storyboard (or even animation, if it was already mostly done) the way it was and then just changed the dialogue? This could explain the lack of intimacy in the staging, too. Ezor and Zethrids interactions were more openly intimate maybe not (just) because they‘re villains who die immediately after, but because the decision to make them an item came before storyboarding was done, so the staging is more suggestive. I mean, if you think Shiro was mostly pasted in in the first half of s7, that might make sense.

If cost was the issue and they already had the black paladin Shiro version written, and got the greenlight to change it to Keith then things don't add up. Because they changed it once more! Which could have been avoided if they stuck to the Shiro one. And it goes without saying it would be better written to follow canon instead of the mess we got, like, I cant imagine this NOT discussed. So if it wouldn't be cost effective to change it again for Keith and it would be badly written, why did it happen?

Behind the cut: the most likely chronology of revisions, the clues in S7 as to its original form, and what this means for S8 and the Black Paladin position. 

This is everything I’ve been able to figure out between interviews, podcasts, tweets, plus researching the industry and a few reality-checks with friends more familiar. As always, any mistakes are my own. 

version 0: "five teenagers"

This would’ve been the first pitch after getting the green light, and probably only a loose synopsis, with just the pilot given a rough storyboard. A post-apocalyptic Earth conquered by the Galra, who are seeking Blue. The execs rejected JDS' mechanism for the discovery of Blue, in favor of simply having Keith ‘sense’ Blue. The execs also rejected the idea that Shiro would die only a few episodes in. This summary seems to be the basis of the "five teenagers" part of the teaser.

version A: "shiro kicks the bucket"

Timelines would've dictated moving onto an outline pretty quickly, detailed down to the episode level, including bits of dialogue, motifs, turning points or emotional beats. In this revision, Shiro dies/leaves at the end of S2 and does not return. This is the “originally we wanted him to kick the bucket” version, which the execs rejected.

version B: "shiro goes away for awhile"

If I'm interpreting the hints correctly, the "does Shiro die or not" question got tossed back and forth all the way into S1/S2 pre-production. Rather than rearrange everything, the easiest fix would've been to leave most of the story intact and write only a new ending where Shiro returns. The execs reject this rewrite, saying Shiro can’t be gone that long. This is the “we tried to just have him gone for awhile, but the execs said he had to come back sooner” version.

version C: "enter the clone"

Again, easiest fix is to insert Shiro/Kuron, remove Keith, and reverse that just before Shiro's return in version B. This impacts only the middle seasons (S3-S6); the clone compromise satisfies the execs. Kuron's characterization makes a lot more sense if it’s Keith, in visuals (ie Kuron leaning against the wall in Keith fashion), dialogue (fighting with Lance), and action (leaving without consulting the team). It's also why no one mentions Keith's absence. Because in the original version A, Keith was standing right there.

version D: "wtf is going on", aka Season 7

When JDS mentions having a full season written with Shiro as Black Paladin, it didn't make sense how they'd have a script and not use it. With @ptw30's visual detective work, I think I may've figured it out.

Technical notes: first scripts are all written for a season, then voices are recorded, and then the combined script+recording is used to storyboard. Production seasons are 26-episodes, independent of actual broadcast seasons; VA may be recording scenes across two 13-episode seasons completely out of order, since the recording schedule's going to be based on who's available, not chronology of the file numbers. The biggest staff changes are usually in April ('staffing season') when new shows get the greenlight and start sharking around to catch writers, designers, directors, etc.

In March of this year, S5 was released. At least some of the storyboarders were released in time for staffing season; in April, Hedrick moves to a new project. With S7/S8 being unchanged since version B, I suspect Hedrick delivered the scripts for S7 and S8 by winter of last year, at latest. Even that would be tight, since that's expecting animation to deliver 26 episodes in an 8-month timeframe. [edit: probably delivered much earlier, given the studio leaks show images we can recognize from S7/S8, so some amount of these seasons were in production by then.]

In June, S6 dropped, and a week later, Hamilton was announced as the new story editor via the Lets Voltron podcast. With the lead time required in production, there doesn't seem to be any reason to even need a story editor, at this point. All the pre-production work should be done.

In August, S7 dropped. Hedrick's editor credit is only for the first half of the season; Hamilton gets it for the second half. That means the last six episodes were written after Hedrick's departure. (May Chan's S2 script was reused in part, and she gains a belated co-writing script credit for that. Hedrick should've received the same; it's standard.)

Let's recap a few things we know (and a few we can intuit) about S7:

The season was already written with Shiro returning as Black Paladin, possibly also recorded and storyboarded. 

S6 reversed the S4-S5 trend, lending strength to exec arguments that Shiro is necessary in the story.

After S6 dropped, the EPs said the wolf's name was a spoiler. See this post from @pwt30; tl;dr is that perhaps the EPs intended the wolf to be Shiro's spirit. 

Despite Shiro's return, he's absent for the majority of the first half; when he is present, he barely speaks a half-dozen words, and none are plot-relevant. See @ptw30's post for more details. 

There's a glaring incontinuity when Allura says the paladin armor protected the team, yet Shiro is frozen with the other non-paladins despite wearing armor. 

Keith never offers for Shiro to pilot, nor mentions it, nor even seems to consider it an issue.

Not everything dovetails since I don't have the full picture, but here's my theory: S7 was originally outlined with Shiro's spirit in the wolf, rather than Black. I have no idea when/how JDS would've thought up the CA:WS parallels for his sole writing credit, but Shiro's "I died" and Lotor's psychotic breakdown are squeezed into S6E6, which was written by Josh Hamilton, Hedrick's later replacement. The only other Shiro-in-Black point is a few minutes at the end of S6's final episode. Shifting from Shiro-in-wolf to Shiro-in-Black really only affects one episode, with a bit of editing for another.

Anyway, S6 ends version C, and we segue to version B. For the first half of S7, the clone's body may have been in stasis while the team traveled through its various non-adventures. The episode we now know as S7E1 may have been the mid-point, with about six episodes of Shiro being unconcious. After watching the numbers drop from S3 to S6, the execs may've rejected another six episodes of where-is-Shiro and insisted he come back ASAP.

S7 only has two episodes that must be in order; the rest are pretty rearrangeable. All they had to do was insert Shiro into the background and record a few lines. (Several lines are pure voice-over, which also saves cost/time by not needing to animate moving mouth.) But the moved episode is only his memory/awakening, and the logical next episode would be Shiro's reconnection, and the rest of the season would roll from there. Without moving the entire second half of the season to the start, moving only his awakening episode would mean Shiro does nothing for 5-6 episodes and then abruptly reconnects.  

In a recent interview, JDS said at first the execs weren't enthused until JDS talked up the new mecha they'd give Shiro to captain. Honestly, there's no way JDS got to be EP without giving a really good pitch, but there may've been another element to his argument: nostalgia. The EPs seem certain everyone suffers from their same nostalgia dementia, which if you do, then you probably have been waiting for any glimpse of that og!Keith. If Shiro returns at the start of S7, then Keith's time in Black has been limited to a few disastrous episodes in S3, and a single big battle in S6. The beginning of S7 is the only time we'd ever see the Voltron84 formation working as a unified team, and returning Shiro too soon would defeat the whole purpose of showing how the team has grown in his absence.

The solution seems to have been to remove Shiro's reconnection completely, and keep Keith in Black. That would mean re-recording Shiro's lines from the midpoint onward, and editing in Keith over Shiro. The savings would be that only half the seaon would have to be reworked, not all. The loose end of the space wolf --- an artifact of version B --- was left in place.  

What I'm not sure of is whether the following are significant enough changes to warrant removing Hedrick's name and replacing it with Hamilton's. It could be, if supervising the revision process is enough to override the previous credits. I have no idea about that part of the industry, and it's the kind of edge case you're just not going to find a lot of blog posts about, so if you know, tell me. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, this would've meant Shiro was switched in for Allura, Allura was put back in a lion, and Keith was switched in for Shiro. This would explain why Shiro speaks as the leader of Voltron despite no longer being a paladin, and the uneasy sensations a lot of people got about the characterizations. It was most striking in the last three episodes: Shiro felt like Allura v2, while Keith felt like Shiro v2. And that further, the Altean-Earthian ship just 'lighting up' for Shiro --- and becoming that oversized white mecha --- may've meant as Allura's fourth (fifth?) deus ex machina.

I'd be willing to bet that mid-battle, Allura repeated her stunt from the end of S2, heading out to destroy Sendak's crystal by herself. She wouldn't need Sam to hack her brain, and then we'd also have a call back to when she got knocked down by the crystal-ball thing on Naxzela. If she was the one meant to go toe-to-toe with Sendak, that would explain the bizarre neutrality of Sendak's words --- he says nothing personal to Shiro, at all --- and the even more bizarre silence on Shiro's part. Allura's words wouldn't fit Shiro, so he's silent.

And lastly, it'd mean that the one leaping out of Black to cut down Sendak wouldn't have been Keith. It would've been Shiro.

Where would the story go from here?

If I look at the events of S7, the first half is terribly disjointed, really. If Shiro was supposed to wake at the midpoint, an episode (or two) is missing. One for him to reconnect with Black, and a second that would provide some minor conflict to settle him back into position. Those two episodes were likely replaced with the unexpected and frankly over-told two-parter of the Earth flashbacks.

Two problems with that, one technical, one structural.

First, the flashback two-parter has a lot of moving parts. Brand-new designs, characters, and backdrops. It's far too elaborate to be done in an ultra-compressed timeframe, not without several heart attacks and therapy bills on the part of the animation staff. (Plus, the US-based storyboarding team is already downsized, so fewer hands to do the work.)

Second, it doesn't make a lot of structural sense, especially against the big revelations in S6 of an existing Altean colony. Within the story, there's no reason to halt everything and travel across the universe to take however long to build a new castle, when the Altean colony question is far more pressing. Returning to earth also violates the structure, because it's really just a standard milieu: start on earth, head out to have adventures, and return home at the end.

But here, they're returning home and then possibly leaving again. That's just... a rather peculiar and imbalanced way to do it. It doesn't help that doing so means literally telling Romelle her people are just gonna have to rot, the paladins are certain they need the castle more. Why would you take one of the more compelling storylines you've come up with, only to background it again, and wreck the traditional bookending milieu structure at the same time? Especially if that means coming up with major set-pieces and brand-new designs in the space of several months, after a chunk of your core staff are already onto other things.

I think those two flashback episodes -- and the rewritten finale episodes --- may've been cribbed from S8. In other words, the second half of S7 was the original end of S8. That would mean repurposing already-created storyboards and animation artifacts, so there's a huge time savings there (not counting the need to re-record voices and edit the visuals to match the changed-around parts). 

[note: if there’s anywhere you want to frontload introductions for the spin-off, it’d be in the final season, not the penultimate season. Here it feels like a big honking distraction, rather than an organic segue into the next iteration.]

That change necessitated that utterly bizarro mecha that appeared out of nowhere with the most ridiculously impeccable timing. There needed to be a reason to pull the team back out to space to deal with Haggar and/or the alt-Alteans and/or Lotor or whomever else it turns out to be.

So... where we go from here depends on when S8 gets released, because that’ll tell us how much they did (or did not) edit the episodes. Another clue will be whose name gets listed as head editor for an episode; if we see Hedrick’s name reappear at the top, we’ll know we’re dealing with episodes that are enough unrevised to qualify as being Hedrick-edited, that it’s a version B episode. 

My expectation? They’ll move Shiro’s reconnection to the first part of S8, and add an episode or edit pieces of another, to blend it into what would’ve been the first half of S8 (probably with filler to mask the gap). Then add an episode to segue into the version B finale of S7, where we’d end with the original VLD lineup. With the time needed for animation, that’d be the easiest (if potentially awkward) way to repurpose as much as possible of existing artifacts. 

If we don’t get S8 in the next 1-2 months, though, all bets are off, and there’s a much greater possibility that the entire final season is being redone from scratch. I’d expect Keith to stay in Black, in that case, but I’m always willing to be pleasantly surprised.  

edited to add: see this followup for another detail that supports the reversed-seasons theory

[naruhearts]

13x20: “I don’t care what happens to me”-- Dean Worthless Winchester, John Winchester’s Death and Destiel

Oh my god!

I gotta say, 13x20 was an ANGSTY FEELSY amalgamation of meta and foreshadowing for the Big Finale Triad of 21, 22, and 23. It laid down S5 tones, key themes, and narrative direction, hoo boy!!! 

I’m sorry I posted late! Time-of-month sickness was an interruption, yikes.

I’d like to start with the Dean & Sam final scene, then talk about the major culminating implications this Father-centric episode specifically holds for our beloved protagonist Dean Winchester the shackled child — the Man behind the Mask (which S13 has been a gigantic narrative mirror of) — and the Destiel narrative/Cas in relation to Dean’s arc and character disposition *rubs hands together*

Glynn & Co made Dean’s axel-swinging between communication and miscommunication pretty clear to me in the last scene of 13x20, especially regarding the dialogue that people thought was character regression into Brodependency.

After sleeping on it, I didn’t see the same scale of toxic codependency from seasons ago a la ‘there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.’ It wasn’t mutual. I saw it as: 1. more from Sam’s end, and 2. Dean’s willingness to protect his loved ones (Sam and CAS, in bold) combined with letting go and the textual acknowledgement of his low self-worth carrying over from 13x05 (the low self-worth he internalized across 99.6798% of his life course).

Firstly, Dabb’s subverting S5. 

He put independent Dean in S5 independent Sam’s shoes here, and it’s surely not a coincidence that Dean himself referenced their implosive S5 Michael-Lucifer mess: “Where we were last time we had front row seats”. S5 exhibited Dean’s Holding On vs Sam’s Letting Go, with lost Dean crawling to Lisa’s door and yeah, we know how that prickly-edged story went. It’s finally Dean Letting Go vs Sam Holding On. It’s indicative of S13 faithless Grieving!Sam re: Mary/Jack seeking his own emancipation and finding real introspective purpose away from the codependent strings he’s clinging to. We heard Sam’s “If we die, we die together”. Don’t fret, his current arc is constructed to get rid of this kind of thinking and move towards Faith!

Dean’s prepared to cut the codependent strings — already has via 12x22, and then in 13x05 (albeit in a suicidal grief-ridden manner. Speaking of, 13x20 this time shifted focus to Sam’s risk-taking re: Lucifer and the Apocalypse in itself. Unsurprisingly, we already witnessed this narrative train running in reverse -- early S13 Grieving!Dean and Functioning Sam swapped roles post-13x06 and in 13x11. Man, I am pumpin’ my fists).

Atop the bro dualism, Dean’s behaviour in 13x20 concerned me the most, saddened me the most, and intrigued me the most. 

:’( 

I may have yelled said that Dean has emotionally matured, eliminated toxic coping mechanisms, achieved an internal balance between his femininity and non-performative masculinity (acknowledged in 13x04; actively manifested in 13x16 onwards x, x), and gained a sense of non-combative communication and understanding (seen in 13x14), yet his low self-worth constitutes the biggest roadblock to his FULL personal growth.

Okay, I know you’ll exclaim: after Cas returned, Dean wasn’t depressed anymore! 

Well, that’s accurate and relatively inaccurate. Dean’s low self-worth is the central facet of his characteristic development, and it does have a guaranteed correlation with depression. Yes, you can feel worthless without being clinically depressed, but worthlessness is maladaptive and contributes to feeling depressed --> Dean’s depression. 

Dean’s case is a heartbreaking one. He’s been depressed for YEARS. He never really cared about what happened to him for YEARS = our Dean meta textualized in gloomy letters!!

Yes, the single individual -- the canon WIN -- that placed him back on the rails was Cas, his Everything, resurrecting from the dead. Cas’ return drastically mitigated Dean’s severe nihilistic depression (aka his rock bottom nihilistic grief when he lost Cas) BUT it didn’t necessarily fix his pre-existing depression.

S13 depicts Dean -- despite Cas’ bright presence -- as traveling the rails empty. There’s not enough coal to fuel his engine because he LACKS the mental faculties to appropriately cope re: trauma and give up his control. This is why he seems to oscillate between character progression and regression, and he still isn’t 100% HONEST and OPEN about his feelings. He’s keepin’ it in. There’s no healthy psychological unload taking place.

Case in point? Dean’s regressed to drinking the hard booze again; Cas FILLS the negative spaces (as he’s been doing throughout S13). Dean is not disclosing the whole truth -- not saying what he’s genuinely feeling (to CAS. I discuss it x, x, x). 

Plus, Dean’s internal worries re: Death, the next apocalyptic war, Cas’ Heavenly plans, and his respective destiny/fate (Death’s “See you soon”) just exacerbate the personal instability he’s experiencing.

And then we observe Dean’s parental duty rearing its head:

To me this is what reiterated the Brodependency being dismantled in late S12/S13 (12x22 and 13x12/15 in particular). Don’t get me wrong – Dean’s mostly let go. He was willing to leave Sam behind in 13x05 after losing the one person who textually means Everything to him. 

Dean’s psyche is at a point right now where he AIN’T okay with Sam’s risk-taking. He questions his little brother’s half-baked plans and sympathizes with the close-to-here manic desperation (again, mirroring S5 and S13 Grieving!Dean), except Dean’s low self-worth puts him in the dark position: I’m doing it, all of it, for YOU (Sam and Cas) since I don’t value myself enough to do it for ME. He further says--

He obviously does, but us, the audience, know--in dramatic irony fashion--that this is NOT Dean’s entire truth.

He values his brother more than himself, and he values CAS more than himself. He cares about what happens to CAS. Nothing Else Matters. And we’re aware that Cas canonically occupies the highest pedestal in Dean’s life, which TPTB absolutely highlighted during Dean’s grieving arc, Cas’ return, and 13x16 onwards. 

(In this scene, Dean continues to tell Sam what he’s NOT telling Cas. USE THE RIGHT WORDS.)

 Cas is the love of Dean’s life, his Everything, and his Win. I mentioned before that losing Cas a second time would destroy him.

(**Dating 101: Dean therefore cannot establish a truly healthy, mutually interdependent relationship with Cas if he has low self-worth. He’s trying, but his personal losses -- more LOSSES than wins this season i.e. AU!Charlie/Mary/Jack in AU, non-confronted traumas i.e. Cas’ death, and insecurities cripple his ability to give Cas ALL of himself, out in the open!)

Although Dean HAS FAITH (Cas), the decisions he’ll formulate to protect/save Sam, Mary, Jack, and especially Cas aren’t exactly derived from mental stability. Keeping them safe is too paramount to Dean that the choices he’ll encounter could be questionable/dangerous, putting him in the line of (sacrificial) fire. 

Sound familiar? It’s deliberately supposed to sound familiar!

Jack, TFW’s Unity/Balance symbol and characteristic mirror, even stated that ‘if he can’t keep others safe, what’s the use’?

Dean will make the penultimate save-the-world (read: save my family) decision ALONE regardless of Sam’s regressive wish to die together. And I wrote that his arc is now DIRECTLY paralleling S11 Casifer & Depressed!Cas’ S11/12 arc, especially (mis)communicative 12x19 --> 12x23 ‘I Have Faith’ Cas. There’s prevalent narrative symmetry in Dean’s arc (intrinsically linked to Cas’ arc).

“You, me, and Sam...we’re just better together” indeed, and this year’s season-ender should unite TFW like last season--unite Dean and Cas--in order to change their fates/defeat Death, but Dean’s decision will be an isolated one --> one that was foreshadowed as he faced expositional Daddy Issues™ Loki by himself. And Dean may not tell Cas, just like Cas hadn’t told Dean in 12x23 about his sacrificial act.

These vastly important storytelling threads ultimately conjoin with “I don’t care what happens to me. I never really have” as the PINNACLE of Dean’s 13-year long characterization; the progressive climax sparking his death/decay so that he can be reborn and revitalized aka THIS IS IT!! Dean’s impending death and self-sacrifice for his loved ones (CAS) = the ultimate catharsis in that S13′s narrative has finally approached the IRL scenario of 13x16 ghost kid (DEAN)’s release from father figure Bad Man -- from the negative influence of all the other literal (Loki, Odin, Lucifer, James Turner) and metaphorical (Asmodeus, Buddy, Michael) fatherly mirrors permeating this season. He’ll LET GO of everything that incarcerated him since he was 4 years old: his Blunt Tool role, control, manipulation, parental abuse and absenteeism, parental duty, the heteronormative patriarchy, and the long-standing trauma slapped on him by Alastair, Amara, and Cain.

He’ll burn the remaining pocket knife of all pocket knives tethering him to his past -- John Winchester x, x He’ll self-transform.

And Dean’s S13 death would fulfill the sacrificial Act of True Love (with Cas holding heavy weight in Dean’s decision for LOVE)--

--and S14 Winning Him Back in the subverted flavour of S10. Romance tropes abound!!

 @thetwistedwillow and @sactownbrowns3 both ignited my stomach-churning feels. This is an extremely pivotal visual. The Michael-reminiscent sword and radiant halo-like lights atop Dean’s head? Yeah, set off HUGE Michael!Dean radars. Complete moral dualism with S10 Demon!Dean--selflessness vs selfishness. Free choice (saying yes to possession) vs stolen choice (demon transformation against his will).

Secondly, as aforementioned, Dean’s harbouring a LOT of traumas he hasn’t mentally confronted, with Daddy Issues™ re: John Winchester (reflected via Dean’s solo faceoff with Loki) as his overarching undealt source of trauma.

Loki tells Dean: “The truth is, [Odin] despised me, but he was my father. I’m sure you understand. What would you do for your father?” 

And Dean stabs Loki’s hologram. He stabs the metaphorical father figure who neglected his sons. He stabs another narrative embodiment of John’s ghost, foreshadowing that Dean’s death = John Winchester’s final death. It’s time to deconstruct and conquer his influence.

(Gabriel was an extended mirror of both Dean and Sam, too. Gabe, the little brother whom deadbeat Daddy Chuck never paid attention to. ‘Ah, big bros, right? Always think they know best’ Gabe, who stabbed and killed deadbeat Loki. Gabe, who subsequently ran away from home, was used and tortured beneath Asmodeus’ control, embarked on a revenge trip, and didn’t feel good about it. Dean and Sam themselves knew what it felt like to be manipulated. While it’s true that their traumatic experiences are subjective, they share common Deadbeat Father-adjacent life courses.)

What beautiful and consistent silent storytelling!!

And oh look, narratively associated to this ^^ is the reappearance of Dean’s John-linked BAG OF EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE--

I can’t can’t can’t wait for him to let go of it PERMANENTLY! 

And of course, Cas’ death remains his immediate significant source of undealt trauma (same links above:  x, x, x)

*looks at Dean’s serious, intense, and emotionally laden expression* *clutches chest tight* *blinks away tears*

I additionally wrote something about Endverse!Cas and D/C (mis)communication a few months ago which I feel is relevant again:

And we know HUMAN Endverse!Cas was representative of that, a sad, depressed, and hollow depiction of the wrong choices for the right reasons who festers (AND DIES), in part because of Dean’s wrong choices, and also because of his own consciously uninformed, narrow-minded choices that led to this literal apocalypse of mind, body and soul.

5x04 laid down what Cas (and Dean) shouldn’t become. If both Cas and Dean (TFW) continue to fail in learning their lessons regarding healthy interdependence (where control must become equality; ignorance must become understanding; intransigence must become compromise; stonewalling must become transparency; lying must become honesty; silence must become communication), Endverse will be their life.

Thankfully, they’re learning as of S13 onwards and I’m ECSTATIC. Slow but sure progress (13x15′s conveying the shift), yet they still have to use the RIGHT WORDS.

Endverse!Dean, who never gave up his control to Cas nor listened to him, was himself consumed by the NEED over the WANT and an authoritarian means to an end. He lost everyone. And Endverse posed an ultimatum for Dean (and Cas’ own characteristic progress): keep your control forever, and you’ll have one destination–no growth, no life, no freedom. 

Full circle!

Dean Winchester must die so he can live.

And what are Dean’s WINS (plural) by dying? Saving people instead of losing people--saving Mary, Jack, Sam, and Cas. Saving the world. Reuniting his family unit. Interacting instead of performing. OUTING INSTEAD OF HIDING. HIGH DEPRESSIONLESS SELF-WORTH INSTEAD OF LOW DEPRESSIVE SELF-WORTH.

Better yet, Dean will undergo character development in relation to his loved ones (and Cas). With high self-worth, Dean’s capable of learning how to value HIMSELF independently. In turn, without personal obstacles he’ll learn how to sustain HEALTHY interdependent relationships and COMMUNICATION as well as learn how to WHOLLY GIVE HIMSELF to others (Cas).

Tell Cas he’s not expendable, Dean. Disclose the real reason YOU “needed him back”. Expose your feelings, choose Want over Need, and push away your rejection fears! Cas loves you dearly—let him know that his love for you is reciprocated. Nothing but good things ahead!!

Gosh, this post is way longer than I expected—thank youu for sticking to it! Circumstances shall get worse before they get better, and it’s totally necessary to ensure our characters meet the final demise of their prisons.

BTW, I still can’t believe we got a borderline blatant onscreen bi!Dean (and Cas insert) treat!! What’s by is by! Overall I’m incessantly praising Dabb’s spectacular work so far + Glynn and Rich Speight Jr’s craft in this ep!!

Very little sub is left in the text, my friends. TPTB are rendering years’ worth of meta increasingly explicit in S13. I can only HOPE and expect that 13x23/S14 brings us past the Point of Know Return subtextual boundaries and into full-blown textual narrative! Authorial intent EXISTS. 

**I know, I know--S14 wasn’t confirmed as the last season and S15 is fair game. The plot accordion, as per usual, re-emerges with the slight overhaul/pullback of characteristic arcs and narrative plot due to season renewals, but I’m Endgame Positive that slow progress is SURE progress. Imho Dean and Cas are so close in saying everything from saying nothing. THE UNSAID WILL BE SAID.

Bracing myself for the last 3 episodes—they’ll burn us in awesome ways!! 

[inkyfingerstoo]

aos rewatch

2x07 - Writing on the Wall Thanks for the tag @catchylove​

Summary: This is the ep. where Coulson’s carving has reached its pinnacle and there’s a killer carving the symbols into bodies. Ward goes full suicide bomber, Hunter wears a cowboy hat, Fitz wears an awful cardigan, Jemma is brillaint in general, Mack is dramatic. Bakshi is given to SHIELD as a present, Coulson pops into the memory machine and is a dick all episode; he chases down the crazy carver, some rough housing ensues, eureka! The silly symbols are just a 3D blueprint of a city, Team SHIELD gotta find it before Hydra. Ward shaves. The End.

-”I do some carving every now and then.” ugh -I don’t like it when the show opens with red-shirts -I do like that the opening for AOS is super brief -Mucho father/daughter vibes in this opening Coulson/Daisy scene -(in re. To Trip talking on comms) Do you ever feel like you’d for sure notice someone in public who was talking to themselves and just kind of shuffling back and forth, touching their ear every now and again? -”...Janice Robbins, lives uh, lived in upstate NY.” I’m from upstate NY! Cool! -9 minutes in, still no FitzSimmons -9 minutes 40 seconds Fitz sighting! -9 minutes 50 seconds Jemma’s voice! And guess who turns their head the instant he hears it? -I like that Jemma is a bit snide with Mack, since he was a mega-dick and made judgments without the full context (I really want more Jemma&Mack in S5, biggest big with the smallest smol) -Doctor Doctor Jemma Simmons is so badass when in doctor doctor mode -”Does she have any family?” (Jemma Simmons) I think the thing that bothers me most about some characterization/interviews re. Jemma is both the actors and writers seem to want to paint Jemma as some cold, all business, no emotion, no affection kind of woman. When in fact she’s full of empathy and kindness and consideration. -Omg, the sheer amount of cliche lines in the bus station sequence are PAINFUL. Writers, do better. -Jemma Simmons sciencing and geniusing is my favorite -”It took me and Fitz 6 weeks to figure out how to operate this…” (the memory machine) (Fitz and I - Jemma would never speak with such horrible grammar) And pour one out for a call back to FitzSimmons Fitzsimmonsing even though we never got to see it. -Ps. Fitz in the background of the scene just basically follows Jemma with his eyes as she prepares the machine -Jemma’s uncomfortable expression when Coulson snaps at Daisy is me -”What kind of creature-feature I sign up for?” Mack you’re so damn melodramatic, chill bro. -blah blah blah Coulson storyline blah -Boston, MA That’s where I live! And that is not what a pub in Boston looks like….also there are no palm trees in Boston. -Bakshi!!!! Aww he’s such a twat haha. Evil plotting ensues blah blah. -This is making me uncomfortable, watching Clark Gregg, writhe and sweat like this. -”Lock him and keep him under observation until I get back.” May, you’re awesome -Forever mad we got no reaction from Fitz about Coulson shoving Jemma back so hard she slams into the shelf and appears to lose her breath for a moment. And that Coulson apologizes to Daisy, not Jemma. Coulson sucks this episode. -”The dark side of SHIELD” what? -I like scenes where characters do something totally normal and mundane (aka Mack and Fitz playing video games, drinking beers). “Besides brains never delete files, they just lose connections, but there’s always a back-up, just a matter of digging and finding them.” -Hunter, I love you and miss you. -Phil Coulson, worst agent ever (ok, ok, he’s severely impeded right now with the carvin’ crazies) -Bakshi, all wrapped up for Coulson - more fic fodder -”Pain made me remember.” Interesting quote -blah blah Coulson scenes blah -Getting to the inhuman reveal was torturously long -Fitz, sweetie, that cardigan is just….awful -Good song (Bill Withers “Who is He (And What is He to you)) Bad Ward -”Alright Mr. Bakshi, hope you weren’t into selfies, or this could be embarrassing for both of us.” He’d totally have nudes, the creep. -”Hail Hydra.” - that was hilarious -Ward, you’re a psychotic turd.

FitzSimmons collectively had around 8 minutes on screen. Unacceptable.

Tagging: @lapiccolina​ @agent-85​ @jupiterbysaturn​

[bigskydreaming]

@nyxelestia

So we had this very same argument more than a year ago, and it looks like neither of our viewpoints has changed so I’m not sure what good this will do, but you have a lot of influence in the TW fandom yourself, esp in corners I won’t go into, so I’m gonna try.

Please, for the love of god, stop mitigating abuse with abuse apologism arguments in defense of characters. That is what you are doing, and I will not let you pretend otherwise because you are putting textbook abuse apologism on paper, time and time again, while calling out abuse in other aspects of canon. And this dichotomy means all those who believe you and accept your POV when you point out abuse in one instance are equally inclined to believe you when you point to where Derek Hale abused various characters and say ‘not abuse, because he was a victim himself, he had good intentions, and other characters did way worse.’

All of those last three things are true. None of them actually alter his actions. None of them are mutually exclusive with abuse.

You can not look at abuse through the POV of the abuser. You can not do it. You have to look at it through the lens of the person being abused, because they are the one that needs defending, they are the one the harm was done to.

So when Derek beat the crap out of Scott in the ice rink in Season 2, does the fact that Derek was abused himself magically change the harm done to Scott? You could write essays about how Derek’s life experiences led to him making the choices that told him it was a good idea to beat up Scott in front of his newly minted pack, and a lot of what you have to write might be true and valid. But will any of that, in terms of Scott, change the reality of what Derek did there and how it would contribute to shaping his own life experiences and perception of reality? NOPE.

If I abuse a teenager, as a grown adult, I don’t get to point to my own childhood abuse and say ‘okay but its not that bad because look what happened to meeeeeeeeeeeeee.’ Yeah that shit may be terrible, but so is abusing a teenager. The one does not give you a pass for the other. The one may inform the other, but it doesn’t give you freedom to keep perpetuating the cycle and constantly passing the buck down the line. It might all be true, but explanation DOES NOT EQUAL EXCUSE.

You can point to Derek’s training with Scott, and with Isaac and with Erica and Boyd and say ‘well he had good intentions. He was trying to toughen them up, teach them to survive, and he was doing it the best way he knew how.’ Again, all of that may be true. Its all still irrelevant to the simple question of: did he use his position of greater power, knowledge and experience to harm them, while telling them it was for their own good?

The only thing that matters in determining if it was abuse is if the answer to that question is yes or no.

Every time Scott reacted to Derek’s hurting him during training in S1 with shock, anger and pain - its because he didn’t know Derek was going to do that. Asking someone more experienced than you for help isn’t giving them permission carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want to. Breaking Isaac’s arm to make a point is still breaking Isaac’s arm, no matter what the point is. 

And it doesn’t matter that Derek thought he was doing it to make them stronger, better able to survive. It doesn’t even matter that the beta trio wouldn’t have even needed that ‘training’ if Derek hadn’t recruited them to begin with. It doesn’t even matter that every season post S3 showed us DEREK realizing his own earlier methods had been fucked up and even saying as much to the Alpha twins and to Liam when training and advising them.

All that matters is Scott, Erica, Isaac and Boyd looked to Derek for advice and guidance and help, and Derek delivered that to them in the form of pain and said that’s the best you’re going to get, learn to deal with it, this is your life now.

I can’t even tell you how horrifying this particular line of thought is to me given how much those exact words or a near paraphrasing of them shows up in the trial arguments of every father caught abusing his son and saying ‘it was for his own good, brat needed to be tougher, its a cruel world I’m preparing him for.’

When Derek was ‘merely’ an accessory to what Peter did to Scott in the locker room, when Derek used what he knew (or at least strongly suspected) to be a lie about a werewolf cure to manipulate Scott into helping him, when Derek scared the shit out of Scott in the parking garage and broke his phone - you can point to all of that and say, okay but every other character has done way worse.

And? Your point is?

It is never okay to distract from or explain away harm or culpability in causing harm by pointing wildly around the room and saying ‘well everyone else does it too.’

Again. Might be true. Does not change the fact that harm was still done.

Despite what I just said there, I’m going to indulge that ‘everyone on this show does just as bad’ argument for a second. Let’s bring it back around to Scott. Aka the one character I stan for more than any other.

Let’s bring it back to that scene anti-Scott people love to bring up any time Stiles or Derek or someone else is criticized for hurting other characters.

The scene I hate more than any other, where Scott throws Isaac into the wall of his house in response to learning Isaac wants to date his ex girlfriend. When an alpha reacts violently to his abuse survivor beta saying something he doesn’t want to hear.

I loathe that scene so much, because I full on do not believe that is something Scott would do, I do not believe it made sense for his character, I do not believe it fits any characterization he’s received prior or since, to have him portrayed, even for an instant as ‘an alpha reacting violently to his abuse survivor beta simply saying something he does not want to hear.’

But no matter how much I hate it, or how much I don’t think that fit Scott, you will never ever catch me saying that ‘an abuse survivor beta being thrown into a wall for saying something his alpha doesn’t want to hear’ isn’t a description of an abusive scene, that it isn’t gross and awful and should not be excused.

The reason I can still comfortably stan for Scott and refuse to see him as abusive all while still calling out the actions of characters like Stiles and Derek as abusive is I recognize that the actions of any character on this show must be evaluated on two levels. Through the lens of that character’s characterization, and through the lens of how the writers are choosing to write that character in any given moment. These are fictional characters, yes. Which means they can only say and do what the writers write for them in any particular scene, unlike in real life, where a person throwing another into a wall is solely that person’s responsibility.

But by differentiating my focus, I can do both, I can hold the scene up as something awful and something that I do not need to defend Scott for and WILL NOT, while at the same time putting the blame on the show for being so tone deaf as to write that happening while lighthearted music plays to convince us there’s nothing wrong with this, its just boys being boys.

The reason I do not blame the writing instead of Stiles or Derek when calling them abusive, is because the instances I’m basing their abuse on are frequent, showing up in multiple episodes, in recurring patterns, written by multiple writers. When Stiles lashes out violently at Scott because he holds him personally responsible for what happened to his dad in 5B, that’s not an aberration or a mischaracterization to me, because it pulls straight from the Stiles archives, it is all behavior he has demonstrated before without accountability, without remorse. When Derek trains the beta trio with shock and pain in S2 while saying its for their own good, that’s not an aberration or a mischaracterization because its consistent with what Derek has done and said and believed before, while not having yet been something he’s shown remorse or alternate ways of thinking on yet. 

All of that is different from a one-time occasion where Scott behaves in a way that I do not believe fits with his prior or later characterization.

(And yes, Scott has done other harmful things to people, like using his claws on Corey in S5, but literally nobody has ever pretended this wasn’t as harmful or as dangerous as it was. Scott is called out in canon for it. Lydia gives him shit for it. Corey avoids him and mistrusts him because of it. Nobody is saying ‘oh other characters have done worse, when in fact, they actually have, considering Corey’s interactions with Theo and the Dread Doctors. But even the show regards that as irrelevant to the fact that Scott fucked up with Corey and everyone knows it, and thus its tangential to what I’m describing here.)

And let me be perfectly clear. This is not me saying that there is ANY validity to the argument that ‘if it only happens once, its not abuse’. If it happens once in real life, you should still run the hell away, lest it turn out to be a precursor to more. Because the person who hit you ‘just that one time’ is still going to be the same person tomorrow, whereas in fiction, the character who did it ‘just that one time’ is not necessarily going to be the exact same person when penned by a different writer in the next episode. When it happens in fiction, you’re justified in evaluating if it happened because that’s who the character is, or if its because that’s who the person writing him at the moment feels the character is in this moment.

So if you want to defend Derek’s actions via the angle that he is a fictional character written by humans with their own flaws and biases and blindspots, if you want to use that argument to claim that you don’t think he would have acted a certain way here, or that you don’t think it fits with everything else we know about him to have him behaving a certain way there? That’s one thing. But only if you do it while still acknowledging that what he DID do, on screen, was still abusive, and should be described as such.

If you want to defend a character who has committed harm against another, because yes, that describes just about every character on the show - find a way to do it that doesn’t mitigate the harm they actually caused, or unilaterally absolve them of it.

When I say I don’t view Scott as abusive because of that Isaac scene, and because I recognize the writers’ complicity in it, that is not me saying ‘well that’s not really abusive because Scott’s obviously a victim himself.’

You will NEVER catch me saying crap like that, because underneath those actual words is the implicit subtext:

‘Well its different when the person hurting Isaac has also been abused. Its not as bad. I’m okay with characters hurting Isaac as long as they’re characters I like more, and I can point to their own abuse as a factor.’

You will NEVER catch me saying ‘well Scott has done all kinds of good things for Isaac, he loves and protects him, he lets him stay in his house, this was only one time’ - (FROM AN IN STORY PERSPECTIVE).

Because underneath those words is the implicit subtext:

‘Well everyone fucks up and as long as someone loves and supports someone MOST of the time, when someone like that harms Isaac, its not as bad as if it were say, Jackson or one of the twins. I’m okay with characters hurting Isaac as long as those characters make it up to him at other times and Isaac KNOWS that this character didn’t really mean it and really loves him.’

And you will NEVER catch me saying ‘well every other character on the show has done just as bad, and its far from the worst thing that’s ever happened to Isaac’....

because underneath those words is the implicit subtext:

‘As long as whatever happens to Isaac isn’t as bad as the thing that happened to him before this or after this, its not that bad, he can take it, he’s been through worse. And as long as what a character does to Isaac isn’t as bad as what another character did, well, its not really abuse, its not like it was Derek throwing a glass at his head or Allison stabbing him with Chinese ring daggers or whatever, so why are we even talking about this instead of that, we should only ever focus on the WORST things to happen to a character, anything less than that doesn’t matter.’

How we view shows, how we react in fandom, is not divorced from reality and how we behave in the outside world. Its not okay to talk about things like abuse as though they’re academic and abstract and the way we view a character abusing another in fiction has nothing to do with the way we view a person abusing another in real life. 

Because even with the awareness that shows operate on two levels, the actions of the characters and the writing behind those characters - when fandom’s priority when viewing a character they like abusing another character they like is to say ‘well its not that bad, other people do way worse, they really love that character and didn’t mean that’.....when they prioritize finding IN STORY excuses for the abuser’s behavior, even when they could just as readily direct their concerns at the writing instead....

How many of those same fans do you think, if confronted with an abuse victim in real life, making allegations against someone that fan likes or trusts - 

How many of those same fans do you think will fall back on finding loopholes or ways to mitigate the harm or justify the actions of that person they like and trust and don’t want to believe could really be abusive?

And why do so many people feel comfortable insisting this has nothing to do with the fact that their time in fandom encouraged this behavior by teaching them it was okay and in fact normal and expected to only view abuse through the lens of the abuser, rather than that of their victim, ESPECIALLY if its the abuser they’re more predisposed to liking or have more of a prior connection or attachment to?