#also to be clear i do not subscribe to any of this shit anymore and even at this time i didnt harass anyone or anything like that

[prouvaireafterdark]

In that last episode where Louis introduces Armand as "The love of his life", I, personally, see it as a cry for help. He's looking right at Daniel and that tone he uses says "I'm saying this because he's standing right here and he's controlling me, he's controlling the narrative this time" and I wonder if I'm the only one who thought this and that, if I am, maybe it's because it's been 20 years since I've read the first four books and I need to go back and read them again... What was your take on that line and that scene?

So I think there could be a number of things going on here. I don't really subscribe to the idea that Armand is fully controlling Louis (on like a mind control level the way he did with Madeleine in IWTV) or his narrative, but it's clear he does exert some level of control over him. We can see this in the way he intervenes throughout the interview to calm/redirect Louis or end Daniel's line of questioning, how he editorializes Claudia's journals, and in the design of the book shelves in the library

(sidenote: I know some people say the book shelves are not evidence of Armand's control, but the same effect of Armand flying could have been achieved with floor to ceiling shelves. The fact that Louis is physically incapable of retrieving a book on his own and therefore must ask Armand to get that book for him if he wants to read means, even if Armand never refuses him or limits what he reads, he can say no and is in control of what and when Louis reads. We're very obviously meant to take this as a visual indication that Louis is at the very least dependent on Armand in a significant way)

It's also worth noting that Rolin Jones mentioned that Louis' version of events is perhaps a story he's been telling himself or has been told (presumably by Armand) in order to make his choices easier to live with, rather than the unadulterated truth that Daniel is after. I know Rolin's not a very popular guy right now, and for good reason, but the implication that Louis' memories have been influenced in some way, either by severe trauma or some external force, is important.

IF Armand is behind the faults in Louis' memory (which, again, it could just as easily be severe trauma), it's also unclear whether this might have been done out of selfishness to make Louis more detached from Lestat (which he evidently did not succeed at) or if Louis asked him to do it because there were things he wanted to forget. Obviously, the context of that matters a lot in how we interpret the final scene and it's kind of impossible to say until we actually know what's really happening in Dubai. With what we do know, though, it seems to me that there are two main possibilities wrt Armand controlling Louis and how it makes us interpret the ending

The first possibility is that Armand has been controlling Louis non-consensually, either with his powers or just good old-fashioned manipulation and gaslighting, and Louis is consciously or unconsciously trying to signal to Daniel that he doesn't want to be there anymore

The second--and most likely, in my opinion--is that Armand has been influencing Louis as we've seen it with his consent because for some reason Louis trusts Armand more than he trusts himself right now. That's not to say Armand hasn't done any shady shit, especially with Claudia's diaries, but it's possible that Louis is allowing him this level of control because on some level he genuinely does trust him to take care of him. In TVL, Lestat comments on how he was seduced by Louis' "staggering dependence," so it could be that Armand's dominating presence is a comfort to Louis even if to us it seems problematic. If this is the case, I think it's likely that Louis is trying to convince himself that whatever he and Armand have going on is the real deal even though he knows it isn't. He loves Armand, sure, but it doesn't compare to how he loved (and still loves) Lestat and that tension in Louis' smile is a reflection of how unsuccessfully he's trying to project and internalize the idea that Armand is the love of his life. This reading also lends itself to the Graduate-esque quality the ending is reportedly meant to have--Louis and Armand aren't right for each other, but that doesn't mean there's no love there at all

[whisperingintoavoid]

Blog 3-19-2024

I have started a new blog. Again.

The main purpose of this blog will be to actually blog. Like, how people used to blog back when the Internet was still a baby. I'm just going to write about my life. What's going on with me and stuff.

And the thing is, I know no one cares and I don't expect this blog to see any action. I just kind of miss when people used to do stuff like this. Just talking about what's happening to them. In a real, genuine way. I hope that doesn't sound preachy.

But really, everything is so... fake now? Whenever people vlog on YouTube or TikTok or anything, it feels so manufactured. Like it was created with an audience in mind. It's trying to capture your attention and entertain you. It wants you to like and subscribe and follow and comment and give them money. And it's not that I don't like money. In fact, I wish I had a lot more of it. But I wanted to create something real, I think.

I'm tired of the over the top personalities and over-editing and people making their lives look perfect on a screen. It feels so unrealistic and the weirdest part is that we tend to fall for it.

So here's a blog specifically for blogging.

I blogged a little bit on my main blog, but I reblog a shit ton of stuff about my interests on there to the point where I couldn't even find the last blog/diary entry I posted. And that's the other half of the reason why I started this one.

ANYWAY, I think I should just jump to where I start talking about myself.

So first of all! My previous partner and I broke up in early November last year. Which was kind of crazy because we were together for 3 and a half years. We were engaged. Shit was bananas.

It was kind of a quiet break up, though. Like, no fighting really. Leading up to it, I mean. It was mutual, too. Neither of us were really happy anymore. In fact, I don't think either of us were happy for a pretty long time.

And looking back on our relationship, I feel like it should've been more clear to me that we shouldn't have been together. Not romantically, at least. And it's insane to think about how much I pined over this person, how much I cried over them, how I wanted them so badly it burned like a nebula through my chest. But by the end of our relationship, I had to convince myself I still loved them in a romantic way. And I think that says a lot about who I used to be and maybe even who I still am.

When I met my previous partner, (I think I will refer to them as Ripley), it was online through a dating app. And they had a partner at the time. They and their partner were supposed to be poly, but... well, you've heard the stereotypes, I'm sure. Their partner was allowed to date other people and sleep with other people and basically do whatever they wanted. But Ripley kind of just had to do whatever their then-partner wanted. They were barely ever allowed to see me and their partner was extremely jealous.

In fact, they accused me of copying them because we both have a tattoo of a tooth? I gave myself my tooth tattoo years before I even knew this person existed, let alone that they also had a tooth tattoo. Shit was bonkers.

Anyway, things escalated and eventually Ripley wasn't allowed to be my friend or even talk to me anymore. And at this point I thought I was in love with them. Which, looking back was actually kind of crazy because I had barely spent all that much time with them or even really gotten to know them on a personal level very well. But I was so smitten with them and wanted to be with them so badly.

For the sake of brevity, I'll cut out how we ended up together, but maybe I'll write a different post explaining it at some point. Just to add context and extend the lore. Even though I'm probably going to be the only person who interacts with this blog. So I guess I'm just cataloging my whole life? I don't know.

ANYWAY, in retrospect, I really didn't know shit about Ripley when we started dating. I didn't know how bad of a temper they had. I didn't know how much they didn't like cuddling. I didn't realize that they were a bad kisser. I didn't know how averse they were to touch and that apparently it's one of my main love languages. I didn't realize how much they didn't listen, how much we didn't have in common, how much we barely had any real conversations.

And by the end of our relationship, I honestly still didn't realize some of those things. I didn't realize that I just genuinely wasn't attracted to them anymore. If anything, I was turned off by them. Their temper, their reluctance to touch, the way they always assumed everything was about them.

I wasn't happy being with them anymore. I wasn't UNhappy necessarily. We didn't fight all that often. We almost never shouted at one another in all our years together. We never put our hands on each other in a violent way.

But it was so unfulfilling. It felt more like we were roommates than anything else. I'd go as far as to say that we didn't even feel that much like friends. It was like we were both just going along with the motions because that was what we were meant to do. I didn't kiss them before they left for work because I loved them and hated to see them go and needed to see them off because I'd miss them while they were gone. I kissed them before they left for work because that's what we did every morning. I didn't hold their hand when we were at the store together because I wanted everyone to see that we were together and in love and because I wanted to be touching them. I held their hand at the store because that's what we always did.

We never cuddled at night. In fact, we both had our own blankets. They hated when I touched their face because my hands are usually a little sweaty. They hated me touching their hair because I'd mess it up. They'd get annoyed if I asked them to get me something from the kitchen. They had such bad road rage that I now have anxiety whenever I'm in the car with someone and we get a red light.

And yet I stayed for so long. It felt like... "Well, we've been together for so long... may as well stay together". It felt like breaking up would be failing. Like losing. I wanted to be that person that finds their soulmate at a young age. I wanted it to be impressive how long we'd been together. I wanted to feel official. Grown-up maybe. I'm still only 23, it's not like I'm old. Being with someone since you were 23 is still impressive if you make it to like, 40-50. But I guess I wanted to say that I found my husband when I was 19. There's just something about that. High school sweethearts. Something romantic. I don't even really know what it is. Maybe just knowing so young. Not having had anyone else. Not that Ripley was my first partner. But still...

There was also some sort of pressure. I think just about all your friends knowing you've been together for so long. Like, that your names go next to each other in sentences and you've been a package deal for so long, like it's just a canonical fact of the universe that you two are written together. Into every scene.

And then one day... you're just not. It feels like shattering an illusion. Like telling a kid that Santa isn't real or explaining a magic trick to someone. It's not real, at least not anymore. It's changed. It's not what it was. It's like hearing peanut butter and jelly broke up. Or milk and cookies. Or the moon and the stars. "But those things just go together."

"Not anymore."

Looking back now, it's weird seeing my face next to theirs. It feels like I'm looking at a mouse and a snake who are best friends. Or seeing a bird underwater. Seeing a dog lick itself like a cat. Seeing a cat playing fetch.

But then there are other times where I look at those pictures of us and it feels like seeing a picture of yourself and your childhood best friend before you moved away and never spoke to each other again. Or a home video of your child-self playing with a relative you can only vaguely remember, if at all. But they're good half-memories and you wish you could recall more about them. Their smile, what made them laugh, how they walked, how their arms felt around you.

I don't know, man, my gummy just kicked in.

I don't really know where I was going with all that. What is bro yapping about?

I think the main thing is that my fiance and I broke up after 3 and a half years together last November. And sometimes it still feels a little weird. Lesser and lesser, though.

I'm not sad. I don't want that to go unsaid. I don't miss our relationship. Not one bit. In fact, I don't think you could pay me to date them again. I'm glad we broke up. I think we should've done it sooner, actually.

When I talk about it feeling weird, I'm more so talking about how strange it feels to not have a person there who used to be there all the time. Like when you move something off an old shelf and there's a circle of dust around where it used to be. And everything else on the shelf is perfectly in place and untouched except for that one empty, perfect circle. Like your brain can feel the empty spot where they used to be.

There are a lot of other things about breaking up, though. Like having to tell your parents. Your parents, who you know don't really like your partner in the first place. And having to tell your friends who you know are going to roll your eyes because this is the fourth fucking time you're breaking up and you have to be like "No, for real this time." Having to decide who gets what.

But really, I think the thing that scared me the most about breaking up was the fear of being alone.

As much as I hate to admit it, I was really dependent on Ripley. I didn't work much, I didn't drive, I didn't have a car, I'd never had to pay my own bills. In a lot of ways, I relied on them. And I was scared of not having that. I was scared of being alone, even outside of my needs. I was scared of having an empty space next to me. I felt like one half of a pair, like a Barbie doll whose Ken was taken out of the package.

I have a boyfriend now. Actually, I started seeing him, like, a week after my ex and I broke up. And I know how that sounds, especially after that last paragraph. But when I say I hadn't intended on dating anyone for a long while, I mean it.

In fact, I was kind of excited to be single again. I was ready to have my single era and just flirt with whomever I wanted and maybe sleep around a bit. I didn't want to be locked down so quickly again.

But meeting my boyfriend, I didn't want that anymore. I didn't care about being locked down because I didn't care to go anywhere else anyway.

I think my next blog post will be about him and how we met and ended up dating. This specific post honestly was supposed to be a general life update, but I guess I had more I wanted to get off my chest about breaking up than I realized. I feel, even now, like there's more I want to say but can't think of how to verbalize it. I'm now good and properly high.

TL;DR, breaking up with someone after 3 1/2 years together feels weird and can be a little scary. Also I'm high.

~*Theo*~

[rhododaktyl]

my lgbt assimilationist phases were in retrospect fucking hilarious. like i'll find an old tumblr post wherein i earnestly claim that of course there are more than two genders, but not bc gender should be superseded or anything, but bc there are, as was obvious to me at the time, "like 4 or 5" genders

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Sorry, but I love the fact that N@nyalin DeD@naan (aka M@gic M!rror D0lls) has made a new doll (Fafnir, a dragon girl) that takes some GENTLE inspiration from Ena!bi's works but is still clearly her own (the only things that look similar are the hip shape, the belly shape and the shoulder fur--which isn't something Ena!bi f*cking owns by the way you weirdos). If anything the head/face especially looks more like that other artist, the one with the Moon dolls, Frapz!lla Wigs I think the group name is? And the legs/feet look more like Culvr's work! As someone who has been following Ena!bi's work for years now, she's a great doll artist without a doubt but I've come to really dislike her as a person. This immature whining and shade-throwing about the Fafnir doll just cemented what I already knew to be true about her.

Ena!bi is an elitist who only VERY rarely (as in once every few years if that) sells her work (for skin-peelingly high prices, she sells her dolls for 5000-7000euro on average) to a very tiny select group of hangers-on who orbit her and shower her with expensive and hard-to-get Japanese artists work as gifts, and she constantly acts like anyone who does anything REMOTELY similar to her dolls is "stealing" it (this is a pattern with her, and yet she's totally okay with similarly obvious inspiration from people like R@p1993 because R@p1993 is popular and because she likes her aesthetic--this isn't R@p's fault by the way, it's Ena!bi's for being so clearly hypocritical). She's also ruined relationships with other doll artists because of her behind-the-scenes drama.

Ena!bi also staunchly refuses to sell her work to the normies (even though long ago, before most people in the hobby even remember, she promised to do a pre-order), is it any real surprise that other artists are going to fill that market gap where there is so clearly interest in these types of dolls? Ena!bi's style is a fairly generic anime + fantasy mashup, something that other artists like Sh0ush0udolls and R@p1993 are doing to thunderous applause from the BJD community. Yes, M@gic M!rror's doll looks similar, in a vague stylistic sort of way. But I don't live on Deviantart anymore and I long ago stopped subscribing to the juvenile "MY CHARACTER DONUT STEEL" philosophy that you can somehow """"steal"""" a f*cking art style or that things like shoulder fur or the way of drawing/sculpting eyes/noses/whatever belongs to any one artist. There has been no recasting, no shady shit, just one artist who was clear long ago about Ena!bi's work inspiring her, and people who refuse to move on from drama. Also? I'll never in a million goddamn years own an Arielle, but I sure as hell will be able to own a Fafnir. If Ena!bi is so concerned about this ~~~~style theft~~~~ cutting into her...what, nonexistent clientele, maybe she needs to reconsider actually selling her dolls.

~Anonymous

[arkt-nehrim-archive]

Hey! Are you willing to answer lore questions about Nehrim? Specifically Narathzul... the timeline for his imprisonment doesn’t seem to be right.

Do you know how long he was imprisoned for? Because somewhere before then, he had to imprison his dad... and Baratheon took over presumably right after. Beats me how Tealor survived like that for however many years Narathzul had him there.

Always, and thank you for asking!  =D  This is a tricky one, but I’ll do my best. At the end of the day, I can only speculate. I’ll divide it into two parts, one for Tealor and one for Narathzul.

[ Spoilers for both Nehrim and Enderal below. ]

Starting with Tealor! He didn’t survive imprisonment. The Tealor Arantheal you engage with in Enderal is not the real one, he is the Emissary; the personification of what he failed to do/wished to be, as any Emissary is, you kinda have to die for one to be created. Yes, they -say- he’s alive and nobody can really discount that fact because I mean, he’s there, living and breathing in front of people, vouching for himself, and as we all know, it’s -really- hard to argue with that man! Plus, our Enderal PC wouldn’t really have any reason to be able to call him out, they don’t have the knowledge the player might about Nehrim’s story beats.

Now, the timelines between the games are obviously wildly different, but whether it was 30 years or 1,000 for Tealor, he -died-. He would’ve had to.  Narathzul doesn’t mention his father when he tells you what he did to the paladin’s spirits, so unfortunately we don’t have hard confirmation -from- a Nehrim source, we can only say he’s likely to be dead because of how Emissaries work.

-Strictly- speaking to Nehrim, Tealor is a spirit, or some kind of undead, bound to the Temple, which is why once he realizes you’re not Narathzul, he disappears and all them black skeletons come wreck your shit. Looking back to Enderal, there’s another time something like this happens! Down in the ancient Pyrean city too, when the High Ones be pulling their bullshit, a whole shitton of Lost Ones are raised to hamper your path in that very specific red lighting. I mention -that-, because -Nehrim- Tealor is guarding the Predestination in the Creator’s Temple, even reciting it as you progress through the dungeon, which we know are created by the Eliath (who may or may not also be High Ones, I can make a whole other post about that).   He could’ve just teleported away of course, but there’s no casting animation for that, he just despawns and then the lighting goes red and the skeletons show up. Details are important.

I can’t give a clear answer, but for the sake of trying to link the two game’s lore on the subject, -I- personally believe that Narathzul killed his father, but unlike the other Paladins, didn’t bind him there.  That would come later, from the High Ones. Narathzul slaying him could’ve been a similar catalyst to how the Prophet was killed by the Veiled Woman, only Narathzul couldn’t have known what became of it.  So! The way Tealor “survives” his imprisonment, is being an Emissary-  they’re immortal, they don’t die until their purpose is fulfilled, and given the High Ones are timeless creatures, it stands in my mind to reason they easily could’ve held onto a pawn for decades/centuries to bring about The Cleansing.

Onto Narathzul! 

Due to retcons, it’s a pretty solid cleave between Nehrim and Enderal’s lore deciding how long Narathzul was imprisoned. There is technically a definite answer in the sense Nehrim being strictly canon seems not be the case anymore, so he was imprisoned for 30 years.   A book from Forgotten Stories attempts to clear up the matter about why Nehrim uses 1,000 years and Enderal uses 30,  and frankly, it’s a -mess-.  It suggests that Narathzul simply -lied- to his followers and they spread those lies to fluff up his myth, but I call -bullshit- on that because the whole -point- of Narathzul being special because of his bloodline is dependent on how long he spent down there and didn’t age. I’ve heard it said it’s “not realistic”, but of course it’s not, it’s a thousand fucking years, it’s called -high fantasy-! It’s stupid, fun Tolkien bullshit! Narathzul could’ve put himself through centuries long naps for all we know, it just builds the willpower of the character that he endured for such an -impossible- span of time. Not to mention, the source of the above material -is- the Holy Order, and Enderal spends a lot of its time heavily implying them fools be lying all the time to maintain their power structure, so why trust it as canon anymore than trusting Narathzul? It makes -sense- that an organization in service to the Lightborn would defame and discredit what happened, Narathzul was a rebel, of -course- you make him look as terrible as possible to maintain the status quo.   

In the end, it’s whatever side of canon you subscribe to regarding how long Narathzul was imprisoned. Some prefer Enderal’s, others prefer Nehrim not getting shafted. Personally, I’m of the mind it was 1,000 years. He survived because he’s half Lightborn, he’s theoretically immortal- and that’s not even bringing up the lineage of the Aeterna and how long they can potentially live WITHOUT special snowflake Lightborn power because of the -Seraphim- who live insanely long too (Hi, Arkt, he’s 8,000 at -least-, it’s terrifying) being the progenitors of Aeterna. Narathzul has multiple reasons why he can be as old as he is, and being inherently magic could help his survival in his confinement- not to mention he wasn’t -completely- alone between his jailer Arch-Seraph Arazdor, whoever was giving him provisions (books, chair, candles, etc), a Silver Plate to speak at whoever has the others, and however many people have attempted in the past to free him and not succeeded. ALL things that can be seen through environmental story telling. So when actually thought about, his confinement not driving him completely nuts (outside of just pure willpower) can be believed.

As a small side note,  Barateon being 1,000 is a hard one to swing, but Merzul is also the same age and it could be argued they keep themselves a live by magic.  If you look at Enderal’s take on the Lightborn, it’s doable.

Anyway, I hope that cleared something up!  I know I always get long winded with these things.  <:P 

[calmlftv]

en l’air. - c.h. oneshot

description: calum hood x dancer!reader. cal sees you dance and immediately becomes obsessed. 

word count: 4.4k (i’m sorry jdfg) 

warnings: none? some tension but nothing serious. 

w/n: this was a requested piece! thank u to the anon who requested it ❤️ also, for your viewing pleasure, please enjoy this video of Youngblood choreography since it’s mentioned in the piece itself; full credit to Brinn Nicole Choreography for that! and thank u to everyone who had to listen to me talk about this for 24 hours (u know who u are), y’all are the real ones 🥺

taglist: @spicycal @castaway-cashton @irwinkitten @n-ctarinenga @notinthesameguey​ @blackbutterfliescal​ @ashtonsos​ @loveroflrh​ @bestyearssos​ @treatallwithkindness​ @bestyearslftv​ @another-lonely-heart​

****

“Y/N!” 

Jojo’s voice echoed through the room, all eyes turning to you as the choreographer lifted a finger and gestured for you to come over. 

Once you were close enough, the winning smile on Jojo’s face was full of mischief. “You got this choreo down?” When you nodded she started to move, scooting past you towards the phone connected to the speaker system. “Then it’s your turn. Solo.” 

You chuckled, getting into the starting position as Tim’s camera focused on you. A hush fell over the room as the air settled, giving Jojo a nod right before the music started. 

And suddenly, you were transformed, the movements you had been practicing all day coming to life as the music swirled around you. You weren’t in LA anymore; you weren’t even sure if you were yourself. All you knew was the tempo and dynamics of the lyrics, the emotions of the song becoming your own as a story was told with each movement. 

From a young age, it had been clear to your family that you were passionate about dancing. After expressing your disinterest in sports and academics, your parents were dumbstruck; they had genuinely thought you would like at least one of those things, considering your mother was the brains and your father was the stay-at-home-brauns. However, after one particular year of taking you to see a ballet, they quickly noticed the shine in your eyes as the dancers floated across the stage, beaming grins on their faces as they signed you up for dance classes the very next day. 

Over the years, you learned everything you could from different genres of dance, your body becoming fluent in the languages as you grew up. You walked in eight counts, elegance trailing just behind you everywhere you went as you moved. It took everything within you to not dance down the hallways at school, practicing whatever routine was giving you a hard time as you went from class to class. 

After graduating high school, your family moved to LA for better work opportunities; you quickly found a community of dancers you loved and fell in with them, moving into a house with some of them and attending all the workshops they did. When they all started getting big name jobs it didn’t bother you, instead pushing you forward until you were just as talented as they were. 

Now, you were well known with the community. Choreographers like Jojo Gomez and Kyle Hanagami sought you out for their workshops, sometimes even asking you to learn choreo ahead of time to demonstrate to everyone at the shops. Tim Milligram quickly became a friend of yours as well, as he was almost always at the workshops, sparkling lenses capturing everything before he posted the edited videos on YouTube. 

Where you were now was where you had dreamed of being as a child. It wasn’t worldwide fame like some people wanted, but it was more than enough for you. To some, you were a nobody, but to the ones that mattered, you were equivalent to the Queen of England, and that was everything for you. 

As you finished the routine applause broke out around you, your friends all throwing hair ties and shoes at you to celebrate how well you had done. As you came down from the performance high, Jojo almost tackled you in a tight hug, laughter escaping both of you as you caught yourself before you stumbled back. 

“Jesus,” Jojo breathed, pulling back and cupping your face in her hands. “How have you not started teaching these things yourself?” 

You beamed, Jojo’s arm moving around your shoulder as she guided you away. She called the next dancer up and grabbed her phone again as you sat down with your friends, eyes trained on the dancer as you took in every move. 

At the end of the workshop you gathered up all your things and walked out with your friends, the nearest diner calling your names as you all laughed and joked around. Your usual routine for this eventually brought you all back to your home, each of you taking turns showering and settling in for the rest of the night. 

***

The tour bus bumped over another pothole, the uneven cement rattling Calum awake for the upteenth time that evening. He sighed and dragged his hand down his face, officially giving up on any amount of sleep as he turned to his back. 

His hand landed on his phone and lifted it to his face. 

1:47 a.m. 

He held in a groan as he grabbed his AirPods, slipping them into his ears and drowning out the sounds of the bus as it moved. He left his phone plugged in and opened his YouTube app, hoping that maybe some of the channels he was subscribed to had uploaded new videos he could binge until they reached their destination. However, in his sleepy state, he tapped the wrong video, a beat starting over his headphones as his brow furrowed in confusion. 

Calum was about to exit the video when he saw the dancers, eyes captivated by their movements as the first group faded in. His mouth dropped open at some of the talent he was seeing, eyes locked on one dancer in particular during a solo performance. 

It was obvious to Calum this dancer had invested in the music, the way they moved bringing emotions out of the man as he focused intently on their body. Now invested in watching more of these videos, he let this one play out, letting YouTube autoplay to the next one as he kept his phone close to his face. 

Hours passed with Calum trying to find more videos with this dancer in it, finally finding one that he watched a second time. This time, they were in heels, the sweet sounds of Niall Horan’s Slow Hands playing against his eardrums as they moved so elegantly. 

Lucky for him, his video finally had the Instagram handle for this dancer he was now obsessed with, the man immediately switching apps and bringing up their profile. 

They were genuinely stunning in the photos they would post, his thumbs slowly scrolling through most of the photos on their profile before he finally gave them a follow. He knew some fans would see that and make assumptions, but he didn’t care; he wanted to see more of this person and their talents, wanted to consume all forms of media they were on just to see them move. 

“Calum.” 

The man jumped at the sound of Luke’s voice, pulling out an AirPod as he tugged the curtain to his bunk aside. The tall blonde was leaning over and yawning, running a hand through his hair. 

“We’re stopping, mate,” he said, Calum now hearing the sounds of Michael and Ashton shifting in their beds. “Need anything, better get it now.” 

Cal nodded, climbing out of his bunk and giving a big stretch before pulling on some sweatpants. He climbed out of the bus and found Michael waiting for him, the usual routine whenever they made a stop. 

“Hey, Mike,” Cal said, nudging his best friend as he unlocked his phone and showed him the Instagram page he still had open. 

His best friend took his phone and raised an eyebrow as he scrolled down the page, opening some of the photos and giving them a look before he handed the device back. “They’re cute. You followed them?” 

Calum nodded as Michael grinned, giving him a nudge with his elbow. “Trying to make a move, pal? Get yourself a little someone?” 

Calum chuckled, shaking his head as he nudged Michael back. “I don’t think so, Mike, just think they’re talented. Wanna keep up with that.” 

Michael nodded and wiggled his eyebrows, making Calum shove him playfully as he broke into a laugh. 

“What’s goin’ on up there?” Ashton called from behind them as Luke trailed behind him. Michael turned around, walking backwards as he spoke. 

“Cal’s got a crush on a dancer!” he yelled back, making Calum groan. 

“It’s not a crush!” 

“Whatever you say, mate!” 

*** 

“Jade,” you called, your phone shifting slightly in its place. “What do you want for dinner?” 

Your Instagram live audience immediately started to chime in with suggestions as you picked up your phone, holding it out in front of you as you read the suggestions. 

Your best friend came out of her room and followed you, half of her now in view of the audience as you moved into the kitchen. “Someone’s suggested we order out instead of making something, but where’s the fun in that?” 

Jade chuckled as she started rummaging through the cabinets, taking in everything they had before she turned around and looked at you. “That might be a good idea,” she said, gesturing to the nearly empty cabinets. 

“Oh shit,” you sighed, putting a hand on your hip. “You’re right. Take out it is!” 

Jade chuckled as she picked up her phone, already dialing your favorite place and putting in an order for the two of you as you made faces at your audience. 

It was a quiet night and you had been bored, the Instagram live feature staring you in the eyes as you finally decided to just do it. You had taken the time beforehand to look cute but comfy, hoping the cute man that had followed you a few months ago now would join.

The notification had confused you. You weren’t sure who Calum Hood was at first, noticing the blue check next to his name as you did your investigation into his Instagram profile. After a quick Google search, however, you quickly learned everything you needed to know about him; his band had written one of your favorite dance songs and a few others you had put on your driving playlist that you vibed with the most. 

So, that mixed with how attractive you found him to be, you obviously had to follow him back. 

He didn’t post much and you were fine with that, always knowing when he was online by the comments he would leave when you posted a new photo or video. It was normally a cheeky comment followed by a set of emojis, something that always brought a light blush to your cheeks and giggles from your friends. 

Whenever he posted, you always did the same, both of you liking and commenting on photos relentlessly. You kept up with his band through his stories, even popping in on the livestream on release day just to see him dancing with his dog. 

He was absolutely adorable, and while you wanted to reach out and say hi in private, you knew he probably wouldn’t even see it; besides, he’s a rockstar and you’re a dancer. Talk about being worlds away, right?

Right?

Suddenly, you snapped back to reality, a name appearing in the stream of comments that made your heart skip. You quickly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the news, being careful to hide it from the camera as you slid it across the counter to Jade. 

He’s in the live, and said I look cute.

She picked up the note and raised an eyebrow out of view of the camera, a devilish grin on her lips as she immediately opened her phone. 

��What are you doing?” You asked her, standing up straight as soft music started playing over the speakers in your living area. 

Jade grabbed your hand and your livestream, dragging you both into the room. “I want to teach you and your livestream a new choreo I’m working on. Maybe you can even help me make it better.” 

You scoffed at that, knowing her undeniable talent as she set everything up. The song was Youngblood, the smooth notes practically fogging up the windows on their own as you started to learn. 

With a quick break for food once it arrived, you and Jade taught your livestream how to dance, laughter and music taking over both of you until you finally ended your live. 

You were covered in sweat, the soft sheen of it against the lights in your home obviously as your chest heaved. 

“Did you really need help with that choreo?” You asked Jade, your friend sprawled out in a starfish against the floors. 

She flashed you a smile. “Absolutely not,” she stated, sitting up. “But lover boy was watching, and he needs to know you have sex appeal.” 

You coughed, choking on a bit of spit at her words. “Jade!” You said, your best friend cackling as she scrambled up to her feet. 

“Love you!” She said as you chased her away, the woman dipping into her room and locking the door behind her. 

You groaned, blushing deeply as you hid yourself away in your room. 

*** 

Tour life had become routine for Calum, as it always does, but the nights off always left him a bit bored. Being in strange cities left him without much to do this close to the end of tour, but he thoroughly enjoyed opening your livestream and watching you laugh. 

Michael must have been a psychic, cause what started as an appreciation for your talents has become much more than that. When you laughed he felt himself smiling, his eyes crinkling as they do whenever he got to hear you speak. He was crushing hard, his post notifications on for the dancer he had fallen for over the months as he kept himself busy with his passion and job. 

When he saw the notification of your livestream he immediately jumped in, joining and smiling immediately as he saw your face fill his phone screen. 

You were smiling at your friend, resting your cheek against your hand as you leaned on what looked like a kitchen counter. You were looking absolutely adorable, the smile on Calum’s face hardly fading as he gained the confidence to send a comment. 

He saw your eyes light up as you looked at your screen, the expression on your face making his heart skip while his own eyes traced the shape of your face. You scribbled something down and passed it to your friend, the two of you then shifting to the living area where the phone was set up to expose the extra space around you. 

His eyes stayed locked on your body as you moved, fluidity and grace in each step as you were taught a new dance. The tones of the music brought out in your dancing brought a slight blush to his cheeks as you put the whole thing together. The dance itself was sultry, but when you moved to it, the tempo took on a whole new heartbeat, and suddenly the song was so much better in Calum’s mind. 

It felt like it was too soon when you finished, bowing to your friend as she grinned wildly. Calum’s palms were a little bit sweaty as he watched you move closer to the camera, the live ending soon after as you moved on with your life. 

The images of you moving still floated through Calum’s mind, his memory fixated on it as he finally opened up his Instagram DM’s. 

Your username popped up immediately when he started a new conversation, his first message being typed out effortlessly by his thumbs. 

Saw your live tonight, he typed. Thanks for dancing to our song.

It was simple enough, he thought, but hoped you wouldn’t think it was too simple; nerves danced along his muscles as he pressed send, his words to you now being sent through a series of ones and zeros as he quickly locked his phone and pushed it away. Now that he had made the move he was terrified of your response, the man trying to distract himself as he climbed out of his bunk and hunted down Michael. 

His best friend was sitting on the bus couch, scrolling through whatever social media platform as Cal plopped down beside him. 

“You talk to that dancer yet?” Michael asked immediately, hardly glancing up from his phone as Calum chuckled. 

“You need to stop reading my mind,” he scolded gently. “Yeah, I, uh, just messaged them actually. They danced to Youngblood on a livestream.” 

Michael looked at Calum and wiggled his eyebrows. “And judging by the blush on your face I’d say it was a good performance.” 

Calum’s blush only deepened as Michael laughed, a light ping of Cal’s phone interrupting their conversation. 

Michael stood and grabbed the phone as Calum froze in place, placing it on the couch beside his best friend before he sat down again. 

“Answer it.” 

“But-”

“Calum Thomas, you answer that lovely person right this second or I’ll do it for you.” 

The magic words made Calum open his phone, knowing if Michael had to answer the message he would never be able to show his face around you. Nervous butterflies exploded in his stomach as he opened your response, Michael reading over his shoulder. 

Well hello, handsome. Thanks for writing such a good song, hahaha. It’s one of my favorites! 

“Well, mate,” Michael said, grinning as he slapped Calum on the back. “Looks like you can handle it.” 

***

Your new video was incredible, how long did that take? You’re amazing!

Calum’s newest message to you made you smile, sweat making your hair cling to your forehead as you typed out a quick response. 

Thanks, I had quite a good muse for that one ;)

Oh really? Must be a lucky muse if they inspire something so beautiful. 

A heavy blush landed on your cheeks as you typed back a response, the click of someone’s fingers gaining your attention as you hit send. 

“I know that’s not a phone out,” Kyle scolded gently, a sheepish smile pulling on your lips. 

“Sorry Kyle, I’m putting it away now,” you promised, thumbs typing a quick message to Calum before burying the device deep within your bag. 

It’s been about a month or two since Calum first messaged you, the banter and flirting starting immediately as you both finally got to have the private conversations you had been dreaming of. At times it would inch away from the innocent compliments and small talk to something sexier, but you both kept yourselves as appropriate as possible - sometimes. 

Now, as Kyle reeled you back in to finish teaching the new choreo he had worked on, your mind wandered to Calum’s real thoughts about your IGTV video you had posted hours before. 

Hearing Wildflower for the first time had sent you directly to the empty dance studio your parents had built you at their place, your feet and body taking almost no time to settle in as you started hammering out a choreo to Calum’s melody. You had been up all night doing it, barely making it to Kyle’s class on time as notifications from Instagram started pouring in, praises about your technique and song choice washing over you. 

However, something tugged within you when you saw Calum’s message. It was different coming from him for some reason, and it filled you with a mix of excitement and pleasure; it was a weird mix for you, something you hadn’t ever truly felt before, but you hesitantly welcomed it with open arms. 

The class passed by slower than you wanted, each time you ran through the choreography only taking up the smallest bit of time as you anxiously waited for the clock to strike 4 so you can open your messages again and talk to him. 

Finally, your magical moment arrived when you could pack up and leave, Kyle giving you a big hug and saying his thanks before you started to hurry out the door. 

“Hey!” Kyle called after you, making you pause in the doorway and spin around. He had a grin on his face. “Hope this guy is a good one.” 

You beamed and laughed. “I think he is. Thanks, Kyle.” 

He smiled and waved as you turned around again and bolted to your car, locking the doors as soon as they had shut as you opened up your messages from Calum. 

He had sent a cheeky reply to your message earlier, followed by a video sent to you. With captured breath you tapped on the message, the video unfolding before you. 

It was focused on his feet as he walked over shiny white tile, the camera panning up to expose the interior of LAX - or that’s what the location filter said, at least. You felt a grin crack open your face as you quickly realized what this meant. 

Calum was home from tour. 

Your thumbs started to type faster than you thought they could. 

You’re home! 

Almost immediately, the little bubble appeared. 

Home, and ready to see you if you’re up for it.

Butterflies exploded in your stomach as you typed an affirmative message, both of you quickly setting up a time and place before you drove back to your home. 

“Jade!” You yelled as you stepped inside, dropping your bag at the door while you quickly slipped off your shoes. 

Your friend's head poked out from around a corner as you started shedding clothes, her hand immediately flying to cover her eyes as she yelped. “Whoa, where’s the fire?! Why are you undressing in the middle of the house?” 

“I have a date.” You stated, stopping just outside of your door as you turned to face her. “With Calum. And I need you to pick my outfit while I shower!” 

Jade uncovered her eyes and beamed, immediately following you into your room while you ducked into your private bathroom. While you had your shower, Jade was yelling questions to you, the two of you plotting and planning until you finally stepped out and pulled on the clothes she had decided on. 

Your light blue jeans and white crop top were the perfect amount of casual, a light sprinkle of shiny jewelry being thrown in until Jade gave you the approval. When you checked the time on your phone, you nodded, standing and thanking her profusely as you finally went out the door and into your car again. 

By now, the sunshine of LA was changing colors, shedding the harsh tone of the day for the warmth of dusk that was soon to come. The coffee shop Calum had chosen was perfect, too, the dwindling sunlight being perfect as you sat in a chair just outside the shop. 

You anxiously looked around while you waited, playing with some of the rings around your fingers as you waited patiently for your date to arrive. Is this really even a date? You thought, suddenly panicking about how you looked. What if this is just a casual- 

“This seat taken?” 

His voice took you by surprise, your eyes trailing upwards to meet the warm, smiling brown ones of Calum Hood. 

You smiled a little bit, leaning your elbows on the table. “Well I was saving it for a cute boy,” you teased. “But I guess you can sit as well.” 

Calum gave you a look of mock hurt. “Ouch, right in the ego,” he teased back, slowly reaching across the table to take your hand. “Nice to finally meet you in person.” 

He spoke as he lifted your hand to his lips, pressing a sweet and seductive kiss to your knuckles as his gaze held you captive. You blushed deeply, smiling in an attempt to cover it. 

“And the same for you,” you said softly, smiling as he held on to your hand. 

The two of you sat there and chatted as the sun set around you, the cool of the evening wrapping around you as you got lost in Calum’s words. Conversation came easily with him, both of you feeling like you had already known each other for so much longer than reality; something with the two of you just worked, and you loved being able to lose track of time with him. 

Honestly, it was far too easy for you to lose yourself in his very being, but you decided not to focus entirely on that. 

When the quiet and kind barista came out to put up the tables and chairs, you apologized profusely, Calum chuckling as he stood up. You quickly followed after him, the two of you apologizing again before starting to walk away, Calum’s hand slipping easily around your own while you blushed. 

The two of you slowly walked back to your cars together, a comfortable silence settling in as you made your way to your cars. He walked you right up to your drivers side door, the man smiling sheepishly as he looked at you. 

“Thanks for being willing to meet with me,” he said sweetly, bringing your joined hands up to his chest. He held them there, right next to his heart, which you could feel beating against your knuckles. “I’m glad you didn’t think I was a serial killer or something.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “And I’m glad you didn’t think I was a catfish,” you joked, Calum smiling and laughing. 

When you both settled down again your gazes met, another blush coating your cheeks as he leaned down. His lips connected with your cheek quickly, the man standing up straight again as he released your hand. 

While you were sad that he let you go, you knew it was time for you to go home; it was getting late, and you had a workshop to be at in the morning, your mind still racing as you dug out your keys and unlocked your car. 

Calum pulled the door open for you, letting you slide in as he leaned against the top of the door. 

“Will we be able to see each other again?” He asked softly, his chin resting on his arm as he draped it over the door. 

You thought for a second, making a bit of a face. “I guess so, but I’ll have to have my people call your people.” 

Calum grinned, chuckling at your teasing. “Well my people will be anxiously awaiting your people.” He took a second after he finished speaking, getting a serious look on his face as he looked at you. “I’d like to see you again, though. Maybe for dinner?” 

You smiled, reaching up to take his hand. “I would love that,” you said, giving his fingers a squeeze as he brought them to his lips again. 

He smiled and let you settle in, carefully closing the door for you before he stepped back a bit. He watched you go, making sure you were able to pull onto the roads okay before he got into his own vehicle. 

Once Calum’s driver seat door had closed, he pulled out his phone, immediately pulling up the group text with his bandmates. 

Guys, he typed. I’m so fucked.

[holyhellpod]

Holy Hell: 3. Metanarrativity: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship? aka the analysis no one asked for.

In this ep, we delve into authorship, narrative, fandom and narrative meaning. And somehow, as always, bring it back to Cas and Misha Collins.

(Note: the reason I didn’t talk about Billie’s authorship and library is because I completely forgot it existed until I watched season 13 “Advanced Thanatology” again, while waiting for this episode to upload. I’ll find a way to work her into later episodes tho!)

I had to upload it as a new podcast to Spotify so if you could just re-subscribe that would be great! Or listen to it at these other links.

Please listen to the bit at the beginning about monetisation and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to message me here.

Apple | Spotify | Google

Transcript under the cut!

Warnings: discussions of incest, date rape, rpf, war, 9/11, the bush administration, abuse, mental health, addiction, homelessness. Most of these are just one off comments, they’re not full discussions.

Meta-Textuality: Who’s the Deleuze and who’s the Guattari in your relationship?

In the third episode of Season 6, “The Third Man,” Balthazar says to Cas, “you tore up the whole script and burned the pages.” That is the fundamental idea the writers of the first five seasons were trying to sell us: whatever grand plan the biblical God had cooking up is worth nothing in face of the love these men have—for each other and the world. Sam, Bobby, Cas and Dean will go to any lengths to protect one another and keep people safe. What’s real? What’s worth saving? People are real. Families are worth saving. 

This show plugs free will as the most important thing a person, angel, demon or otherwise can have. The fact of the matter is that Dean was always going to fight against the status quo, Sam was always going to go his own way, and Bobby was always going to do his best for his boys. The only uncertainty in the entire narrative is Cas. He was never meant to rebel. He was never meant to fall from Heaven. He was supposed to fall in line, be a good soldier, and help bring on the apocalypse, but Cas was the first agent of free will in the show’s timeline. Sam followed Lucifer, Dean followed Michael, and John gave himself up for the sins of his children, at once both a God and Jesus figure. But Cas wasn’t modelled off anyone else. He is original. There are definitely some parallels to Ruby, but I would argue those are largely unintentional. Cas broke the mold. 

That’s to say nothing of the impact he’s had on the fanbase, and the show itself, which would not have reached 15 seasons and be able to end the way they wanted it to without Cas and Misha Collins. His back must be breaking from carrying the entire show. 

But what the holy hell are we doing here today? Not just talking about Cas. We’re talking about metanarrativity: as I define it, and for purposes of this episode, the story within a story, and the act of storytelling. We’re going to go through a select few episodes which I think exemplify the best of what this show has to offer in terms of framing the narrative. We’ll talk about characters like Chuck and Becky and the baby dykes in season 10. And most importantly we’ll talk about the audience’s role, our role, in the reciprocal relationship of storytelling. After all, a tv show is nothing without the viewer.

I was in fact introduced to the concept of metanarrativity by Supernatural, so the fact that I’m revisiting it six years after I finished my degree to talk about the show is one of life’s little jokes.

 I’m brushing off my degree and bringing out the big guns (aka literary theorists) to examine this concept. This will be yet another piece of analysis that would’ve gone well in my English Lit degree, but I’ll try not to make it dry as dog shit. 

First off, I’m going to argue that the relationship between the creators of Supernatural and the fans has always been a dialogue, albeit with a power imbalance. Throughout the series, even before explicitly metanarrative episodes like season 10 “Fan Fiction” and season 4 “the monster at the end of this book,” the creators have always engaged in conversations with the fans through the show. This includes but is not limited to fan conventions, where the creators have actual, live conversations with the fans. Misha Collins admitted at a con that he’d read fanfiction of Cas while he was filming season 4, but it’s pretty clear even from the first season that the creators, at the very least Eric Kripke, were engaging with fans. The show aired around the same time as Twitter and Tumblr were created, both of which opened up new passageways for fans to interact with each other, and for Twitter and Facebook especially, new passageways for fans to interact with creators and celebrities.

But being the creators, they have ultimate control over what is written, filmed and aired, while we can only speculate and make our own transformative interpretations. But at least since s4, they have engaged in meta narrative construction that at once speaks to fans as well as expands the universe in fun and creative ways. My favourite episodes are the ones where we see the Winchesters through the lens of other characters, such as the season 3 episode “Jus In Bello,” in which Sam and Dean are arrested by Victor Henriksen, and the season 7 episode “Slash Fiction” in which Dean and Sam’s dopplegangers rob banks and kill a bunch of people, loathe as I am to admit that season 7 had an effect on any part of me except my upchuck reflex. My second favourite episodes are the meta episodes, and for this episode of Holy Hell, we’ll be discussing a few: The French Mistake, he Monster at the end of this book, the real ghostbusters, Fan Fiction, Metafiction, and Don’t Call Me Shurley. I’ll also discuss Becky more broadly, because, like, of course I’ll be discussing Becky, she died for our sins. 

Let’s take it back. The Monster At The End Of This Book — written by Julie Siege and Nancy Weiner and directed by Mike Rohl. Inarguably one of the better episodes in the first five seasons. Not only is Cas in it, looking so beautiful, but Sam gets something to do, thank god, and it introduces the character of Chuck, who becomes a source of comic relief over the next two seasons. The episode starts with Chuck Shurley, pen named Carver Edlund after my besties, having a vision while passed out drunk. He dreams of Sam and Dean larping as Feds and finding a series of books based on their lives that Chuck has written. They eventually track Chuck down, interrogate him, and realise that he’s a prophet of the lord, tasked with writing the Winchester Gospels. The B plot is Sam plotting to kill Lilith while Dean fails to get them out of the town to escape her. The C plot is Dean and Cas having a moment that strengthens their friendship and leads further into Cas’s eventual disobedience for Dean. Like the movie Disobedience. Exactly like the movie Disobedience. Cas definitely spits in Dean’s mouth, it’s kinda gross to be honest. Maybe I’m just not allo enough to appreciate art. 

When Eric Kripke was showrunner of the first five seasons of Supernatural,  he conceptualised the character of Chuck. Kripke as the author-god introduced the character of the author-prophet who would later become in Jeremy Carver’s showrun seasons the biblical God. Judith May Fathallah writes in “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural” that Kripke writes himself both into and out of the text, ending his era with Chuck winking at the camera, saying, “nothing really ends,” and disappearing. Kripke stayed on as producer, continuing to write episodes through Sera Gamble’s era, and was even inserted in text in the season 6 episode “The French Mistake”. So nothing really does end, not Kripke’s grip on the show he created, not even the show itself, which fans have jokingly referred to as continuing into its 16th season. Except we’re not joking. It will die when all of us are dead, when there is no one left to remember it. According to W R Fisher, humans are homo narrans, natural storytellers. The Supernatural fandom is telling a fidelitous narrative, one which matches our own beliefs, values and experiences instead of that of canon. Instead of, at Fathallah says, “the Greek tradition, that we should struggle to do the right thing simply because it is right, though we will suffer and be punished anyway,” the fans have created an ending for the characters that satisfies each and every one of our desires, because we each create our own endings. It’s better because we get to share them with each other, in the tradition of campfire stories, each telling our own version and building upon the others. If that’s not the epitome of mythmaking then I don’t know. It’s just great. Dean and Cas are married, Eileen and Sam are married, Jack is sometimes a baby who Claire and Kaia are forced to babysit, Jody and Donna are gonna get hitched soon. It’s season 17, time for many weddings, and Kevin Tran is alive. Kripke, you have no control over this anymore, you crusty hag. 

Chuck is introduced as someone with power, but not influence over the story, only how the story is told through the medium of the novels. It’s basically a very badly written, non authorised biography, and Charlie reading literally every book and referencing things she should have no knowledge of is so damn creepy and funny. At first Chuck is surprised by his characters coming to life, despite having written it already, and when shown the intimidating array of weapons in Baby’s trunk he gets real scared. Which is the appropriate response for a skinny 5-foot-8 white guy in a bathrobe who writes terrible fantasy novels for a living. 

As far as I can remember, this is the first explicitly metanarrative episode in the series, or at least the first one with in world consequences. It builds upon the lore of Christianity, angels, and God, while teasing what’s to come. Chuck and Sam have a conversation about how the rest of the season is going to play out, and Sam comes away with the impression that he’ll go down with the ship. They touch on Sam’s addiction to demon blood, which Chuck admits he didn’t write into the books, because in the world of supernatural, addiction should be demonised ha ha at every opportunity, except for Dean’s alcoholism which is cool and manly and should never be analysed as an unhealthy trauma coping mechanism. 

Chuck is mostly impotent in the story of Sam and Dean, but his very presence presents an element of good luck that turns quickly into a force of antagonism in the series four finale, “Lucifer Rising”, when the archangel Raphael who defeats Lilith in this episode also kills Cas in the finale. It’s Cas’s quick thinking and Dean’s quick doing that resolve the episode and save them from Lilith, once again proving that free will is the greatest force in the universe. Cas is already tearing up pages and burning scripts. The fandom does the same, acting as gods of their own making in taking canon and transforming it into fan art. The fans aren’t impotent like Chuck, but neither do we have sway over the story in the way that Cas and Dean do. Sam isn’t interested in changing the story in the same way—he wants to kill Lilith and save the world, but in doing so continues the story in the way it was always supposed to go, the way the angels and the demons and even God wanted him to. 

Neither of them are author-gods in the way that God is. We find out later that Chuck is in fact the real biblical god, and he engineers everything. The one thing he doesn’t engineer, however, is Castiel, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Real Ghostbusters

Season 5’s “The real ghostbusters,” written by Nancy Weiner and Erik Kripke, and directed by James L Conway, situates the Winchesters at a fan convention for the Supernatural books. While there, they are confronted by a slew of fans cosplaying as Sam, Dean, Bobby, the scarecrow, Azazel, and more. They happen to stumble upon a case, in the midst of the game where the fans pretend to be on a case, and with the help of two fans cosplaying as Sam and Dean, they put to rest a group of homicidal ghost children and save the day. Chuck as the special guest of the con has a hero moment that spurs Becky on to return his affections. And at the end, we learn that the Colt, which they’ve been hunting down to kill the devil, was given to a demon named Crowley. It’s a fun episode, but ultimately skippable. This episode isn’t so much metanarrative as it is metatextual—metatextual meaning more than one layer of text but not necessarily about the storytelling in those texts—but let’s take a look at it anyway.

The metanarrative element of a show about a series of books about the brothers the show is based on is dope and expands upon what we saw in “the monster at the end of this book”. But the episode tells a tale about about the show itself, and the fandom that surrounds it. 

Where “The Monster At The End Of This Book” and the season 5 premiere “Sympathy For The Devil” poked at the coiled snake of fans and the concept of fandom, “the real ghostbusters” drags them into the harsh light of an enclosure and antagonises them in front of an audience. The metanarrative element revolves around not only the books themselves, but the stories concocted within the episode: namely Barnes and Demian the cosplayers and the story of the ghosts. The Winchester brothers’s history that we’ve seen throughout the first five seasons of the show is bared in a tongue in cheek way: while we cried with them when Sam and Dean fought with John, now the story is thrown out in such a way as to mock both the story and the fans’ relationship to it. Let me tell you, there is a lot to be made fun of on this show, but the fans’ relationship to the story of Sam, Dean and everyone they encounter along the way isn’t part of it. I don’t mean to be like, wow you can’t make fun of us ever because we’re special little snowflakes and we take everything so seriously, because you are welcome to make fun of us, but when the creators do it, I can’t help but notice a hint of malice. And I think that’s understandable in a way. Like The relationship between creator and fan is both layered and symbiotic. While Kripke and co no doubt owe the show’s popularity to the fans, especially as the fandom has grown and evolved over time, we’re not exactly free of sin. And don’t get me wrong, no fandom is. But the bad apples always seem to outweigh the good ones, and bad experiences can stick with us long past their due.

However, portraying us as losers with no lives who get too obsessed with this show — well, you know, actually, maybe they’re right. I am a loser with no life and I am too obsessed with this show. So maybe they have a point. But they’re so harsh about it. From wincestie Becky who they paint as a desperate shrew to these cosplayers who threaten Dean’s very perception of himself, we’re not painted in a very good light. 

Dean says to Demian and Barnes, “It must be nice to get out of your mom’s basement.” He’s judging them for deriving pleasure from dressing up and pretending to be someone else for a night. He doesn’t seem to get the irony that he does that for a living. As the seasons wore on, the creators made sure to include episodes where Dean’s inner geek could run rampant, often in the form of dressing up like a cowboy, such as season six “Frontierland” and season 13 “Tombstone”. I had to take a break from writing this to laugh for five minutes because Dean is so funny. He’s a car gay but he only likes one car. He doesn’t follow sports. His echolalia causes him to blurt out lines from his favourite movies. He’s a posse magnet. And he loves cosplay. But he will continually degrade and insult anyone who expresses interest in role play, fandom, or interests in general. Maybe that’s why Sam is such a boring person, because Dean as his mother didn’t allow him to have any interests outside of hunting. And when Sam does express interests, Dean insults him too. What a dick. He’s my soulmate, but I am not going to stop listening to hair metal for him. That’s where I draw the line. 

 Where “the monster at the end of this book” is concerned with narrative and authorship, “the real ghostbusters” is concerned with fandom and fan reactions to the show. It’s not really the best example to talk about in an episode about metanarrativity, but I wanted to include it anyway. It veers from talk of narrative by focusing on the people in the periphery of the narrative—the fans and the author. In season 9 “Metafiction,” Metatron asks the question, who gives the story meaning? The text would have you believe it’s the characters. The angels think it’s God. The fandom think it’s us. The creators think it’s them. Perhaps we will never come to a consensus or even a satisfactory answer to this question. Perhaps that’s the point.

The ultimate takeaway from this episode is that ordinary people, the people Sam and Dean save, the people they save the world for, the people they die for again and again, are what give their story meaning. Chuck defeats a ghost and saves the people in the conference room from being murdered. Demian and Barnes, don’t ask me which is which, burn the bodies of the ghost children and lay their spirits to rest. The text says that ordinary, every day people can rise to the challenge of becoming extraordinary. It’s not a bad note to end on, by any means. And then we find out that Demian and Barnes are a couple, which of course Dean is surprised at, because he lacks object permanence. 

This is no doubt influenced by how a good portion of the transformative fandom are queer, and also a nod to the wincesties and RPF writers like Becky who continue to bottom feed off the wrong message of this show. But then, the creators encourage that sort of thing, so who are the real clowns here? Everyone. Everyone involved with this show in any way is a clown, except for the crew, who were able to feed their families for more than a decade. 

Okay side note… over the past year or so I’ve been in process of realising that even in fandom queers are in the minority. I know the statistic is that 10% of the world population is queer, but that doesn’t seem right to me? Maybe because 4/5 closest friends are queer and I hang around queers online, but I also think I lack object permanence when it comes to straight people. Like I just do not interact with straight people on a regular basis outside of my best friend and parents and school. So when I hear that someone in fandom is straight I’m like, what the fuck… can you keep that to yourself please? Like if I saw Misha Collins coming out as straight I would be like, I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to tell. Okay I’m mostly joking, but I do forget straight people exist. Mostly I don’t think about whether people are gay or trans or cis or straight unless they’ve explicitly said it and then yes it does colour my perception of them, because of course it would. If they’re part of the queer community, they’re my people. And if they’re straight and cis, then they could very well pose a threat to me and my wellbeing. But I never ask people because it’s not my business to ask. If they feel comfortable enough to tell me, that’s awesome.  I think Dean feels the same way. Towards the later seasons at least, he has a good reaction when it’s revealed that someone is queer, even if it is mostly played off as a joke. It’s just that he doesn’t have a frame of reference in his own life to having a gay relationship, either his or someone he’s close to. He says to Cesar and Jesse in season 11 “The Critters” that they fight like brothers, because that’s the only way he knows how to conceptualise it. He doesn’t have a way to categorise his and Cas’s relationship, which is in many ways, long before season 15 “Despair,” harking back even to the parallels between Ruby and Cas in season 3 and 4, a romantic one, aside from that Cas is like a brother to him. Because he’s never had anyone in his life care for him the way Cas does that wasn’t Sam and Bobby, and he doesn’t recognise the romantic element of their relationship until literally Cas says it to him in the third last episode, he just—doesn’t know what his and Cas’s relationship is. He just really doesn’t know. And he grew up with a father who despised him for taking the mom and wife role in their family, the role that John placed him in, for being subservient to John’s wishes where Sam was more rebellious, so of course he wouldn’t understand either his own desires or those of anyone around him who isn’t explicitly shoving their tits in his face. He moulded his entire personality around what he thought John wanted of him, and John says to him explicitly in season 14 “Lebanon”, “I thought you’d have a family,” meaning, like him, wife and two rugrats. And then, dear god, Dean says, thinking of Sam, Cas, Jack, Claire, and Mary, “I have a family.” God that hurts so much. But since for most of his life he hasn’t been himself, he’s been the man he thought his father wanted him to be, he’s never been able to examine his own desires, wants and goals. So even though he’s really good at reading people, he is not good at reading other people’s desires unless they have nefarious intentions. Because he doesn’t recognise what he feels is attraction to men, he doesn’t recognise that in anyone else. 

Okay that’s completely off topic, wow. Getting back to metanarrativity in “The Real Ghostbusters,” I’ll just cap it off by saying that the books in this episode are more a frame for the events than the events themselves. However, there are some good outtakes where Chuck answers some questions, and I’m not sure how much of that is scripted and how much is Rob Benedict just going for it, but it lends another element to the idea of Kripke as author-god. The idea of a fan convention is really cool, because at this point Supernatural conventions had been running for about 4 years, since 2006. It’s definitely a tribute to the fans, but also to their own self importance. So it’s a mixed bag, considering there were plenty of elements in there that show the good side of fandom and fans, but ultimately the Winchesters want nothing to do with it, consider it weird, and threaten Chuck when he says he’ll start releasing books again, which as far as they know is his only source of income. But it’s a fun episode and Dean is a grouchy bitch, so who the holy hell cares?

Season 10 episode “fanfiction” written by my close personal friend Robbie Thompson and directed by Phil Sgriccia is one of the funniest episodes this show has ever done. Not only is it full of metatextual and metanarrative jokes, the entire premise revolves around fanservice, but in like a fun and interesting way, not fanservice like killing the band Kansas so that Dean can listen to “Carry On My Wayward Son” in heaven twice. Twice. One version after another. Like I would watch this musical seven times in theatre, I would buy the soundtrack, I would listen to it on repeat and make all my friends listen to it when they attend my online Jitsi birthday party. This musical is my Hamilton. Top ten episodes of this show for sure. The only way it could be better is if Cas was there. And he deserved to be there. He deserved to watch little dyke Castiel make out with her girlfriend with her cute little wings, after which he and Dean share uncomfortable eye contact. Dean himself is forever coming to terms with the fact that gay people exist, but Cas should get every opportunity he can to hear that it’s super cool and great and awesome to be queer. But really he should be in every episode, all of them, all 300 plus episodes including the ones before angels were introduced. I’m going to commission the guy who edits Paddington into every movie to superimpose Cas standing on the highway into every episode at least once.

“Fan Fiction” starts with a tv script and the words “Supernatural pilot created by Eric Kripke”. This Immediately sets up the idea that it’s toying with narrative. Blah blah blah, some people go missing, they stumble into a scene from their worst nightmares: the school is putting on a musical production of a show inspired by the Supernatural books. It’s a comedy of errors. When people continue to go missing, Sam and Dean have to convince the girls that something supernatural is happening, while retaining their dignity and respect. They reveal that they are the real Sam and Dean, and Dean gives the director Marie a summary of their lives over the last five seasons, but they aren’t taken seriously. Because, like, of course they aren’t. Even when the girls realise that something supernatural is happening, they don’t actually believe that the musical they’ve made and the series of books they’re basing it on are real. Despite how Sam and Dean Winchester were literal fugitives for many years at many different times, and this was on the news, and they were wanted by the FBI, despite how they pretend to be FBI, and no one mentions it??? Did any of the staffwriters do the required reading or just do what I used to do for my 40 plus page readings of Baudrillard and just skim the first sentence of every paragraph? Neat hack for you: paragraphs are set up in a logical order of Topic, Example, Elaboration, Linking sentence. Do you have to read 60 pages of some crusty French dude waxing poetic about how his best friend Pierre wants to shag his wife and making that your problem? Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. Boom, done. Just cut your work in half. 

The musical highlights a lot of the important moments of the show so far. The brothers have, as Charlie Bradbury says, their “broment,” and as Marie says, their “boy melodrama scene,” while she insinuates that there is a sexual element to their relationship. This show never passed up an opportunity to mention incest. It’s like: mentioning incest 5000 km, not being disgusting 1 km, what a hard decision. Actually, they do have to walk on their knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. But there are other moments—such as Mary burning on the ceiling, a classic, Castiel waiting for Dean at the side of the highway, and Azazel poisoning Sam. With the help of the high schoolers, Sam and Dean overcome Calliope, the muse and bad guy of the episode, and save the day. What began as their lives reinterpreted and told back to them turns into a story they have some agency over.

In this episode, as opposed to “The Monster At The End Of This Book,” The storytelling has transferred from an alcoholic in a bathrobe into the hands of an overbearing and overachieving teenage girl, and honestly why not. Transformative fiction is by and large run by women, and queer women, so Marie and her stage manager slash Jody Mills’s understudy Maeve are just following in the footsteps of legends. This kind of really succinctly summarises the difference between curative fandom and transformative fandom, the former of which is populated mostly by men, and the latter mostly by women. As defined by LordByronic in 2015, Curative fandom is more like enjoying the text, collecting the merchandise, organising the knowledge — basically Reddit in terms of fandom curation. Transformative fandom is transforming the source text in some way — making fanart, fanfic, mvs, or a musical — basically Tumblr in general, and Archive of our own specifically. Like what do non fandom people even do on Tumblr? It is a complete mystery to me. Whereas Chuck literally writes himself into the narrative he receives through visions, Marie and co have agency and control over the narrative by writing it themselves. 

Chuck does appear in the episode towards the end, his first appearance after five seasons. The theory that he killed those lesbian theatre girls makes me wanna curl up and die, so I don’t subscribe to it. Chuck watched the musical and he liked it and he gave unwarranted notes and then he left, the end.

The Supernatural creative team is explicitly acknowledging the fandom’s efforts by making this episode. They’re writing us in again, with more obsessive fans, but with lethbians this time, which makes it infinitely better. And instead of showing us as potential date rapists, we’re just cool chicks who like to make art. And that’s fucken awesome. 

I just have to note that the characters literally say the word Destiel after Dean sees the actors playing Dean and Cas making out. He storms off and tells Sam to shut the fuck up when Sam makes fun of him, because Dean’s sexuality is NOT threatened he just needs to assert his dominance as a straight hetero man who has NEVER looked at another man’s lips and licked his own. He just… forgets that gay people exist until someone reminds him. BUT THEN, after a rousing speech that is stolen from Rent or Wicked or something, he echoes Marie’s words back, saying “put as much sub into that text as you possibly can.” What does Dean know about subbing, I wonder. Okay I’m suddenly reminded that he did literally go to a kink bar and get hit on by a leather daddy. Oh Dean, the experiences you have as a broad-shouldered, pixie-faced man with cowboy legs. You were born for this role.

Metatron is my favourite villain. As one tumblr user pointed out, he is an evil English literature major, which is just a normal English literature major. The season nine episode “Meta Fiction” written by my main man robbie thompson and directed by thomas j wright, happens within a curious season. Castiel, once again, becomes the leader of a portion of the heavenly host to take down Metatron, and Dean is affected by the Mark Of Cain. Sam was recently possessed by Gadreel, who killed Kevin in Sam’s body and then decided to run off with Metatron. Metatron himself is recruiting angels to join him, in the hopes that he can become the new God. It’s the first introduction of Hannah, who encourages Cas to recruit angels himself to take on Metatron. Also, we get to see Gabriel again, who is always a delight. 

This episode is a lot of fun. Metatron poses questions like, who tells a story and who is the most important person in the telling? Is it the writer? The audience? He starts off staring over his typewriter to address the camera, like a pompous dickhead. No longer content with consuming stories, he’s started to write his own. And they are hubristic ones about becoming God, a better god than Chuck ever was, but to do it he needs to kill a bunch of people and blame it on Cas. So really, he’s actually exactly like Chuck who blamed everything on Lucifer. 

But I think the most apt analogy we can use for this in terms of who is the creator is to think of Metatron as a fanfiction writer. He consumes the media—the Winchester Gospels—and starts to write his own version of events—leading an army to become God and kill Cas. Nevermind that no one has been able to kill Cas in a way that matters or a way that sticks. Which is canon, and what Metatron is trying to do is—well not fanon because it actually does impact the Winchesters’ storyline. It would be like if one of the writers of Supernatural began writing Supernatural fanfiction before they got a job on the show. Which as my generation and the generations coming after me get more comfortable with fanfiction and fandom, is going to be the case for a lot of shows. I think it’s already the case for Riverdale. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the woman who wrote the bi Dean essay go to work on Riverdale? Or something? I dunno, I have the post saved in my tumblr likes but that is quagmire of epic proportions that I will easily get lost in if I try to find it. 

Okay let me flex my literary degree. As Englund and Leach say in “Ethnography and the metanarratives of modernity,” “The influential “literary turn,” in which the problems of ethnography were seen as largely textual and their solutions as lying in experimental writing seems to have lost its impetus.” This can be taken to mean, in the context of Supernatural, that while Metatron’s writings seek to forge a new path in history, forgoing fate for a new kind of divine intervention, the problem with Metatron is that he’s too caught up in the textual, too caught up in the writing, to be effectual. And this as we see throughout seasons 9, 10 and 11, has no lasting effect. Cas gets his grace back, Dean survives, and Metatron becomes a powerless human. In this case, the impetus is his grace, which he loses when Cas cuts it out of him, a mirror to Metatron cutting out Cas’s grace. 

However, I realise that the concept of ethnography in Supernatural is a flawed one, ethnography being the observation of another culture: a lot of the angels observe humanity and seem to fit in. However, Cas has to slowly acclimatise to the Winchesters as they tame him, but he never quite fit in—missing cues, not understanding jokes or Dean’s personal space, the scene where he says, “We have a guinea pig? Where?” Show him the guinea pig Sam!!! He wants to see it!!! At most he passes as a human with autism. Cas doesn’t really observe humanity—he observes nature, as seen in season 7 “reading is fundamental” and “survival of the fittest”. Even the human acts he talks about in season 6 “the man who would be king” are from hundreds or thousands of years ago. He certainly doesn’t observe popular culture, which puts him at odds with Dean, who is made up of 90 per cent pop culture references and 10 per cent flannel. Metatron doesn’t seek to blend in with humanity so much as control it, which actually is the most apt example of ethnography for white people in the last—you know, forever. But of course the writers didn’t seek to make this analogy. It is purely by chance, and maybe I’m the only person insane enough to realise it. But probably not. There are a lot of cookies much smarter than me in the Supernatural fandom and they’ve like me have grown up and gone to university and gotten real jobs in the real world and real haircuts. I’m probably the only person to apply Englund and Leach to it though.

And yes, as I read this paper I did need to have one tab open on Google, with the word “define” in the search bar. 

Metatron has a few lines in this that I really like. He says: 

“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

“You’re going to have to follow my script.”

“I’m an entity of my word.”

It’s really obvious, but they’re pushing the idea that Metatron has become an agent of authorship instead of just a consumer of media. He even throws a Supernatural book into his fire — a symbolic act of burning the script and flipping the writer off, much like Cas did to God and the angels in season 5. He’s not a Kripke figure so much as maybe a Gamble, Carver or Dabb figure, in that he usurps Chuck and becomes the author-god. This would be extremely postmodern of him if he didn’t just do exactly what Chuck was doing, except worse somehow. In fact, it’s postmodern of Cas to reject heaven’s narrative and fall for Dean. As one tumblr user points out, Cas really said “What’s fate compared to Dean Winchester?”

Okay this transcript is almost 8000 words already, and I still have two more episodes to review, and more things to say, so I’ll leave you with this. Metatron says to Cas, “Out of all of God’s wind up toys, you’re the only one with any spunk.” Why Cas has captured his attention comes down more than anything to a process of elimination. Most angels fucking suck. They follow the rules of whoever puts themselves in charge, and they either love Cas or hate him, or just plainly wanna fuck him, and there have been few angels who stood out. Balthazar was awesome, even though I hated him the first time I watched season 6. He UNSUNK the Titanic. Legend status. And Gabriel was of course the OG who loves to fuck shit up. But they’re gone at this stage in the narrative, and Cas survives. Cas always survives. He does have spunk. And everyone wants to fuck him.  

Season 11 episode 20 “Don’t Call Me Shurley,” the last episode written by the Christ like figure of Robbie Thompson — are we sensing a theme here? — and directed by my divine enemy Robert Singer, starts with Metatron dumpster diving for food. I’m not even going to bother commenting on this because like… it’s supernatural and it treats complex issues like homelessness and poverty with zero nuance. Like the Winchesters live in poverty but it’s fun and cool because they always scrape by but Metatron lives in poverty and it’s funny. Cas was homeless and it was hard but he needed to do it to atone for his sins, and Metatron is homeless and it’s funny because he brought it on himself by being a murderous dick. Fucking hell. Robbie, come on. The plot focuses on God, also known as Chuck Shurley, making himself known to Metatron and asking for Metatron’s opinion on his memoir. Meanwhile, the Winchesters battle another bout of infectious serial killer fog sent by Amara. At the end of the episode, Chuck heals everyone affected by the fog and reveals himself to Sam and Dean. 

Chuck says that he didn’t foresee Metatron trying to become god, but the idea of Season 15 is that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all their lives. When Metatron tries, he fails miserably, is locked up in prison, tortured by Dean, then rendered useless as a human and thrown into the world without a safety net. His authorship is reduced to nothing, and he is reduced to dumpster diving for food. He does actually attempt to live his life as someone who records tragedies as they happen and sells the footage to news stations, which is honestly hilarious and amazing and completely unsurprising because Metatron is, at the heart of it, an English Literature major. In true bastard style, he insults Chuck’s work and complains about the bar, but slips into his old role of editor when Chuck asks him to. 

The theory I’m consulting for this uses the term metanarrative in a different way than I am. They consider it an overarching narrative, a grand narrative like religion. Chuck’s biography is in a sense most loyal to Middleton and Walsh’s view of metanarrative: “the universal story of the world from arche to telos, a grand narrative encompassing world history from beginning to end.” Except instead of world history, it’s God’s history, and since God is construed in Supernatural as just some guy with some powers who is as fallible as the next some guy with some powers, his story has biases and agendas.  Okay so in the analysis I’m getting Middleton and Walsh’s quotes from, James K A Smith’s “A little story about metanarratives,” Smith dunks on them pretty bad, but for Supernatural purposes their words ring true. Think of them as the BuckLeming of Lyotard’s postmodern metanarrative analysis: a stopped clock right twice a day. Is anyone except me understanding the sequence of words I’m saying right now. Do I just have the most specific case of brain worms ever found in human history. I’m currently wearing my oversized Keith Haring shirt and dipping pretzels into peanut butter because it’s 3.18 in the morning and the homosexuals got to me. The total claims a comprehensive metanarrative of world history make do indeed, as Middleton and Walsh claim, lead to violence, stay with me here, because Chuck’s legacy is violence, and so is Metatron’s, and in trying to reject the metanarrative, Sam and Dean enact violence. Mostly Dean, because in season 15 he sacrifices his own son twice to defeat Chuck. But that means literally fighting violence with violence. Violence is, after all, all they know. Violence is the lens through which they interact with the world. If the writers wanted to do literally anything else, they could have continued Dean’s natural character progression into someone who eschews the violence that stems from intergeneration trauma — yes I will continue to use the phrase intergenerational trauma whenever I refer to Dean — and becomes a loving father and husband. Sam could eschew violence and start a monster rehabilitation centre with Eileen.

This episode of Holy Hell is me frantically grabbing at straws to make sense of a narrative that actively hates me and wants to kick me to death. But the violence Sam and Dean enact is not at a metanarrative level, because they are not author-gods of their own narrative. In season 15 “Atomic Monsters,” Becky points out that the ending of the Supernatural book series is bad because the brothers die, and then, in a shocking twist of fate, Dean does die, and the narrative is bad. The writers set themselves a goal post to kick through and instead just slammed their heat into the bars. They set up the dartboard and were like, let’s aim the darts at ourselves. Wouldn’t that be fun. Season 15’s writing is so grossly incompetent that I believe every single conspiracy theory that’s come out of the finale since November, because it’s so much more compelling than whatever the fuck happened on the road so far. Carry on? Why yes, I think I will carry on, carry on like a pork chop, screaming at the bars of my enclosure until I crack my voice open like an egg and spill out all my rage and frustration. The world will never know peace again. It’s now 3.29 and I’ve written over 9000 words of this transcript. And I’m not done.

Middleton and Walsh claim that metanarratives are merely social constructions masquerading as universal truths. Which is, exactly, Supernatural. The creators have constructed this elaborate web of narrative that they want to sell us as the be all and end all. They won’t let the actors discuss how they really feel about the finale. They won’t let Misha Collins talk about Destiel. They want us to believe it was good, actually, that Dean, a recovering alcoholic with a 30 year old infant son and a husband who loves him, deserved to die by getting NAILED, while Sam, who spent the last four seasons, the entirety of Andrew Dabb’s run as showrunner, excelling at creating a hunter network and romancing both the queen of hell and his deaf hunter girlfriend, should have lived a normie life with a normie faceless wife. Am I done? Not even close. I started this episode and I’m going to finish it.

When we find out that Chuck is God in the episode of season 11, it turns everything we knew about Chuck on its head. We find out in Season 15 that Chuck has been writing the Winchesters’ story all along, that everything that happened to them is his doing. The one thing he couldn’t control was Cas’s choice to rebel. If we take him at his word, Cas is the only true force of free will in the entire universe, and more specifically, the love that Cas had for Dean which caused him to rebel and fall from heaven. — This theory has holes of course. Why would Lucifer torture Lilith into becoming the first demon if he didn’t have free will? Did Chuck make him do that? And why? So that Chuck could be the hero and Lucifer the bad guy, like Lucifer claimed all along? That’s to say nothing of Adam and Eve, both characters the show introduced in different ways, one as an antagonist and the other as the narrative foil to Dean and Cas’s romance. Thinking about it makes my head hurt, so I’m just not gunna. 

So Chuck was doing the writing all along. And as Becky claims in “Atomic Monsters,” it’s bad writing. The writers explicitly said, the ending Chuck wrote is bad because there’s no Cas and everyone dies, and then they wrote an ending where there is no Cas and everyone dies. So talk about self-fulfilling prophecies. Talk about giant craters in the earth you could see from 800 kilometres away but you still fell into. Meanwhile fan writers have the opportunity to write a million different endings, all of which satisfy at least one person. The fandom is a hydra, prolific and unstoppable, and we’ll keep rewriting the ending a million more times.

And all this is not even talking about the fact that Chuck is a man, Metatron is a man, Sam and Dean and Cas are men, and the writers and directors of the show are, by an overwhelming majority, men. Most of them are white, straight, cis men. Feminist scholarship has done a lot to unpack the damage done by paternalistic approaches to theory, sociology, ethnography, all the -ys, but I propose we go a step further with these men. Kill them. Metanarratively, of course. Amara, the Darkness, God’s sister, had a chance to write her own story without Chuck, after killing everything in the universe, and I think she had the right idea. Knock it all down to build it from the ground up. Billie also had the opportunity to write a narrative, but her folly was, of course, putting any kind of faith in the Winchesters who are also grossly incompetent and often fail up. She is, as all author-gods on this show are, undone by Castiel. The only one with any spunk, the only one who exists outside of his own narrative confines, the only one the author-gods don’t have any control over. The one who died for love, and in dying, gave life. 

The French Mistake

Let’s change the channel. Let’s calm ourselves and cleanse our libras. Let’s commune with nature and chug some sage bongs. 

“The French Mistake” is a song from the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles. In the iconic second last scene of the film, as the cowboys fight amongst themselves, the camera pans back to reveal a studio lot and a door through which a chorus of gay dancersingers perform “the French Mistake”. The lyrics go, “Throw out your hands, stick out your tush, hands on your hips, give ‘em a push. You’ll be surprised you’re doing the French Mistake.” 

I’m not sure what went through the heads of the Supernatural creators when they came up with the season 6 episode, “The French Mistake,” written by the love of my life Ben Edlund and directed by some guy Charles Beeson. Just reading the Wikipedia summary is so batshit incomprehensible. In short: Balthazar sends Sam and Dean to an alternate universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, who play Sam and Dean on the tv show Supernatural. I don’t think this had ever been done in television history before. The first seven seasons of this show are certifiable. Like this was ten years ago. Think about the things that have happened in the last 10 slutty, slutty years. We have lived through atrocities and upheaval and the entire world stopping to mourn, but also we had twitter throughout that entire time, which makes it infinitely worse.

In this universe, Sam and Dean wear makeup, Cas is played by attractive crying man Misha Collins, and Genevieve Padalecki nee Cortese makes an appearance. Magic doesn’t exist, Serge has good ideas, and the two leads have to act in order to get through the day. Sorry man I do not know how to pronounce your name.

Sidenote: I don’t know if me being attracted aesthetically to Misha Collins is because he’s attractive, because this show has gaslighted me into thinking he’s attractive, or because Castiel’s iconic entrance in 2008 hit my developing mind like a torpedo full of spaghetti and blew my fucking brains all over the place. It’s one of life’s little mysteries and God’s little gifts.

Let’s talk about therapy. More specifically, “Agency and purpose in narrative therapy: questioning the postmodern rejection of metanarrative” by Cameron Lee. In this paper, Lee outlines four key ideas as proposed by Freedman and Combs:

Realities are socially constructed

Realities are constituted through language

Realities are organised and maintained through narrative

And there are no essential truths.

Let’s break this down in the case of this episode. Realities are socially constructed: the reality of Sam and Dean arose from the Bush era. Do I even need to elaborate? From what I understand with my limited Australian perception, and being a child at the time, 9/11 really was a prominent shifting point in the last twenty years. As Americans describe it, sometimes jokingly, it was the last time they were really truly innocent. That means to me that until they saw the repercussions of their government’s actions in funding turf wars throughout the middle east for a good chunk of the 20th Century, they allowed themselves to be hindered by their own ignorance. The threat of terrorism ran rampant throughout the States, spurred on by right wing nationalists and gun-toting NRA supporters, so it’s really no surprise that the show Supernatural started with the premise of killing everything in sight and driving around with only your closest kin and a trunk full of guns. Kripke constructed that reality from the social-political climate of the time, and it has wrought untold horrors on the minds of lesbians who lived through the noughties, in that we are now attracted to Misha Collins.

Number two: Realities are constituted through language. Before a show can become a show, it needs to be a script. It’s written down, typed up, and given to actors who say the lines out loud. In this respect, they are using the language of speech and words to convey meaning. But tv shows are not all about words, and they’re barely about scripts. From what I understand of being raised by television, they are about action, visuals, imagery, and behaviours. All of the work that goes into them—the scripts, the lighting, the audio, the sound mixing, the cameras, the extras, the ADs, the gaffing, the props, the stunts, everything—is about conveying a story through the medium of images. In that way, images are the language. The reality of the show Supernatural, inside the show Supernatural, is constituted through words: the script, the journalists talking to Sam, the makeup artist taking off Dean’s makeup, the conversations between the creators, the tweets Misha sends. But also through imagery: the fish tank in Jensen’s trailer, the model poses on the front cover of the magazine, the opulence of Jared’s house, Misha’s iconic sweater. Words and images are the language that constitutes both of these realities. Okay for real, I feel like I’ve only seen this episode max three times, including when I watched it for research for this episode, but I remember so much about it. 

Number three: realities are organised and maintained through narrative. In this universe of the French Mistake, their lives are structured around two narratives: the internal narrative of the show within the show, in which they are two actors on a tv set; and the episode narrative in which they need to keep the key safe and return to their own universe. This is made difficult by the revelation that magic doesn’t work in this universe, however, they find a way. Before they can get back, though, an avenging angel by the name of Virgil guns down author-god Eric Kripke and tries to kill the Winchesters. However, they are saved by Balthazar and the freeze frame and brought back into their own world, the world of Supernatural the show, not Supernatural the show within the show within the nesting doll. And then that reality is done with, never to be revisited or even mentioned, but with an impact that has lasted longer than the second Bush administration.

And number four: there are no essential truths. This one is a bit tricky because I can’t find what Lee means by essential truths, so I’m just going to interpret that. To me, essential truths means what lies beneath the narratives we tell ourselves. Supernatural was a show that ran for 15 years. Supernatural had actors. Supernatural was showrun by four different writers. In the show within a show, there is nothing, because that ceases to exist for longer than the forty two minute episode “The French Mistake”. And since Supernatural no longer exists except in our computers, it is nothing too. It is only the narratives we tell ourselves to sleep better at night, to wake up in the morning with a smile, to get through the day, to connect with other people, to understand ourselves better. It’s not even the narrative that the showrunners told, because they have no agency over it as soon as it shows up on our screens. The essential truth of the show is lost in the translation from creating to consuming. Who gives the story meaning? The people watching it and the people creating it. We all do. 

Lee says that humans are predisposed to construct narratives in order to make sense of the world. We see this in cultures from all over the world: from cave paintings to vases, from The Dreaming to Beowulf, humans have always constructed stories. The way you think about yourself is a story that you’ve constructed. The way you interact with your loved ones and the furries you rightfully cyberbully on Twitter is influenced by the narratives you tell yourself about them. And these narratives are intricate, expansive, personalised, and can colour our perceptions completely, so that we turn into a different person when we interact with one person as opposed to another. 

Whatever happened in season 6, most of which I want to forget, doesn’t interest me in the way I’m telling myself the writers intended. For me, the entirety of season 6 was based around the premise of Cas being in love with Dean, and the complete impotence of this love. He turns up when Dean calls, he agonises as he watches Dean rake leaves and live his apple pie life with Lisa, and Dean is the person he feels most horribly about betraying. He says, verbatim, to Sam, “Dean and I do share a more profound bond.” And Balthazar says, “You’re confusing me with the other angel, the one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you.” He says this in season 6, and we couldn’t do a fucken thing about it. 

The song “The French Mistake” shines a light on the hidden scene of gay men performing a gay narrative, in the midst of a scene about the manliest profession you can have: professional horse wrangler, poncho wearer, and rodeo meister, the cowboy. If this isn’t a perfect encapsulation of the lovestory between Dean and Cas, which Ben Edlund has been championing from day fucking one of Misha Collins walking onto that set with his sex hair and chapped lips, then I don’t know what the fuck we’re even doing here. What in the hell else could it possibly mean. The layers to this. The intricacy. The agendas. The subtextual AND blatant queerness. The micro aggressions Crowley aimed at Car in “The Man Who Would Be King,” another Bedlund special. Bed Edlund is a fucking genius. Bed Edlund is cool girl. Ben Edlund is the missing link. Bed Edlund IS wikileaks. Ben Edlund is a cool breeze on a humid summer day. Ben Edlund is the stop loading button on a browser tab. Ben Edlund is the perfect cross between Spotify and Apple Music, in which you can search for good playlists, but without having to be on Spotify. He can take my keys and fuck my wife. You best believe I’m doing an entire episode of Holy Hell on Bedlund’s top five. He is the reason I want to get into staffwriting on a tv show. I saw season 4 episode “On the head of a pin” when my brain was still torpedoed spaghetti mush from the premiere, and it nestled its way deep into my exposed bones, so that when I finally recovered from that, I was a changed person. My god, this transcript is 11,000 words, and I haven’t even finished the Becky section. Which is a good transition.

Oh, Becky. She is an incarnation of how the writers, or at least Kripke, view the fans. Watching season 5 “Sympathy for the Devil” live in 2009 was a whole fucking trip that I as a baby gay was not prepared for. Figuring out my sexuality was a journey that started with the Supernatural fandom and is in some aspects still raging against the dying of the light today. Add to that, this conception of the audience was this, like, personification of the librarian cellist from Juno, but also completely without boundaries, common sense, or shame. It made me wonder about my position in the narrative as a consumer consuming. Is that how Kripke saw me, specifically? Was I like Becky? Did my forays into DeanCasNatural on El Jay dot com make me a fucking loser whose only claim to fame is writing some nasty fanfiction that I’ve since deleted all traces of? Don’t get me wrong, me and my unhinged Casgirl friends loved Becky. I can’t remember if I ever wrote any fanfiction with her in it because I was mostly writing smut, which is extremely Becky coded of me, but I read some and my friends and I would always chat about her when she came up. She was great entertainment value before season 7. But in the eyes of the powers that be, Becky, like the fans themselves, are expendable. First they turned her into a desperate bride wannabe who drugs Sam so that he’ll be with her, then Chuck waves his hand and she disappears. We’re seeing now with regards to Destiel, Cas, and Misha Collins this erasure of them from the narrative. Becky says in season 15 “Atomic Monsters” that the ending Chuck writes is bad because, for one, there’s no Cas, and that’s exactly what’s happening to the text post-finale. It literally makes me insane akin to the throes of mania to think about the layers of this. They literally said, “No Cas = bad” and now Misha isn’t even allowed to talk in his Cassona voice—at least at the time I wrote that—to the detriment of the fans who care about him. It’s the same shit over and over. They introduce something we like, they realise they have no control over how much we like it, and then they pretend they never introduced it in the first place. Season 7, my god. The only reason Gamble brought back Cas was because the ratings were tanking the show. I didn’t even bother watching most of it live, and would just hear from my friends whether Cas was in the episodes or not. And then Sera, dear Sera, had the gall to say it was a Homer’s Odyssey narrative. I’m rusty on Homer aka I’ve never read it but apparently Odysseus goes away, ends up with a wife on an island somewhere, and then comes back to Terabithia like it never happened. How convenient. But since Sera Gamble loves to bury her gays, we can all guess why Cas was written out of the show: Cas being gay is a threat to the toxic heteronormativity spouted by both the show and the characters themselves. In season 15, after Becky gets her life together, has kids, gets married, and starts a business, she is outgrowing the narrative and Chuck kills her. The fans got Destiel Wedding trending on Twitter, and now the creators are acting like he doesn’t exist. New liver, same eagles.

I have to add an adendum: as of this morning, Sunday 11th, don’t ask me what time that is in Americaland, Misha Collins did an online con/Q&A thing and answered a bunch of questions about Cas and Dean, which goes to show that he cannot be silenced. So the narrative wants to be told. It’s continuing well into it’s 16th or 17th season. It’s going to keep happening and they have no recourse to stop it. So fuck you, Supernatural.

I did write the start of a speech about representation but, who the holy hell cares. I also read some disappointing Masters theses that I hope didn’t take them longer to research and write than this episode of a podcast I’m making for funsies took me, considering it’s the same number of pages. Then again I have the last four months and another 8 years of fandom fuelling my obsession, and when I don’t sleep I write, hence the 4,000 words I knocked out in the last 12 hours. 

Some final words. Lyotard defines postmodernism, the age we live in, as an incredulity towards metanarratives. Modernism was obsessed with order and meaning, but postmodernism seeks to disrupt that. Modernists lived within the frame of the narrative of their society, but postmodernists seek to destroy the frame and live within our own self-written contexts. Okay I love postmodernist theory so this has been a real treat for me. Yoghurt, Sam? Postmodernist theory? Could I BE more gay? 

Middleton and Walsh in their analysis of postmodernism claim that biblical faith is grounded in metanarrative, and explore how this intersects with an era that rejects metanarrative. This is one of the fundamental ideas Supernatural is getting at throughout definitely the last season, but other seasons as well. The narratives of Good vs Evil, Michael vs Lucifer, Dean vs Sam, were encoded into the overarching story of the show from season 1, and since then Sam and Dean have sought to break free of them. Sam broke free of John’s narrative, which was the hunting life, and revenge, and this moralistic machismo that they wrapped themselves up in. If they’re killing the evil, then they’re not the evil. That’s the story they told, and the impetus of the show that Sam was sucked back into. But this thread unravelled in later seasons when Dean became friends with Benny and the idea that all supernatural creatures are inherently evil unravelled as well. While they never completely broke free of John’s hold over them, welcoming Jack into their lives meant confronting a bias that had been ingrained in them since Dean was 4 years old and Sam 6 months. In the face of the question, “are all monsters monstrous?” the narrative loosens its control. Even by questioning it, it throws into doubt the overarching narrative of John’s plan, which is usurped at the end of season 2 when they kill Azazel by Dean’s demon deal and a new narrative unfolds. John as author-god is usurped by the actual God in season 4, who has his own narrative that controls the lives of Sam, Dean and Cas. 

Okay like for real, I do actually think the metanarrativity in Supernatural is something that should be studied by someone other than me, unless you wanna pay me for it and then shit yeah. It is extremely cool to introduce a biographical narrative about the fictional narrative it’s in. It’s cool that the characters are constantly calling this narrative into focus by fighting against it, struggling to break free from their textual confines to live a life outside of the external forces that control them. And the thing is? The really real, honest thing? They have. Sam, Dean and Cas have broken free of the narrative that Kripke, Carver, Gamble and Dabb wrote for them. The very fact that the textual confession of love that Cas has for Dean ushered in a resurgence of fans, fandom and activity that has kept the show trending for five months after it ended, is just phenomenal. People have pointed out that fans stopped caring about Game of Thrones as soon as it ended. Despite the hold they had over tv watchers everywhere, their cultural currency has been spent. The opposite is true for Supernatural. Despite how the finale of the show angered and confused people, it gains more momentum every day. More fanworks, more videos, more fics, more art, more ire, more merch is being generated by the fans still. The Supernatural subreddit, which was averaging a few posts a week by season 15, has been incensed by the finale. And yours truly happily traipsed back into the fandom snake pit after 8 years with a smile on my face and a skip in my step ready to pump that dopamine straight into my veins babeeeeeeyyyyy. It’s been WILD. I recently reconnected with one of my mutuals from 2010 and it’s like nothing’s changed. We’re both still unhinged and we both still simp for Supernatural. Even before season 15, I was obsessed with the podcast Ride Or Die, which I started listening to in late 2019, and Supernatural was always in the back of my mind. You just don’t get over your first fandom. Actually, Danny Phantom was my first fandom, and I remember being 12 talking on Danny Phantom forums to people much too old to be the target audience of the show. So I guess that hasn’t left me either. And the fondest memories I have of Supernatural is how the characters have usurped their creators to become mythic, long past the point they were supposed to die a quiet death. The myth weaving that the Supernatural fandom is doing right now is the legacy that will endure. 

References

I got all of these for free from Google Scholar! 

Judith May Fathallah, “I’m A God: The Author and the Writing Fan in Supernatural.” 

James K A Smith, “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion and Postmodernism Revisited.” 2001.

Cameron Lee, “Agency and Purpose in Narrative Therapy: Questioning the Postmodern Rejection of Metanarrative.” 2004.

Harri Englund and James Leach, “Ethnography and the Meta Narratives of Modernity.” 2000.

https://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/mel-brooks-explains-french-mistake-blazing-saddles-blu-ray/

[babyybitchhh]

Announcement

Alrighty, then. This post has been a long time coming so lets get right into it.

After much deliberation, I've decided not to push the self destruct button. I thought about it. Oh, when I say I was SO damn close to deleting this entire blog and all my fics right along with it. I'm frustrated and angry with myself, and I can't exactly say I'm doing well atm, but I know when things start to get better I'll want to write again, in earnest, and then I'd have to start over from scratch. Egg all over my face. Clown shit. We don't know her.

BUT. I think its clear to any and all that this is not working. It's just not. I expect too much of myself, for starters. And when it feels like others expect a certain level of performance from me that I just can't nail consistently due to my own ineptitude, my brain powers off. Is it some kind of executive dysfunction? Is it a fear of failing? A fear of success? Plain old anxiety? Who knows! I certainly don't. Whatever it is, it's hanging over my head like a guillotine. I'm beyond stressed and barely staying afloat irl, but then when I turn towards what should be a fun and therapeutic outlet all I see are expectations.

"When will you post the next chapter" on works that I WANT to finish but yet fear putting out a subpar product for and disappointing people.

"Will you write a follow up piece" for works that I WANT to expand on but don't know how to in a way that will make everyone else happy, let alone myself.

"Are you working on my request" for WIPs I have partially drafted and yet no way of knowing if that person - or anyone! - will even enjoy it.

I honestly feel guilty working on my own ideas instead of the multiple prompts in my inbox. I'm pretty sure that's part of my malfunction with my Ogun fic and others like it that are close to being done but remain unfinished simply because I'm thinking about what everyone else wants. It'd be one thing if I could just churn out content without a second thought but I can't. Like, it genuinely upsets me thinking that people are stuck in limbo waiting because I'm too chicken shit to just go with the flow instead of obsessing over every single line of text to the point of nausea, all for the sake of putting out "quality" content. I feel bad. I want to enjoy the writing process again, just like I did when I first got back into it with OsoSan. I shouldn't have started taking requests if I wasn't going to deliver, I know, and I sincerely apologize for my lack of foresight but it is what it is. I can't change the past. But what I CAN do is start fresh. So, long story short, there are going to be some changes coming to this blog.

A total revamp. I'm going to do an overhaul on the whole thing so don't be surprised when it starts to look different. I'm going to work primarily on navigation and organization, and try to tidy up a bit.

I'm turning off anon. Both because people looking to have a go with writers aren't so brave when that's no longer an option and also because I want to get as far away from those expectations as possible. I wont be reading or responding to comments on AO3 anymore for that same reason. I love you guys, and you're more than welcome to talk to me in DM's if you're more comfortable that way, but the long list of asks wanting to know wtf I'm doing in my spare time if not writing this or that is doing more harm than good.

I'm getting rid of the requests page and also purging any that I haven't already started working on - hopefully once I get into a better groove I'll actually be able to finish them, because I genuinely would like to. I really am sorry to everyone who's been waiting for their request to be fulfilled but I'm clearly not talented or confident enough to juggle my own ideas with someone else's. Maybe at some point in the future, when I'm a better writer, I'll start taking them again and we can all be happy.

And finally, I'm going to start experimenting with my writing method. As in, you're probably going to see shorter, less obsessively curated pieces popping up on my page that may not always be sexual in nature. I just really need to buckle down and work on this - all of it - and I'm determined to improve my skills even if it kills me. I have the urge to write every single day but it's hard when I'm the way I am and I've backed myself into a corner like this. I need to learn how to stop overthinking everything and just DO it. I know my productivity would increase and, with it, so would the overall quality of my work so I'm going to be focusing on different areas that need improvement. Not everything I put out will be good but that's part of the process, right? Right.

I totally understand if I lose followers for any of the above reasons, or even just personal ones, so don't hesitate to do so if you feel like you can't jive with this blog anymore. I appreciate you taking the time to read all this and I hope you understand my reasons for needing to do a reset on this page. This is exactly why I didn't want to start taking commissions and I would once again like to apologize to anyone I've let down.

P.S. I've had this distinct feeling that certain people in the writing community are not happy with me for a while now and although I'm not entirely sure what I've done wrong, I would still like to issue a formal apology for any toes I might have stepped on. That was never my intention. I can't claim to be a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I have no ill will towards anyone. If its about the patreon I subscribed to and then left a month later, it had nothing to do with the author in question. I just belatedly realized I had more money coming out of my account than I could handle at the time and yes that weighs heavy on my shoulders. If its about the way I suddenly disappear in private chats, that's also something that shouldn't be taken personally. I genuinely have a hard time keeping up conversations with people, and I feel like a bother more often than not. If it's about the discords I join and then never participate in, see the above. If its about the way I fangirl or enthusiastically support some writers but not others, I never meant any harm by it. I just can't conceivably read everything that comes across my dash and, yes, my favorites are prioritized. Either way, whatever the grievances may be, anon will remain on until I start the revamp process some time tomorrow night so if whoever wants to air out their problems go for it. I probably wont post them but I will read them and try to learn from them, so have at it.

[thehollowprince]

1.Hey just want to let you know that I am the first anon who asked about Jensen Ackles and Tyler Posey - I don't know which teen wolf anon you assumed I was, but that was the first time I send you an ask. I am a TP fan and check your blog for TP stuff and was surprised to see you reblogging jokes about Ackles being homophobic - since I see him facing the same issues that Posey did - a toxic fandom that bullies actors just because they don't subscribe to wanting two hot white men to get together.

2. Same anon. I don't think we should be throwing around words like homophobia lightly or based on rumors about how Ackles made a showrunner change the character based on his preferences etc. Ackles maybe homophobic - we don't know for sure. All I know is that from my experience, the Destiel fandom is as toxic as the Sterek fandom. Sure, Ackles shares part of the blame as he makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off these fans at the various cons - ( contd. in part 3)

3. But that does not mean that actors or their family should be subject to cyber bullying and online hate or that the showrunners should pander to this toxic fanbase. Scott would have been and was sidelined to pander to and queerbait Sterek fans and he was called homophobic when he pointed out how nonsensical the ship was. Destiel is the same and I don't mind Ackles not giving two shits about acting out a badly written scene pushed in to appease a toxic fanbase. Just my two cents.

Okay, first off, I want to say the only anon I've ever gotten that used Tyler Posey and "double-standards" in the same sentence has been the Asshole Anon I tagged. And given the fact that this anon was in my inbox within an hour of posting that ask, it stands to reason that my paranoia is well founded. This would not be the first time they've tried to trick anyone into a "Gotcha!" moment, and I was the next on the rotation of people they harass.

That being said and out of the way, let's get into this.

Starting off, you're right. Claims of homophobia shouldn't be a joke. Homophobia is a very real thing that affects many people around the world. And given the shipping fandoms that habe arisen in the past decade, along with thr use of social media by celebrities, it allows these fans to harass and belittle them from the comfort of their homes, no matter where said celebrity is. I would never make jokes regarding how fans treat the loved ones of their favorite celebrities, because I find it abhorrent. We saw something similar to his happen with the Star Wars fandom, particularly the R*ylos, when they doxxed and harassed Adam Driver's wife in the hopes that he and Daisy Ridley would get together, thus fulfilling the fantasy they have about their ship.

I don't keep up with the actors of Supernatural because I don't watch it anymore, but I imagine that's the case with Jensen's wife. Fans harassing her because she married him and they've based their entire personality and fandom experience around a ship between two fictional characters and the actor's personal life interferes with that fantasy. The fans that are harassing Jensen and his family aren't doing it out of any sense of morality in their efforts to fight homophobia, but because they want to see Dean and Cas together, and can't (or won't) accept that they're fictional characters played by two actors that have their own private lives.

Something similar happened with the Sherlock fandom, when they decided to cancel Martin Freeman and his wife because they asked fans to stop sending them NSFW fanart or J*hnl*ck, especially when they were with their children. I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on that one, because I've never watched BBC Sherlock, but I did follow a few blogs that did so I remember the discourse. This all just feeds into the idea that shipping fandoms "own" the actors that play their favorite characters and has made for quite a toxic environment on most social media.

If the D*stiel fandom is anything like the St*r*k fandom or the J*hnl*ck fandom , than I applaud Jensen for standing his ground in the face of what I'm sure is countless inappropriate fics and art that are constantly thrown at him.

Now, there are a few differences between how Jensen is being accused of being homophobic and how Tyler was accused of being homophobic. The first major difference is something you said in this ask. They're jokes. Keeping in mind that, yes, I did say we shouldn't joke about homophobia, all the "discourse" around D*stiel has been jokes due to a variety of reasons. From how uncomfortable Jensen looked in that scene (leading some to think they were filmed separately and not told how the other was reacting) to the fact that it was happening during election week before the election was called. The fact that the rumors that Putin was stepping down came out at the same time and the whole situation took on this hysterical, otherworldly quality, like this was a collective fever dream we couldn't wake up from. The jokes came about, breaking the tension that had consumed Tumblr and uniting a large number of people in the absurdity of everything.

There's also the fact that the jokes about Jensen being homophobic were just that - jokes! I'll admit that I haven't gone looking, but I haven't seen anyone calling for Jensen to be cancelled or for his career to be derailed or his life to be ruined because of that scene. No, I've seen countless jokes about how Dean looked constipated or memes of random images found on people's phones used to "recreate" that scene. The fact that Jensen apparently wrote into his contract that his character in The Boys wasn't to have a gay sex scene just added to the satirical nature of everything.

Now let's compare that to Tyler Posey. When asked about a crack ship (that had nothing to do with his character) for the umpteenth time, he said that, if that's what fans were watching for, they're probably watching for the wrong reasons. It never condemned the ship or mocked its fans, he simply said that they were watching for the wrong reasons. And given how this interview took place after filming was done for that season, that could be interpreted as him saving people from wasting their time on something that wasn't going to happen. Personally, I just think he was fed up and frustrated about being asked about a crack ship that had nothing to do with him.

And for that one simple sentence, he was (and still is) deluged with hate. He received death threats and threats against his mother while she was battling cancer, all because he said something that wasn't a glowing appraisal of a ship that the fandom made up. To this day, there are people hell bent on proving how Scott was the true villain of the Teen Wolf series, and how Tyler Posey is just an awful human being.

Did any of those things happen to Jensen? No.

Would those things have probably happened to Jared if he'd said something negative about D*stiel? Probably.

Would the Teen Wolf fandom have acted the way it did if it had been Hoechlin or O'Brien who shot down St*r*k? Definitely not. We know that because they both did say something against St*r*k and the fandom at large likes to pretend that it never happened.

So, as we can see, there is a very clear difference between how Jensen was treated and how Tyler was treated. Could racism play a part in that treatment? Most likely, though, many would never admit to that. But, at the end of the day, its important to look at the differences between these two actors and how they were treated by their respective fandoms for what they said in regards to ships that fans have based their entire fandom experience around.

[peachywise]

nullify

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader 

- part 6: the beginning of understandings || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ more to be released 

- synopsis: It was finally time to meet the bringer of the apocalypse– a petite girl wrapped up in a blanket drinking tea. Totally chill. Nothing unusual about the situation at all. At least Klaus was consistent with his irritating commentary.

- note: my bad sorry i haven’t updated in so long!! but i’m back! and since season 2 is now out, please just note that this story is my own continuation of the story after season 1. also, i am no longer doing a tag list. honestly i just can’t be bothered, and i’m sure most of the blogs have changed since the last one for this series. i post on ao3, so you can subscribe to the story there!! 

link on ao3 

_______________________________________

Okay. So you were going to face the person who allegedly caused the apocalypse. No big deal. This was just a normal day, and she was just a girl. Albeit one who had undergone pretty severe trauma in her life, but hey. Nothing you couldn’t handle with a pleasant smile and a cup of tea, right?

Maybe the tea was a bad idea. But you felt like you needed a peace offering. Something to break the ice before asking someone who was relatively a complete stranger, “I think I can contain your powers, so why don’t we try? Also, why don’t you move into my apartment for the time being? I promise the occasional cockroach that comes out the drain won’t do any harm. It would be nice if he paid rent, but I can’t complain.”

Yeah. Just a normal day.

An abrupt tap on your shoulder and Klaus’s breath tickling the side of your neck forced your eyes away from your previous stare down with the white bedroom door, and any and all courage you’d built up to walk in quickly dissipated.

“Hey, you think if this whole—” his voice caught on a sharp intake of breath as he tried to find his words, his hands rolling, “trying to convince my sister to not start the second apocalypse by moving in with you thing doesn’t work out, I can still crash there? You can’t begin to imagine just how stifling it is here. I don’t even think Five has changed out of his little uniform in a week, let alone had a shower. You smell so much better. Like vanilla with a bit of stale coffee and deep-seated cynicism.”

Turning your face fully towards his, your noses almost touching by how close he had leaned in, you kept your expression passive. And then you tipped your hand to let half of the scalding tea fall over the lip of the cup and on his bare feet.

As Klaus jumped back, hopping between his feet and hollering a string of “ow, ow, ow,” you took a small step back and replied with a drab and mocking, “that has to hurt.”

Klaus gave a curt laugh that was almost lost, given his teeth were clenched in pain. “You know, I don’t know if I like your violent style of foreplay.”

“You’re making it very clear why Vanya destroyed the world in the first place, Klaus,” you responded, voice raised. “You haven’t even experienced just how sadistic I can be. I can turn around right now and just let her cause the second apocalypse again.”

“How original of you, threatening to leave. What is it, the tenth time already? Maybe if we’re all lucky, you can get a couple more in before dinner!”

“You know what’s original? Your desperate need for attention because you never got any from daddy as a kid. I’ve never seen that before-“

The door opened in front of you, and someone’s soft cough had you and Klaus both turning in their direction.

Allison Hargreeves.

“Are you guys done?” She questioned, a tight impatient look crossed on her features. At a loss for words, partly embarrassed now that you’d raised your voice, you tried to find anywhere to look but her eyes. Your gaze ultimately got caught on her neck, and the healed, puffy scar raised on her skin. Right. They’d mentioned Vanya had injured Allison. Pretty horribly at that. You remembered what you were nervous about in the first place.

“Allison, this is Y/N, though they will reply to trouble or travel-sized Satan just as well,” Klaus offered, slipping past his sister, who stood fully in the frame of the doorway.

Reaching behind to scratch your neck, you forced a timid smile on your face and gave a small wave with your free hand. “Hey. Nice, uh… place you got here.” Totally casual. “Very clean.” Not awkward at all.

Allison snorted. “Uh-huh. Nice to meet you. Let’s see if this was all worth it, shall we?”

Straight to the point. You could respect that. Nodding, you kept the nervous smile on your face as you walked past her after she sidestepped away from the door. You didn’t really know what you were expecting. Part of you thought the room was going to be some weird pit of despair. Dark and broody, like it was supposed to set the scene for some comic book character about to delve into their villain origin story.

But nope. It was just a standard bedroom, very well lit, white linen, clean carpet. The only thing that really stood out was the sunny yellow blanket wrapped tightly around a petite frame huddled on the single bed, a sky blue polka dot teacup clutched in both of her hands.

Well, now you didn’t feel so bad that you’d poured out basically all the tea you were going to give Vanya on Klaus.

“I’m guessing you’re Vanya?”

No shit, she was Vanya. You literally knew what she looked like.

You shuffled your feet awkwardly as the girl’s eyes flickered up to you. You still had the teacup in your hand.

“I brought you this, but I… spilled a little,” you commented off-handily, moving over to set it on a small side table.

Klaus made a notably shocked look. “Is that what you call a little?”

Vanya nodded her head once, her tone quietly gruff as she added, “we could hear you through the door.”

Allison offered a very helpful, “I’m sure the whole apartment floor heard them.”

Klaus, unable to contain himself from continuing this rally of comments, added, “well, it’s not the only time my screams have woken up someone next door. Certainly won’t be the last, God hoping the world doesn’t explode again.”

All three of you groaned. Good to know you weren’t the only one exhausted.

“It’s nice to meet you, Vanya. Did they explain to you why I’m here?” You asked, moving closer to the girl in question.

Vanya’s eyes glanced quickly over to Allison, who nodded her head in encouragement. She then turned to look at you once more and gave a slight jerk of her head in affirmation. Despite what had happened between Vanya and Allison, you could see the trust between the sisters. You might have gotten the story of what happened three months prior, but obviously they had worked out some stuff. At least a little bit. “Yeah. Yeah, Five uhm, gave me the gist of it,” Vanya replied, her voice still quiet with an edge of hesitance.

“It really works,” Klaus stated, looking at you with a joyful look. “Not seeing Ben’s ugly mug for once…” he pressed his hands to his heart and contentedly sighed, “it was the biggest blessing one could have given me.” His serene mood quickly dissipated as he looked to an empty corner and bit out a tight, “zip it, ghoul boy.”

“I don’t know,” Vanya carried on, as Klaus and presumably Ben continued to have an argument in the back. “Our powers are different. I don’t know if I want to take the risk of using it again in case it doesn’t work.”

You sighed, and Allison brought her hand up to nervously to chew on a nail. Moving to sit on the edge of the bed, you tried your best to settle the situation. Yeah, the money you would get for this would be nice, but you could tell this all went beyond that. It was important. You knew they wouldn’t have just let you into their inner circle if it wasn’t.

“I get it. What happened was awful, but you aren’t in that place anymore, right? Panic makes you do stupid shit. You aren’t you when you’re in such a crisis. That doesn’t mean you don’t take accountability for those actions, but the you sitting here isn’t actively trying to blow up the moon and cause the end of the world.” Peering over to Klaus, who stood grumpily off to the side, you asked, “it was the moon, right?”

His attention quickly fixed on you as he replied back, “oh yeah,” making a sudden explosion movement with his hands and horrible sound effects to go with it.

Allison’s blunt, “Klaus,” was enough to quickly shut him up.

“But I could panic again,” Vanya pleaded, her hazel eyes cutting in their pain. As stable and as comfortable as she appeared now, you could recognize that constant fear that must have lived in her. You knew too much about regret. You could see that in her eyes.

“And that’s where I come in. I can stop that. But we have to try first to see if it can work.” Reaching out a hesitant hand, you placed it on her knee still covered with the blanket and offered, “this power is inside you whether you like it or not. I don’t have perfect control over mine. I wish there were things I had done differently.” People you could have saved. People who you accidentally hurt. “You tried suppressing it, but that only made it explosive once it was actually let out. We can try to make it so you can live with it. Even if you don’t use it, at least you can control it.”

Vanya bit her lip and drooped her head, her hair falling in curtains around her face. You were curious about what her thoughts were. The furrow between her brows tensed and untensed in a way you knew her answer to the proposition was continually changing.

“Vanya, I’ve gone the self-destructive route to try and drown the voices out,” Klaus chirped up in the silence, his compassionate tone odd to your ears. From the corner, he strolled past you and rested a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “But I’ve never experienced quiet so fully until they put their field around me.” Soft eyes met yours as he added, “I never thought it was possible. It’s all I ever wanted.”

Holding his look for a moment, you weren’t quite sure what to say. You’d never really been… praised for your gift. Whenever you tried to use it to help someone else, you’d get called a freak or something worse. Any other time, it accidentally (well, purposefully sometimes) harmed someone. You could tell Klaus was sincere. Listening to the voices of the dead so much must be harrowing. You never really gave much thought about spirits and their presence, but for all you know, there could be multiple in the room with him at any moment. Always in pain. Always sharing that with him.

All you could manage to offer in response was a gentle smile before you tipped your head back to look at Vanya. “You don’t know me. I can’t ask you to trust me to do this. But why don’t you stay with me for a bit anyway? Klaus will be there, and you can come and go as you want, the others too. I’ll show you a couple of things I can do with the force field, and when you’re ready to test it out, we will. This is in your hands, Vanya. You’re in control.”

That’s all people like us could ever want. Control. Certainty—

Understanding.

“I already called sharing the bed with Trouble, just so you know,” Klaus said.

Although, it seemed your understanding clearly had its limits.

“If you did that, I would have to burn my bed so I didn’t get fleas. How about I get you a nice doggy bed instead?”

That got a grin out of Vanya, and when Allison added, “I think a flea repellent collar would be a wise investment as well,” her smile grew a little more comfortable.

“very funny, really, ” Klaus muttered.

“Okay. I’ll come with you,” Vanya finally conceded, reaching over to set her cup on the nightstand. “I’m— I don’t think I’m ready to try it out yet, but I guess if I do lose control again, having you there will be a good safety net?”

“We’ll all be your safety net this time.” Allison’s tone was earnest, remorse and care wrapped up on one. “I promise.” She sat on the bed and Vanya gently rested her head on her shoulder.

Whatever had gone on with this family, whatever tragedy had occurred in the past or with the current ordeal, seemed to be mending. You were kind of in awe staring at the scene. You had never known this kind of support since your father, and even then, you were so young that your memories of those feelings of comfort had faded. You lived alone. Didn’t really have any lasting friendships. You had the old couple across the hall who you played cards with at least once a week— though you were pretty sure they cheated every single time— but that wasn’t even close to what the Hargreeves had.

Family.

Standing back up, you heaved in a heavy breath. “I’ll leave you to pack,” you offered with your best shot at a cheery smile despite the sudden growing muck (jealousy, sadness, regret) festering through your veins. “Would you mind if I use the bathroom?”

Allison started to talk, offering you directions before Klaus interjected, “I’ll show you where it is.”

You were going to argue that you were perfectly capable of managing directions in the single apartment, but he placed his hand on your back and was quickly ushering you out of the door and down the rest of the hall.

“You really okay with doing this?” His questioned jarred you, eyes widening as you stepped away from his touch.

“Klaus, are you kidding?” You shot back, your exhaustion entrapping your exasperation in one low, breathy air. “I didn’t see you caring about that when I had originally said no multiple times.”

“You didn’t have that,” he stalled, struggling to come up with words as he haphazardly waved his hands in front of your face, “that look before. You looked sad when Vanya said she would come.”

Ah. You thought you’d shielded your face away from what you had felt. Strange that he would pick up on it. “It’s fine, Klaus. I want to help.”

Klaus didn’t look so sure, but he was also resigned enough to accept that answer. It was the truth anyway. It was a brief second of allowing yourself to feel bad. We all had those. A desire for something else someone has, for love, for care. But maybe this situation would help. Helping someone else, someone relatively similar to you, given the fucked up freak birth that messed up all their lives, would give you a sense of purpose.

“Can I ask you something, though?” You said, biting the inside of your cheek in a sort of nervous gesture.

“Yeah, sure,” Klaus prompted, curiosity lowing his eyebrows as he slightly tilted his head.

“Did you mean what you said in there? Did my blocking your power really help you that much?” You just needed to know. He looked so earnest, almost… desperate to experience it again. You felt seized by a sudden warmth. You just wanted to experience that again, whatever that was. To feel like you had done right.

“Trouble, you have no idea how much that helped. I meant what I said,” his tone turned almost affectionate, his eyes almost pleading with you to believe, “It really is all I ever wanted.”

And suddenly, the warmth that you hoped would have a growing familiarity in your body came back. However, there was something else there, nagging at the back of your consciousness, that you couldn’t quite grasp. It almost felt like concern or empathy, but there was something more. Despite Klaus’s kind words, there was an undercurrent of sadness to them. The man in front of you, who sometimes seemed so much younger and fragile than what he was, had been through hurt. You could recognize it. You had the moment you had met him and all the Hargreeves. But you were finally beginning to fully comprehend what his particular sadness was.

“It’s horrible to have been forced with a burden that could probably do so much good, but we just haven’t been able to see it.” You murmured, speaking your thoughts out loud without really meaning to. “All of you guys were forced to do good with your powers. Be the good guys, get the bad ones. That in itself was another burden just on top of it. You were kids. You never got to experience normal lives and have your powers adjusted to fit normalcy. I guess I’m lucky in that regard.”

You didn’t really know what you were saying. Just looking at Klaus’s face and the emotions you couldn’t read had you spewing words so freely that surely he must have thought you to be the erratic one now and not him.

“Sorry,” you laughed lightly, trying to break the tension. “I guess I’m just trying to say, if my power can do good by helping you guys out, then I’m happy. Whenever things get too noisy, just let me know and I’ll try and drown it out for you. Maybe just… living for a while, not stressing about your next plans, will help too.” You could try to provide some sort of normalcy in your shitty little apartment, with shitty cable, and an even shittier view.

“I’ll do that,” Klaus’s voice was so quiet you barely caught what he had said. “Thank you.”

Averting your gaze to the floor, you rubbed the tip of your nose with the back of your hand and stood in silence for a few moments.

“So uhm. Where’s that bathroom?”

“Oh, shit! Ah, yeah, just down the hall and to the right off the kitchen,” Klaus laughed, tension easing.

“What, not going to lead to it?” You teased.

“No, I think you can manage pretty well,” he smirked, before walking off into one of the adjacent rooms, probably to go pack.

What a shame. You’d probably have to burn all his clothes before they touched your carpets, now that you thought about it. You know, because of the fleas and all that.

[marueonmain]

WINDFLOWER

part eight ~ the chance to pipe ~

(part one) (part two) (part three) (part four) (part five) (part six) (part seven) (part eight)

A/N: We are in it now; thank you for sticking around. Messages/Asks are open and greatly appreciated.

Summary: Alex seeks Will’s support and advice for how best to shoot his shot with Y/N. He also takes his first shower in 72 hours.

Pairing: imallexx x reader

Warning: Language.

Word Count: 2.6k

He arrived at Will's apartment, still wearing the mindless grin that Y/N coaxed out of him. Alex walked through the unlocked front door and straight to his friend's bedroom. It was bright, not near as cave-like as his own, and there was the lingering scent of a candle burned recently. Will sat at his desk: a second chair set-up next to him: scrolling through the youtube analytics for his most recent video.

It seemed that CPM was up – good news for the video and its one-million views. Will cleared his throat, causing Alex to freeze just two steps inside. Without lifting his head or dragging his attention from his screen, Will said with a flat and ominous tone, "I warned yous."

"What?"

"About being late." Spinning his chair, Will revealed the blue spray-painted plastic bat sitting in his lap. He kept his stern face for another five seconds before breaking into his usual toothy smile and laugh.

Rather than scrambling together a witty remark in return, Alex chuckled along. To that gag as well as the other usual playful abuse about his laziness and tardiness. Will finished the last one-liner he had prepared in the extra time he was made to wait for Alex to arrive, and his expression faltered. Not that he did not appear cheerful anymore – the smile remained – but it relaxed as a single eyebrow raised.

Will asked, "What's got you all giddy?"

Looking down at his hands, Alex chuckled again, though it sounded more akin to a humorous scoff, and gave no answer. He buried his hands in his pockets and took the seat next to his friend.

"What is it?" Will pestered on. "James Charles unblocked you, did he?"

Alex punched him in the arm as hard as he could (not hard). "Fuck off."

Will rolled his eyes before turning to the camera. He hit record and, putting on his boisterous presentation voice, shouted, "Right! Hello, welcome back to the second channel – welcome back to oddly satisfying. It's been a..."

Top posts for that month included photos of symmetrical flower arrangements, videos of tape-peelings from miniature canvases, woodworking gifs, beautiful block calligraphy, slow-motion capture of a sewing machine, and animation to fulfill the desire to sharpen a pencil to a perfect point every time. Alex gave out ratings of nines and tens like he had a quota to fill. As the video continued, Will argued the scores with him more and more. None so much as he did with the seven Alex gave to a real shit submission of ping-pong trick shots.

It was not an average filming session (unbeknownst to Will); it was a game where with each passing minute, Alex was building up his courage for what he wanted to talk about after the video was over. George had been the one person in the friend group he told about his feelings for Y/N, and that had not gone over well. But Alex thought he might now be able to explain it better – explain himself better – and be supported. Will was, after all, behind the act of snakelike behaviour, a very caring person who had held Alex's hand while he fixed himself several times over.

"What do you give the paw-print painting then, Alex?"

"Hm?" Torn from the bed of his subconscious thoughts into the waking world, Alex darted his eyes to the screen and to the camera. "Uh, ten. Definitely a ten."

"Right. Anyway, we'll end on a good note. Be sure to hit that like button for more reddit videos and go subscribe to Alex's channel—"

"It's really epic!"

"—link will be in the description. And we'll see you guys later!" Will gave a terse salute to the camera and, once the outro was finished, dropped his voice to normal and asked, "Care to do a second one while we're here?"

"Why not?"

Springing from his chair to his feet, Will crossed the bedroom to his cupboard and began to change. Giving the illusion of there being a more significant passage of time between filming. Taking off his beanie revealed his dark unruly hair, which he covered again with his 'crisis actor' hat.

"I was wondering if I could get your advice on something?" Alex began not moving from his seat at the desk. Neither did he turn his attention much from the screen, to give Will some privacy.

"What's that?"

"There's this girl— Well, um, this woman rather, that I am interested in approaching – romantically – and—"

"Why you talking like an android?" Will stripped himself of his black and green shirt. Interestingly enough, the same black and green shirt as Ethan wore when he last had the sidemen member over for a video. "Could you be normal for a minute?"

"I like her. Ok? What now?"

He pulled on a shovel hoodie and grabbing another turned to Alex. Gesturing to the pink zip-up jacket, he asked, "You have a decent shirt under there or want to borrow one of these?"

"I'm fine. But about the girl. Should I even bother?"

"How do you mean? If there's the chance to pipe – you got to take it."

"No. Like if I just end up fucking it up, why—?"

"Stop thinking about the end. We're at the beginning, alright? You're a good-looking lad, even got a decent trim for once in your life." Will ruffled Alex's hair as he returned to the seat beside him. "You're verified. All you got to do is slide into the lass' twitter DMs, and you're in."

"I'm not verified," he said with a bit of a huff. "You're verified."

Will shrugged. Pulling his phone from his pocket to check messages. "Whatever. You ready to record?"

"Not yet. What if she has a boyfriend?"

"Chin him."

"I'm being serious."

"So am I. If there's not a ring and a date...well...it isn't really all that important, is it?" Will scrolled through the next ten posts on r/oddlysatisfying, before changing his mind, scrolling back up, and switching to another subreddit. Adding to his previous comment, "Unless it's Mia we're talking about."

Alex sucked his teeth. "Unfortunately, it is."

"Shut it. I'm having none of that." He pushed Alex's shoulder with one hand and wagged a jokingly accusatory finger. "Let's get back to it."

"Alright. Alright."

Will turned to the camera and, as quickly as he had dropped it, picked up his presentation voice, shouting, "Right! Hello, welcome back to this incredibly ad-friendly youtube channel. Instead of rating sand-cutting and slime, today we're gonna be rating dogs again. So this, welcome to r/aww. There should be some decent content here..."

It was nice sifting through the top posts of the week: a golden retriever taking care of baby bunnies, deer fawns sleeping under lawn furniture, an albino skunk, and a lot more ducklings and birds in general than Alex remembered being popular on the subreddit. Their last filming was full of constant challenges and debates, but when Alex gave nine and ten ratings for animals Will agreed whole-heartedly – save for a single dispute over a cat picture. It was cute; Will just was not terribly fond of cats.

Alex simultaneously commentated for the video and pondered – now that he had his friend's blessing – how best to shoot his shot with Y/N. He beamed with excitement and energy, and the evidence was in the light blush of his cheeks. It was not soft happiness like he felt when sitting on the rooftop of his apartment building, with a sausage roll in his stomach and a decent buzz. It was sharp happiness like the entire world had been dragged into photoshop and had the contrast shot right up to one hundred. All the dust from the corners of his mind was gathered, swept up, dumped in a bin, and set ablaze.

Before Alex could think of anything, it was the end of the video.

"Thank you very much for watching! Hope you enjoyed. Check-out Alex's channel and the WillNE main channel, links in the description, and we'll see you guys later." Will stopped the recording, dropped the act, and pulled out his phone again. There were dozens of messages; his fingers flew across the keyboard, shooting off response after response. "Thanks for helping out the cause."

Alex returned Will's fist-bump. He stood from his chair just to walk the single step and sit on the edge of Will's bed. Any distance would do in helping him ease into the details of his situation; after all, it was not just any woman that he was after.

He started, attempting to sound casual, as if the topic was organic, "What do you think about Re—?"

"Red and Sammy?" Will asked distractedly. Believing he had finished the question how Alex meant to, he took it upon himself to answer it as well, "Haven't met Red to be fair, but Sammy is a solid bloke."

"You think?"

"Yeah, Gee wanted to rearrange some furniture, and Josh and I were useless. I rang Sammy, he came round, practically moved everything himself – even brought beers. You did well good picking him, Lex."

At what was likely intended to be a genuine compliment, Alex felt himself shifting a single step closer to his internal self-destruct button. Of course, Alex knew. He knew that it was not healthy for his mind or mood to be so fragile or rather so easily swayed, but there he was – fuming with misplaced anger.

How could he tell Will? How could he explain he wanted a chance with one of their mates’ girlfriends without coming off as a bad person? Was he a bad person?

Did he care? When he came into the world running a race where he was made to wear sandals while everyone else got trainers. Alex stood from the bed and readied to leave.

Attempting to lighten the mood despite likely not knowing why it dimmed, Will added, standing to throw an arm around Alex's shoulders, "And who said you have no friends?"

"You do."

Will chuckled. "Huh, I must be dead smart me."

"Alright, well..." He intentionally trailed off, ducking from under his friend's arm.

"Are you off?"

"Yeah, I'll sees you later." Alex left the bedroom with quicker and heavier steps than was his usual gait; the difference, however, was not enough for someone outside himself to notice. It was frustration. It was: a set jaw. : an unnatural heat rising from his core to all his extremities. : and a mouth pinched smaller than what seems humanely possible.

If he were a 2D cartoon character, as comments under all his videos would suggest, his irises would be redrawn in the shape of flames. Steam might have even come from his ears.

George likes Sammy. Will likes Sammy. James (or at least drunk James who met him) likes Sammy.

And Alex wanted to steal his girlfriend. Fuck.

He raced through the flat to the front door; just through the threshold and into the hall, he stopped. Waiting to hear the latch bolt behind him. Like the clap of a hypnotherapist bringing their patient back from a breakthrough session – the sound drained him of his anger.

It was not helpful to him to be angry at the situation: angry with himself.

Alex walked the hall to the lift and stepped in. During his descent, he looked at the warped reflection of himself in the metal doors: the prickle of hair on his upper lip, the trim which was different but somehow identical to all his previous, a picture in pink – and also red.

It was the reflection of a man. Despite how his followers portrayed him in collages and fanfics, he was an adult man. Confronting that distorted image altered his perception: what he knew himself to look like: his conscious image.

How interesting he must look in the strange light of an average person's perception. How confused. How tired.

DING of the sliding doors opening, ripped his warped reflection in half. Alex exited half-expecting for Y/N to be there on the other side, considering she was everywhere recently. Luckily, she was not. But that fleeting thought of Y/N snowballed as he walked the hall to his apartment. Outside the door, he stopped and stood Blair Witch style facing it but not moving to unlock it or get the key from his pocket just yet.

Y/N. Alex thought of Y/N. Thought of first meeting her with her cute ears and flushed face. How she doted on Sammy. Thought of speaking with her in the foyer with her calm aurora and chin-hugging top. How he wanted nothing more than to be cute with her – for them to have a song.

Thought of when she was making waffles with shaking hands and a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. How she dodged his questions. Thought of ~the dream~ and how different he would act if it were real.

He rummaged through his pockets to find his key. When he did, he shoved it in and pulled it out the lock with an equal amount of unnecessary force.

It was late. 

Alex had been awake over twenty-four hours, and he wanted – needed – he just needed it to stop. Unable to handle consciousness much longer, he dragged his feet along the straight shot to his bedroom. And into his bathroom.

Not particularly a nighttime shower type of person, Nor a morning shower type of person, Alex was more a when-I-want-to-or-remember-to-shower type of person.

During slight depressive slumps, however, the more accurate category for him would be a once-the-grease-starts-to-drip-off-my-hair-that-is-when-I-will-shower type of person.

Stepping under the showerhead, the warm water wrapped around him. Pelted down on the pale skin of his shoulders and back, relaxing the muscles there. Slender fingers racked shampoo through his tangled hair: it smelled like almonds. Like artificial almonds designed by chemists who had never seen or smelt an almond before. It was nice.

He ducked his head to rinse out the suds and lost his balance, falling forward a bit. Catching himself with his hands on the wall in front of him; it jolted him out from under his somnambulism spell.

Hopping out of the shower, he dried off and wrapped his single towel around his waist. There in the mirror above the sink were those little prickles of a moustache. Alex stepped up, took his razor in his right hand, grabbed the shaving foam off the counter with the left, and looked to his right again to find he had dropped the razor in the sink. His brain was too exhausted to focus on more than one thought – more than one task at a time.

With less than six flicks of the wrist, his upper lip was clean-shaven, and he was trudging along to his bedroom. Alex let his towel drop to the floor; he tugged on a clean pair of pajama bottoms and pitched himself from the other side of the room onto his bed.

"Ow," he muttered to his aching bones. Alex closed his eyes, and for the first time since ~the dream~ appreciated the contemplative silence of his bedroom – and of his head.

Taglist: (message to join!) @angelbabyivy​

[strangenightsofdaydreams]

Happy Birthday Sarah!

@theheavycrown Thank you for existing. That there are so many of us that appreciate this says a lot. Hopefully you had a good day and your body offered respite. You my dear, are a penguin of great significance. So here is your gift- not late, it’s still the 3rd in some part of the world. This ended up a lil over 1K which maybe can be expect to make up for the potential belated-ness.

__________________________

Jughead absentmindedly reaches for his prize. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is generally stocked but he snoozed on his alarm this morning and ever since his day had been harried. It was imperative he found a book store close by to the subway. He needed to take to get to JB’s dinner on time. And thanks to the brisk pace of his walk, he had- now he could relax for a moment. He jerked back when he touched a soft, warm hand and not the thin paper spine he expected. Pretty green eyes met his as he looked down before he registered any of her other lovely features. The blonde woman that was browsing the nearby shelf had apparently come to a decision while he daydreamed. 

“Here.” She spoke into the accumulating silence and Jughead cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment. A second passed and then he fumbled to take the book from her. 

“Thank you.” At least his voice kept itself together. He was 26, cracking should not be an issue anymore despite his earlier woolheaded mishap. 

“It’s the last one out, are you sure?” He took two steps back to give her space. Sometimes he looked imposing but he was without his leather and at his most spiffy today so hopefully that should do it. 

“Oh, I’m sure they have extras in the back. Unless... you don’t want it?” 

“I do. Well it’s not exactly for me but yes.” 

She laughed, “It’s not for me either. I’m getting a book each for my niece and nephew’s upcoming birthday. I loved this book as a kid so it seemed an obvious choice. It’s an ugly world they’ll need the beautiful themes within to help navigate. But I have weeks, early shopping so go ahead.” 

“Thank you.” He scratched the back of his neck, tugging on the edge of his beanie. Jughead felt honored instead of his typical annoyance that she shared. 

“It’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow and something this year had me feeling nostalgic. Maybe it’s because she’ll be twenty, no longer a teen. I know she’ll like it. We  both have fond memories of when I used to read this to her.” Obviously leaving out how both of their parents were passed out or drinking as they did this. He wasn’t feral enough to not understand polite conversation despite Toni’s teasing. And scowls were adequate communication!

“That’s sweet. May I make a suggestion?” 

“Yeah sure, proceed.” 

“You should get her something for this year too. If you can financially, to show her you also see her now. And even if she doesn’t subscribe to that reasoning, two presents instead of one is always nice.”

“Huh, alright. Any recommendations?” 

“What are her interests?” Her spine straightens and she leans in, the picture of attentiveness. 

“She likes rock music, zombie video games... I think she has an interest in historical settings and still reads ya fantasy occasionally. We saw all of the Hunger Games movies in theaters. There were a lot of thoughts to be shared afterwards.” 

They laugh. Hers is surprisingly throaty and he adds it to his steadily growing list of things he finds great about this stranger. A big accomplishment for a people hating hermit like him. “JB also is in her college’s feminist union and is majoring in chemical engineering. She’s a bright kid.” 

Betty smiles at him and then claps her hands. “Okay so how about-” Betty walks a few rows down and comes back. “Frankenstein. I think she can handle the horror and invasive ramifications of science and consent handled in the book. Sounds up her alley.”

Jughead nods, agreeing while processing that he doesn’t think he’s ever been so attracted to someone. “I’ve read it. I wouldn’t have thought about it but that’s perfect. And by Mary Shelley feminist icon that she is. I recognize teh layers.” 

His book muse beams, “I’m so happy to help.” Jughead searches for something to say, not wanting the conversation to end. 

“If that’s for your niece, what did you pick for your nephew? 

“I’m debating between From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler or A Wrinkle in Time. He is ten but his reading level is a bit higher than average so I think he could handle either.”

“I would wait on A Wrinkle In Time, I believe you about his capability but he might appreciate the themes more in a year. The Mixed Up Files are more exciting without making you think.”

“You know I think you're right Mister…” 

“Jones. Jughead Jones.” She nodded grabbing, her second book before turning back to face him. “Betty Cooper at your literary service.” 

“Well don’t worry Betts, I’m sure he’ll be ready to read it in no time and you can share your good taste with them more.”

“I may need more advice down the road. Christmas is in four months and all. We could exchange numbers if convenient.”

Jughead smirked, impressed and relieved that she beat him to it. “I would like nothing more, Miss Cooper. Uh, ignore the screen crack.” 

They both unlocked and then switched phones, putting in their contacts. He finished putting in his information and then went to home screen startling at the time written. 

“Shit. I have to go. I need to make the metro soon. Can’t be late to her party.” Betty handed him his phone back, brow slightly furrowed. “I thought it was tomorrow. I wouldn't have taken up your time otherwise.” 

He put his phone in his pocket and pulled up the suspenders, prepping to book it and delighting in her eyes on his arms. “I know, my bad for the confusion. We don’t celebrate the day of- family tradition. And I enjoyed this, don’t feel bad. I have to pay, we’ll talk later.” 

The look in her eyes pinned him down. “Don’t be the guy who runs. Walk fast. Bye for now Jug.” 

Jughead grinned at her stern warning, he liked her bossy. He rushed to the cashier and made his way down the street, reaching the subway entrance and went on with the normal routine. Even the heat didn’t put him in a bad mood and when he sat down in an almost empty car, he checked his contacts. Betty had put a book emoji next to her name. He hoped she thought his crown was half as cute. He fiddled with his suspenders, unused to having them put on correctly for once and then replied to a couple rapid fire texts from JB’s girlfriend asking about his status. He assured Annie that he would be on time to the restaurant that only seated parties of three if they were all in admittance at once, understanding her anxiety. JB deserved a nice time. 

________________________

Jughead left the restaurant hours later, full and happy to see JB bloom under Annie’s loving attention. He took out his phone when he was back on the subway. 

JB loved her gifts. And her girlfriend told me about the showing of the original Frankenstein movie at a local art house theater next Friday. Interested?

[lunarrwolf]

black butterflies [colby brock]

fandom: sam and colby/traphouse

pairing: colby x self

word count: 1,963

part(s): one

summary: after a prank gone wrong, colby and his friends meet another youtuber during her meet and greet in hopes it will cheer her up

A/N: this is a self-insert because it’s a fic that was started for my own personal pleasure. it was supposed to be shared last year on my fan account after a poll was done but never was bc i ended up not feeling ready to do so. i figured since i‘m ready to share it now, it would be best to do it here since it’s pretty detailed

ONE

“What’s up guys?! It’s your girl Kirsy here, and today we’re going to be entering Freetown State Forest. Otherwise known as The Cursed Forest of Massachusetts.” The girl looked into her camera brightly, the excitement of finally being able to explore her home state’s most bizarre places setting in as she recorded.

“Wait - cursed? You didn’t say anything about that.” Her best friend and roommate exclaimed, red locks shaking as quickly as her head was. Casey had been interrupted during a well credited movie of theirs when her friend decided she wanted to go out and take advantage of the fact that neither of them had any plans for the weekend. And as usual in their two bedroom home, no morning schedules meant the freedom to explore the best-worst possible places and capture it all on film for both social network and personal use.

“Didn’t I?” Kirsy chimed, turning the camera toward her roommate who only glanced into the object before shooting her friend the middle finger. She laughed and followed the retreating figure toward the path that would eventually lead them into the actual forest. It was a widened road of dirt and rocks, causing the two of them to nearly trip every so often. The sun was just beginning to set, so the scenery on the other side of the camera was something the green haired girl was glad she was able to capture as she filmed. They continued to walk down the barren path for about forty-five minutes - trees starting to surround them after a half hour - and by then the sun had set quickly without notice and the night began. She could hear Casey muttering about how the place was significantly creepier, and an idea popped into her head. She turned the camera to herself and glanced up to make sure no attention was being brought to her before looking into the lens. “So we’ve been walking for nearly an hour. Casey is already kind of freaked out because of how dark it is, so as her best friend I thought it would be fun to do a little prank on her.”

“What are you doing?” She looked up to meet the narrowed eyes of the redhead that caught her speaking lowly to the camera.

Casey’s eyes didn’t falter from their current state as she continued to glare at the other girl. “Kirsy, I swear if you’re planning something-”

Kirsy scoffed, “What would I be planning out here? Your murder? No thanks - too much work.” She finished off, laughing lightly at the expression she received before the girl with reddish brown locks turned back to survey their surroundings. Kirsy did the same thing for the following ten minutes of their walk. The only sounds they heard so far were forest animals and the wind rustling through the loose leaves of the trees. There was the occasional crunch or branch snapping, which unnerved both of the girls until they would see some small critter scattering to another bush or inside a hole somewhere. She really wanted to pull a practical joke on her friend after not being able to do one on her the whole month she’d been gone on a trip prior to this night. It seemed to be quiet enough to where she wouldn’t really suspect a thing. As long as comments were made from behind her, Casey wouldn’t notice.

She took the opportunity when they were nearing a fork in the pathway and jokingly said something about the atmosphere of the place that would make her friend give her a knowing look. And that was just what happened. However, when Casey turned around, the main star of the channel the video would be posted on was nowhere to be seen. She turned in a full circle slowly, being even more aware and extremely careful where she stepped so she wouldn’t disrupt the sudden silence of the area. “Kirsy.. Kirsy.” She hissed out, moving toward the edge of the path. “I swear to god if this is one of your pranks-” A twig snapped from directly beside her once she got to the natural line that separated a way back to civilization from unpredictable darkness. Her heart was pounding, and tears were springing in her eyes. It had been too long of a time since her last appearance in one of her friend’s scary videos; she forgot how frightening things could get within minutes or hours of arriving somewhere.

There was an obnoxiously loud rustling coming from the same direction, and she approached the bushes to her right cautiously. Reaching a reluctant arm out, she started to move stuff away from her so she could peer behind the plant. As her face got closer, someone jumped out and screamed a scream that was deadly enough to be included in a horror film. “Shit!” Casey jumped back, almost falling to the ground if she hadn’t been able to balance herself.

She glared up at the girl who was trying hard to hold on to the camera as she held her stomach in laughter. “Holy crap, you should’ve seen your face!”

“Dude. What the fuck!” Casey stood back up and snatched the camera away from her friend, marching away as she ignored the calls of the hysterical girl running to catch up.

-

A small group of friends sat on the leather couch in the living room, watching a fellow YouTuber explore a haunted forest with only one other person. It was entertaining to say the least - the amount of times the media influencer messed with her friend was endless, and it only got better when payback would be put into order. One of the darker haired males shook his head, a smile on his face as he shared an amused look with his friends. “I need to marry this girl.”

“Marry who?”

Brennen looked up to see a brunette enter from upstairs, looking at the group of them with curiosity written all over their faces. “Kirsy, dude. Not only is she rocking the new hair, but she obviously knows how to have fun.” Colby didn’t hesitate to join the others on the couch once he heard the name. She was very well known in their industry; a skyrocketing vlogger who stuck to the same several categories of videos and never failed to deliver quality content. She was known to go above and beyond for her fans after having been one herself for years before deciding to dive into the world of explorations. At a recent milestone of 500,000 subscribers, she not only released new merch, she also scheduled a last minute meet and greet that had the sidewalks and almost half of the central park of Boston flooded with local fans of hers. She was someone the members and friends of the trap house admired, as she wasn’t afraid to be herself even when others put her down and criticized the way she behaved on camera.

“Guys, check it out. She added something at the end of this.” Jake brought the guys’ attention back to the computer from their phones. She wasn’t smiling and didn’t hold a bright aura like she usually did when adding bits recorded after her adventures. When she spoke it sounded normal, but after having watched her for the past three years, the boys knew when something was off. They watched the girl give the lens a wry smile before clearing her throat, glancing away as she dove right into the point of the additional bit.

“So this part was recorded a couple of nights after we went into the forest. Casey hasn’t been with me since we got back.” She started off. “I did realize after the fact that she was genuinely mad at me, and I do feel really bad about it. She’d been gone for a month before then. Which meant she didn’t have to deal with abandoned houses, restless spirits, or me and my stupidity - so she wasn’t prepared to be brought back into the swing of things so quickly. I take full responsibility for any actual fear I caused her, and I want to apologize for doing this to her right as she got back from what I know was a good, relaxing trip for her. I did apologize off camera as soon as I caught up with her and she did say she forgave me. However, she uh- she won’t be in videos anymore. And I’m going to be honest with you guys...” She trailed off, and Colby’s heart lurched when he noticed the glossiness in her eyes, “I don’t know where our friendship stands. We know each other’s limits, and while I didn’t go too far, I think she just got tired of me doing all of this. So... yeah.” She gave a dry chuckle, tugging at the end of her sleeves.

“Damn.. she must be crushed right now.” Mike commented, glancing between his friends as they all gave their agreements.

“I can’t even imagine possibly losing you guys.” Sam added.

“And over a prank - Casey’s pretty cold.” Corey brought in, changing his position on the couch and leaning forward when the girl began to speak again.

“Anyway, I’m sure you guys didn’t keep watching just to see me get all emotional. So on to the good news!” The green haired girl continued, clapping her hands together and smiling brightly at the camera as if nothing happened. Still, they could see the look in her eyes, and it was unsettling to see the otherwise outgoing Dominican that way. “I'll be going to Los Angeles in a few days on business, and am happy to announce that I'll also be having a meetup at Santa Monica Pier. I haven't set the exact date in case my schedule goes out of whack, but I will be bringing along someone special. I expect that our family's policy of acceptance will be applied to him.”

“Wait wait wait - my girl's got a man?”

Mike rolled his eyes, smirking at Brennen. “If she was yours, wouldn't she know you exist?”

There was a short amount of silence while the targeted guy looked over with a playfully offended look on his face. “That was cold.” The guys laughed and chuckled, but deep down they still felt bad about what they just heard. The ginger had been by the brunette's side since the start of the channel. Though Casey was mostly the support and a guest in abandoned vlogs and some other types of videos, she would speak out as her friend's defense and help out in any way she could. Some would have figured that a month off would have her ecstatic in going back into working with her best friend. However, it sounded like that time away made her less for the type of content Kirsy had and more against it. The latter of the two must have been devastated at that moment.

“We should go meet her.” Sam announced. “Sounds like it's free - and Brennen could use an ego boost if she does know he exists.”

“You guys gotta give me a little credit here. My channel's pretty big.”

“Yes, but has she acknowledged it?” The dyed brunette questioned, laughing at the glare he received in return. It seemed like it was a unanimous agreement to take a short trip to the pier when she arrived, but everyone was vocal except for Colby. Sam shook his best friend's shoulder, and the young man blinked, switching his gaze over to the former blonde. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, glancing back at the screen. “I agree. We should go meet her.”

[tiphansia]

long and negative post under the cut that’s just a giant wall of text with no breaks lmao

ah lads now i’ve really done it, accidentally left myself unmuted in the voice chat of a discord server of online friends to whom I never said a word about being trans. In fact I lied about it, when asked earlier I said I was a cis dude. I even played up being a little homophobic/transphobic as a joke to reinforce the perception of cis-ness. But now they’ve found out I’m actually trans which is the most wildly humiliating thing that could happen to me on there. This sucks ahah god now they’re going to think of me differently and accidentally misgender me sometimes like they do with the other trans people in the server which i don’t mind in principle but the big problem is that it means they aren’t perceiving me as male anymore which. Really sucks. God it’s really my fault for lying to them but all I wanted was to be treated as normal. That’s not a crime, right? All I wanted was to be one of them and not a weird outsider like how they treat the other trans dudes. I feel like I’ve betrayed my own kind in some way. I even have an irrational hatred towards everyone who heard me, which is completely stupid given that it’s my fault for leaving myself unmuted. I wish they would hate me because it would make me feel a lot better if they did, but no one is mad at me and it’s making me feel sick. Hmm. Privileged problems, right? I know people out there have it worse than me and that I don’t even deserve to feel sad about this because nothing bad has ever happened to me in my entire life but still. I can’t help but be sad, and it makes me feel better to post this into the unfeeling void. Might get hate for this, but I really wish conversion therapy actually worked and was legal, I’d be the first in line to sign myself up. To me, the thought of becoming a woman makes me absolutely scared and sick, and therefore I am scared of conversion therapy in this hypothetical scenario, but just like dying, once it’s over I won’t care anymore. So it’s the most logical thing to wish for out of all my stupid fantasies, even though it’s the most painful one. My other fantasy is to go back in time and mess with my dna so that I’d grow up a cis boy, but of course that’s impossible. I once saw a post about how any religion that touts the idea of suffering as a virtue is one to be wary of, but I subscribe to that idea myself. Even though I don’t really have much real pain in my life since it’s not like being trans is actually the worst thing in the world (to me it is the ultimate shame), the idea that my being trans (very minor pain compared to others I know) is somehow a test of my character comforts me. I don’t know what scares me more, the fact that I’ll be like this my entire life, or the idea that it’s temporary, I’ll detransition, and all this pain was just made up for nothing. I also don’t believe in god logically, but whenever I’m in pain it’s comforting to think that there’s someone I can talk to, even if no one is actually listening. I think the most use that could come out of my life would be as a murder victim of a trans hate crime, so people can use my death to advance the cause. At least I’d be doing something useful for once. I think I’d make a fine martyr, too. I feel subhuman a lot of times, like everyone around me is looking at me and speaking to me without noticing that I’m a cursed and rotten creature to be crushed under their shoes. I almost wish people would hate me more so I wouldn’t feel like such a liar all the time, even though really I’m not lying about anything. I feel though that even by attempting to pass as male, I’m deceiving people. I’m a man inside I know but it’s so hard to even say the words or even think them because of this stupid shell of perception. I look and sound like Minnie mouse, anyone I told would burst out laughing if I told them: “I’m a man.” God, it even sounds so stupid here. I get by by presenting as ambiguously as possible, and saying nothing about pronouns unless directly asked. I’m such a pussy, not strong enough to stay female-presenting, too weak to correct pronouns and perception, and not even man enough to kill myself when I should have. It’s been 3 or 4 years since I was severely suicidal, and still I think life would not have changed for those around me if I had died then. I still wish I’d killed myself then, or at least tried. It’s kind of my life motto at this point: “Too pussy to do anything”. Even now as the grand landmark age of 18 draws near, all the hopes I placed on it in years past are evaporating. I told myself, “When we’re 18 we can get on hormones, we can change are name, we can finally live a full life”. And now, life’s realities are becoming clear. Transition with what money? And how are we going to deal with the family? I’d rather die than come out, but I’d also rather die than not transition. Real sticky situation we got here. Looks like I won’t be able to transition until my late 20s, which is horrifyingly far away to me. I thought I couldn’t make it until 18, but here I (almost) am. I know I can make it until then, but it makes me so unbelievably sad, and I can already imagine the amount of suffering in my future between now and then. Plus, I was on track to have a beautiful and privileged life. Was a 4.0 student, in multiple honors societies, great standardized test scores, the works. Now I’m none of that except the test scores  due to me being a dumb piece of shit this entire school year and letting my half a decade of hard work swirl down the drain along with my life prospects. Hell, it’s starting to look like I’m gonna be a highschool dropout. Me! It’s unthinkable. I’m gonna end up working in retail or at mcdonalds or something and while all work is honorable work, I’m not going to be making enough to fucking live off of, much less transition. I was set up for greatness, man. I let everyone down cause. Well, I don’t even know what happened,w as probably depressed or something but I can’t remember most of this entire school year so I’m not sure. Being trans ruined everything for me. I wouldn’t have ever even been depressed if I wasn’t trans. I’d be in the qualifying race for the cross country junior olympics if it wasn’t for being trans. To be honest I miss track, but guess what! You’re trans, no sex-segregated sports for you. You either have to come out and do sports with your chosen gender, or stay closeted to your parents and out yourself as a tranny to your entire fucking high school. I mean sure the whole world’s probably thinking, “Boo fucking hoo tumblr user tiphansia, let me play you a song on the world’s tiniest violin, those are first world problems” and yeah they certainly are but it doesn’t make it any less upsetting to me. Just let me have my little pity party in my little corner of the internet. I miss my online friends. Normally my response to anything painful that has to do with my being trans is just denial denial denial until even I forget the event, but I’m pretty sure my brain can’t take any more forgetting. I’ve forgotten this entire year I can’t do this anymore. I have to be strong and face it and stop being a pussy. I hope it turns out well for me. and for whoever made it this far reading hope your life goes well too. Thanks for listening. Goodnight.

[vortomorto]

not in any way excusing anything, but I did see in the yt comments that there were a good number saying “my submission was also hitler jokes, so sad it didn’t make it in” or “I submitted a nazi one but they only used my mine craft one” or sth. I really do think they could’ve picked better green screens to show, but I also think the fanbase has a good number of edgy “dark humour is my personality” straight boys. Which is sad bc the eboys r actually funny and don’t need to rely on edgelord humour

its not the first time they made edgy jokes though, the whole eboys channel is just them bluring things out.

youre right, their audience is straight white edgy dudes, and thats why they should be more careful with these jokes and not encourage it. maybe they should wonder why their white fans feel comfortable sending them jokes about hitler. while they arent directly responsible for their audience, they still influence them, whether they like it or not. each of them has at least 1 million subscribers, they have a huge amount of teens looking up to them.

the blatant misogyny and racism on british youtube has been there for too long. ksi gets called the n word in every one question go video and his audience laughs. elena bateman appeared in a callux/sdmn video and she got r*** threats because she.. talked? speaking of sidemen, the comment sections under their videos are always the most toxic ones. in the blind dating/tinder videos the girls appearing on them get so much hate.

back to the eboys, they always shift the blame to their viewers, dont they? i vaguely remember george making a video on someone and then the audience attacked them and george fully said he had nothing to do with it. he has 3.5(?) million subs, he knew damn well if he made a video on someone his audience would go over to their channel and send hate. and then everytime after that, whenever he made a video on someone he made a half assed disclaimer stating that he doesnt want his fans going over there.

personally, i dont care if someone makes edgy jokes. its not for me, but i just let it go bc i know its a lost cause. its the fact that they dont make their views clear and they dont take responsibility when they fuck up. millions of views means power, and as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. the fact that their content attracts right wing white dudes means something, they just dont want to think of that something.

also, are we ever gonna talk about how they treated fraser, one of their loyal friends? this wasnt an edgy joke, this was something they did irl that affected an actual person, and their audience managed to gloss over that too. and then they, yet again, made edgy jokes about fraser on the channel and even made a "whos the fifth member of the eboys" video. gross. throw the whole channel away.

and ofc they probably said "we talked about it and its fine" but fraser is the one who has the least fans and he is the one who got screwed over, so its possible fraser just said a dry "its ok" and decided that it was just not worth it.

im mentioning fraser, because they did him dirty and its yet another thing that gets glossed over. while fraser wasnt my favourite, he was the only one who was actively talking about social issues, politics and his views. out of all of them, fraser is the least likely person to attract right wing members and he was the one that was left out. i dont know if it was bc they found him boring or annoying or bc he had less subs than everyone (i dont think thats the case), but they basically stole his idea.

its not a coincidence that alex gets the most shit, and its not bc of ***** (we can talk about That can of worms some other time). under the true geordie christmas podcast (the first one) you can see all the white dudes whining about alex. under every willne/memeulous video he appears in, you can always easily find ppl talking shit about him. this was happening even before *****, and every old imallexx stan can back me up on this. alex always got the most shit out of everyone. is it bc he wears pink? is it bc he is not masculine? is it bc he is bi? is it bc he talks more than their faves and they think he doesnt deserve it? (notice how they also had a problem with elena talking -- talking over straight white male comedians is a crime for them)

my point is, white edgy dudes tend to find a couple other white edgy dudes and just "gang together". these white boys project their beliefs on their favourite youtubers and assume that their faves have the same beliefs as them (even though, logically, we all know the eboys arent right wing members,they dont see it like that. they see white dudes joking about hitler).

what usually happens is that this fantasy of theirs starts to crumble. a beautiful example is idubbbz. his audience LOVED the fact that he said the n word, and the r slur, and the f slur, and all kinds of fucked up stuff. they worshipped him.

you know what happened? he found a girlfriend. they did NOT like her, at all. his gf decided to start an only fans. and suddenly, idubbbz wasnt the king anymore. he was just ian, a "simp".

as someone who reads the comments while watching videos i have noticed something. the dudes who talked about ian's gf talk the same way as the dudes talking about will's gf, mia. just something i noticed.

anyway, this reply is too long, im sorry... i just wanted to get some things off my chest and you gave an opportunity to do so. this isnt an attack towards you or anything like that, this was just me rambling.

english is not my first language and i havent proofread this so there are some mistakes in there. some things (fraser) werent really relevant, i just wanted to talk about them

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.