#and posting the meta i've been working on as i get to the relevant episodes

[highladyluck]

My WoT Meta Influences

Part 1 of my Reference Posts series! These are some of the secondary sources/conversations that have influenced my writing about Wheel of Time. I've organized them by subject and put them under a cut because they are loooooong. Some of these inspired me directly and others are influenced by work I've done, so this goes both ways. This is a mostly tumblr-centric list but I included some additional sources where relevant. Contents:

Tuon

Mat/Tuon

Mat/Tuon Criticism

Mat's Characterization

Mat and Gender

Mat and Heroism

Mat's Problems

Extremely Insightful Mat Jokes

Mat and Tuon Headcanons

Mat & Other Characters

Other People Explain Why Gawyn Is Like That

The Seanchan

Morality In WoT

General WoT Meta

Tuon https://websandwhiskers.tumblr.com/post/614607479229317120/highladyluck-websandwhiskers-some-thoughts 'So, the answer to the question, “Is Tuon a good person at heart?” is basically that Tuon does not exist on any reasonable axis of personhood, let alone morality.'

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/685824337113219072/not-worried Two steps forward, one step back

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/634058856376483840/for-tuon-the-friendship-head-canon Tuon hasn't had equals who aren't potential threats

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/669337735344095232 The first ripple in the tsunami of Tuon Discourse the show will bring us

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/687082667412439040 Tuon should be more concerned about mainland Seanchan in books 12-14

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/668030454495068160/this-is-especially-interesting-considering-that language change of marath'damane to Aes Sedai

https://www.tumblr.com/highladyluck/683890407526055936/top-5-wheel-of-time-characters Tuon accidental domestication arc

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/663045688513511424/tuon-centric-rec-list Tuon fics (there have been a lot more excellent Tuon fics since this list was compiled, so check my AO3 bookmarks for more)

https://13depository.blogspot.com/2002/02/character-parallels-tuon.html This is where I got a lot of background information on the influences used to make Tuon

Mat/Tuon https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/649215561695363073/mattuon-romance-fic-rec-list My Mat/Tuon rec list, "Secret Smiles" (Tuon POV of COT&WH) was particularly formative for me

https://herenya-sedai.tumblr.com/post/114883045819/mat-tuon Why herenya-sedai ships Mat/Tuon

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/737016944736206848 The way RJ writes foreshadowing into romance

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/735746342064947201/really-liked-this-observation-the-way-she Tuon expresses her feelings through leniency

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/675127369192914944/wheelofgunk-ok-so-im-reading-name-of-the-wind the act is your real self because you're just that unselfaware

https://www.tumblr.com/highladyluck/740360823025909760/you-got-my-brain-working-tuon-ends-up-focusing-on Valan Luca's finishing school for quirky princesses (feat. some part of the taming essay)

Mat/Tuon Criticism https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/669785315568975872 A perspective on Mat/Tuon that I find valuable even if I disagree on some points

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/708978276688920576/mat-the-aelfinn-prophecies Disagreement about Aelfinn prophecies

https://www.tumblr.com/highladyluck/738648490681483264/this-is-great-and-well-argued-many-thoughts?source=share Abusive elements of Mat and Tuon's relationship

Mat's Characterization https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/145058619018/wheel-of-time-liveblogging-winters-heart-ch-28 Breaking characters & how Mat is characterized

https://everybodyhatesrand.libsyn.com/episode-84-run-serena-williams-of-battles This specific Everybody Hates Rand episode spawned multiple essays and a silly fanfic. I'm also indebted to them for spelling out the implications of us never getting a pre-dagger Mat POV.

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/662445849723469824/justalittlebluetiefling-you-really-do-learn Mat is consistent from his first intro on

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/651359653076385792/confession-time-though-i-actually-just-straight-up Mat's values, fear of being free at key decision points, avoidance of political power

https://queenofmalkier.tumblr.com/post/689330916921901056/spaghetticordez-queenofmalkier-spectrum-color Thoughts on Mat's development/unfinishedness

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/731462497405665280 Mat's contradictory characteristics

Mat and Gender https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/661361383501430784/wheel-of-time-musing-mat-is-a-fem-fatale Mat as Femme Fatale

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/710803304689664000/currently-seeing-someone-in-a-discord-server-with Mat is a classic flavor of transmasc gender awakening

Mat and Heroism https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/732347779142336512 Narrative is distancing Mat from his own heroism

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/732337312894255104 Robert Jordan and narrative focus

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/708803077325651969 Mat: The only way out is through

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/707474341181440000 Mat's relationship with heroism

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/676013016427511808/thewayoftheleaf-everyones-always-up-in-arms Mat's assumption of agency for others

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/736436186927775744 Anyboli's fic "It's an old song, it's a sad song" is included here for the excellent Mat meta in the conclusion

Mat's Problems https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/653616983859920896/from-krastbannert-mat-is-basically-the-living Mat escalates his problems to solve them

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/665592060269723648/ok-so-this-tag-from-beartificer-is-hilarious-but Mat doesn't talk to anyone about his problems because he doesn't think they can relate (he's wrong)

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/658046571023384576/wheel-of-time-musing-mat-would-die-first-in-a more on Mat's treasure-hunting motivations

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/675306882057076736 Mat and Rand's autonomy being ignored & the relationship it gives them to their bodies

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/666972600283594752/this-is-a-very-interesting-lens-especially abuse suffered by the ta'veren and specifically the association of controlling access to food with taming

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/710159607603003392 flexibility/inevitability of prophecy

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/724773435856846848 Mat's fear of Aes Sedai and love of military dudes are the same thing

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/733556626773180416 Mat's paranoia

Extremely Insightful Mat Jokes https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/626395845010571264/sir-thats-my-emotional-support-deeply-cursed "Sir, that's my emotional support deeply cursed ruby dagger"

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/627380258261368832/rox-and-prose-dovahscream-rox-and-prose-if Mat and the booty shorts with "God Won't Let Me Die" on them

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/643845084644851712 High Femme Mat/Soft Butch Tuon

Mat and Tuon Headcanons https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/637756310482550784/yessssss-honestly-given-how-much-latent Mat as could-be-taught-channeler

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/737654369102823424/the-warp-the-weft-and-the-kindly-weaver-gunk This is a very good fic AND gave me the headcanon that Selucia taught Tuon her unique brand of logic

Mat & Other Characters https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/636330854168313856/the-true-foils-between-the-main-six Foils between the main six

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/636401177926516736/amemoryofwot-matelayne-ok-so-this-is-gonna-be Elaboration on the foil relationship between Mat and Elayne

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/659513145040191488/i-saw-the-ask-about-characters-forgetting-about Elayne's generosity & openness compared/contrasted with Mat's

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/659811079955922944/stillwaitingformyadventure-one-of-the-things-i Similarities between Mat and Nyneave

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/661904559598354432 Mat and Moiraine have more in common than you think

https://queenofmalkier.tumblr.com/post/129174110632/mat-and-gawyn-ramble Gawyn as a foil to Mat

Other People Explain Why Gawyn Is Like That https://herenya-sedai.tumblr.com/post/669604939700617216/prokopetz-gawain-is-bar-none-my-favourite Gawain's contradictory history in Arthurian canon

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/687854307506274304/wheelofgunk-pillowfriendly-wheelofgunk Gawyn is narratively fascinating

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/699039554435448832/queenofmalkier-rogue-rook-the-problem-of-gawyn Gawyn's desperate search for identity

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/700221790125948928 Gawyn's trauma

The Seanchan https://veliseraptor.tumblr.com/post/636312791195729920/thoughts-on-cultural-relativism-and-the-seanchan Veliseraptor on cultural relativism in WoT

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/686771893817229312 The Seanchan's role in the story w/r/t RJ processing Vietnam

https://unmarkedcards.tumblr.com/post/719331428042752000/in-the-course-of-my-fiction-writing-i-have-come-up What Could Have Been re: breaking Seanchan

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/707113940247773184/wot-meta-tuon-the-seanchan-and-their-role-in Sincerity & Idealism w/r/t the Seanchan

Morality in WoT https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/652271850978721792/wheel-of-time-meta-the-individual-and-the-ideal For Jordan’s characters good, or at least strength as a person, comes from striving to live up to an ideal, where as evil is almost always rooted in placing your own selfish desires above all else.

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/704813291182178304 justification of atrocities works in the short-term & backfires in the long-term

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/724782339032530944 Justice in 1-11 vs 12-14

General WoT Meta https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/687853072384393216/oh-this-part-definitely-completely-flew-over-my Nuclear Manetheren/Old Blood speculations

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/691699608215257088/it-seems-like-you-only-like-wot-for-the-queer Big Queer Wot Resonances tag collection

https://highladyluck.tumblr.com/post/649196610640838656/i-think-we-should-start-taking-beloved-archetypes Genderflipped Archetypes

[inflame]

if you saw this last night when it was just a reblog piggybacking on one of my other posts. i was drunk and devoid of standards at the time. but here she is. for posterity.

i know bobby TECHNICALLY calls this out in the fourth/funeral episode, but i still think it gets overlooked, and it is relevant to the meta i'm working on, so.

people don't feel so guilty because they Didn't See It. is the thing. people feel so guilty because they did. i mean, sure, it's not like everyone knew what they were looking at: the vast majority probably could not have guessed that, for a bunch of reasons. but the town has basically been watching her fall apart for... if not the whole five, then at least the past couple of years. they've speculated about it. they've kept her in their prayers.

they've just never actually asked her what was up --- they've just never actually tried to help her. they don't think it's their place. and that's typical, really, especially for the era/setting. what would her parents think, right? and there are good people in twin peaks. there are people who love laura. who even genuinely believe they'd do anything in the world to help her.

but they ... don't.

the most haunting scene in the film to me is actually this one (i've cut it to the pertinent bit but i strongly rec the whole thing, For Context, or at least the part beforehand): laura's over at the haywards'. they've been trying to cheer her up kind of collectively. the phone rings. it's laura's dad. he wants her to come home. there's very little dialogue after that --- laura kisses doc h and mrs. h goodbye. they say they'll see her tomorrow. donna walks her to the door.

and they both just... sit there. staring at each other. they both understand that something is so, so off. it scares them. and they certainly know how scared she is: they know what she's actually like better than just about anybody. they've known her her entire life. he is literally the doctor who delivered her. she's been best friends with their daughter since kindergarten, if not before that. she is at their house EVERY week day of EVERY school year. and these are the good ones, you know. this is the one man in town i usually never can say anything bad about. but he lets her go, too.

and he won't. he won't see her tomorrow.

[aerialworms]

hello dear mutual! I have a question. I'm no longer in the fandom but I like watching from the sidelines. there was a poll asking if destiel will still be made canon and my question is: how. isn't the prequel planned about the parents? I would love an explanation cause I don't understand. thank you so much!!

Hello there friend!! I'm happy to explain, I love rambling about this batshit show so much!

So yes, the prequel is about the parents, but I'm not sure how much you know about it so here's a little primer: from what I've seen, it's actually Dean telling the story of how his parents met and fell in love, presumably while he's up in Heaven post-finale (y'know, where Cas is also supposed to be). Jensen and his wife Daneel are executive producing, and the prequel is being showrun by Robbie Thompson, known for writing such episodes as Goodbye Stranger (the crypt scene my beloved!!!!!!), Meta Fiction ("What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext?"), and Fan Fiction (the musical ep! With Sam teasing Dean about destiel!). So from the get-go everyone was like 👀 because Robbie has always been a destiel-positive writer! Plus, apparently, Daneel's favourite character is Cas, so it would make sense for them to bring Cas back if they (and Misha) wanted!

Please bear in mind that I haven't actually watched any of the prequel, i've just been living vicariously through my dash. People who have actually watched it/know more than me please feel free to add on/correct me!

So, to my knowledge, the reasons people are thinking they might make Destiel canon in the prequel are (in no particular order):

a) A few weeks ago there was an episode that had Gabriel (as played by Richard Speight Jr) as the MOTW and also had a background cameo from Rob Benedict in a very bad wig (unclear if that was Chuck or not), and there have been quotes from (i think) Robbie saying that they're only having cameos from OG SPN actors if it's relevant to the story they want to tell (and since the Rob cameo was not explained or plot-relevant people are thinking they're possibly going to do a Chuck won scenario? It could turn out that he was never actually defeated in 15.19 and now Dean has to show up to fight him again (and get Cas back?? maybe??))

b) In that same episode, there was a scene where Mary and John look at a picture of some dude who'd given them a clue or talked to John or something - it was Dean! So he's alive again, briefly, in the 70s. Could be time travel, could be he's escaped from Heaven. So if Dean is around in the show, whether just as narrator or as a character in the story, he has the potential to go rogue and look for Cas, or be telling the story to Cas up in Heaven. In either case, there is the potential for canon destiel, if they (Jensen, Daneel, Robbie, Misha, etc.) decide they want to do that.

c) Jensen has said various things at cons recently which are kinda 👀, including that he'd have been happy to keep going on SPN for another 6 years, and, most recently (this weekend), which I think sparked the poll you were talking about - that if Dean and Cas reunited Dean would say "Hey, can we talk about that goodbye a little bit?" and then joked that nah, it would be more like "hey, buddy, good to see you, old pal" but THEN said "I don't know, maybe we'll get to see that, that would be interesting" (Here's a gifset of him saying that if you're interested)

Also this:

[ID: Tweet from Toni @JensFloofHair.

JENSEN WANTS TO FILM A NEW ENDING FOR SUPERNATURAL, THE ONE HE HAD DREAMED OF. ABOUT A 2 DAY SHOOTING, HE SAYS.

Misha: I mean, you have the Impala.

Damn right, nothing stopping them!!

#JIB11 /End ID]

It's no secret that Jensen Did Not like the finale, apparently Eric Kripke had to talk him into it and he still makes salty jokes about it even now. Add the fact that he got someone else to film the confession for him because he wanted to have a record of it, and has said they cut out key parts of his performance in that scene (which is why the editing of it is so janky). So it's possible that he intended for there to be actual reciprocation in that scene and, well, now he's got the reins. He could do it if he wanted!!!

d) The prequel finale - airing next Tuesday, Jack help us - is titled "Hey, that's no way to say goodbye". Which was already kinda 👀 before the con this weekend, but combined with Jensen saying Dean would say "can we talk about that goodbye a little bit?" is um. Look I don't wanna get my hopes up. But also........ 👀👀👀

I think the prevailing theories at the moment (from what I've seen on my dash) are that either:

a) They're baiting us to keep interest in the prequel (I trust Robbie but I don't really trust Jensen, so this seems likely)

b) They really are gonna bring Cas back, either as him being the one Dean is telling this story to up in Heaven, or using that Rob Benedict cameo to retcon the finale and make the show about breaking free of Chuck's control for realsies this time (which hopefully means Cas actually showing up and not being explained away in one line like the finale)

Like I said, I don't wanna get my hopes up because I don't quite trust Jensen. But. Given Robbie Thompson showrunning and Daneel loving Cas and Jensen dropping all these maybe-maybe-not hints. If they DID make destiel canon. I would not be surprised.

Well maybe a little bit but in an "I can't believe I was right" way.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Piggybacking off of your recent ask about Dr Edwards, the Grady storyline, and France. Do you think the Grady storyline originally meant to be much bigger? I skipped most of 5A because I was sad about Beth dying, and went on to 5B. I’m on 5x07 right now (delaying the inevitable), and in the beginning Rick is talking about how there are few enough guards for them to get in with the upper hand and kill them. So how much was the Grady memorial operation honestly, unless it got into touch with CRM or one of the bigger “government type” things that popped up in the latter seasons further post-apocalypse?

5x06 honestly felt so weird. I really enjoyed the episode, We haven’t really seen where Daryl and Carol were the entire season, but you could feel how heavy Daryl and Carol’s dialogue was. It also felt like it wasn’t actually saying what it wanted to. I’m kinda guessing a lot of that was to give a shock value when they shot Beth, but it also was just confusing. I was sad you didn’t have a 5x06 meta. If you could add that to you rewatch list, that would be awesome to hear the TD perspective. Especially with how it plays into Daryl’s evolution up to that point:)

I'll do my best to do a rewatch. My work life is super crazy right now, but we do still have (unfortunately) a lot of time before new TWD material airs.

But I DO have some 5x06 metas. They're just very old. I'd love to rewatch S5 after all this time and see what new things I can pick up.

Check out some 5x06 Metas here: https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/165658806179/td-theories-by-season-s5-5x06-consumed

But to answer your question, I don't think Grady was ever a huge operation by itself. But I DO think they were entangled with the CRM. When Dawn talked about someone out there who was coming to rescue them, and Beth just thought she was delusional, I think Dawn was talking about the CRM. She'd been in contact with them and knew they took people in.

(I talk about this in detail here, when FTWD, ep 5x05 revealed a lot of this to us: https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/185978887294/ftwd-5x05-analysis)

But we've also seen that they won't just take anyone and everyone in. Dawn was probably trying to convince them to come get all the Grady people, but she hadn't managed it, yet. Maybe they even promised her they would come rescue everyone, but they just hadn't yet and she didn't know when.

So, this is why we think Beth's story is very tied up with the CRM as well. If she ended up back at Gray after Coda, then she almost definitely ended up with the CRM eventually. And now, in the spinoff, Daryl is finally going to lock horns with the CRM in a big way. Or so we understand.

So yeah. Hope that helps. I've linked some relevant metas above. Thanks Nonny! Xoxo! 💌❣️

[coredrill]

I've been trying to get a X-Men '97 fan to watch Bravern but I'm not seeing many results so far, so what is the three store system and can it help me? 👀

howdy anon!! so first off, i'm sorry if i got your hopes up too much, because that post was a little bit of a joke and the three-store system is not like. wholly fundamental to '97 the way it is to bravern fkdljfhkdl. but!!! depending on what your friend likes about '97 it MAY be relevant!! i'll explain it under the cut bc it's pretty heavy spoilers for both shows:

so the "three-store system" is basically the mechanic that allows pachinko parlors to operate in japan. since most gambling is illegal, and pachinko would TECHNICALLY be gambling if you were able to exchange the balls you win for cash at the same location, the way it works is that you exchange the balls for a "prize" onsite, and then go to a second location and trade that "prize" in for cash. it's essentially just a legal loophole from what i understand. here's a link that explains why it's called "three-store" if you are any more curious about the specifics, but that's the gist of it!

so as that relates to these shows, because of the way that the term represents a sort of indirect method of doing things, a few jp fans have taken to calling bravern (the show)'s approach to its love confessions the same way. smith and isami can't directly say that they love each other, but bravern (the character) can say that he loves isami, and isami can say that he is connected to bravern by "love and courage". we as the audience know that bravern=smith, and by the time isami says his piece he also knows, so isami and smith are confessing their love when they say that, but in the same way that pachinko cashouts go from balls -> exchanged for prize, prize=cash, bravern (the show) can have isami -> loves bravern, bravern=smith. hopefully that makes sense!! if you're interested to see jp fans talk about it, you can go on twitter and search up 三店方式 (three-store system) along with their name(s), though you may just have to search イサ or イサ三 instead of イサミ for example bc of how they censor their tweets lmao.

ANYWAYS, the reason i said that applies to x-men '97 as well is because in the last episode of '97, morph pulls the same trick while confessing that they love wolverine LMAO. morph even explicitly says "she can't say it, but i can" before transforming into jean grey and saying "i love you" out loud - and whether that's for meta disney corporate reasons or "it's the 90s and morph feels uncomfortable expressing this as themself" reasons or morph's personal insecurities or a mix of all that, it's essentially using a similar method of isami -> loves bravern, bravern=smith by having jean image -> loves logan, jean image=morph. so again, not really fundamental to '97 the same way that it is to bravern, but it did make me laugh simply because i was like "i just saw this same thing like two months ago with a giant robot" LMAO.

ANYWAYS AGAIN. good luck convincing your friend!!! this came at perfect timing with another ask i got which asked me to sell bravern so maybe there's something in there that you can use to your advantage (though i assume you've tried that all already FLSKJDF)

[chaosthatsmellsgreen]

Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender thoughts, part 5/5

And finally, about Aang. The need for a trigger warning is nuts; it's about a certain interpretation of a plot point and the warning is repeated before the paragraph where I talk about it.

Also, if you actually read this whole thing, thanks! I just had so many thoughts about this adaptation and I needed to get them all out. A few months ago I did a Supernatural rewatch and I did a meta on the last episode and the general storytelling of S1-5, and I thought that was long, oh man. I was incorrect. That one actually fit into a single post! If you read this and have comments please feel free to talk to me, I've been scrolling through the #natla tag on tumblr for two days trying to see how everyone else reacted. There is also probably like fifteen other bulletpoints I could make but I've started this at like noon and it's 1 am and this is already a five parter text post which tbh nobody is going to read because I know I wouldn't! ADHD brain be like "hey, write this!" but if I see a even a ling single part meta post it just goes "too many words, bye." Potentially expect further relatrf thoughts and/or a lot of reblogs in the near future.

Aang: idk about Aang. he's got good moments and weak moments, i don't love his arc so far. i think Aang is a bit of a debated character in the original, but i personally liked his 3 season arc. now i've been a little worried about what they're going to do with it when they were talking about making some changes to it? and after seeing season 1, i feel like i was right to be worried. so in general i think Aang's "arc" is really weak in this. he's basically just going back and forth between "well i don't wanna be the avatar" and "well i've got to stand up as the avatar" and he just sort of goes through this in every episode without making any progress. i also really hate that this season went so hard on the whole "The Avatar's burden is a lonely one" thing, because while that's relevant, i think it works much better in the original where Aang (and the audience) gets a lot of time to build up a connection with the rest of the Gaang and the Guru telling him that he needs to let go of earthly attachment and therefore Katara at the end of book 2 is such a sudden cold shower.

Aang (TW: SUICIDE): also his decision at the end of the season is so sad. i mean not for nothing but he's basically suicidal? like... that's so depressing, i really didn't want to be thinking about Aang wanting to literally die because he's so sad and lonely? i'm not saying it's not like realistic or whatever, it just made me feel like shit. it's like Bumi being so cynical and angry. it's not unreasonable of this Aang, who's being told on a weekly basis that whatever he does, he's going to lose everyone he loves, that after all his people have been killed, he's now going to have to bear this enormous burden he's never wanted completely alone, and that if he tries to find help anywhere that's not within himself, his past lives, he's also going to get everyone fucking killed. and i know it's sort of framed like a sacrifice, which it is, but the way he talks right before he does it, like "I should've been lost a 100 years ago, this isn't my world"??? despite what i think was the intended framing it felt so much like he just wants to die, like this is the only use for himself he can see in this world is to fucking. DIE. IT'S JUST SO FUCKING SAD. from this (originally) optimistic and resilient character this is sooo very out of character (the sacrifice wouldn't be. this basically suicide-thinly-veiled-as-sacrifice is.) okay i'll stop harping on about this, you get it.

Aang is out of character overall: anyway. another real bad moment was Aang telling Katara not to fight, all i'll say about that is that this is clearly not the Aang who said "if you don't train Katara, i won't learn from you either" putting his avatar training in jeopardy because someone tried to tell Katara what she can and cannot do. idk what else to say about him, i'm not really vibing with this adaptation of his character. OG Aang shines through here and there but he's lost a lot of his optimism, his inner strength, his charisma and his wisdom. i hope some of these issues get addressed if we get around to more seasons.

PART 5/5

START // PREVIOUS

Thank you for reading!

[starbuck]

@ your discourse tags - you really do take the Hits for us by absorbing the takes in the tags huh!! whenever you post about the BS tag I get morbidly curious but then remind myself that you read it so I didn't have to sjsbkdhs

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF it's really not That Bad (although I suppose I can't speak to what's being posted by people I got too annoyed with and blocked so skjfhskffjhdsjgsdg WHO KNOWS!!!).

What I mainly find it helpful for is figuring out what points have already been made A Lot and thus don't need to be repeated by me. And, I mean, it's probably near-impossible to be original in a fandom for a show that ended four years ago but I try my best!

[welcometogrouchland]

The tma TV adaptation essay(?) I promised:

GOD Trying to organize my thoughts on a tma adaptation has been crazy because like.

It could genuinely be so good to look at!!! You could do so much with the costuming of characters, the SFX (sit here with me and imagine practical effects Jarod hopworth and Jane Prentiss. Doesn't that make you go crazy insane??? Doesn't it???), the idea of using pixilation or stop motion and compositing to make Nikola, putting intentional continuity errors in scenes with the distortion, never using closeups in scenes about the lonely so you feel distant, never getting wider than a midshot in scenes about the buried so you feel claustrophobic, using rotoscoping and weird filming techniques and on and on- this is stuff that could not only look cool but could actively elevate the written text through visuals... y'know. LIKE A GOOD VISUAL ADAPTATION IS MEANT TO DO!!!

But as good as it could look, like with a lot of people, it begins to all fall apart at story and structure for me. Because how would they deal with the shows nature as an anthology?? Would it lean into it, or remove it?

Give it hour long episodes (as opposed to 20 ish minutes) that can fit multiple, more plot relevant statements in, with scenes of the characters interacting used to break up the statements and weave the meta narrative in more from the start? Well that's certainly an option and the main one I've been pondering. Giving two statements per episode cuts the 20 episode runtime down almost by half which would fit neater into an average series of television these days. (you could probably finagle the multipart finales into single episodes but idk if that'd be the wisest idea structure and pacing wise) but that format could still be A) unfamiliar to long time podcast listeners who want the show to be formatted like the podcast and B) hard to market to casual audiences?? it takes the podcasts method of gradually blurring the lines between statement and meta plot over the course of the show and instead starts off with them already muddy. That doesn't even solve the problem of how you'd go about filming statements, let alone what the hell you'd do when it came time for season 5.

But you can't remove the statements, they're important to the plot. If you do, you change the show so drastically that you're going to chase away original fans of the podcast, who'd likely male up the first core wave of fans who support your show before it takes off (at least. That's what I'm guessing???) So, back to square one, re: tma is formatted in a way that is built around it's own strengths and limitations as an independent podcast, which would clash badly with current models of TV production.

And in all honesty? TV doesn't usually get the luxury (or budget) for experimentation to the same capacity film (or hell, an independently produced passion project audio drama) does. Any of the more experimental ideas I mentioned would probably be left on the cutting room. It sucks but it's my best guess as to what'd happen (grain of salt: I don't work in film and TV and my knowledge is second hand! All I know is that coming to studios with an idea that's a) hard to film and b) doesn't have big names that guarantee a return on the money put into the series is. Generally considered unwise)

Sigh. It's like. I've tried to make this post at least 3 times now, and every time I struggle to accurately convey how much I think tma could flourish in a visual adaptation!!! and so how much I think the best things about it would hinder it in a TV setting. I get why people want it! tma is (as admitted by Jonny), a first draft, and a really good first draft afterwards. We want to bring our favourite podcast to it's full potential, and I think it has so much potential visually...but I've already made all my points for why I'm not sure I'd want it to be adapted to a visual medium, on a purely technical level. It sucks to be pessimistic about it, because I do love TV as a medium, but fundamentally I think they'd have a very hard time pleasing both new and old fans trying to tell the same story as what we got in the podcast.

So what should they do instead?? I'm not sure, but if you told me to make a tma TV adaptation, gun to my head, this is what I'd do:

Have the show take place Somewhere Else

Not as in, have the show be about Jon and Martin post series. I mean, "somewhere else is an alternate universe where things are Slightly Different, as a meta explanation for the changes made to the story to suit TV". and at the end of the series have the big twist be that not only are they passing the fears on, this isn't even the first time they've done it (BIG cosmic horror potential here). Maybe have Annabelle explain this in universe, have Jon find this out, have Jonny Sims appear at the end like fucking rod sterling, whatever!! Just pay tribute to the original podcast by directing people to the first iteration of this story, to compare and contrast and revel in the tragedy that across universes, our heroes were always doomed, if in slightly different ways.

"We're just going to pass it on" takes on a whole new meaning now, doesn't it?

[potteresque-ire]

Hi, I would love to hear if you have a take on wyb and being a part of anti-Taiwan propaganda? I know it’s probably not something he could have turned down, but with the tensions right now it disturbs me more than any of their other work. I really hope states all over the globe take a stand for Taiwanese independence. Or are they all John cena….

Hello Anon! My take is a simple one—for all citizens of mainland China, I assume they agree with the Chinese government's political stance unless there are clear evidence otherwise (which often becomes known, BTW, because their holders have been arrested or jailed). I assume that, when they echo the state's political messages, whether it's re-blogging a meme from People's Daily (人民日報, The State Newspaper of China) or starring in a patriotic TV production, that they're willing and happy to do so.

(Under the cut: a rambly stumble down the history lane ... about the background of Faith Makes Great, KMT, and Taiwan, and why it may not be the best idea to mix the three.)

Yes, that includes Gg and Dd. I never assume they take on the propaganda projects because they can’t turn them down, or they've been pressured to do so. I've explained, in this meta, why I believe Chinese citizens maintain the beliefs that they do, and I do not consider Gg and Dd as exceptions to the factors discussed. I assume that, in their eyes, they're performing their patriotic duty. 

Now, some thoughts about this episode of Faith Makes Great (FMG, 理想照耀中國) and Taiwan. 

First, about FMG. I haven’t watched the episode, and it’s likely that I won’t. However, after reviewing the biography of the protagonist, Jiang Xianyun (蔣先雲 1902-1927), here’re two thoughts that come to my mind, that I think, perhaps, I can explain a little:

1) The Nationalist (aka the Kuomintang, KMT 國民黨) party and government at the time wasn’t equivalent to the Taiwanese Government now, or even, the KMT Party in Taiwan now—despite using the same flags. 

2) Likewise, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) then wasn’t equivalent to the CCP now.

Personally, therefore, I’d feel a little wary about connecting this episode, or the history depicted in this episode—regardless of the amount of propaganda it contains—with the politics of Taiwan in 2021.

Below is some relevant historical background for FMG. I apologise ahead for its roughness and possible inaccuracies. Busy RL cannot afford my researching this better, and being very, very bad at names, modern history has never been my forte. Many facts surrounding this piece of history have also remained murky, for reasons I will lay out in a bit—the why’s that are also related to Taiwanese history of the second half of the last century. 

Very roughly, the 1920s, when Jiang Xianyun was in Whampoa Military Academy (黄埔軍校), was also known as the Warlord Era (軍閥時代)—basically, warlords and their militia were ruling the northern part of China. In order to remove these warlords, the Nationalist (KMT) government, which didn’t have sufficient military power to combat these warlords, employed the tactic of working with the Soviets and also permitting CCP members to join the ranks of the KMT (ie, allowing “dual party membership). This tactic, known as 聯俄容共, worked like this—the Soviets supplied the KMT with military know-how, finance and firearms, while the CCP helped with uniting farmers and other blue-collars for the cause, sometimes getting them to strike / cooperate such that the KMT forces could pass through the warlord’s lands with relative ease.

The CCP at the time wasn’t the same as the CCP today. While would be prominent members of the post-1949 CCP (such as Mao and Zhou Enlai 周恩來) were already serving the party, the CCP then was 

i. closely associated with the Soviet-controlled Communist International, as much a branch of it as its own independent party given its very young age (founded in 1921) and, 

ii. made up of a significant number of foreign-educated progressives of the time, who saw socialism / communism as a means of achieving class equality. Similar to, in 2021 and the US, the more educated, progressive liberal left wing is the most vocal about the need for socialist policies, such as healthcare for all. The Russian Soviet Republic and the Soviet Union (USSR) were also young at the time (founded in 1917, 1922); ie. no one had witnessed for long what communism looked like in practice.

The image of the CCP was therefore significant different in 1920s than it is in 2021. It was viewed as the idealistic, “woke” party with a focus on the working class and the poor, which made up the vast majority of China’s population. The party’s progressive image extended to its political ideology; in 1944, for example, Mao still told journalists that one of China’s shortcoming was its lack of democracy: “中國是有缺點，而且是很大的缺點，這種缺點，一言以蔽之，就是缺乏民主。” “China has a shortcoming, and it’s a big shortcoming. This shortcoming, simply said, is the lack of democracy.”—Mao Zedong, 1944/06/03, Jiefang Daily.). 

Members of the CCP at the time therefore included many youths who truly wanted the best for their country, who saw “the Revolution” as China’s finally leaving its five thousand years of autocratic, monarchical and oppressive rule behind, and embracing the new, Western concepts of freedom and equality. They couldn’t have predicted then that, fast forward seventy-four years, Mao’s fourth successor as the leader of the CCP would abolished term limits in 2018, clearing the path for his not only being a dictator, but a dictator for life. They couldn’t have seen that class equality would remain as far from reality in their homeland as in other contemporary capitalist countries with its immense wealth gap, despite the 2021 CCP’s continuing self-proclamation as being socialist and communist. 

In other words, people like Jiang Xianyun ... while today’s CCP may portray them in ways that emphasise them loyalty to the CCP, people like Jiang Xianyun may actually be the first to balk at today’s CCP if they were still alive today.

Anyway, back to the 1920s. The breaking of this first alliance between the KMT and the CCP to combat the northern warlords was widely considered to begin in 1926, in an incident known as the Zhongshan Warship Incident (中山艦事件). By then, the KMT government had a left wing and a right wing—the left wing wanted to continue their alliance with the Soviets and the CCP, while the right wing had become wary of it as dual CCP/KMT members who had, by then, occupied the majority among the higher ranks of the KMT government, as well as the Whampoa Military Academy where its military personnels were trained. The right wingers feared that the Soviet-controlled Communist International, using CCP as local agents, was trying to take over the KMT via the dual membership route and eventually, seize the rulership of China, and among these right wingers was Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石), who would eventually lead the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949. 

In 1926, Chiang was already the chief commander of the Nationalist Revolutionary Army (NRA), as well as the headmaster of the Whampoa Military Academy (Jiang Xianyun, like other students of the Academy, was described as Chiang’s student for this reason). The details of the  Zhongshan Warship Incident 中山艦事件, also known as the Canton Coup (廣州政變), was complicated, and multiple versions exist depending on who’s telling the story. One version is this: several warships had been moved without Chiang’s order, and Chiang took it as a sign that the CCP members within the NRA’s rank were about to perform a military coup with the corporation of the Soviets. As a result, he arrested the navy officer in charge of the Zhongshan Warship (a dual KMT member), put the city of Guangzhou (= Canton), where the warship was parked, under martial law, and surrounded the Soviet / communist agencies there. 

The other version: Chiang had actually given the order to move the warships, then pretended he didn’t such that he could accuse the CCP members of betrayal.

(I’m not specifying which version is told by whom—this is left as an exercise for the readers. :D )

Despite Chiang claiming his actions merely targeted specific people rather than the KMT-(Soviet+CCP) alliance (the navy officer was later on freed but fired), the two sides no longer trusted each other after this incident. The last straw leading to the dissolving of the alliance was the Nanking Incident 南京事件 (1927). After taking over the city of Nanjing (= Nanking) from a warlord, several battalions of the NRA—those consisting of many dual party members—stormed the British, American and Japanese consulates, looted foreign-owned businesses and homes, as well as churches, schools and hospitals. Six foreigners were killed. 

This attack on “imperialist” foreigners on Chinese soil wasn’t an isolated incident. Previously, riots had already occurred in the concessions. What are concessions? Concessions (租界) were foreign-controlled enclaves within several cities in China during the late Qing dynasty and the Republican era. Most of these cities were treaty ports along the coast yielded to foreign control after the Chinese government had lost a war and was unable to pay the war reparations. Tax collected from these concessions then served as delayed payment to the foreign powers. Concessions often didn’t follow Chinese laws, and were home to many foreign traders who conducted business between China and their native countries, as well as missionaries who, while spreading their faith in China, also built many schools and hospitals for the locals who needed them. 

With the concessions and the active trade in the region, foreign powers had had significant military presence off the coast of China. After their citizens and properties were attacked, their battleships sailed to Nanjing and exchanged fire with the NRA until a ceasefire was called. 

In the aftermath, the NRA under Chiang Kai-Shek accused the warlord’s army for starting the attack on foreigners. There was insufficient evidence for that. More importantly, it blamed the CCP members within its ranks. This is where, again, history diverges according to who tells it: in one version, one warlord (not the defeated one) soon recovered large amount of documents in the Soviet Embassy in Beijing, which included instructions from the Soviet Communist International to CCP members to incite the Chinese masses to riot against the foreign (”imperialist”) powers, as well as evidences that the Soviets were infiltrating the KMT government via the CCP. 

The other version, as one would expect, omitted the existence of these documents. 

After the Nanking Incident, for which Chiang—again, commander of the army—issued an apology and compensated the foreign powers, he decided that the KMT and the Nationalist Government had to be purged of its CCP influence. The decision was also, likely, one of self interest: the Soviet + CPP had been interpreted as wanting to borrow the anger and might of these foreign powers to remove Chiang and the right wing KMT. 

Chiang solicited the help from powerful mafia in Shanghai for the purge. A large number of CCP members were arrested and executed; communist associations were dissolved and the Soviet advisors removed. This incident was known as the “April 12th incident” (四一二事件) or “April 12th Anti-Revolutionary Coup D’etat” (四一二反革命政變)—again, depending on who’s naming it. 

The purge briefly caused a split in the KMT between the left wing (who trusted the Soviets and CCP) and the right wing. The left wing, based in Wuhan, removed Chiang as the commander of the NRA and revoked his KMT membership. The right wing, which Chiang led, set up a new government in Nanjing on April 18th, 1927. This split (寧漢分裂) was short-lived; five months later, the two sides became one again (寧漢合流), and Chiang was re-installed as the chief commander of the NRA in 1928.

Okay, so here’s the historical background of FGM, to the best of my knowledge at the moment * takes a deep breath *. Where did Jiang Xianyun fit into this?

His story was pretty much unknown outside mainland China. He was recruited by Mao into the CCP in 1921, entered the Whampoa Military Academy with Mao’s recommendation. After graduation, he was a rising military star in the NRA; he also led several worker’s movements for the CCP. He picked the CCP side, gave up his KMT party membership and his NRA position after the Zhongshan Warship Incident. He organised an Anti-Chiang movement after the April 12th incident, and didn’t live to see the KMT recovering from its brief split, dying in May of 1927 at the age of 25.

He might have been a hero to the young CCP, but his deeds didn’t really make a significant impact to the larger Chinese history. He died too young.

The point of me writing up this background is not so much to offer a history lesson—my knowledge about this era is no where nearly enough to be qualified to do so—but rather, to point out that it's not always possible to assign a clear Good and Evil side in history. More importantly, who’s the good guy and who’s the villain can change significantly over time. 

Who’s The Villain here? The CCP, which was trying to expand its influence in the KMT-led government (which political party doesn’t do that?)? Chiang and the right wing KMT, who broke a previously agreed upon political alliance with the help of the mafia? (when the Soviet infiltration could very well be real, and given that the NRA was filled with CCP members, outside and powerful help was necessary for the purge?) The Soviets? (Why couldn’t it want a piece of China too, when other countries had their concessions in China?) The “imperialist” foreign powers such as the UK, France, US, Japan, who sought reparations when the Nationalist government was almost too weak to stand on its feet? (when the NRA *did* attack their people and their properties, on land that was, by mutual agreement, under their control?)

Even more importantly, is it possible to make a call of who’s The Villain, when so many facts were under dispute?

Now, please allow me get to the KMT and Taiwan. Why I pointed out, about ... a century ago in this post, that it’s important to not equate the KMT in history to Taiwan now, or the KMT (Nationalist Party) in Taiwan now. 

Facts surrounding China’s Republican era (1911-1949) are under dispute because, to put it simply, both sides—the CCP and the KMT—were not honest about them in the decades after. 

It was not only the CCP who obscured facts for political purpose. After the KMT lost the Civil War in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan, it also established an authoritarian, single-party rulership. Political dissidents were arrested and jailed. Suspected spies from the Chinese Communist Party were executed. The island was under a 38-year long martial law between 1949 to 1987—second in length only to Syria’s 48 years (1963-2011). Those years of political suppression was known as the White Terror (白色恐怖), and the reason they were put in place could be traced to the 228 incident, which happened in 1947 February, in which the KMT government massacred 18,000-28,000 of Taiwanese residents in an anti-government uprising. 

The cause of 228 was roughly this: prior to the end of WWII in 1945, Taiwan had been a Japanese colony for 50 years (1895-1945). The KMT government was far less able and far more corrupt than the previous government, and the people were very unhappy with it. 

Then, on February 28th, 1947, the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau confiscated the illegal cigarettes and money of a cigarette vendor and beat her up with a pistol. A crowd formed in her defence, the agent opened fire and killed one, igniting a massive protest.

Propaganda and silencing of free speech tends to go hand in hand with political suppression. Discussions of the 228 Incident were forbidden in the years to come—hence the uncertainty, the wide estimated range of death count. Other pieces of KMT history were also filtered through the censorship apparatus when talked about, when taught in schools. Re: the history above, about the KMT government’s cooperation with the Soviets and the CCP against the warlords—this is a single data point, so please take this with a single grain of salt, but I consulted (a trusted) someone who was educated in Taiwan in the 1960s, and she said the Soviet involvement was entirely left out.

(One thing the CCP and KMT could agree upon: association with the Soviets was best left forgotten.)

That said, the Taiwanese government was still better—vastly better— to its people than the Chinese government over the same period, in that, after 228, it didn’t cause massive deaths to its populace again, whether from starvation due to failed economic policies (China’s example: Great Leap Forward; estimated death count: 20-45 million people, making it the biggest mass murder in history), or from inciting civil rest for to gain power (China’s example: Cultural Revolution; estimated death count: ~ 1 million, discounting the Red Guards, survivors who were disabled or driven insane; here’s an account of how teenagers were indoctrinated, incited to get involved in the tortures). The Taiwanese government of the time didn’t pretend disasters that caused the perishing of tens of thousands didn’t happen (China’s example: the 1976 Tangshan earthquake; estimated death count ~ 0.5 million), didn’t rolled tanks over its youth engaged in a peaceful protest (1989 Tiananmen Square Protests; estimated death count ~10,000). Its most infamous crackdown of pro-democracy demonstration post-228, the Kaohsiung Incident, aka the Formosa Incident 美麗島事件 of 1979, resulted in mass arrests but no deaths, although five people were suspected to have been murdered in its aftermath. Most Taiwanese political dissidents survived. One of the defence lawyers for the pro-democracy camp in the Kaohsiung Incident, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), would become the second Taiwanese President, and the first non-KMT member to hold the position. One of the prisoners of the same incident, Annette Lu 呂秀蓮, would become his vice president.

But it remains true that the Taiwanese Government, from its beginning as the Nationalist Government of the Republican era (starting 1911) and until the late 1980s, was not exactly free or democratic. And this truth explains why the facts of the Republican Era are murky, and will likely remain so. Early records of the era, likely the most accurate ones if told honestly, were distorted on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (the narrow strip of sea separating Taiwan and China). Most people who have witnessed those events have passed away, and so the facts, the truths that are lost can no longer be re-filled.

There’s also a digital age issue—whoever have the loudest, most populous voice control the narrative, whether their spoken words reflect the truth or not. In researching for this meta, I had to scroll through pages of pages on Google to find sources that weren’t published in the mainland. While I recognise that the non-mainland sources can also be flawed especially in this case, at least I could locate the consensus between the two, which are more likely to be factual. ( I always try to consult both mainland and non-mainland sources for the metas).

There are so much more people, so much more content providers in China than outside of it, even without considering the possibility that these historical accounts may be purposefully dumped on the internet to control the narrative of Chinese history. Content farms that replicate these posts are also rampant and Google is unable to filter them out. Meanwhile, the Wikipedia pages of many events mentioned—the go-to places for many people, including myself—are written in a mix of simplified Chinese (used in mainland China) and traditional Chinese (used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). While the form of Chinese used doesn’t always communicate the passage’s political stance—much of the overseas anti-CCP diaspora uses simplified Chinese, and pro-CCPers exist in significant numbers in Hong Kong and Taiwan—it does serve as a hint that different writers are competing to establish the dominant narrative of the events—the narrative that may or may not be factual.

(Just because a stance is anti-CCP doesn’t automatically make it factual.)

And this inability to locate the facts is only going to get worse, regarding all aspects of modern and ancient Chinese history, as Hong Kong is being silenced. The headquarters of the last non-mainland funded, CCP-critical newspaper in the city, Apple Daily, was raided by the police again two days ago (2021/06/17), its hard drives seized, its chief editor arrested—the newspaper’s founder and chairman was already arrested ten months ago. Apple Daily’s crime, according to the police: publishing articles asking for sanctions on Hong Kong and China, which, according to the National Security Law enacted on  2020/06/30, was already sufficient evidence of its “colluding with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security”.

I try to not talk too much about the ongoing horrors in Hong Kong, given that they’re not Gg and Dd related. But over the past year, books have been banned in the city’s libraries, programmes that met journalistic standards but didn’t parrot the Chinese government’s stance have been deleted from online archives and prevented from airing. Hong Kongers who supported the 2019 protests have been scrambling to hide, erase, clean up their posts on their social media, as their pro-CCP colleagues have been using the content to report them to the higher ups, get them removed from their posts. 

It’s dangerous for Hong Kongers to put up any political content that isn’t in line with the CCP’s political narrative now. For the CCP of 2021, historical content is political content. For the CCP of 2021, history and facts are servants to politics. 

The only place left that shares common language and tradition with China, is close to the facts and can tell them is Taiwan. Taiwan, which is now being targeted by the Chinese government—literally, with warplanes of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army; Chinese army) breaching Taiwan’s airspace with horrifying frequency over the past months. 

I said before, the Taiwanese government had not always been sunshine and flowers, but it was also the same government—and the same party behind the White Terror, the KMT, that finally allowed Taiwan to be the free and democratic place it is today. After ending the martial law in 1987, it held its first legislative elections in 1991, and its first presidential election in 1996. In 2000, it accomplished the first peaceful inter-party transfer of power in the executive office, from the KMT to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP 民進黨). In 1995, President Li Ting-Hui 李登輝 discussed, apologised publicly for the 228 incident on behalf of the Taiwanese government; on the 70th anniversary of the incident, the current Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-Wen 蔡英文, de-classified all official documents pertaining to 228.

And this is why I said before, that the Good Guys and Villains are not set roles in history. That at each moment, each minute of each day, a government can, and is choosing what it wants to become. 

Political parties have the same choice. Another reason I write this very, very long meta (sorry) is this—I hope to draw everyone’s attention that, in 2021, the KMT, the enemy of the CCP through the entire 20th century, who called the CCP the “communist bandits”, is now the pro-CCP party of Taiwan.

Yes, that isn’t the typo. And this is why, re: your ask, Anon, I’d personally choose not to bring in 1920s Republican Era Chinese politics into current China-Taiwan politics. Things have changed too much. Taiwan, as autonomous political entity, didn’t exist yet in the 1920s. The two parties that Jiang Xianyun, the protagonist of Faith Makes Great that Dd played, had to make such an effort to choose from are now ... friends. 

I prefer to focus on 2021, on what Taiwan is now. On what Taiwan needs now.

And here’s my very humble opinion, my never having lived in Taiwan after all. Before Taiwan can decide on its own fate, what it needs are the conditions that allow them to realistically make that choice. The conditions are many, and they come in a certain order...

An analogy is this: I can only choose the kind of life I want to live if my choice will not lead to my instant death, if there’s no one 60x my size pointing a huge machine gun at me while I’m making that choice (China’s population: 1.4 billion; Taiwan’s: 23.5 million). 

What if I cannot remove the giant and the gun? In that case, I can truly make my choice only if I know there’ll be friends who’ll come to my aid—friends who are brave enough to, at least, openly admit they’re friends with me. This bravery is necessary; after all, by choosing to stand with me, they’ll be standing in the shadow of the giant too, and the huge gun.

And even before that, I need to ... exist, in a way that is visible to my potential friends. To have a place at the table when they have their gatherings. It doesn’t matter if I don’t yet have a name. I need them to recognise me for who I am, as a fully functional being who has taken care of myself for 70+ years, made my own decisions, and contributed to the community.

This is what, I believe, Taiwan lacks and sorely needs right now—visibility. It has been invisible to most of the international community, and the Chinese government is only half-responsible of that. The other half of the responsibility falls squarely on the other countries—including every one that has touted its own respect for democracy and freedom—which has nonetheless severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and kept them severed because the Chinese government has screamed that it’s either ... it or it (One China Policy). Countries that have consistently chosen China over Taiwan regardless of what their choices mean to human lives, to human rights.

(Here’s a world map of Taiwan’s (lack of) diplomatic relationship with the world. Only the dark, navy blue countries have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan.)

(If you look at the map, squint and ask, wait... that’s it? Yes. That’s it.)

(Factoid: As the KMT-led government was the ruling party of all of China at the end of World War II 1945 (the CCP didn’t take over until 1949), it represented China in the founding of the United Nations and was one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. In 1971, the government—by then only representing Taiwan—got kicked out by the UN, and the Chinese government took its spot. Here’s a map of the vote.)

Taiwan’s being an “invisible” nation has had dire consequences recently,  consequences beyond politics. The island’s COVID prevention efforts have been exemplar, fending off the disease for most of 2020—it was virus free between April to December, 2020—until an outbreak a month ago (May, 2021). When Taiwanese scrambled to get vaccinated, vaccines were in very short supply. That came as a surprise; while vaccine shortage was everywhere, it wasn’t expected from the Taiwanese government, with its strong track record in preparing for the disease. 

While not the sole reason, one reason turned out to be this: the Taiwanese government had trouble procuring vaccines directly from Germany’s BioNtech, which it claimed was due to interference from the Chinese government. 

The Chinese government does have a legal basis for the interference: BioNtech (Gemany-based) and Pfizer (US-based) had signed off the distribution rights of their vaccines in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to China’s Fosun Pharma. The Chinese government has since offered Taiwan its vaccines, which the Taiwanese government rejected—a decision the Chinese state propaganda has happily used to demonstrate the “evils” of the DPP-led Taiwanese government, of President Tsai (”it / she doesn’t care about the people”). The vaccine shortage has only been partially ameliorated by the US and Japan donating their vaccines to Taiwan.

It’s easy to imagine the Chinese government as The Villain here. However ... what about BioNTech-Pfizer signing off the rights to distribute vaccines to Taiwan to a Chinese company? Taiwan has had a longstanding policy of not importing Chinese-made pharmaceutical products for national security and quality control reasons. Vaccines are not only life-saving; they’re also critical for national security, being potential tools for political blackmail, and the Chinese government’s attempt to use COVID for political gains, for its propaganda efforts has already been well documented. 

In signing off its Taiwan distribution rights to a company in China, BioNTech-Pfizer, like many other companies (and countries) that have signed similar deals, or have allowed such deals to happen, or have been silent about them and/or yielded to the demands of the Chinese government without questioning their logic or legitimacy, have all indirectly applied (immense) pressure to Taiwan to be subservient to China. By omitting Taiwan’s political situation, by ignoring, bypassing the Taiwanese government when the negotiations of such a deal took place, they are treating Taiwan as if its populace doesn’t really exist, doesn’t really need the life-saving needles.

They are treating Taiwan as if it is invisible.

How can Taiwanese decide their own fate like this? Will the US or Japan come to their aid next time? Will they have the means to help? They cannot possibly have, in excess, what Taiwan needs at every moment. Also, while the countries have been close allies, neither have established formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. They’re the friends who haven’t publicly admitted their friendship; “American Institute in Taiwan” is the name of US not-embassy embassies on the island. It’s only with the Taiwan Travel Act of 2018 that President Tsai was able to finally travel freely within the US. Previously, Taiwanese presidents could only use the US as a layover. It was also only through this Act that the State Department removed its longstanding, self-imposed ban of its higher officials traveling to Taiwan to meet with the high officials of the Taiwanese government.

(Regardless of one’s opinion of it, the Trump administration deserves recognition for its contributions towards making Taiwan more visible.)

And hence ... my humble opinion that what Taiwan needs the most now is for the world to *truly* see it—far more so than to get Chinese propaganda productions to accurately present the century-old history of its government. Taiwan needs the world to *truly* understand its existence, its current predicament as an “invisible” nation that is sovereign is every way except by name, and that, despite it being a nation that has been kind to its people and the world, has been shunned by the international community, that has trouble procuring its own life-saving vaccines. It needs the world to follow its news (while being beware of pro-CCP news sources, such as China Times 中時新聞), news such as ... this one: in 2018, the Chinese government made yet another move to make Taiwan even more invisible, threatened 44 international airlines to drop the name “Taiwan” from the destination “Taipei, Taiwan” with sanctions ... and the airlines complied without a fight, including the Big 3 of the United States (United, Delta, American). It needs people to know what it means when legislators around the world ask for a status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and what such a status quo means to Taiwan. 

There can only be a status quo if one side isn’t already moving aggressively forward.

As I mentioned, Taiwan’s current situation is the combined responsibility of the Chinese government and every other government that has blinded itself about it. We cannot change the Chinese government—even the people in China can hardly change the Chinese government—but we can change our own country’s, especially for those of us who live in places that are (relatively) obliged to listen to its people. Get the attention of our own lawmakers, make them talk about Taiwan. Taiwan will remain invisible for a long time still—the Chinese government will not let go of it easily, and if it does, it’s only because it has already pocketed Taiwan—and one way to make Taiwan visible before things change is to link hands with it, to make it visible by proxy. Get Taiwan to sit on our country’s lap if it gets barred from having a seat in the world community (such as the World Health Assembly, when diseases know no international boundaries), especially if our country is politically hefty. Refuse to let lawmakers sidestep sensitive issues regarding China-Taiwan relations; let companies know, when they participate in make-Taiwan-invisible efforts, that they get to choose between their Chinese customers and us. 

Only when Taiwan exists in everyone’s minds can it afford to exercise self-determination.

The world kicked Taiwan out. It’s up to it to bring Taiwan back in.

To end this monotonous post with something colourful, below is a picture of Taipei Pride, 2020. Taipei usually celebrates Pride in October, but when it learned that last year, the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March that had been held a day after the 1st anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in New York, couldn’t take place off-line in New York (and most places in the world) due to COVID, it stepped up on short notice. The celebration was attended by 130,000.

(Cr: New York Times.)

[addictedtostorytelling]

What’s your take on Grissom’s behaviour in Eleven Angry Jurors? First the ‘what are you working on’ to Sara, implying that she’s slacking and then later on looking at her while joking about the bee to make sure she finds him funny. Also recommending Nick because he kinda stood up to him while giving Sara hard time every time she disagrees with him.

hi, anon!

i've got some relevant meta on this topic here and here that i'll use as preface to my comments below.

thoughts after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

so the thing that cannot be stressed enough is that episode 04x11 "eleven angry jurors" takes place during the heyday of grissom's whole "sara asked me out, but i said no to her, so now, having fucked everything up between us with no hope that our relationship can ever be repaired (and particularly not as i am still much too afraid to be with her anyhow), i need to do my part to superimpose some artificial emotional distance between us so that we can both just 'move on,' even though doing so is the most unnatural and undesirable thing in the world to me" song and dance routine of s4.

to quote from the first post i linked above, while grissom starts out the season resolved to redraw the boundaries between himself as supervisor and sara as subordinate, he quickly finds himself thrust into several situations that unavoidably remind him of the personal element on his and sara's relationship, so

"in the wake of 'pin me down'-gate in episode 04x07 'invisible evidence,' [he] starts trying even harder to prove to himself and to sara that he is the boss, dammit. in episodes 04x08 'after the show,' 04x10 'coming of rage,' and 04x11 'eleven angry jurors,' in particular, we see him frequently shutting sara down, saddling her with undesirable assignments, and at times even questioning her work ethic. he also starts to show favoritism to nick over sara for the key position promotion (see episode 04x11 “eleven angry jurors”). even so, because he is still in love with sara despite his attempts to convince his heart otherwise, he does still occasionally succumb to his romantic instincts, showing affection to and flirting with her during this time, as well."

basically, his hot-and-cold treatment of sara in this episode is part and parcel of this inner conflict in him, as, as i talk about here, "he’s trying so hard to prove to himself and sara that he can be just a supervisor™ to her that he ends up going overboard and rather than managing her neutrally he instead comes down kind of hard on her and is a jerk to her in the workplace," but then he immediately regrets doing so—because, despite what he might try to convince himself of, in his heart of hearts, he never actually wants to drive sara away—and so (largely subconsciously) tries to "swing the pendulum back the other way" by being cute and charming to her and winning back her affections.

of course, for as confusing as this behavior is to us as viewers, it's even more confusing to sara, who can't figure out why he's giving her such a runaround, particularly after she all-but-begged him during the events of episode 04x07 "invisible evidence" to just put their past behind them and treat her like any other random employee and as she herself has been trying her best to maintain a very collegial rapport with him (despite the fact that he recently broke her heart).

with specific regards to him chastising sara for not working hard enough (i.e., "good. what are you working on?"), we as the audience have no reason to believe that sara actually is slacking off—and certainly she's not doing anything different than she might normally do.

however, grissom nevertheless gets agitated with her because she's coming up to talk to him in that highly egalitarian way that she's always had with him, running over not just case details with him but also playing the role of a sort of assistant or intermediary, reporting to him about what other team members (in this case, warrick) are up to and keeping him apprised of the general progress of the investigation.

she's like his walking, talking day planner.

again, it's something that we've seen sara do a thousand times, and grissom has never been so testy about it before—and, in fact, he's typically welcomed this type of help from her in the past.

the reason he is so uptight here by contrast is because he has, ever since the events of episodes 04x07 "invisible evidence" and 04x08 "after the show," been highly aware of the fact (particularly as catherine has pointed it out to him in no uncertain terms) that he often fails to treat sara like a subordinate and extends her privileges he doesn't give to the other junior csis on his team.

sure, technically she's being professional, but she is being so in a way that unavoidably reminds him of how they've always been together (i.e., a bit too close for supervisor/subordinate) and how he's always allowed his own feelings for her to influence how he manages her.

he can't pretend that the way he leans on her is normal.

he can't pretend like she's just another underling when in some ways she functions as an extension of his own mind.

he knows he wouldn't behave similarly with nick or warrick.

he knows that despite all of his efforts to impose distance between them over the last few months, he's still weirdly, deeply, undeniably bonded to her; he has failed in his objectives to create any of the separation he thinks they need.

and so he gets snippy with her, essentially being like, "you should get back to your actual job (instead of this unofficial part of your job, which is a vestigial remnant of our personal relationship that i can't really account for unless i admit to my feelings for you, which i am utterly unprepared to do at this point)."

—which brings us to the "nick of it all":

grissom absolutely does praise nick for doing some of the exact things he also criticizes in sara, and he doesn't even realize how hypocritical he's being in so doing.

he thinks he's being objective, but the fact is that he is very much influenced by his personal feelings for sara in this regard, as, essentially, he's trying so hard not to show favoritism to her and also to prove that he can relate to her solely as a boss (rather than as a man) that he ends up tipping his hand too far and actually being harder on her than he is on anybody else.

to quote from the second post linked at the top of this ask,

the irony is that in trying to prove that he isn’t ruled by his feelings for sara, grissom actually proves how very much he is ruled by his feelings for sara.

every action grissom takes towards sara is personal, whether he believes it is personal or not. he’s not even consciously aware of what he’s doing, but the truth is that every time he finds himself wanting sara, he physically sends her away from him, which usually means she ends up at another crime scene, off whatever big case he’s working (see, for example, what happens in episode 04x02 “all for country”). likewise, whenever he finds himself wanting to give sara special treatment, he reacts by forcing himself to get tough on her and read her the riot act (such as we see him do in episodes 04x07 “invisible evidence” and 04x08 “after the show,” for example).

in the meanwhile, he continues to manage nick according to merit, meaning that whenever he feels nick has earned a privilege or proven himself worthy, he rewards him (see, for example, episode 04x11 “eleven angry jurors,” when grissom allows nick to reopen an old case and investigate it solo, then gives nick credit where credit is due when nick solves the case using creative investigative methods).

by constantly suppressing and thwarting sara while at the same time encouraging and supporting nick, grissom gives nick an unfair advantage over sara in the race for the promotion without even realizing that that’s what he’s doing (or being consciously aware of his own motivations for doing so).

nick continues to rack up career cases, professional accolades, and grissom’s personal favor, while sara just can’t win for losing and is unable to catch a break, even though the quality of her work and work ethic remain as impressive as ever.

of course, on perhaps a deeper level, there's even a metaphorical aspect to this action on grissom's part.

grissom is someone who very much feels constrained by his circumstances, to the point that he believes he is not allowed to want what he wants. meanwhile, sara has always been the girl who absolutely wants everything so much and is sometimes uncomfortably open about how much she does so.

that grissom ultimately rewards the guy who purports not to want the prize while punishing the girl who is outspoken in her wanting of it is reflective of grissom's psychological desire to vindicate himself and his own decisions (even though he knows in his heart of hearts, even at this point, that he's wrong and, moreover, that he's making a big mistake, trying to pull away from sara altogether).

it's almost as if, in choosing nick, he's saying to himself, "see? it's right not to openly want things. it's right to forebear. maybe if you're strong enough to walk away from what you want (in nick's case, the promotion; in my case, sara) somehow you'll still end up getting it in the end anyway. maybe the universe will reward you simply for your act of denial and self-restraint."

which is a very catholic way to look at things, imo.

that's why his proffered rationale for why he chooses nick over sara—i.e., that nick didn't want the promotion, which somehow makes him a better candidate for it—is so goddamn flimsy*: because, really, his choice has little basis in logic or fact and almost nothing to do with whom is actually more qualified for the spot**.

* seriously: the promotion was one that had to be applied for, so it's asinine to pretend as if applying for the promotion is then some demerit or mark against a candidate. the application was required. wanting the job was a prerequisite to getting it. what grissom does to sara with his whole "you have to ask for this job if you want it, but if you ask for it, i'll punish you for asking" mind game is absolute gaslighting bullshit, and she's right to call him out on it.

** to be clear: i'm not saying that sara would necessarily deserve the promotion over nick OR that nick doesn't deserve the promotion for other reasons than the fact that he doesn't want it. had grissom judged the applications more fairly, it's honestly very possible that nick might have still been the superior candidate over sara; it's just that now neither we nor sara will ever know if such is actually the case because ultimately grissom's decision wasn't based on real fitness for the job; it was just made on a whim.

so.

all of the above is to say that episode 04x11 "eleven angry jurors," while not a particularly heavy episode, is one of the messiest episodes of s4 in terms of how grissom treats sara.

guy is consciously telling himself that all of the decisions he's making about her, both in regards to how he manages her on the case AND in terms of the promotion, are solely professional in nature, but the fact is that absolutely none of them actually are; every action he takes toward her is emotionally based, and since his emotions toward sara are very conflicted as this time—i.e., he thinks he can't/shouldn't have her, and he's trying to make his head be okay with that idea, even though his heart won't ultimately accept it—his actions end up being messy as hell; he gets all of his wires crossed, and ends up tripping up both himself AND sara in them for his troubles.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[ladyluscinia]

Lady's SPN Rewatch

I'm going for it! This will be my first rewatch of Supernatural, every episode from the Pilot (technically already completed) to that unsatisfying Buckleming finale 15x19 Inherit the Earth.

(So weird that they didn't air an episode after that with Dabb's vision for how the character arcs should wrap up, but I guess I'll just have to infer from the rest of his work.)

I'm doing a writer focus because I'm fascinated by writer meta and feel it's about time I primary source this shit. My watch order breakdown is in this post, and I'll go into more on my initial thoughts and observations below the cut.

On this blog, I probably will do at least one overarching meta post per writer when I have conclusions to, well, post, but I've also been considering making a sideblog to put the raw data notes from every episode. No idea what url I'd use, though...

Anyway!

First off - just to have this written down somewhere - I'm taking a pretty standard analytical approach that what was actually aired on screen is the primary source for analysis, and any additional information is secondary but of interest. This includes commentary, scripts, deleted scenes, etc. Since I'm trying to infer writer intent it's probably more relevant than in other meta analysis, but also this is Supernatural. Just because they did something on accident and gave an interview about a different intent doesn't change that I saw the former and not the latter.

Word of God can back up a theory or provide hints when I'm building one, but I'm not going to pretend I see how X is about Y just because there's a snippet of interview where someone said it was. Also I care even less what the actors have said things were about. Those 3 CW men are all crazy, and I'm not going to try and interpret them.

Analysis Focus

I've got a template document for notes, because that's the kind of person I am. Current sections and subsections:

"Episode Notes"

"Season Arcs"

"Character Arcs" - with subsections for "Dean", "Sam", "Cas", and "Side Characters"

"Writer Arcs" - for consistent themes that show up in a particular writer's eps, including a subsection for "Destiel Truthing Level"

"Episode Highlights"

"Red Flags" - for tracking when the shitty stuff is a pattern for some writers as best I can

"Other Notes"

Initial Impressions

Obviously I've read more than a little writer meta, so I'm watching out for things people have discussed. I've got little initial thoughts blurbs that aren't particularly notable, but I did find something else interesting in prep.

So as part of organizing episodes I ended up putting them all in a chart, and it's fascinating how having a visual makes you spot patterns of importance. Showrunners usually do the premieres and finales - which isn't surprising - but they tend to have the same people lead into and out of their episodes too - which I hadn't really noticed before. It can make it really clear who is getting to shape the season storyline, whether due to trust or seniority.

(Unfortunately, 15 images is more than tumblr will let me put here, so I'll just describe observations and then reblog this to put the charts themselves in the notes.)

Kripke's second-in-command from Day 1 was Gamble and she really drove his seasons, writing or tying for the most eps and almost always landing the slots adjacent to his. S3-S5 really play around, with Carver, Edlund, and later Dabb & Loflin all getting to flex on story (which is probably a sign of really cohesive writers room).

Gamble doesn't seem to know who she trusts, with Edlund, Dabb & Loflin, and Glass all shifting generally around the role she used to fill. Singer even steps in to co-write twice, out of four times in the entire series.

Carver unsurprisingly leans heavy on Dabb, who drops Loflin (who I will be looking at via negative space in Dabb's eps more than anything). Edlund only gets 3 eps in S8, but 08x21 alone definitely indicates some creative clout. Buckleming shoots to prominence fast, however, for a couple of standalones in S7, and once Edlund is gone they are the undisputed #3. Nepotism, people. It pays.

Dabb starts taking over in S11, and while Buckleming stays important he also notably elevates Berens, co-writing an ep and giving him the 11x22 slot over them. The S12-S15 writers room is the most consistent and Dabb more involved than other showrunners were, but this probably comes at the cost of Singer running things in the background and elevating Buckleming more. They get every 2nd / semi-final ep in Dabb era except 12x22, which again goes to Berens (who Dabb's favor puts solidly in the #3 role).

Dabb era also has a lot of fun diagonals visually, where it looks like they just had a set rising and falling order for assigning writers and didn't mix it up very much. Though that could just be the order of the columns making it stand out.

Now that I'm seeing hints of who got to guide things, I'm really looking forward to connecting some dots.

[mittensmorgul]

I've just read through your previous ask about a yellow bathroom from S13 and some older color meta posts, but I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on the use of yellow specifically thus far in S15. You noted, "Which brings us to yellow (and also yellow and blue together, which have always been a warning sign on Supernatural… she says as she’s watching 9.01 and looking at Hael wearing a sulfur-yellow sweater over a dark blue dress. Those are the colors of Heaven and irresistible duty)." Con't..

So far what’s jumped out at me is Amara’s yellow pant suit, the girl tonight (avoiding spoilers bc timezones) wearing a yellow beret and tie-thing, and most glaringly, Dean’s yellow over shirt at the end. We never see him wearing yellow, certainly not that blatantly, or at least not that I remember. (My memory is unreliable) ‘Heaven and irresistible duty’ certainly fit, but I’m wondering if you have any new thoughts or anything else to add.

***

hello! And welcome to the continuation of the chat I initiated with you while trying to work out what exactly to say here. I’m copy/pasting my chat rambling here and then going forward from there…

(editing this, because tumblr borked the formatting when I posted it... thanks for that >.>)

the way Lilith’s clothes were coded in this episode were effectively a trap. SHE was effectively a trap, I mean Chuck had “written her into the episode” specifically to “seduce dean” after all… and she did that… wearing an outfit that ScREAMED Cas, so I want to put together something coherent for you before replying :’D

coinofstone Gotcha. Thank you for teaching out. I don’t generally follow color meta, someone pointed me to some of your #color and temp posts so I dug through a little before sending in the ask - Lilith’s comment about Chuck’s pervy obsession with Dean was a giant klaxon that made me think of Dean’s concerns about Cas too. But it’s also another “Hey remember Amara” moment

mittensmorgul yeah, and it’s a really good point

coinofstone Absolutely. I look forward to reading your post on this, once you’ve had time to digest and get it all written

mittensmorgul you mentioned the “duty to heaven” association with that mustard yellow/tan color, and that seems really relevant since Lilith’s entire presence there was in service to Chuck’s story, even as an unwilling participant in it, while Dean’s wrestling with his entire relationship to Cas, questioning if any of it was even real, since Cas’s mission originated as “Duty to Heaven” in saving him from Hell

mittensmorgul And I think all of this will become textual in 15.09, in Dean’s prayer to Cas…Foreshadowing! But not the kind Chuck’s writing…

mittensmorgul heck, I think I might just copy paste what I wrote to you here, and reply to your messages. I think I’ve worked out what I need to say

(and now that I have permission to post this, we can move on to why this is so interesting)

Lilith lampshaded herself as Chuck’s plot device, effectively. She was reenacting her own previous plot line from 4.18, seducing one of the brothers. Last time it was Sam, this time it was Dean. I’ve already posted something else about this tonight. She actively critiqued Chuck’s writing all along. She saw through Chuck’s story enough– even while she was a basically manufactured element of his story– to be self-aware of her own function within that story, as well as to point at other elements of the story and tell Dean “this is foreshadowing, isn’t it dull and predictable?”

She’s like… the opposite of Becky in 15.04.

Chuck basically BEGGED Becky to give him “notes” on his draft, and Becky had approached it in a fanfic-mindset of good faith, assuming Chuck was basically just writing fanfic as any human would. Lilith is self-aware, and knows the meta-plot. She knows she’s been placed there as a character in Chuck’s story, and she knows all about the story Chuck is trying to tell… and she HATES it.

She says she was given the choice of three vessels, and chose the one who’d apparently “picked the hardest road” for herself. She could’ve chosen one of the other girls, but this is the story that resonated with Lilith. Did she choose this, or did Chuck create her story out of whole cloth as even more foreshadowing, and with heavy references to the past when he’d done exactly the same thing with her? (rewriting her from a child into a “comely dental hygienist” when that suited the narrative he needed to tell?)

But that brings me back to Ashley/Lilith’s weird choice of clothing. Even back in the opening scenes in the tent, her two friends are dressed normally– t-shirts, like one might wear to sleep while camping. But Ashley… had the tie on. Scarf. Neckerchief. Whatever. She looked weirdly like she was trying to be a girl scout just because they’d been on a camping trip, you know? So, weird neckerchief. Which in this case looks both like Cas’s tie, AND Marie’s outfit in 10.05.

And Chuck told her, “not bad.”

Yeah, school uniforms for Marie and friends, but… Ashley/Lilith apparently chose this for herself, right down to the weird little beret.

Marie’s outfit was trimmed in this mustard color, but Lilith’s is just full-on mustard accessories.

Because Lilith was entirely self-aware through this entire episode that she was nothing more than Chuck’s plot device. She had no free will. She said repeatedly that she would’ve tortured and killed Sam and Dean both if she could, but she couldn’t, because she was entirely limited by what Chuck created her for within this episode. HOW FRUSTRATING, RIGHT?!

I guess, hence the perma-fake-tear visual of that wound on her cheek. Which was emphasized in the episode with her actual tears coursing over the cut.

This… was her chain. She could COMPLAIN about her role, she could complain about the stupidity of Chuck’s entire story. She could even laugh about his obvious asinine plot devices and foreshadowing– including her own incongruous appearance at this point in the story. But she was entirely bound by the construct Chuck created for her, and was unable to act outside of his plot.

Duty. Bound. And it’s tied right around her neck like a choker she can’t take off, in the color of duty to Heaven.

AND SHE WAS A DEMON, NOT AN ANGEL.

That doesn’t exempt her at all from being a pawn in Chuck’s narrative.

She even talked about her original purpose, to die for the original story, to free Lucifer, and her frustration that it was all for nothing. There was no grand purpose fulfilled because of her sacrifice. As far as she;s concerned, everything her entire existence was built around had been a lie. And she’s seen Chuck whole story for what it really is as a result of that. And yet here she is, playing another role for Chuck, in his unending narrative where he hopes maybe this time around things will work out to his liking. But it never will.

She also lampshaded the whole Free Will versus Destiny conundrum which we’ve been saying for years was the central theme of Supernatural since… forever. And pushed Dean to reiterate his stand on it– that he wouldn’t give it up, that he’d take all the bad he’d ever endured all over again, as long as he was making his own choices in his life. I’m not even sure that was what Chuck was going for here, or if Dean’s continued assertion of his own belief in free will was what broke Chuck’s hold over Lilith as a “character” here, and allowed her to begin voicing her critique of Chuck’s story, you know? If Dean had given in to her seduction, would she have ever been able to wrench free enough of Chuck’s written story to voice her own opinions of it? I like to think that Dean’s act of rebellion there changed the script, or allowed her to go “off script” enough to fill him in on some of the realities of Chuck’s interference.

But that remains to be seen. As far as Lilith goes, I think she was a construct for this episode… literally an agent of Chuck entirely created for the purposes of this episode as a test just as she was in 4.18. Was this the “real Lilith” brought from the Empty? Or just Chuck doing his thing and creating a story? How much can a writer really lie within the construct of his own disintegrating story?

[royaltealovingkookiness]

(Pt.1) *talks about meta you posted over 2 weeks ago because that's how I roll* I've recently been thinking about the pacing of Book 3, since that's one of the biggest issues people point out with the Book. And what you mentioned in this meta here (/ post / 182754515366 / emletish-fish-royaltealovingkookiness) gets to some of the issues I was thinking about. I'm wondering if B3 would have been less wobbly if "The Day of the Black Sun" hadn't happened at e10, but earlier in the season.

(pt. 2) Like, what if only the really plot-relevant episodes happened before TDotBS, while the character-exploration pieces like The Headband, The Runaway, and The Painted Lady happened later? That would give the Gaang more time with Zuko, and also give Zuko more time in the non-super-rich parts of the Fire Nation (also because I really wanted Zuko instituting reforms throughout the Fire Nation as part of his redemption arc in B3, but that’s just a personal preference). Anyway, thoughts?

Oh, that is a really good question. Here is the original meta. I think nobody would have complained if Zuko joined the Gaang a bit earlier, because it adds so much emotional energy to the group, the potential story-lines are endless, and those episodes are probably the most beloved by the fandom - for good reason. 

I think that definitely one way would have been to have the TDoBS a little bit earlier. I don’t know if it would have been possible to put The Painted Lady, or The Runaway after the invasion though - as once they are revealed to be alive, Team Avatar would be hunted by the Fire Nation, not to talk about Zuko, who certainly had a blood-price on his head once he walked away (and a very recognizable face to boot). But there was a lot of fat to cut, so 3A could have been shortened.

The other option would have been to leave 3A the same length, but put more focus on Zuko, Azula and the Fire Nation system itself (4 episodes have absolutely no Zuko or Azula in it, in an arc that’s supposed to be about the Fire Nation)

I think the main problem with 3A is the narrative. They should have decided what stories they wanted to tell  (the bored, privileged Fire Nation high school kids one didn’t work, because that’s not how the FN rolls, if we know one thing about both Zuko and Azula that they have a drive and work ethic of manic proportions) and then carry it through:

- On the Gaang side the story definitely should have been (and was more or less) about them discovering that the Fire Nation regular people are just that; regular people - no better or worse than other nations. There are kind ones and bad ones. It would have been also an opportunity for Aang to remember what the Fire Nation was like before the war, and how the war machine affected them too (and this is why the Kuzon-story would have been important to tell). 

- On Zuko’s side - and this is where the narrative focus was completely off - the story should have focused on three things to build the moment where he says - “this is not me”

1. how Zuko tries to be the “perfect prince” - the son of his father and how the tension grows between that image and who he has become in Book 2. We don’t even see the War Council until the finale, and there is really no story told on what are the expectations placed on him. I think he should have seen that if he stays as a cog in the war machine, he would have had to make soul-destroying compromises and still not have had much impact. Because the system as a whole is corrupt. It could have been an exploration of governance with no opposition, no checks and balances, based on fear and oppression and a nation fed by a propaganda machine (and Book 4 could have been him trying to change the system and show how hard it is). This story could have been inter-woven with the Gaang’s storyline the same way Book 2 did.

2. How the home he dreamed of during his banishment is an illusion - this doesn’t exist anymore and never will (and parts of this story they told with The Beach but very little) and how alienated Zuko feels because even the people closest to him cannot understand his experience (except Uncle, but he’s not talking to him). I think there could have been also more focus on Zuko and Azula’s relationship as they are both trying to adjust living together, trying to figure out the other’s true motivations, oscillating between wanting to be closer, but being unable to trust each other and perhaps clash their very different visions for the Fire Nation.

3. Zuko realizing slowly how everything Iroh taught him was true and how the love he gave him was real compared to Ozai’s self-serving vision of his children. This would lead to his anger at himself and the desire to reconcile with his Uncle. 

4. They should have decided what they wanted to do with Maiko. The lack of direction in the writing room really comes through and I can see at least 3 different types of Maiko (one which is a superficial teenage romance more about status than feelings, one where both sides try to support the other, but just are not emotionally equipped to do so and lack full trust, and a real love story). Since this ship was the main focus of Zuko’s home experience, the lack of clear narrative purpose made those scenes really frustrating (and I’m saying this as someone who loves both Mai and Zuko as characters and believes that this relationship could have been told really well, giving depth to both characters, whichever option you go for)

With this narrative you would have the contrasting arcs between 3A and 3B:

3A: Zuko tries to emulate Ozai  - 3B: Zuko emulates Iroh

3A: Zuko tries to make a difference from inside - 3B: Zuko knows the system is rotten and has to come down

3A: Zuko realizing his childhood home is gone for good - 3B: Zuko finding a new family with the Gaang and his Uncle

3A: Ozai’s conditional approval - 3B: Iroh’s unconditional love

But I’d definitely slide TDoBS 1-2 episodes earlier, so there is time for a field trip with Toph and I agree that either as part 3A or 3B, Zuko should have been confronted with the Fire Nation country-side and how his own people are affected and suffer from the war. After all, his entire arc started with wanting to stand up for the regular people. 

Imagine a storyline where he visits the families of his dead crew-members trying to bring them some money, or he is sent to oversee the capture or imprisonment of army defectors? Or he visits a school and hear the lies they teach to children?So many possibilities…

[flyingcatstiel]

1. Hello again, I am the same anon who sent both of your latest two anonasks. I think there was some confusion so I'll clarify. I don't even ship stony(I've only read handfuls of fics), I ship destiel and I like all mcu characters equally and I am not team cap nor iron but I am a bitter cas girl. There was NO intention to bring any wank or ships/characters bashing to your blog. I was just so angry with 'we are' and your answer to the first ask got me thinking about stony.

2. But my ask was poorly and inadequately worded to confuse you of the ulterior intention and I apologize. Though I shouldn’t have use the ship names when I meant their general relationship both in canon and fanon, what I meant was in regard to the same situation, which is their mother’s deaths, Tony actually drew blood and all Dean did was say some words,

3. so one might think that actual physical conflicts not induced by any supernatural event indicate bad relationship but I feel Dean and Cas’s friendship and general relationship more unhealthy and unbalanced.

4. Now I just decided for my self that that’s probably because Tony and Steve has different visions, families, groups of friends and support system so even if there is conflict between them, Tony still got Pepper Rhodey and Happy and Steve got Bucky Nat and Sam.

5. So no one is left alone in the world. But if Dean’s angry with Cas, Cas is alone in the universe. I meant unhealthy like that. Cas has no one except Winchester families and if that makes Cas desperate for sense of belong and makes him apologize like that, that imao is unhealthy. But all in all, I am sorry for the confusion. I shouldn’t have been so blunt and out of the blue. Post 1502 made me go blind with unreasonable fury.

6. On a different note it’s interesting how wording and context make differences between being perceived as wank baiting anon hate or anon thanks. And I hope that this message is accepted as the latter because I am always grateful of all your reasonable words about Spn and fandom fruits. :) thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heey, sorry for total misunderstanding with the previous ask and thank you for coming back and clarifying it! And yes, I’m kinda jumpy lately, since couple of my spn critical posts were hijacked by destiel haters and also earned me the blocking from destiel positivity crowd. That’s the fandom we have and that is one huge reason why I’m slowly sauntering into MCU fandom. To be brutally honest, that’s my advice to all bitter Cas girls - get out before you get too frustrated and hurt. The show will continue Cas whump because they don’t know what else to do, and destiel metas will spend all their energy justifying it. Instead of, you know, just saying that bad writing is bad writing. You can always come and vent in my inbox or via DM tho, I’ll try to answer as much as I can, because I feel you. 

OK, very quickly about CW movie and Tony’s anger vs Dean’s anger. I don’t think Tony’s situation is comparable at all here. Tony learns about Bucky killing his parents on Hydra’s orders after a long chain of very intense conflicts. That was literally the last drop, there’s little time to process it, and it is the culmination of the movie. On the other side, Dean and Cas conflict is never the centerpiece of SPN, it’s all subtext and Dean’s POV. Dean blaming Cas for Mary’s accidental death comes absolutely out of nowhere. They all knew that Jack is using his soul to do stuff, they all knew Jack needs supervision. FFS, Jack just brought Sam back from dead by using his soul. And now Cas is to blame for it? Not to mention that Dean and Cas relationship is way more complicated than MCU stony. Even if we take out romantic destiel subtext out of it, textually, Cas still is the closest person to Dean after Sam. Dean has called Cas his family, his brother several times. Dean grieved Cas in s13. And now, suddenly, it all means nothing because Dean is angry? Unpopular opinion about SPN writers under the cut.

I said it already back then and I still stand by my words - Berens wrote the line “You are dead to me” deliberately to yank the fandom. There are plenty of other words he could have used if he simply wanted to show Dean’s grief and uncontrollable anger towards Cas. Instead, SPN focused on one thing that would hurt the most and then used it in the promo. I literally saw post on my dash saying that OP was not gonna watch the episode because SPN is just meh, but, after seeing that promo, OP wanted to know why Dean said something so hideous to Cas. Remember how fans hoped that it’s a misleading promo? Remember how fans hoped that Dean will apologize to Cas? There’s an understanding that that line was too much. And, after s14 finale, I saw posts talking about how this is not relevant anymore because surely Jack’s death and Chuck’s machinations override whatever anger Dean could have towards Cas for not telling him about snake. And then 15x01 brought us that passive aggressive scene and, well, 15x02 took the cake. 

So, while I totally agree with you that the scene between Dean and Cas was terrible, my way of dealing with it is to blame SPN writers. First of all, I don’t understand what Dean is talking about there. Nothing was real? Does he mean some kind of Matrix type of reality where the real Dean is sleeping in a pod? Otherwise, it was all real. Tell Kevin Tran that his death and time after death was not real. Tell it to Jo, Charlie, Eileen that their deaths were not real. Cas speech is nice, but, honestly, not a groundbreaking revelation. Whedon’s Angel said it wittier, Dumbledore and Gandalf said it more fitting for their stories. There’s a Jewish proverb with similar sentiment. Like, this is nothing new! Our choices matter, sometimes it is the only thing that matters. I mean, everyone who has lived under authoritarian regimes, everyone who’s a minority and has to deal with privileged majority, knows this. To make Dean to refuse it in s15, is honestly very baffling. 

Like, I see that SPN writers want to draw some parallels with s4 by flipping Dean and Cas beliefs, but, scene subversion works only if you know why the first scene worked in the first place. I think this scene would have worked better if Dean would be just venting his understandable frustration with the situation. But instead, we got Cas apologizing, Dean still blaming Cas for Mary’s death (seriously wtf?) and then Dean walking out on Cas and refusing Cas’ belief in their choices being real. 

And here I come to my last point. Dean saying that their choices were not real because Chuck manipulated everything sounds very much like privileged middle class white people suddenly realizing that they are not calling the shots and then throwing into a towel. This really looks like the most “profound” revelation Bucklemming could’ve come up with. They gave similar moronic lines to Cas in 9x03, when Cas, former angel who watched humanity for thousand of years, was surprised that poor people are kind and generous. 

So, to me it looks like SPN writers are trying to be deep but in the end they write what they know best - angry white man is always right trope and le omg, if I’m not the center of the universe then everything was not real story. Which sucks, tbh. And clashes with older seasons of SPN. But here we are. And, since the conflict between Dean and Cas is based on such a weak argument, there can’t be real resolution, catharsis and growth. The current conflict serves only one purpose - to keep Cas and Dean on bad terms and to make Cas leave (because Misha’s contract something something). My worst fear - this stupid conflict will set Cas on self destructive/sacrificial path, and that will be it. Because let’s be serious, destiel is not the most important thing in s15. It’s just not. 

[thisisevenharderthannamingablog]

(1) Hello! I've seen many of your posts and meta and love your analysis of the story/characters, and with everything happening (or not happening) on the show lately, I was wondering if there is a point throughout the entirety of the series that you think they started to go off the rails? For me, S4 felt like a hot mess but finished with a fun finale and a great cliff-hanger leading into a fantastic S5A Camelot arc which could have easily been a full season. Since then, I feel like things have be

en on this downhill spiral with the writers not really knowing what to do with these characters anymore, rehashing the same storylines/drama/angst. They created such rich, dynamic characters throughout those first three seasons, and now they seem to have forgotten how to write for them, or perhaps it’s boredom. S3 seemed like it would have been a fantastic series finale, everything was, for the most part, wrapped up tidily with happy endings all around, and I often wonder if perhaps that was

the intent, not anticipating needing to write more and that’s why things have felt so off/forced ever since? Obviously not looking for answers on behalf of the writers, but curious as to your take on the progression of the stories as a whole. Seemed like things were done very deliberately early on, but not so much anymore. Perhaps it’s just me though and I missing something that a rewatch of the season/series as a whole will reveal, like the writers did indeed know exactly what they were doi

ng and where they were headed the whole time. Thank you again for sharing all your metas and posts, and for any insight you can provide with my very long and rambly question! :)

Wow! First of all, thank you. I have very much enjoyed writing about this show over the past few years. I’m delighted to hear that it’s provided some amusement to others in turn. :)

I’m not sure it’s possible to pinpoint “the” moment when things went south. I feel like there’s more than one factor at play.

First, I think they had a multi-year skeleton plot for SOME of the characters at the outset. They obviously did for Emma. I will grudgingly consider the idea that they had a plan for Regina, however little I enjoy the results. If they had one for Snowing, they threw it out when Ginny got pregnant. Rumple I’m not so sure about. I don’t think that plan was enormously detailed, though, at least in the later years; I feel like they’ve been winging it more every season.

This has led them to a bit of a stop and start pacing problem, like when 5a had everything in the universe crammed into it and 5b dawdled along without doing much, and now S6 has been largely spent treading water. They’ve run out of meat for Emma’s story. For Regina it seems like the idea they had, they did not execute very well, while Rumple’s current plot is something of a retread of his origin story.

So that’s one problem. I have sympathy for this one. They had no idea when they started it how many years they would have to tell the story. Pretty difficult to spread out your plots evenly in that case.

On a related note, most of the world-building has clearly been done just-in-time, leading to the rampant inconsistencies we all know and love. This one I do not have much sympathy for. It annoys me. These problems are largely avoidable. .

Second! Disney meddling was clearly A Thing in 4a, like holy shit what were they thinking. The episode summaries on Wikipedia are telling in their length. They are impossible to summarize, because there is too much going on, and the stories don’t mesh well at all. (I’ve got meta analyzing the problems with that arc as an entity, so I won’t go into that here.)

S4 also seems to be when the story… disconnected from itself, to some extent? I didn’t hate 4b like some people did, but I feel that it suffered a lot from that “just in time mythology” practice. So much of that arc felt off the cuff and clumsy - and none of it has ever been referred to again except in passing.

Remember back in S3, how rooted everything that happened was in the recent history of the main characters? And now we’ve got drive-by appearances by characters who are supposed to be incredibly important – Ingrid, Maleficent, Chloe, Lily, Hades – many of whom by rights should fall under the “family” umbrella that ties the show together, but have never been mentioned before, and will never be mentioned again.

This is a form of lowering the stakes, of reducing the consequences to the characters as a result of their choices. If life-shattering events happen on the regular and no one in the story even notices, the audience stops caring, too.  

Maybe 4a threw them off their stride, I don’t know, but it seems like they never quite recovered afterward. They have had great episodes and decent arcs, but they lost something. Adam and Eddy in particular have done a worse and worse job with the episodes they personally write starting with the 4a finale.

Which leads us to problem number three, in the current writer’s room. I haven’t seen Lost, so I have no idea what their writing was like in that series. I don’t know if this is a case of people who need editing not getting the constructive feedback they need, if they’re distracted by other projects, if they’re bored, if there was some change of personnel that had a major ripple effect, or what.

They wrote some fantastic early episodes. They were grim (“Heart is a Lonely Hunter”) and quirky (“Dreamy”) and they brought the story home with a bang (“A Land Without Magic”). They wrote my all-time fave “New York City Serenade,” for Pete’s sake.

And then S4 happened, since when they have written some of the hands-down worst episodes of this show. “Heroes and Villains” was an incoherent mess (which I actually took it upon myself to rewrite). “Dreamcatcher” was meh. “Swan Song” gleefully trampled over acres of relevant show mythology, relied on dubious characterization, and stated its own theme out loud five times, sign of a timid writer. “Souls of the Departed”… had some issues, and the less said about “An Untold Story” the better (for my blood pressure). And so it goes.

They seem determined to own the start and the ending of each season, but those episodes seem less and less connected to each other and to the rest of the story. The S3 finale was a thematic capstone of that season, based strongly on family, home, and new love. The S4 finale was fun, but sloppy. Since 4b was already thematically dubious, the connection to the preceding arc (you make yourself) wasn’t strong, and there was no unity at all with 4a. The S5 finale wasn’t even fun and literally had nothing to do with the stuff that preceded it. So while the S3 finale worked *because of* S1, the ones since then have felt increasingly less like part of their own story.

Ironically enough, the S3 finale that was supposed to be all about not changing anything in their AU is the only one of the three that was actually allowed to have any consequences, even if they turned out to be stupid consequences. The stakes have diminished every time.

To put it bluntly, at this point they don’t seem to know what they want to *do* with the story. They’re running out of important development points for the characters, and filling in with enough padding to open a couch factory. Cause and effect appear unreliable. They are recycling entire scenes from the same actual season – did no one notice? did someone notice and not bother speaking up? did someone get overruled? ‘Cause none of those are good things.

Character dynamics sound the same notes as they did two or three seasons ago. That’s jarring, because this is not otherwise written as an episodic, time stands still kind of show. They’ve always had a problem with writing toward an effect they want rather than figuring out the effect from the causes, but it seems to have gotten worse over the course of the show. It gets even worse when the characters appear to all have recurring amnesia regarding their own recent lives.

So… yeah. I don’t know what happened to them in S4, but it seems like that’s when they got off track, and it’s been getting worse.

Some negativity to start the day. :) Thanks for all the kind words. I am sure the S6 post-game analysis is going to be intense!

[mittensmorgul]

I can't respond to your reply directly for some reason, but thank you. I saw that post after I'd sent you the ask, and have reblogged a few iterations of it, including your addition now. It's exactly the kind of meta I've been wanting to see. I am hopeless at meta-ing myself, but I always appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this.

Note: this reply is regarding this post:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167142803515/about-anger-and-reality

Excellent! Yeah, I’d been meaning to write something, and most of what I’d been seeing did seem too extreme for me one way or the other. I was hoping to find something more balanced and objective, and I know we’re going to have more to say on the subject as the season goes on, just like we did with Mary last season.

Season 12 started with “Mom?” and s13 started with “Father?” It only makes sense. :P

One thing I haven’t really seen commented on yet is this:

Sam: Dean, what's up with all the orders, you're starting to sound like Dad.Dean: Is that a bad thing?Sam: You're saying his drill sergeant act worked with you, but it didn't with me. And that's not the way we're gonna get through to Jack.Dean: Look, you wanted the kid here, he's here. Alright? But I'm not gonna hold his hand and tuck him in at night, pass. I'm not gonna be his mother and neither are you. And the kid can dig, so I give him that.

And I really should... because Sam specifically accuses Dean of sounding like Dad, and Dean counters with a jab about not being his MOTHER. I think that’s pretty significant here, and in addition to the different ways that Sam and Dean experienced John’s parenting (and the fact that Sam doesn’t seem to recognize that the way Dean most frequently treated HIM was not as a father figure, but as a MOTHER figure, and THAT is what Sam is continually pressuring Dean to do for JACK, despite Dean’s repeated insistence that he is not willing to do that again).

(heck at this point typing I realized I’m actually writing that meta, and will probably end up posting this instead of just replying privately again... >.>)

I think part of Sam’s failure to engage with Mary AS A MOTHER is that he doesn’t understand that that’s the role DEAN filled for him for most of his life. I mean, you can hardly blame him, but his whole life what he thought of as a BROTHER had also been serving the role of MOTHER and FATHER to him. He has a difficult time adjusting to the fact that some of the emotional labor Dean provided for him as a child is just not normal brother stuff.

And Sam doesn’t understand that he’s STILL reacting to Dean the way a child would to a parent. He knows John’s “drill sergeant” routine, but in a VERY DIFFERENT way that Dean experienced it (touched on in that other post). And Dean (to me, and outside observer) Dean didn’t seem particularly “drill sergeant-y” there, just emotionally detached. Jack wanted to help, Sam wanted to find a way for Jack to help, so Dean gave him something to do that would help. That’s how Dean’s seeing the situation.

But to Sam, if Dean’s “parenting style” doesn’t match the sort of care and investment Dean showed HIM as a kid, he’s seeing it as some sort of brother-level failure, while Dean sees it more as a refusal to provide all the emotional labor of a MOTHER to Jack... and really, good on him for standing up for himself.

So while I said it’s not Sam’s FAULT that he doesn’t understand the burden of “motherhood” he’s attempting to shovel onto Dean (because again, he thinks of all that stuff as “brother stuff”), or why Dean is fighting so hard against taking that emotional burden on for not just a complete stranger but a being with an undefined and potentially terrifying set of powers at his disposal IN ADDITION to being (in Dean’s mind) the primary cause of Cas’s death... I mean, Dean’s got A LOT of extremely valid reasons for wanting to stay the hell out of that whole situation.

Meanwhile, SAM is the one who (throughout 13.03) was displaying some pretty startingly John-like behavior toward Jack... if you want to see some genuine drill sergeant behavior, just rewatch Sam’s “training sessions” with Jack. They’re complete with emotional manipulation, insensitivity, and a complete lack of empathy. Thank heck Sam finally saw what his demands for results were actually doing to Jack and apologized, but it took Dean breaking down and calling Sam out at the end of the episode to make Sam see the full extent of what he was doing with Jack (we didn’t lie, we avoided certain truths to manipulate you).

I know there’s also been a lot written on the fact that Sam has largely failed to build and maintain his own relationships with people outside of Dean’s “primary relationship” status with anyone, and that it’s been said he doesn’t trust his own ability to make good choices in relationships and therefore doesn’t even try anymore... but I don’t think Sam is entirely blameless in this (nor is he entirely at fault).

He was deceived and manipulated by Ruby, so that’s not a particularly relevant comparison, but his two primary relationships shared one shocking commonality. With both Jess and Amelia, the entire relationship was built on a lie. Sam never told EITHER of them who he was and what he’s done. He’s never tried to build an actually HONEST relationship with someone on his own, outside of Dean. It’s why I was so freaking thrilled when he came out with the “something, with someone, someone who understands the life” in 11.04. Because YES Sam, that’s how you build a relationship with someone. Not by cutting out 90% of who you are and never revealing any of that to the other person.

I feel like I’ve wandered really far afield here... but heck, I mean, talk about a John-like behavior. John’s whole hidden relationship with Adam, keeping that entire life separate from Sam and Dean and hunting. But again, that’s kinda the same move Mary pulled with hunting regarding her entire relationship with John. Sure, it was all done in the name of keeping their loved ones “safe” and “out of that life” that they felt trapped by just by KNOWING about the monsters and demons and all the horrors they lived with... but really that’s the sort of burden you can’t carry through a healthy relationship with anyone.

Obviously that wasn’t standing in the way of Sam developing the sort of relationship he wanted to with Mary, and Mary had a lot of the same issues with relationship maintenance that Sam does (plus their whole mutual fear/guilt/loss thing), but I think a lot of Sam’s personal issues stem from the fact that he just doesn’t understand how much of his relationship with Dean actually falls into a Mother/Son dynamic and not a normal, healthy brother dynamic.

I’m just relieved that DEAN is beginning to understand it. It’s progress.