#The Schema

[regret-breathing]

@codsfish @bulldog-butch @perditionanddiatribes

ive been asked to define The Schema.

so im watching supernatural for the first time this year, havent gotten very far so i’ll assume this only applies to what ive seen (seasons 1-5), but after about ten or so episodes i started noticing a pattern with the women in the show, specifically with how they’re positioned based on hair color. Now, according to eric kripke only 3 hair colors exist for women. Blonde, black, and dyed red. i think there is One brunette woman in the show but i dont remember her name, just that i was shocked by seeing her.

for some reason, the show insists on dividing hair colors along surprisingly hard and fast lines, every woman in the show (except one) falling along the following three archetypes:

Blonde — The Ideal Woman. Angels sent from heaven to be perfect and beautiful and take care of men. Blonde women can do no wrong and have no flaws, and should they die it is TRAGIC. How could the lord bear to take one of these perfect beautiful angels away from us,,, they deserved a long life and many children and a nice man to be fucked by and not a scrap of agency. if by some horrifying fluke of fate or temptation, one of them DOES do something wrong, feel free to fuck and/or murder them at your discretion. notable examples; mary, jo, ellen, 90% of Nice Woman Supporting Characters, etc.

Dyed Red — NO NATURAL RED HAIR EXISTS. These women are Dangerous. Maybe theyre a wildcard you can never fully trust, maybe they’ll help you, but only to their own ends, maybe you love them and they betray you. Whatever it is, no matter how cool and sexy they are, WATCH OUT. these women are CAPABLE OF HARM. but oh my gosh theyre so cool,,,, 😮‍💨 notable examples; Ana, that one policeman in the episode with the hunters what kill people, etc.

Black Hair (usually dyed) — either EVIL or DEAD. the dregs of society. Mean women. Women of no virtue. When they die itll be their own fault for sinking to sin and corruption, and yknow what maybe society is better off with these horrible EVIL temptresses dead. bottom line, these women cant be trusted for anything other than sex and betrayal and having really pretty eyes usually for some reason. notable examples; that werewolf who died after sam had sex with her, ruby 2, meg 3(?), every woman sam has had sex with post-jessica, ALMOST EVERY DEAD GIRL, ALMOST EVERY EVIL WOMAN, etc.

now i know youre asking; what about meg! what about lilith 1 and2! what about ruby 1!! they’re all blonde and evil!! but consider them for a moment—

meg 1 has dyed blonde hair, but every time she appears before she dies she has *dark black roots* that are highly visible:

this is a subtle bit of foreshadowing imo, proving she’s capable of evil AND that shes trying to scam mr padalecki. watch out!!!!

now lilith might be seen as a proper breakage from form, seeing as every time she appears she has blonde hair. but crucially, the first time she appears, when she’s possessing that little child, we’re supposed to primarily feel bad for the child, specifically when lilith leaves the childs body and the kid warns the boys. the real stick in the spokes is lilith 2, who looks like this:

personally i dont see this as a break from the schema but i think it’s up to interpretation. i think lilith 2 counts because while her death isnt tragic and she certainly doesnt possess the fine patriarchal virtues of most blond women in the show, her death IS a thing we should feel bad about, seeing as its what kicjstarts the apocalypse and frees satan. that and she’s sort of supposed to be a wolf in sheeps clothing type of deal almost like meg. she appears in a white dress, rail thin, with an almost too perfect face, primarily as a smokescreen. to futz with the characters and the viewers perceptions. again, up to you if you think shes a break, but i dont personally.

now ruby 1, lets call her laurel lance ruby, shes a fun one:

(image of both rubys because im gonna bring up ruby 2 in this too)

laurel lance ruby is of course another dyed blonde because this isnt the actress’s real hair color but thats not what im gonna bring up. ruby’s a fun case because shes not just scamming the characters, shes scamming the viewer as well. so, the crucial thing for me is how the audience is supposed to feel about her. sure shes a little sketchy, sure shes a little dangerous, maybe shes a red hair candidate, but we the audience are SUPPOSED to empathize with her, to feel her frustration when the hunters dont trust her, her annoyance when her plans go off the rails. we’re supposed to be rooting for her, and more importantly, we’re supposed to be upset when shes overtaken by lilith in the confrontation. we’re supposed to be sad when shes lost, or at least sent back to hell briefly. that to me counts as a death, and imo counts as a tragic one. now ruby 2 is more obvious, ruby in her True Form narratively speaking. shes gone full scammer mode shes mask off we’re supposed to be suspicious of her, shes no longer scamming both us AND the boys, but primarily just the boys, so we are meant to be offput by her. personally i found myself shocked when ruby, a sympathetic character, broke my schema by appearing with black hair and from my perspective making all the right calls in the war on satan, but then WHAM her scheme is revealed and the schema corrects itself when she turns out to be a betrayer AND then dies in a way where we’re supposed to cheer. i miss ruby she was a fun character :(

so all this to say, there are a number of characters that *bend* the schema. but the one that so far in my watch has broken the schema fully is LISA.

i have only seen as far as the season five finale so, no spoilers pls, but if she dies my schema will at least be corrected from Broken back to only Bent. but as it stands she shows NONE of the signs of a typical Black Haired Woman within the schema. she’s a lovable character, we’re meant to root for her, she shows little to no signs of typical Black Haired Woman traits like infidelity or other signs of major sin or corruption. there’s some light implied promiscuity, but never on screen and only many many years before the show began, by the end of season five she has done no wrong by the shows typical definition! she shows no sign of imminent betrayal, she makes no move to harm the boys, she has all the qualities of Blonde Hair within the schema, right down to being boiled down to a bioessentialist “mommy you can fuck” stereotype! she should by all rights have blonde hair!!! so at my point on the timeline i have to assume that EITHER;

1) her death is imminent. beware the doom that follows her lest ye be caught up in it. beware, dean winchester.

or 2) FROM THIS POINT FORWARD THE SCHEMA IS MEANINGLESS.

i logically should have very little issue with lisa, but hoooooo i am PEEVED that shes breaking my schema. when she appeared the first time i was SURE shed die by the end of the episode and when she didnt i was THRILLED!!!! finally a beautiful black haired woman was FREE. a win for the recovering goths everywhere. but now? with her breaking my schema at every turn???? HOO i am peeved. vexed even. hough i am peeved.

so yeah. thats the Schema from seasons one through five. forgive some of the more sexist lingo, when working within my enemy’s text i must resort to using their lexicon.

sometimes i forget just how much supernatural hates women and then i rewatch and im like oh right supernatural fucking loathes women

[mars-gallavanger]

[genderkoolaid]

do you have any thoughts on why there's such a huge disparity in the number of trans feminine headcanons for canon guys, as opposed to the trans masculine headcanons for canon girls?

i'm not trying to start anything, just kinda looking for a opinion from someone who's usually got pretty good insight and takes on stuff like this.

My thoughts rn are that its a combo of

There seem to be more femboy characters that are extremely feminine out there than there are butch women characters that are extremely masculine (or even really that butch...)

Femininity is seen as more interesting in the "oooh shiny!" sense than masculinity. Turning a man into a beautiful woman has a sense of allure because the end product is Pretty Thing, while turning a woman into a man, even a handsome man, is in the eyes of misogyny just ruining the Pretty Thing

In leftist spaces, turning a male character into a woman tends to create less conflict than the reverse? This isn't black and white obviously, there's been whole discourses about transfems "stealing rep" from feminine cis men. But from a cisfeminist perspective, making a male character transfem means you take an otherwise privileged character and use them to create rep for women, specifically marginalized women. The reverse, however, means taking female representation and making them male, which creates a lot of complex questions around marginalization and how transmascs fit into the schema. And generally when transmascs make people have complicated confusing feelings they don't react well.

Transmasculine erasure means that people just straight up do not think about transmasculinity and that covers a range of sins.

But that's what I've thought could be behind the disparity. I think its probably largely subconscious too, and there could be a whole ton of other things influencing that data so don't take this too seriously.

[389]

Silent ‘Grand Schema’ Monks of the Russian Orthodox Church, Balaam Monastery, Russisan Karelia 1888

[bartskull]

always thinking about this

[vintage-russia]

Valaam,Russia (1889)

[prazske-metro]

[artbyblastweave]

My increasingly preferred interpretation of the SCP Foundation is the version invoked by SCP-173- the fluorescent-lit bureaucracy housing or monitoring a few hundred distinctly impossible objects, entities or locations; contained and corralled less out of some sweeping ideological mandate about the veil of secrecy and more for the practical reason that they have no goddamn idea what these things can do or how they'll react to any given stimuli. Largely (though not totally) divorced from extant folklore and conspiracy culture in favor of a unique pantheon of weirdos that don't fit an obvious schema. Terse, clinical documentation that nonetheless clearly implies a discovery process only a little to the left of a bunch of nervous nerds poking at something with a long stick to see what happens. Don't get me wrong, I love the modern foundation. I love Eigenweapons, I love Akiva Radiation and tactical theology, I love the sprawling supernatural subcultures and the nine different equally-extant eschatologies that are slugging it out. But after a certain number of articles predicated on entire secret fields of academia or postmodern articles about "what even is an anomaly, man," you become increasingly aware of the ways in which you're looking at least three really cool settings that don't necessarily play nice with each other thematically. There Is No Canon yadda yadda

[atissi]

had to watch the new Folding Ideas video twice, read all of the comments, watched Lady Emily's video, watch an AVGN video for the first time (sorry i'm gen z), failed to get through Wavelength (1967), read a bunch about Wavelength (1967), and read through a bunch of Twitter comments, but i think i'm finally understanding the artistry in "i don't know james rolfe"

narratively it's dan olson revealing the rorschach test of media analysis, i.e. there was no way for him to critically analyze james rolfe's career without revealing all of his own obsessions and insecurities, just as james rolfe reveals himself through his film and video game reviews. this concept is lampshaded by the highlighting of Wavelength (1967), an extremely minimal and obtuse film that engages with the idea of inattention — meaning that bored or negative responses to the work are still responses to the theme. which is cool.

and it's cool that criticisms of dan olson's video include people upset that he hyper-focused on specific elements of james rolfe's life and not other, arguably more important elements, such as the Monster Madness controversy or james's time in special ed — almost as though the character of dan olson is cherrypicking aspects of james rolfe's life that are the most personally wounding to him. aspects that expose dan's insecurities relating to filmmaking and failed dreams, expressed through the vessel of AVGN.

but meta narratively, the video becomes a rorschach test for the audience — your response to the video reveals your own obsessions and insecurities in how you relate to dan olson. why does someone find the video mean-spirited? why does someone else think the video is self-serving? why do I feel so awkward watching dan attempt a deeper, more abstract creative work?

where does dan olson end and the character of dan olson as a media critic begin? where do you as an audience member end, and YOU begin?

it's projection all the way down

[cf-12]

[turboemmy]

s ᴄ ʜ ᴇ ᴍ ᴀ

[dandylovesturtles]

future Mikey: *trying to contact the spirits of the Hamato for advice and guidance in the apocalypse*

Donnie's spirit: Hello, you are now communing with Donatello.

[orthodoxadventure]

The Greek letters that appear on the analavos are abbreviations of phrases that extol the Cross as “the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18).

From top to bottom:

• ΟΒΤΔ – Ό Βασιλεύς της Δόξης – “The King of Glory”

• ΙC XC NIKΑ – Ιησούς Χριστός νικά – ”Jesus Christ conquers”

• ΤΤΔΦ – Τετιμημένον τρόπαιον δαιμόνων φρίκη – “Honored trophy, the dread of demons”

• ΡΡΔΡ – Ρητορικοτέρα ρητόρων δακρύων ροή – “A flow of tears more eloquent than orators” (or, more likely: Ρητορικοτέρα ρημάτων δακρύων ροή)

• ΧΧΧΧ – Χριστός Χριστιανοίς Χαρίζει Χάριν – “Christ bestoweth Grace upon Christians”

• ΞΓΘΗ – Ξύλου γεύσις θάνατον ηγαγεν – “The tasting of the tree brought about death”

• CΞΖΕ – Σταυρού Ξύλω ζωήν εύρομεν – “Through the Tree of the Cross have we found life”

• ΕΕΕΕ – Ελένης εύρημα εύρηκεν Εδέμ – “The discovery of Helen hath uncovered Eden”

• ΦΧΦΠ – Φως Χριστού φαίνοι πάσι – “The light of Christ shines upon all”

• ΘΘΘΘ – Θεού Θέα Θείον Θαύμα – “The vision of God, a Divine wonder”

• ΤCΔΦ – Τύπον Σταυρού δαίμονες φρίττουσιν – “Demons dread the sign of the Cross”

• ΑΔΑΜ – Αδάμ – “Adam”

• ΤΚΠΓ – Τόπος Κρανίου Παράδεισος γέγονε – “The Place of the Skull hath become Paradise”

• ΞΖ – Ξύλον Ζωής – “Tree of life”

[ms-scarletwings]

Endearing through the Alien Lens: A Clue About the Primitive Irken?

I love literary xenobiology. I love it a whole lot, in fact. There’s a paradoxical line I dance across, between criticizing intelligent fictional aliens for their likeness to our species, and criticizing them for their unlikeness. It’s a pretentious and laughable dance between “Come on, the sky’s the limit, there’s no real reason for a bucket of different extraterrestrial races to just all be more flavors of quirky humanoids! Boring, show me something actually alien!!” and the yearn for the use of alien races as a funhouse mirror of mankind’s own evolution. I think the way Irkens nonchalantly dwell somewhere on that subjective tightrope is a good part of why I can’t seem to stop thinking about them.

They are inspired and yet creatively original. They are truly alien, and yet, they can still play foil to the bottomlessly decadent humanity that Vasquez’s Earth has set the stage for.

Before, in the very first brain dump I let loose about them, I noted a few of their parallels to the worst in Homo sapiens and the insects they resemble. This time, something is chewing on me that i haven’t seen another put into perspective. A something that seems contradictory to our collective view of the heartless, sexless, atomized conquerors that all of the cosmos will fear:

They… have parental instincts.

I didn’t necessarily say drives or wants; however, they undeniably havewhat seems to be an actual, instinctual “cuteness response”. Like us, like social pack animals which invest a great deal of resources and time into their young. Given that the closest thing that 100% of smeets born on the home world get to call a parental figure is a literal cold, unfeeling, automated machine, this seems kind of weird, doesn’t it? They’re not even born like mammals or nested like birds, they’re mass produced, like hived wasps or ants, miles beneath their actual society and out of the business of the adults. So, what the heck with them being written to be humanized with this baseless, arbitrary trait?

But, ah ah ah, nitpicker Scarlet, it’s not baseless. It’s only ✨vestigial✨

Y’all could probably make a good guess to what the cuteness response is and why it exists in Homo sapiens, but to sum up- it’s the phenomenon of when we see something we find “cute” and it makes us react to it in a protective, nurturing fashion- or also want to bite/squeeze things, weirdly, if it’s just too damn cute. Well, what do humans find cute? Things that resemble human infants, basically. It’s a biological reflex that makes us want to defend and provide care for our kind’s absurdly dependent and slow-developing young, rather than abandon them in the shrubbery like they’re just screamy, food-leeching paperweights.

“Pff, really? Well I must be special cause I don’t even LIKE babies. I think babies are icky gross, not cute! So, genetic instinct my ass!”

I hear you, sure, but what about… harp seals? Or koalas, or pandas and puppies and fawns and kittens? Or funny little cartoon blorbos? At bare minimum you’d have to be an alien yourself to feel nothing looking at photos of young hedgehogs

See, the fact that a lot of us may often find baby animals a great amount more endearing than even humans’ is not even in conflict with this understanding of cuteness.

The concept of the “baby schema” was formally proposed in 1943 by Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian ethologist. Fun fact is he was also the same researcher who originally observed and described imprinting behaviors, as seen in newly hatched waterfowl. Point is that his “Kindchenschema” idea grouped together a handful of infantile traits that make fireworks go off in the parts of your brain that wants to keep things alive and baby-talk to them. Included on the list were features like proportionally large heads, big eyes, round faces, short noses, etc. despite the name, the baby schema’s effect is something applied not to just actual babies, but children generally, and even in our reactions to non-human animals.

It’s the hypothesis behind both why we’ve jacked up the skulls of so many small dog breeds in the name of aesthetics and why we generally find the portraits on the left side of this image more appealing to look at than the ones on the right.

The consistency of these features across many species may also give some hint that they experience a similar phenonemon, especially given that these are traits shared among bird or mammalian offspring which require significant attention and protection to survive. And, it may also explain why this image likewise gives me a huge dose of that sweet, sweet response.

Awww, look at that lil’ mans! Look at his teeny noodle arms!! I just wanna pinch him like a marshmallow!

YOU are not immune to cuteness psychology, and neither are the proud Irken warriors. I’m going to cite Zim’s proclivity to what I can only describe as paternal bonding as a demonstration of this response, but before you go reminding me about his pak defects, it’s far from the only evidence that this is a natural Irken trait.

Check out little Timmy (importantly, the surrounding response to him), a hilariously out of place youngster who appeared briefly in the trial transcript for the sole purpose of a dark gag and to get us some lore revealed.

Take further note of the complimentary nature of smeets themselves.

Suddenly finding themselves alive, fresh Irken babies too, like the hatched gosling, begin to immediately seek an emotional attachment with the first animate thing they see. While mobile and fast learners, smeets are far from being able to truly fend for themselves. They’re tiny and naive and they need lots of mental enrichment/teaching. They also play and form something akin to friendships, much like human children. In the bygone era before Irkens were so reliant on Paks and all of the advanced technology of the modern empire, smeets would have been exceedingly vulnerable. All signs point to a phase in Irk’s natural history where they were once nurtured after by adults of their own kind, and commonly bonded with their caretakers. This could mean compact family units, or maybe even a communal raising situation, akin to penguin crèches (Personally I like to headcanon that the tallests/queens were traditionally the only breeding members of the population but that’s neither here or now). Either sense, the evolutionary remnants of a parental creature are still around.

Taking all that to note, instead of perceiving Zim as the bizarre outlier to the Irken condition when it comes to having this soft spot, I instead see him as an opportunity to see natural behaviors in action without the suppression of his militarized society and its distractions. Even someone as warped and selfish as he can be is still very, very full of love to give that he doesn’t even understand enough language to describe. He pretty clearly shows he has no cultural understanding or reference of cuteness, and still, he’s not so different in this “weakness” than the very humans he manipulated into fawning over Ultra Peepi. It just took an example his own sensibilities could relate to instead of an unfamiliar, repulsive alien rodent.

And when he’s given the rare circumstance to show that potential, well-

*(With the rough shape/size down, no nose, and huge, bug-like eyes, Li’l Meat man may actually be a great approximation of the key “smeet schema” features. More importantly, it was made to specifically resemble Zim himself)

- I feel that’s downright adorable.

[vintage-russia]

Portrait of Schema-Nun,Kashin (early 20th centery)

[moonshynecybin]

Is Tardozzi also going to shout in Marc's face next year??

if he is it ain’t gonna be for being too much of a gentleman i’ll tell you that much