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luxshine · 4 years ago

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The Great Supernatural Rewatch - Devil’s Trap

I started writing this Supernatural Rewatch way back when I finished season 9, due to the constant arguments about how Sam was a perfect Saint while Dean was an abusive controlling brother, versus Sam as a horrible hypocritical monster who was a thorn on Saint Dean’s side. And while I do admit I have a bias for Dean, I wanted to know if my position was based on fact and numbers, or if I was just being blinded by the fact that Jensen acted Dean a lot more empathic than Jared acted Sam.

There was also my wish to point out how many times Sam has made non-apologies because man, he is a master at those.

At some point I lost the free time I had to rewatch and tally the episodes, and the series kept going and… it ended. And it ended with such a… controversial final three episodes, that I ended back in the fandom. And at first I thought, ok, I can finish this meta with Season 1, call it a good sample for the brother’s relationship, and that’s it.

I am not sure that’s a good point to end. I kind of want to keep going and while I don’t know WHEN I will finish it (Seriously, 15 seasons are A LOT people), at least I know that as long as there’s interest (and I mostly mean MY interest, to be fair… I don’t want to give you all false hopes), I will keep going.

Because MAN, it’s amazing how the writers managed to write a semi-coherent series when they kept forgetting continuiy from one episode to the next.

So without more ado, let’s dig into Devil’s Trap and finish the first Season of Supernatural, back when everyone were babies.

General stuff

Do you have any idea how weird it is to see a The Road so Far in the last episode of the season WITHOUT Carry On my Wayward Son? Because it is and now I have the theory that they didn’t plan at all for it to become the unofficial theme of the series despite the fact that, in hindsight, the lyrics represent the boys perfectly. Except for the whole “peace when you are done” thing that was done so badly. AHEM.

In any case, this time “The Road so Far” is literally “last episode edited in a weird way to make it look as if it had been a season wide arc and just in case a week was enough for you to forget everything that happened”. I checked. There are no scenes from any other episode. So with the already established idea that we’re getting a season-wide summary, now it seems as if John had been with them since the beginning.

And now I do wonder if certain parts of the fandom only remember said Roads so Far because it would explain some things.

Anyway, we start where we left off: Sam furious at Dean because his brother didn’t let him do a kamikaze run into a house on fire, and Dean calling his father’s phone to get the call answered by a very angry Meg.

And here? Oh boy, we start with a lot of baggage for just a minute or so of story. Literally. Because the SECOND Dean realizes that the demons have their dad, he goes into strategy mood. Yes, Dean, the brother the writers insist is the dumb muscle, the one who can’t lead, the one who only knows how to follow orders. It is really frustrating to hear those lines parroted when we have this dialogue:

Dean: They’ve got Dad.

Sam: Meg? What’d she say?

Dean: I just told you, Sammy. Okay. Okay.

Dean takes the Colt and tucks it into the back of his jeans.

Sam: What are you doing, Dean?

Dean : We got to go.

Sam: Why?

Dean: Because the demon knows we’re in Salvation, all right. It knows we got the Colt. It’s got Dad – it’s probably coming for us next.

Sam: Good. We’ve still got three bullets left. Let it come.

Dean: Listen, tough guy, we’re not ready, okay? We don’t know how many of them are out there. Now, we’re no good to anybody dead. We’re leaving.... now!

I am not counting this as Dean forcing Sam to do something because it’s a logical thing to do, btw. If roles were reversed, it wouldn’t be Sam forcing Dean to do something.

Anyway, just to be impressed: While Sam, the “logical” brother who left hunting because he thought getting revenge over his dead mother was stupid (remember the Pilot? The writers don’t! ) is ready to kill himself in a western showdown with the demon as “they still have three bullets” while Dean is already making a plan. It’s not a very good plan as far as we know as it’s basically “We’ve got to run as we have no idea what’s coming”, but it’s better than “let’s stay and hope it’s only three demons”.

And the timing is also interesting: Dean has, so far, been willing to listen to Sam’s ideas in every episode. Most of the time, as we’ve seen, has let Sam plan the things. Same with John. Second John arrives, Dean takes a backseat and lets them work out the details. HOWEVER, the instant his family is in REAL danger of dying, when it’s obvious that their plans were the ones who got them there and Dean is about to lose the only people in the world he thinks give a crap about him? (Because we’ve established that Dean cares a lot about other people, and other people care for Dean even if he doesn’t believe it, even in season 1), then he’s not going to stand for their foolishness and rashness. Then it’s time to put everything he has learned (and later, much later, we’ll learn that hunting alone Dean ended up being better than his father), and make sure everyone gets out alive.

And Sam is not going to stand for that.

Well, he is, since next scene they’re driving out of dodge on the Impala, but Sam is giving us Bitchface #1 (It wasn’t that present back in season 1, it wasn’t until later when it would become Sam’s stereotypical response to anything he disliked), and he insist that they could’ve taken the Demons and that it’s most probable that John is dead.

Once again, we see the contrast between the brothers, and it’s a weird mirror to the conflict through the whole series that in theory shouldn’t work, because it is literally contradicting everything the narrative has told us about Dean and Sam for 21 episodes, but it works thanks to Jensen and Jared’s acting. I know in other meta I’ve been critical of Jared’s acting in future seasons, but here? He’s top notch.

Because we have Sam insisting that they have to keep going, try to kill the demon and “finish the job” because “it’s what Dad would’ve wanted�� (Which is, except for the past tense, exactly what Dean told Sam back in Wendigo), while Dean literally says “Screw the job” and “We can’t do this alone, we need help.”

And it can’t be considered “Character growth” because for Sam it would be going backwards, and for Dean… well, it would be if it wasn’t because through the whole series he has been more interested in saving people, which is exactly what he is doing here. Finding a way to save their dad, no matter what, and revenge can take a back seat.

We also keep seeing how fast thinking he is, as at this point he already has a plan to exchange the Colt for their father, even if Sam thinks the demons have already killed John, and figure out their location by going to Lincon first.

But when Sam points out the demons may not have left any signs or clues, Dean, whom I may remind you has been painted by the script and writers as the controlling older brother who manipulates Sam and forces him to hunt, listens to Sam and agrees. They need help.

And here we get introduced to one of the mainstays of the series until season 7: Singer Auto Salvage, and Bobby Singer, Jim Beaver himself.

I could write at least other 10,000 words on why Bobby is SO important to the Supernatural Mythos, a figure akin to Joe Dawson in Highlander, to Giles in Buffy, and probably the one character that 90% of the fandom loves even if he had a couple of missteps in seasons 4 and 6. But right now is not the time to do so.

So we meet Bobby, who is immediately presented to us as a sort of opposite of Missouri, speaking about old friends of the family who are into hunting. Because Missouri obviously only tolerated Dean, and was still in good terms with John, while Bobby is introduced to us by offering Dean a drink, automatically putting him on Dean’s side, so to speak, and his relationship with John was… well, weird.

Dean: Bobby, thanks. Thanks for everything. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure we should come.

Bobby: Nonsense. Your Daddy needs help.

Dean: Well, yeah, but last time we saw you, I mean, you did threaten to blast him full of buckshot. Cocked the shotgun and everything.

Bobby: Yeah, well, what can I say? John just has that effect on people.

And truer words were never said in Supernatural Season 1. Because even if the worst of John was yet to come, about half the fandom was already agreeing with Bobby at this time.

We never find out, at least not in the series’ canon (I’ve written about what is canon, what is secondary canon), why Bobby and John had this particular conflict. Later on, fandom has decided that it was something to do with Bobby absolutely disagreeing on how John raised his kids, and to be fair, it’s the most probable reason given how much Bobby loves the Winchester’s boys and how little time he has later on to say good things about John. But here? It seems he still has some love to lose for the Winchester patriarch. Or so much for the brothers that he’s willing to forgive and forget.

Also, in what I think is another great example of old Supernatural establishing shots, we get how AMAZING Bobby is as a hunter. I mean, yes, in the future Dean and Sam will be legends, but Bobby Singer? Bobby Singer was THE Hunter. Not only his house is full with books full of lore that the guys had NEVER seen (Books that we can assume not even the Men of Letters had, given how… lackluster the Men of Letters were in the past, as we learn in season 8), but also, given that we have literally no time between Sam looking at the Key of Solomon and Meg coming bursting in, and by then Dean and Bobby ALREADY had the plan to catch her, AND the Devil Trap we see is not painted but BURNT into the ceiling? It means that Bobby HAD that Devil Trap before the brother’s came in.

It means that either he already had it despite the fact that he knew of no more than 5 demon possessions a year, except for the last one when they spiked, or the SECOND he heard that two of John Winchester’s old contacts were killed, probably by a demon? He had his house protected ENOUGH so that he could trap and interrogate a Demon should any come knocking.

Seriously, Boy Scouts have NOTHING on Bobby Singer, Hunter Extraordinaire.

And of course, that’s why he had to be fighting with John. Because if he hadn’t then we’d be questioning why the hell the brothers didn’t go to him earlier in the series as seriously, this man is amazing.

Ahem. Sorry. I get very vocal about Bobby Singer, especially early seasons Bobby Singer.

In any case, Meg comes bursting in, and while she ignores Dean at first, by telekinetically throwing him towards some books, and threatens Sam asking for the Gun, this is all part of the Brother’s plan to lure her under the Devil’s Trap.

Which, btw, is a bit weird also because I already established how we know that the trap HAD to be there BEFORE the brothers came in, but Sam seemed to be JUST finding out about it when he saw the book so either he didn’t pay attention to the plan and just stumbled into doing his part by accident (Which once again make us wonder why the writers keep doing this thing where Sam looks as uninterested in anything not related to him), or the only reason for him to ask if the circles work while READING THE BOOK instead of looking up or being, I dunno, finishing painting the trap itself, is… kinda bad writing.

I swear, I love Supernatural, but when I start picking at it, it unravels like one of my knitting projects.

And NOW we get the title card and I am in page five of this Meta so we know this is going to be long and painful.

With Meg trapped and tied, Dean goes right into interrogating her to figure out where they are keeping John. At first, he’s calm and collected, but then Meg touches a very, very sore point for Dean.

Dean: Where’s our father, Meg?

Meg: You didn’t ask very nice.

Dean: Where’s our father, bitch?

Meg: Jeez. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t.

And then, and only THEN, Dean hits her.

Which is really interesting, as Meg is the second person in the show to weaponize Mary’s memory against Dean… and the first was SAM.

Now. This is not to say that Sam is as bad as a demon –although this episode in particular ends up with a lot of parallels on how Dean’s family doesn’t treat him as nicely as some demons do- but as a very interesting parallel that the writers either tried to make or stumbled on by accident by squaring Sam DIRECTLY with the Hell side in the narrative, and thus, opening the door to Sam trying to be better, trying not to be a demon. Or at least they would if Sam had any reaction to that that wasn’t “Oh, I am confused”.

Sigh, writers. You had such a nice raw material to make a more interesting story arc for Sam than the usual Chosen One trip and you totally wasted it.

In any case, as Dean gets a bit more vicious with Meg and claims she’s not a girl, Bobby finally interferes and gives us THE line that will bring the fandom a TON of headaches later regarding meatsuits, vessels, consent and metaphors for sexual abuse that sometimes ARE metaphors for sexual abuse and sometimes aren’t because the writers weren’t thinking.

Bobby: Dean, you got to be careful with her. Don’t hurt her.

Dean: Why?

Bobby: Because she really is a girl, that’s why.

Sam: What are you talking about?

Bobby: She’s possessed. That’s a human possessed by a demon. Can’t you tell?

Now. This brings us TWO problems. One that is the aforementioned ton of headaches because no one in fandom agrees as to WHAT the writers were trying to portray with demon possessions and that in season 3 ended up with the heroes of the story becoming literal serial killers because they stopped caring for the humans being possessed because… well, reasons, I guess. But that is a continuous issue that we will discuss every time it changes so it’s not the one I want to talk about.

The SECOND problem is that Bobby IMPLIES that there are demons walking around that DON’T possess people. Because “that’s a human possessed by a demon” alone could be just establishing the rules of the world, and that’s ok since this is only the second time we have a demon standing next to the Winchesters (I still miss bungee jumping demon), but the next question “Can’t you tell?” is… problematic to say the least.

Because if he was trying to remind them that all demons on earth are possessing humans, as it will be in the future, Bobby SHOULD have said “Remember?” or “Didn’t your Dad teach you anything?” or something like that. But he says “CAN’T YOU TELL?”. Which implies a) there are demons who don’t need to possess people to walk on earth, and b) that they’re hard to distinguish from normal humans but not impossible to, as Bobby CAN tell.

And we NEVER, EVER mention that again, which is a thorn on my side as the whole meat suit/vessel thing introduced a lot of issues in the narrative by season 4 and here they had the solution to it all: To have SOME Demons and Angels possess people, and OTHERs, in particular the ones they wanted to redeem or keep in the good side, NOT need that.

But again, that’s for the future and for now, I will just tally it as a frigging dropped plot point that was about both brothers.

This is also the first time in the series where we see Dean hit a human-looking woman and the anger and rawness of the moment shocks even Sam. It’s quite noticeable, the way he and Bobby look at Dean as he is ready to keep hitting Meg, but also because it takes Meg mentioning their mother Mary to make him cross that line.

Yep, even this early on we know that you do not use Mary as an emotional weapon against Dean Winchester.

In any case, Dean takes this to be good news and immediately changes his plans, because again, the “dumb muscle” is the one who gets all the strategy.

They start exorcising Meg, trying to make her confess where the demons have John. This is a very raw scene, that puts Dean as the interrogator while Sam reads the exorcism stopping only to allow Dean to ask questions. The only time Sam interrupts is when he asks about Azazael despite Dean not caring about him at the time, and when Bobby points out that, should they exorcise the demon, they’re literally killing the girl inside as she would not have survived her fall in Shadow.

And boy, this is again a scene that could’ve been considered foreshadowing if I really believed in the “five year plan” myth because at some point, as Meg insist John was dead, Dean utters this chilling threat:

Dean: For your sake, I hope you’re lying. Cause if it’s true, I swear to God, I will march into hell myself and I will slaughter each and every one of you evil sons of bitches, so help me God!

The way Jensen delivered the line? If I had been Meg, I’d consider telling my bosses to change our plans about the Seals because it is clear he means it. Had they found John dead? No demon would’ve been spared Dean Winchester’s wrath.

I have to also give the proper credit to Nicki Aycox, Meg V 1.0. I know the fandom adores Rachel Miner, and don’t get me wrong, I do too, but Nicki made me not only fear Meg as an adversary, she also made Meg “Meg” in this scene. She is evil, manipulative and self serving. She holds out as long as she can, and then tries to play the heartstrings of the brothers, just to stay topside. She is magnificent, and as much as I love Rachel, I do wonder what would’ve been if Nicki had been called to reprise her role.

Once Dean is satisfied that he has the truth, he tells Sam to finish the exorcism, but Sam wants to keep the demon trapped to interrogate her about Yellow Eyes. It’s here when Bobby mentions that the girl, the human girl, is only alive thanks to the demon, and thus the exorcism would kill her, and here we get again to how moral Dean Winchester is, and how complicated as a hero he is to the audience.

Bobby: You said she fell from a building. That girl’s body is broken. The only thing keeping her alive is that demon inside. You exorcise it – that girl is going to die.

Dean: Listen to me, both of you, we are not gonna leave her like that.

Bobby: She is a human being.

Dean: And we’re gonna put her out of her misery. Sam, finish it.

This is, after all, an early version of “At least he dies human”. But I need to point out that he is the only one that sees what is going on with Meg (the human) as torture, as misery. Bobby and Sam, who, ironically, will be the ones in this group to know what it is to be possessed by a Demon while Dean WILL become a demon, but not be possessed by one, and won’t be possessed by an angel until season 13, 12 years up the line, seem to think that human Meg would be ok being trapped in her own body as long as she’s alive, while Dean sees what it’s going on as a horrible fate.

And human Meg agrees, because she survives the exorcism and her first words to the brothers, as she’s dying, are “Thank you”.

Once again, Nicki Aycox gives us an amazing portrayal: We know Meg is dying, we know she won’t survive enough for 911 to get there, but she is determined to give one last fuck you to the demon who did it to her. She doesn’t blame the Winchesters, instead, she wants to help. She tells them she was possessed for a year (And anyone paying attention knows that means she was possessed probably as soon as Jess died and because she looked like Sam’s type), that John is alive, and that it’s a trap.

Sam, who had been against this from the beginning, still insists on asking for yellow eyes, but Meg doesn’t know about that. She can only tell them “By the River, Sunrise” about John, and dies, while Dean looks obviously guilty and conflicted despite the fact that Meg died thanking them for her freedom.

And I pause here to give a standing ovation, to Jensen, Nicki and Kim Manners, who directed the episode and gave us such a chilling scene even if he didn’t know at the time it would help to foreshadow a LOT for the future of the show.

Once Meg is dead, Bobby sends the brothers to save John and offers to be their safe house once they do by pointing that they can bring him there, and “he won’t even try to shoot him”, which again, says tons about Bobby’s relationship to the Winchesters, and how well Jim Beaver constructed him since right then and there we know that the brothers are no longer alone. That they can come back and plan properly to get Azazael out of the game, once they save John.

Once they get to the location given by Meg and, well, human Meg, Dean starts getting ready while Sam –who until now has been quite passive in the planning- checks the Key of Salomon, loaned by Bobby and starts painting two devil traps into the trunk. This brings a very annoyed yell from Dean and the following exchange:

Dean: Dude, what are you drawing on my car!

Sam: It’s called a Devil’s trap. Demons can’t get through it or inside it.

Dean: So?

Sam: It basically turns the trunk into a lockbox.

Dean: So?

Which brings us to two very interesting things.

First, the writers REALLY need to decide who is giving exposition when, as not ten minutes ago, Sam WAS with Dean when Bobby explained the Devil Traps, AND when Bobby and Dean trapped Meg in one of them. The fact that Sam repeats this here? Makes it look as if he doesn’t trust his brother to remember that information. He didn’t need to explain to DEAN that Demons can’t get through the Trap, he needed to tell it to the audience, but the way they made it, it looks as if Sam thinks Dean is a moron.

Second: This is the FIRST time we see Dean obsessed with Baby’s well being. She’s still not called Baby, she’s still “My Car”, but it’s very interesting to see how it happens in an episode where they’re saving John when the LAST time they met with John, the thing John did to “let steam” out after arguing with Sam was to reproach Dean for how he was taking care of the Impala.

Little things that I doubt the writers, in this case the very same Eric Kripke who insisted on not keeping track of what he wrote by not having a series ‘ Bible, ever remembered but that constructed a very complex character in Dean.

My question here is, since it’s the first time we see Dean’s obsession with Baby is… Is he mad that Sam drew on her without permission? Or is he mad that he drew on her at all? WHAT was the aim for that moment from Kirpke, besides getting a start on the following argument? Why did we have to see that Sam doesn’t really considers the Impala “Dean’s car”, as much as “their car”, even if he hadn’t been around for years? Why do we have to know that Sam, in the end, doesn’t respect what Dean considers his own property, the same way he doesn’t respect Dean’s boundaries?

Mind you, this is season 1. We still haven’t gotten to the REAL conflicts between Sam and Dean, and yet we have this tiny moments where the text may be saying that Dean is the “controlling” one, but the images and the narrative show a very different take.

Which bring us to the REAL argument, which is, unfortunately, not about Dean’s boundaries but once again reveals a LOT of what will be the conflict in the future (Even if it was accidental)

Sam: So, we have a place to hide the Colt while we go get Dad.

Dean: What are you talking about? We’re bringing the Colt with us.

Sam: We can’t, Dean. We’ve only got three bullets left. We can’t just use them on any demon, we’ve got to use them on the demon.

Dean: No, we have to save Dad, Sam, okay? We’re gonna need all the help we can get.

Sam: Dean, you know how pissed Dad would be if we used all the bullets? Dean, he wouldn’t want us to bring the gun.

Dean: I don’t care, Sam. I don’t care what Dad wants, okay? And since when do you care what Dad wants?

Sam: We want to kill this demon. You used to want that, too. Hell, I mean, you’re the one who came and got me at school! You’re the one who dragged me back into this, Dean. I’m just trying to finish it!

Dean: Well, you and Dad are a lot more alike than I thought, you know that? You both can’t wait to sacrifice yourself for this thing. But you know what? I’m gonna be the one to bury you. You’re selfish, you know that? You don’t care about anything but revenge.

Sam: That’s not true, Dean. (Dean scoffs) I want Dad back. But they are expecting us to bring this gun. They get the gun, they will kill us all. That Colt is our only leverage and you know it, Dean. We can not bring that gun. We can’t.

Dean: Fine.

Sam: I’m serious, Dean.

Dean: I said fine, Sam.

So, once again, we see the priorities of each brother are very clear. Despite Dean having lived all his life under John’s rules, in theory looking for the demon, he really doesn’t care for revenge as much. And we, as an audience, have know that since Wendigo. Sure, he will get mad if you mention Mary, especially if you do so in anger, but he doesn’t care about REVENGE. His idea is “Saving people”, making sure no one else suffers as he did. Sam, however? Doesn’t see it that way. He, despite having known Dean for longer than the audience, seems to have forgotten all the times Dean not only said that saving lives was far more important than hunting the demon (usually in fights with Sam) but also, that Dean HAS been trying to give him outs from the hunting life at least for three episodes now (Which, depending on how the timeline works, could be between four and two months).

Sam, despite it all, doesn't know his brother, doesn’t care to know his brother, and is very eager to blame Dean for what was, in the end, Sam’s own choice. He forgets that Dean only asked him for help in ONE hunt, and that the rest were chosen by Sam as he wanted to avenge Jess.

It’s only when Dean lays out clearly that what he wants is his family safe, that he doesn’t want to lose them to the demon as he lost Mary (something that Sam would know if he had listened to half of what Dean said to stop him from going into the fire in the last episode, but I digress), when Sam finally brings out some logic to his argument, and shows the makings of a plan: The demons expect them, and expect them to have the gun, so it’s obviously a trap. It’s only then when Dean, not quite convinced, agrees and leaves the Gun, even as Sam seems to want to keep arguing even after he won.

Once again, funny how we’re told Sam is the one “Forced” by Dean to do things, when Dean capitulates more often than not, isn’t it?

(Yes, I know that Dean DID end up taking the gun, so, in case you’re wondering, no, I am not tallying this as Sam forcing Dean to do something, but it IS important to notice WHEN Dean capitulated, even if it was just an act)

The brothers leave baby behind and start walking through the city, until Dean spots a building named Sunrise, putting together the description demon Meg gave them and the last clue human Meg said. Sam points out this puts them at a disadvantage, since the demons know how they look while anyone inside could be a demon and they have no way of knowing who (I mean, it’s not as if there was a word they could say to figure it out, right? This is exactly what I mean when I say that the series needed a series bible from day one. How could they forget “Christo” in less than 12 episodes?) so Dean figures out a quick plan: they will pull the fire alarm, get the civilians out, and then sneak in while the firefighters are figuring out what’s going on.

Which brings us back to “Dean makes the plans, but Sam is the SMART brother”. Sigh.

The plan goes without a hitch, with the extra step of Dean pretending to live there to distract a fireman while Sam steals two uniforms. I love that scene, because Dean’s act as a worried owner for his dog –despite my long held, but debunked headcanon that Dean is more of a cat person- is perfect.

As the brothers get inside the building, we get another tidbit of Dean’s backstory that has been completely forgotten by writers and fans alike, at least in fan fic, that I need to point out because it goes again to show how little Sam cared to get to know his brother, despite “the brotherly bond” being the high selling point of the series:

Dean: I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up.

Sam: You never told me that.

And boy, there’s a lot to unpack here and we’re already in page 13 of this thing in word. I swear, this series makes me want to unravel every little thread.

First of, the fact that Dean specifically WANTED to be a fireman is quite telling: After all, firemen were the ones who saved the Winchester’s house, if not the Winchesters themselves, when Mary died. It’s not an admiration born out of being taken out of the burning house –we know Dean was already on his way out with Sammy and John did the extra steps of carrying them both before the house exploded- but it’s still a very interesting thing that, had he not been a hunter, he’d be fighting the OTHER thing that killed his mother. A job that is literally “Saving people”. (and as an aside, I really wonder why the hell whenever people write Dean in AUs where he’s not a hunter, more often than not he’s a Mechanic while Firefighter Dean is quite rare)

Second, Sam’s claim that Dean “never told him that”. I don’t if you’ve been around kids, but once they choose “what they want to be when they grow up” they DON’T SHUT UP about it. Be it something realistic, like Veterinary or Astronaut, or yes, Firefighter, or something completely fantastic like Dinosaur tamer, or Unicorn breeder? Kids will TELL you about it. And everyone who cares to listen or not to listen. So either Sam simply forgot all the times Dean expressed admiration for Firefighters, or even wanting to be one or saying “if we weren’t hunters, I’d totally go to Firefighter training”, which doesn’t say much about Sam’s interest in his brother, or Dean simply never expressed said desire out loud because he knew, even when he was 7, that he’d never get to be anything but his father’s soldier, and just ignored the fact that maybe hunting was not his life.

And I don’t know which one is more depressing, to be honest.

We don’t get Dean’s reply to Sam’s claim however, as his amazing homemade EMF reads high activity.

I have to admit, seeing the brothers so young, so ignorant of what’s going on, and still having a perfect plan to fight whatever it is that they need to fight? It reminds me of why I kept watching the series despite my distaste for “chosen one” narratives. I mean, let’s break it down since we’re already way past the “too long” limit: They covered their faces, so they can win a couple of seconds against the demons, despite knowing the demons would fight any human no matter what. They use the door of the apartment as a first shield so they can use the water tanks that come WITH their disguises, filled with holy water and use that to disorient the demons, far stronger than them, to lock them in a closet and then line the closet with salt so that the demons can’t get out.

Two demons down, no causalities.

Dean gets into the room where the demons kept John, tied to a bed, and confirms that he’s breathing. Before he can free John, Sam stops him to remind him that John could be possessed and, just to make sure, throws holy water at their dad, who doesn’t starts smoking immediately, so they continue their plan to free him, sure that it’s John –who is completely out of it. Sort of awake, yes, but so full of drugs that he’s basically dead weight.

Outside, demons possess a man and a firefighter to go and chase the brothers, who manage to escape through the fire escape (The demonic possession, btw, is a lot more discrete and less dramatic than when the bungee jumping demon did it, which will come into play in a few minutes). Outside, as Sam is checking how to run away, he’s attacked by the same demon that shot Meg, who starts hitting him so hard that Sam can’t defend himself, and force-throws Dean away –after Dean left John sitting next to the building, alone and unprotected.

But before he can make Sam into a pulp, he’s shot in the head and dies. The camera pans to a grave looking Dean, holding the Colt.

This whole sequence is shot and directed beautifully, so please, another minute of silence to the memory of Kim Manners, the best damn director Supernatural ever had.

Next we know, the brothers are holed up in a cabin in the woods, and Sam is salting the windows. WHY didn’t they go directly to Bobby? Well, Sam asks if they could’ve been followed, and Dean replies he doesn’t think so, so I believe it’s implied they didn’t want to put Bobby in more danger, but let’s be honest, it’s because at Bobby’s house with the Devil Trap and all, the following scene would be impossible.

And here’s where the pain starts.

Sam thanks Dean for saving his life, not realizing that Dean is being haunted by that action. At that point, Dean, who later will be known as “emotional repressed” by most of the fandom, writers, and people involved in the show, opens up immediately about the problem:

Dean: You know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.

Sam: You didn’t have a choice, Dean.

Dean: Yeah, I know, that’s not what bothers me.

Sam: Then what does?

Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh .... it scares me sometimes.

What Dean doesn’t say, but that we can see in Jensen’s acting, is that what he did was kill an innocent (Well, two in his mind, although he didn’t kill Meg AND the human Meg thanked him for letting her die human, but Dean is not seeing that difference and Sam is not going to point it out). For Sam and John, not for Revenge, Dean is willing to break his own ethos. And this is important to point out, because it will be the main conflict and drive of the series from here on: There’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING Dean won’t do for those he considers family. And as he says himself? It scares him because of what it says about him.

And while I have said before that I know that the writers had absolutely no plan for Dean besides “Sam’s Sidekick” at this point of the series? I can absolutely believe that this scene was the seed to the “Righteous Man” arc, because Dean, in the end, can’t forgive himself for killing an innocent, not even for the Greater Good (just as he can’t stand the idea of someone dying for him, as we learned in Faith)

John comes in, and well, let’s rip this bandaid right away. As he tells a VERY uncomfortable Dean that he’s proud of him for saving them, there are signs that the demon is close. Noticing this, both brothers default to John’s orders who immediately gets Sam out of the room, ordering him to check that he salted all doors and windows, and once Sam is away, asks Dean for the Colt.

Dean, after a small hesitation, lifts the gun and points it at John, because he knows that it’s not his father the one who’s at the wheel.

Sam comes in, and while he doubts Dean’s claim that John is possessed –mostly because Dean’s only reasoning at this point is “He’s different” –he comes to Dean’s side. Unfortunately, as John dares Dean to kill him, he also realizes that the jig is up, so he stops pretending, and shows his yellow eyes in all their glory, pining both Sam and Dean to the wall.

This makes Dean drop the Colt, so the demon picks it up.

Azazael (because let’s be honest, we all know his name so why keep calling him John or Yellow Eyes?) taunts Sam when Sam tells him he’s going to kill him, and puts the Colt down, daring Sam to make it “fly to him”. Meanwhile, he puts all his attention to Dean, because he wanted to kill him specifically using John’s body as revenge for exorcising Meg and killing the other demon, because they were his son and daughter.

I make a note here to point out this is the very last time we hear about demons having families, and the fact that Meg is still alive doesn't even register in Azazael’s future episodes. Same as the idea that demons could NOT possess humans, and the series mythology is already a mess.

Sam asks why, and Azazael points out he killed Jess and Mary because they were “getting in the way” of his plans for “children like him”. Dean interrupts to call the attention of Azazael into him again, and manages to turn the tables emotionally a bit, when he reminds the demon that he killed his kids.

Which is when Azazael starts using his powers to make Dean bleed, and Dean begins yelling for John to fight the demon and save his life.

And it WORKS, which I will not tally officially, but I should mention it’s the first of many times when Dean’s voice in pain makes someone get the strength they need to fight a possession.

John manages to fight Azazael’s for control long enough to free Sam, who shoots Azazael on the knee, which disrupts Azazael’s powers long enough to get Dean free. Then John begs Sam to kill him, as he can still feel Azazael inside, but just as Sam gets ready to do so, to “put an end to everything”, Dean begs Sam not to do it. And for once, Sam listens to Dean and lowers the gun, giving Azazael a chance to escape, leaving a very angry John behind.

As the only member of the family not currently bleeding from new holes, we end the episode with Sam driving the Impala, John in shotgun and Dean, half unconscious, in the back. Sam is asking Dean to resist, as the hospital is ten minutes away (despite they being “in the middle of nowhere” five seconds ago), while John is complaining that Sam didn’t kill him, because “Killing this demon comes first” while Sam, who ended last episode saying the exact same thing, repeats what Dean managed to get into his head “No, sir. Not before everything.”

However, we don’t get to breathe easily, as a eighteen wheeler slams the Impala at full speed, and we end the episode looking at the possessed driver and the bloody, unconscious bodies of the Winchester.

How’s THAT for a season finale?

Violence

Despite everything that happened in the episode, that was a lot, there’s no inter-brother violence here, and no violence from John towards his sons (Azazael is a different story). Given how heavy the episode feels? I am counting this as a nice win.

Emotional Violence

I will admit, this is one of the episodes I was dreading because I knew it was going to be painful. It was going to be painful revisiting it after season 11’s premiere, and now that the series is over? It’s heartbreaking. And it all comes to one single phrase by Dean:

He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one.

But let’s start at the beginning of said scene. I mentioned before that when “John” praises Dean, Dean looks visibly uncomfortable.

John: It shouldn’t. You did good.

Dean: You’re not mad?

John: For what?

Dean: Using a bullet.

Dean swallows before asking if John is not mad, and John looks honestly confused as to why Dean would think he’d be mad. It starts like a perfect moment to mend the issues, especially as John continues with what may be the nicest thing anyone said to Dean in the whole season:

John: Mad? I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you – you watch out for this family. You always have.

Something that later will get repeated by many characters, the narrative itself, and will become Dean’s most defining trait. But at the moment, Dean only looks even more uncomfortable, and just mumbles a pained thanks.

And while WE don’t know it yet, that’s the exact moment in which Dean knows he’s not talking to John. And upon rewatch, it’s noticeable that Dean is not swallowing, but that his jaw tightens. He knows he and Sam are in danger, that he needs to save his father, and that he needs to play along.

But I am not analyzing this on the normal summary because it’s also a very difficult moment for Dean, because for the first time in the series, someone is weaponizing his love for his family against him, and Dean CAN’T react as he usually does. He shows growth here, by biding his time.

Dean: Dad, Sam tried to shoot the demon in Salvation. It disappeared.

John: This is me. I won’t miss. Now, the gun, hurry… Son, please.

This is the breaking point. Before, when it was just John saying that he was proud of him, Dean was just uncomfortable. But the SECOND John says “please” instead of ordering Dean to hand over the Colt? That’s when Dean steps back and gets in a defensive position. And once again, without lines, we get ton of implied things.

Like, probably Dean was hoping he was wrong, that John would really be proud of him for saving Sam. That if John wasn’t possessed when they found him, the demon had gotten in him when Dean left him alone to save Sam (we later know that’s not true, it’s just that Azazael is such a sparkly magical demon he can resist holy water). That John would never, in a thousand years, ask Dean nicely for something.

And so, he raises the gun and voices his suspicions and seals the fact that John Winchester was a terrible father:

Dean: He’d be furious.

John: What?

Dean: That I wasted a bullet. He wouldn’t be proud of me, he’d tear me a new one. You’re not my Dad.

Sam arrives, and hesitates a second before siding with Dean, whose eyes are brimming with tears as he keeps the Colt pointed at John’s body. Which is when Azazael twists the knife a little bit more into Dean’s heart:

John: Fine. You’re both so sure, go ahead. Kill me.

Which Dean, of course, can’t do.

Later on, during the torture as Azazael is slowly killing Dean with horrible scratches in his chest that can’t but remind me of the hellhounds from the future seasons (Despite knowing it wasn’t planned), Azazael delivers yet another horrible line that will define Dean’s story arc for the next 15 seasons.

John: You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Sam – he’s clearly John’s favorite. Even when they fight, it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you.

Which is a half truth, as demons lie. Fact is, without Dean? Sam would’ve killed John. Or gotten himself killed long before this moment. And we know that Dean hunted more or less alone for four years, and, in hindsight and thanks to future episodes, that Dean flourished without John and Sam around (unless he believed Sam was dead, but that’s a different situation that will be addressed in season 6). But yeah, Sam is John’s favorite, and John has shown more concern, even in these episodes, than for Dean.

And while we will speak more of this in the next season, for now, it only ends with the fact that the biggest hurt that Dean got in the whole episode was that no-one contradicted Azazael at all. John, in particular, may have been able to fight Azazael upon hearing how Dean was suffering, but after that he never once said anything about Dean’s well being.

Speeches and Apologies

There are no big speeches here to analyze, except for Dean’s realization that he will do anything for his family. But as I already went on an on about that, we can consider this section vacant for the episode.

Double narrative standards

It’s very interesting to note how the brothers, and thus, the writers, used to deal with demons back then. The fact that Dean killed one (and exorcised another, even when that only meant she got expelled from the body she was occupying and sent back to hell, even if Azazael acts as if she had been killed) is seen by Dean and the narrative as a crime: He killed an innocent, even if said innocent at the time was being an instrument to harm Sam. The fact that Sam has, many times before, acted as if bystanders were acceptable losses is never once mentioned, and thus, the narrative seems to want us to believe that the only Winchester directly with blood in his hands is Dean –because even when John begs Sam to “shoot him in the heart”, Sam doesn’t. Never mind that Sam doesn’t because at the same time, Dean is begging him not to shoot, while Dean didn’t need said reassurance to being unable to shot John previously AND judging himself for exorcising Meg.

Final Tally

This was the last episode of the season, and oh, boy, the numbers are quite surprising to be completely honest. While you can check the actual numbers below, I want to point out that Dean didn’t lie to Sam or anyone else for that matter in the whole season, nor tried to manipulate or force Sam into doing things at all. He made fun in a mean way Six times in total, versus 31 different occasions in which Sam demeaned and made fun of Dean’s habits or stuff. Six versus 31, that gives us a difference of 25, which is quite the lead for “the empathic” brother.

Most telling, despite the idea that Dean “always” was controlling and overbearing, we have 7 different occasions in which Dean respects Sam’s boundaries, against 14 times when Sam doesn’t respect Dean’s. In the same vein, we have 5 different occasions in which Sam blamed Dean for something Dean didn’t do, while Dean has not blamed Sam for anything Sam didn’t do.

Finally, for all the talk of the series being “about two brothers” in the beginning, we have that the season is divided in 7 arc episodes dedicated solely to Sam, 6 filler episodes dedicated to Sam and his needs and backstory, NO arc episodes dedicated to Dean, 4 filler episodes dedicated to Dean, and 3 arc episodes dedicated to both brothers (Or none, meaning that it’s about just advancing the plot). Also, there were 2 plotlines about Sam introduced that were later discarded and never mentioned, versus 1 about Dean, which in general proves that, at least as far as Season 1 goes? Dean was not treated as a main character at all, as the majority of the Season was ALL about SAM.

Let’s see how this continues in Season 2.

Numbers (or the TL;DR summary)

(Episode/Total so far)

Times Dean has lied to Sam or to a loved one: 0 / 0

Times Sam has lied to Dean or to a loved one: 0 / 3

Times Dean has been caught in a lie: 0 / 0

Times Sam has been caught in a lie: 0 / 1

Times Dean has hit Sam in anger: 0 / 1

Times Sam has hit Dean in anger: 0 / 4

Times Dean's lies or secrets have caused someone's death: 0 / 0

Times Sam's lies or secrets have caused someone's death: 0 / 1

Times Dean has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 0

Times Sam has abandoned (Or wanted to abandon) a hunt in the middle for his own needs: 0 / 7

Times Dean forced Sam to do something: 0 / 0

Times Sam forced Dean to do something: 0 / 7

Secrets kept by Dean: 0 / 1

Secrets kept by Sam: 0 / 2

Times Dean has blamed Sam for something: 0 / 0

Times Sam has blamed Dean for something: 1 / 5

Times Dean has apologized with words to Sam: 0 / 3

Times Sam has apologized with words to Dean: 0 / 2

Times Dean has respected Sam's boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 7

Times Sam has respected Dean's boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0

Times Dean hasn't respected Sam's boundaries and/or rules: 0 / 0

Times Sam hasn't respected Dean's boundaries and / or rules: 1 / 14

Times Dean has made fun of something Sam does or has: 0 / 6

Times Sam has made fun of something Dean does or has: 0 / 31

Times we focus on Dean's needs: 0 / 1

Times we focus on Sam's needs: 0 / 6

Arc episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 7

Filler episodes dedicated to Sam: 0 / 6

Arc episodes dedicated to Dean: 0 / 0

Filler episodes dedicated to Dean: 0 / 4

Arc episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none): 1 / 3

Filler episodes dedicated to both brothers (or to none): 0 / 2

Dean's Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 1

Sam's Dropped Plotlines: 0 / 2

Mythology Dropped Plot points: 1/1

#The Great Supernatural Rewatch #Supernatural meta #spn meta #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Cardboard Borechester #John Winchester #is a terrible father #Bobby Singer #season 1 #1x21 #Devil's Trap

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franki-lew-yo · 3 years ago

Text

The Reckoning of Wonderland

I listened to an audiobook version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on youtube. It’s...actually pretty charming.

I don’t know if I’ve made this clear yet but I’ve always found Alice in Wonderland (the franchise) to be terrifying. I love it’s imagery and it’s quite creative for us artists to sink our teeth into, and yet

I was never fond of the 1951 Disney film. Ever.

What the classic Disney film aims to do is give an actual arc to Alice and a three act structure to the story. In terms of just having those things; an arc and a clear narrative in three acts, it works! It’s songs are incredible and it’s Mary Flippin Blaire’s artistry at hand. It’s a feast for the eyes. It and Sleeping Beauty sweep the Disney films in terms of quality for that time. HOWEVER…

Now that I’ve experienced the original wonderland I can contest that the appeal to it is very much that dream+child logic, not only to Wonderland but to Alice herself. Alice is younger in the book, for one, but is also kind of down with the craziness and either sad to offended people or impressed with the Wonderlandians BECAUSE she’s a child. It makes it sweet as these are ostensibly ‘mad’ people with the personality of little kids conversing with an actual little kid and they bounce off each other well. Also, once you finally get to the Queen of Hearts, the characters straight up confirm that the Queen always makes threats of execution but never follows through on them cause she’s a whiny baby much like everyone else. There’s never any real peril. This makes the story feel much more like a stream of consciousness and creativity; a dream you just keep dozing back into because you wanna see what happens next but are kind of between knowing it’s not real and believing it is: the Cheshire Cat and the Duchess are much nicer characters in the book. The entire Mad Tea Party scene is hilarious because Alice is 100% done before it’s over. The White Rabbit, when he finally addresses Alice in the end and doesn’t just mistake her for an arm or his maid, is pretty nice to Alice.

The 1951 Alice in Wonderland is mean. It's about an older girl wishing for a nonsense world where she isn't bored and people would talk to her...only to find herself in a place where no one listens to her and nothing is boring because everyone’s insane and a giant asshat, and no- not in a childlike way either! Alice gets fed up and tired. She’s bizarrely fixated on the White Rabbit for the first part even though he’s especially mean to her. She realizes she wants out and cries because she’s trapped in hell and you really feel for her. You never get that confirmation that the Queen of Hearts is NOT killing people left and right so yes- THERE’S REAL DANGER. It’s a really mean film that’s made all the meaner by looking and feeling like any other wholesome Disney product.

No where is that truer than the 51 Cheshire Cat. He is the scariest SOB I’ve ever met and one of my most hated Disney characters. He’s the true villain of the film. There are definitely scarier looking and sounding Cheshire Cats, mind you, but what he does in this movie combined with Sterling Holloway’s performance make this guy prime nightmare fuel.

You see in the OG book the Cheshire Cat is the ‘pet’ of the Duchess and he’s the only one to stop and kind of help Alice out because he was done with the madness inside Duchess’s home. He shows up in the end to gossip about the Queen of Hearts but otherwise means no harm to Alice or anyone. The Queen even orders the cat’s head cut off which of course the cards can’t do because the cat just disappears! Lol. 51!Cheshire Cat purposefully points Alice in the direction of the Queen and then gets her in trouble. He trolls her out of what seems like genuine malice. He’s a creep. I hate him. He and Kaa can go to Disney hell and rot along with all those racist flowers Alice meets.

The 1951 film is kind of the standard for Alice in Wonderland adaptations ever since it came out though, and since then people have insisted that the AAIW and Through the Looking Glass are some kind of parallel for social issues. They’ve tried to really up the darkness and creepiness of Wonderland...which is always overdoing it to me and actually makes Wonderland less creepy in my eyes.

Call it a flex but no, the Jan Svankmajer Alice just isn’t scary to me. Unsettling? Yeah. But to me it’s just what I’ve always pictured in my mind when you say “wonderland”, and really there’s still no threat of death because when the rabbit cuts off people’s heads everyone is canonically just playing cards, toys, or taxidermy so they’re able to just put their heads back on.

Tim Burton’s Alice is trying too hard, but ultimately doesn’t feel like it really likes the source material to begin with. American McGee’s Alice series does like Wonderland, but again feels like it’s trying too hard (from what I've seen of it, anyway).

The scariest Wonderland will always be the ‘adorable’ classic Disney film because it thinks it’s adorable -but I’m not buying it. Like Invader Zim, it’s one of those properties that isn’t technically 'bad', I just don’t personally like it even when I do.

I’ve associated the original book with bad things because my mom had a copy of it one night and showed it to me before bed. It had the grotesque Victorian illustrations in it and characters like the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat frightened me so much. Then I fell asleep and had a night-terror about being attacked by birds, so I assumed that book was the cause and the 51 film didn’t sway me whatsoever.

As I have nightmares basically every night I’m no longer deeply afraid of Wonderland. The freakiest things about it are the accusations made against Lewis Carrol and the 51 film. Other than that I’m down with Wonderland nonsense.

A final note but; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are kind of precursors to fan fiction in a way. I'm not kidding. Especially in Through the Looking Glass, Carrol populates Wonderland with a bunch of characters from nursery rhymes making Wonderland a giant crossover. This further cements Ever After High’s version of Wonderland to be the best as it keep all those crossover elements in and is just as edgy as it needs to be - never too much.

#alice's adventures in wonderland #alice in wonderland #through the looking glass #american mcgee's alice #jan svankmajer #disney #Franki's Features

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ikathemadhatter · 4 years ago

Note

For the meme, top 5 Death Note characters and why!

I’m sorry for the late reply, you know I had a hell of months but here ich back 💪 Characters aren’t really in order of preferences tho, but here we go:

1. L Lawliet

Rather predictable, he was my favorite character since I watched Death Note for the very first time.

What fascinated me back then (aka 2008) was the fact L character broke the canon detective type I’ve seen in movies and series for a long while. In a typical crime story, the detective is the good dude chasing after the evil criminal and bringing back order -swaying indeed the flag of justice. Following the reasoning of several characters, especially some in the Kira Task Force, L is Justice while Kira is the evil criminal. Apparently -but, in my brutal and honest opinion, I don’t believe L is the emblem of justice. He is represented as that but Death Note is also a story that talks about justice and shows how justice, a misleading concept created by imperfection itself (humanity), is a tool to justify your actions. Because let’s face it, L used his power and all his means to confine and torture two young people just to prove his suspects were true, he wouldn’t mind using people to achieve his goal aka catch Kira. He represents justice because he’s the three world's greatest detective because he solves the most difficult cases but haha this is his main hobby, his reason to live and he doesn’t exactly empathize with other characters. There are some panels where he shows feelings, I think he truly respects some agents of the Kira Task Force and didn’t want anyone to die, but at the same time the most of his actions weren’t righteous at all. At least this is my opinion but this is also why I love this character; last but not least, his quirkiness is unique and funny and another fact that tickled my interest is what is shown of his personality... I like to believe that his truer personality is what we see in the Yotsuba Arc, but I also think he is rather good at adjusting his personality to the task. I would see it coming from a person really able to lie and doing it with no regret.

2. Light Yagami

To be rather honest, I relate to this character for a variety of reasons and this is probably why it breaks my heart to see his decline in the second arc. I’ve read tons of mangas and watched tons of anime in my life, but he keeps being the best protagonist of a shonen manga in my opinion.

Might it be a controversial opinion or not, I don’t think Light is an evil character -especially he’s not a sociopath or a psychopath. Death Note’s plot marks perfectly how much the use of a simple tool like the notebook itself corrupts the soul no matter how good their intentions are; it’s a magic object, but most importantly it’s a tool that lets you kill someone by not effectively showing you’re committing murder. I think the human mind is affected in a different way if murder means washing your hands with blood, visually doing it, instead of simply writing down a name on a notebook and waiting for that person to die of a heart attack. This means I guess Light wouldn’t go that far if he has to actually kill people with his own hands; at the beginning of the manga he realizes what he did -killing people-, but he ‘recovered’ rather quickly from the shock because of two reasons:

- he didn’t physically kill them so his mind didn’t process the action of murder in that sense

- he found quickly a coping mechanism aka he rationalized the Death Note as a holy tool that would serve for a better purpose

Light is in fact a character with pure idealism. He killed most wanted criminals who actually deserved to die in order to make the world a better and safe place. Every one of us, at least once in our life, has thought a rather evil criminal should deserve to die -because we’re humans and our emotions may be harsh and strong even towards our similar. It’s within our nature. And so it was within Light’s nature, to naively believe that killing criminals the world would be better. He also did kill people coming in his way, yes, and he also knew that it was wrong to kill those innocent people meant to be a threat to him. Why did he do it anyway? Because at some point he knew he was a martyr, someone who had the responsibility to sacrifice for the sake of the whole world. He is more selfless than other characters I might say, rationally avoided any futile emotion that could hinder his actions and plans. I mean, try to think what it means to push back your emotions, to block out everything that makes you human in a sense. Someone else would have probably gone crazy... This is why I believe his last speech is much more a liberation like he’s spitting out everything he’s held back and carried alone on his shoulders for years. At some point you want people to understand your achievements, your ideals.

Light is indeed a controversial character, rather complex and there’s a lot you can tell about him. He did bad things, I know but... I admire his will, to be honest.

3. Naomi Misora

MY QUEEN. I still think her death is the most brutal one... And even if I understand why her character needed to leave the main plot, it would have been rather interesting to see her interacting with L and the Kira Task Force.

I thank the existence of Another Note, because we can form a better idea of her possible personality. She’s absolutely a strong woman, intuitive and her kind of reasoning follows L’s investigations somehow. It’s that kind of character who’s able to balance rationality and acumen, which makes her surely a good FBI agent; her only flaw, probably, but it’s also the reason I love her, it’s her empathy and ability to feel. It’s also true that in the Death Note she was veiled by the loss of her fiancee and she was too reckless at following Light, but it showed how fragile and human she could be.

Speaking of Another Note, I loved all those scenes where she follows B’s weird suggestions -like pretending to be a corpse or sitting in a crouch- because even she knows it might be stupid she’s also like ‘Okay let’s try’. Demonstration of a kind of open-mindedness.

4. Aizawa

I love the critical thinking process of this character. He never takes things for granted and let’s remember he even left the Kira Task Force because he didn’t agree with L’s me and methods. In the second arc, he suspects of Light, senses that something is off, and trusts his guts enough to make some researches on his own. He incarnated the typical detective character who really wants to bring back order and justice and probably his way to clash with L and Light’s way of thinking made me like this character. It wasn’t love at first sight, in fact, I appreciated him more reading the manga (which I read after watching the anime) but it’s a character you learn to respect.

5. Ryuk

Just look at him. At his design, at the weird way he twisted his body or when he goes crazy eating a delicious apple, at his stupid jokes and any silly moments... and you think he’s just a goofy character when bam! the least you expect he reminds you he’s a Shinigami, a very bored one, and as a Shinigami, his task is to write down some human being’s name. Light’s included -though in this case, he did say till the beginning he would be the one writing Light’s name when the moment would come.

What can I say? Look at him, he makes you laugh, he’s the Boogeyman, he’s goofy, he’s fucking scary.

In this list I should also add Beyond Birthday, but probably I like the idea I have of him. Anyway I love him we all know it bye haha-

#death note #kiranatrix #ikatalks #this is me talking too much #don't take what I say seriously it's just a quick intro of some aspects #dn characters are too complex and it's hard to say why exactly you love them #sorry for the late reply #catching back with asks

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aceandart · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! I read your recent post and it read differently to a lot of posts under the destiel tag as of now. Personally, I’ve seen the first 5 seasons (watched it about 5 yrs ago), but haven’t been caught up to date on any of the recent stuff other than the Destiel apocalypse that’s happening right now. Could you explain the following?

“...mostly being this show is a misogynistic racist homophobic consent issue-ridden pile of bad writing “.

I was contemplating returning to the show and tuning in for the missing seasons, but what you said about it has now placed me on the fence. Could you elaborate and advise?

Thank you so much! I appreciate seeing an honest post that doesn’t sugar-coat or overlook bad writing/negative characteristics of a show!! :)

[re this]

Hi!

Well, I feel like the finale probably took care of any fence-sitting you were doing (and sorry I couldn't reply sooner), but actually my answer wasn't going to change even if the finale was okay (good, imo, was always a stretch): No, I personally would not recommend watching this show. and while my answer is mostly because of the things I am going to list to answer the rest of this question, I was also going to say - you dropped the show in s5 and that was five years ago? Whatever caused you to drop it in the first place, it probably got a lot worse. (It literally doesn't even matter what your major grievance was, they have since doubled, tripled down in terms of how bad it was.) Trying to marathon through ten seasons (20-23 episodes long each) is hard; trying to marathon through all of that to get something without a satisfactory ending is a lot of emotional labor for no payout. It's not just that this is a bad show (though it really, really is, on every level); it's that you have already tried it, you tried arguably the better seasons of it, and you still didn't want to stick to it. By the nature of how tumblr works, it can make anything look so much better than it is, just because in general the people you see hyping it up *like* the product, have decided to devote their fandom time to it, are highlighting the choicest parts of it. spn was always about the potential around the edges, the story fans made of it; the actual product was always secondary to the could have, should have beens, and this gets truer the later into the show you get. I'm not saying there weren't some great episodes, some great scenes, and even some great mini-arcs, but it was a drop in the bucket to everything else. and I'm positing this answer on the idea that you are asking because you want to watch the show, and not because you want to use the show as a supplemental for your fandom experience, but if it is the latter, I'll just say I'm currently heavily involved in reading fanfic for a fandom I've never actually watched a whole episode for, and while I'm probably missing some context I'm still highly enjoying it. fandom, honestly, so often becomes so much more than the bones we build it on. and if you want a little more, catch some "greatest hits" videos or catch up on just some of the “must-see” episodes and save yourself from having to watch all the moments in-between, because there are a lot more of them than the good parts. very few shows improve as they age out, and before the nov 5th resurgence if you weren't already following spn blogs, likely the main spn meme you were coming across was the annual 'salt and burn this dead horse' that went out after each season renewal. the tl;dr answer is really, it's not worth it. (to be honest, at the end of the day, despite the sheer amount of time, energy, and words I've put into this fandom over the years, and I put in a lot, I didn't actually like the majority of the show. so, you know, grain of salt on my opinion. then again, you left it seasons before I did.) That said, buckle up, cause now I'm gonna tell you why:

Literally, The Shitty Writing

I feel like the finale speaks for this point by itself, but before I get into all the "problematic" bad writing spn does, I want to talk about the fact that the writers are also just fundamentally bad at the craft of writing.

continuity errors. they’d change their lore/creature ability to fit their plot. (the reapers esp got the end of that bad stick.) the characters will often forget (monster-slaying) solutions that worked before (holy wood, yarrow, christo, creative approaches like exorcisms on recording, spells to remove angels from their vessels, bullet with a devil’s trap, etc). the writers forgot their own timeline more than once. the random retcons they'd do. sometimes it would also lead to plot holes.

which, speaking of, they had plenty of

there's also things that don't count as plot holes but are very large missed opportunities (ex: Dean spends a year in Purgatory and no one recognizes him? he doesn't bring up his daughter?)

I don't even know what this one would fall under, but if a character wasn't right in front of them, they would forget that character's existence. not just Adam (though that was a big one), but there were so many secondary characters that even in places it would make sense to mention them, much less bring them around, they didn't. or because they would not expand their main character list, characters who should have been around a lot more than they were (*cough* Cas, but that's an easy one, I'm also talking about characters like Kevin) would have these huge gaps between episodes that didn't make sense

they don't really have character development. this isn't to say the brothers don't change, they do, but at the same time the characters face the exact same (internal) arguments over and over again, never resolving or growing from them; they just have more examples when they think about them and it gets worse and more unhealthy because of the new weight added to it. the problem with their brothers only format, and the problem with their biphobia but more on that later, is that Dean wasn't actually allowed to grow out of his John Winchester's son role, to let himself be comfortable (and dare to be happy) with himself because that meant changing the story into something they didn't like and/or didn't know how to do. at the same time, allowing Sam to grow meant breaking the Brothers Only format, because as the show stated multiple times, Sam's happy ending did not involve hunting.

and with that, they sometimes flattened the characters so badly they became caricatures more than anything else. hell there's a whole season where Dean goes evil, and people had a hard time realizing it, which was not because it was a subtle slow descent but because shitty pacing, uneven (and contradictory) episodes, previous actions that weren't written as being evil but were the the exact same thing as when he was evil that were supposed to be "signs", and how they chose to represent that evil meant it was really hard to figure out that was what they were doing and not just writing Dean as more of an asshole than they previously were. (he's not evil, he's just a prick.) and I don't mean I had trouble telling, I mean fandom as a whole had major arguments about it, much less the general viewing public.

the series finale put a definite end to the idea they would follow through on even one of their main series themes (family don't end in blood, free will vs destiny, always keep fighting, etc), but this was something they would build up to addressing and then just anti-climatically let fizzle out in multiple seasons. character and relationship themes (not just destiel but the brothers co/counter-dependency, the importance of found family, Dean's growth from Daddy's Blunt Little Instrument and Sam's acceptance that he deserves better/agency in his own life, etc) would be built and broken down in an effort to drag the question out into another season. it wasn't two steps forward, one step back, it was a reboot.

their filler vs arc episode ratios: there's nothing wrong with the Monster of the Week format as a stylistic choice, but this show

a) would kill its own plot momentum to focus on MotW episodes. [part of this is the general spn problem they created of constantly trying to one-up their season's Big Bad, which I understand but also means one episode they are going against The Most Powerful Being in Existence (for the Fifth Time) and then rather than focus on that world-ending threat, they hunt vampires for like six episodes straight. they had a very bad balance where rather than continuously weave the larger arc into the season, or at least build characters and relationships, they'd jam it all around the season premiere, finale, and mid-season finale/premiere episodes, and then all the rest was just, bullshit cases where nothing got resolved or had a lesson stick around for the next episode, making them very skippable. also more on this under the homophobia section]

b) the filler episodes contradicted themselves and the main plot all the time.

c) sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent a-plot. also: sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent b-plot.

I cringed my way through more than one episode of dialogue

the recycled plots

more on this in the next sections, but either they didn't notice, actively didn't care, or purposefully chose to overtly and subtly imply or state a bunch of really fucked up things, and then never address them at all

speaking of never addressing anything, I realize this is a fandom vs canon battle in general, but so many things get swept under the rug as they move on to the next issue (ex: Dean put an angel in Sam's body to "heal him", violating his consent and exasperating his issue with telling what reality is - a huge issue from previous season - and once the Mark of Cain story really took over the subject gets dropped.)

death is so cheap on this show. and I don't just mean that the revolving doorway of resurrections means it's hard to get worked up about a death because (as long as the character was a white man and especially the brothers) there was a high chance they'd be back, and I don't just mean that their Murder Is the First, Last, and Best Solution to Any Issue, Ever means the faceless and not so faceless hoards of villains, monsters, and humans who get caught up in it are just hand waved as one of those things (they have ways of saving vessels and the later into the show the less likely they are to even try), but that there was no point in investing in (esp non-white, male) secondary characters because chances were they'd be dead pretty fast. I'm honestly shocked characters like Jody (who actually at one point was in the middle of being killed off on-screen and then we didn't see her for eight episodes, so we assumed she was dead) made it until the end.

(speaking of dead characters though, what was with the habit of bringing them back constantly? just don't kill them in the first place! create new ones and let those ones stick around instead!)

when they can't use death as their solution, the other answer the writers fall back on is Deus Ex Machina

buckleming were a writing duo who had their own bingo cards that included things like shitty pacing, OOC-ness, flat one-liners, etc, and the question wasn't if you'd get bingo, it was a question of how often you got it during their episodes. at some point throughout the show, it became hard to tell what was a buckleming episode and what was just another episode in the season. aka the writing quality went WAY DOWN as a whole

you know the tv trope Idiot Ball? or Idiot Plot? spn should have it's own page for both.

they constantly break viewer's trust, which is the basic tenet of what not to do when it comes to telling a story. (again, not just destiel, though the queerbaiting is a major part of it because it happened all the time to avoid actually answering that question.) when a writer violates their character's or story's core identity for a 'twist', it needs to have been carefully built so that it's a surprise to the viewer, not a betrayal. (you may not have seen it coming, but when you look back you can see the groundwork.) these writers, every time, chose the "shocking" choice regardless of how much they need to break canon or character to do so. their twists are either obvious, and/or they don't make sense with the rest of their story/lore of the show, and the viewer is left feeling stupid for believing they have more respect for the audience/characters than they do.

I realize this is pretty subjective, but huge swaths of it are just boring. fandom made the experience of watching it interesting, not the show itself.

and yet, for all of that, the quality of writing (while painful to have to sit through) was not the worst thing about it.

(note for the following: I stopped watching after s11, but I'm sure some if not all of these are still relevant until the very end)

Misogyny and Consent Issues: Is There a Limit? Signs Point to No

there is honestly so much under this topic I don't even know where to start. i'm going to focus on patterns rather than specific incidences, because otherwise I'll be writing this for a week, but just know I can easily provide examples of all of these because this is literally what I spent years writing meta on.

female characters were more likely to die quicker/earlier (esp vs other other male characters with similar reoccurring roles/characterizations), stay dead, and die often at the hands of their loved ones and/or in Stranger Danger situations. they died for man!pain. they died for fodder. they died as a sacrifice. they were turned into love interests (whether that was their original role or not) and then killed. they were put in mortal danger and then not given resolution for several episodes (Schrödinger's death.) they died in ways we've seen male characters survive. their deaths - the violence enacted on them - was constantly, consistently sexualized, and the camera lingered.

when it came to villains the show would go out of its way to kill the female one first, or act like she's the more pressing issue so that the male character could hang around longer (and honestly by male character I often mean specifically Crowley and the season's female villain. not only that but they'd often break canon to kill off a female character, and break canon to save Crowley/a male character)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring female characters vs male characters who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, female characters were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared male character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development

they have more than once used the story line of underage girl seducing a grown man. (it was a whole season arc even.) this is esp galling when you find out about crew member Jim Michaels, who sexually harassed and assaulted (minor) fans

(btw, not the only crew/cast member to do so! and still be invited to cons!)

Dean Winchester (who is narratively treated as the moral judgement for the show) has blamed more than one rape victim for their assault/trauma. they often get abused (or outright killed) for stopping their abuser.

Dean is ok with flirting with/leering at barely legal teenage girls. already sketchy when he's 26, really gross when he's in his mid/late thirties

speaking of Dean. based on past personal experience I'm going to say up front people do not like me saying this, but that doesn't mean what I'm saying is wrong or even based on interpretations: Dean has more than one relationship that if it isn't rape, falls under extreme dubious consent.

there's actually a lot of rape (or "extreme dubious consent") and assault/molestation, both shown and mentioned: Cas and April, the cases were men take away free will and then have sex with the women (Ben Edlund was one of the better writers of series and even he did this a couple of times), Crowley orgy (and demon sex in general), random women in some episodes, Sam and meta!Gen, Becky and Sam, Sam and Lucifer, Dean and Alastair, several monsters (like the siren) and their victims, male characters secretly watching female characters undress/be naked, and so on. Dean was often attacked sexually by men, Sam by women. most of this is never addressed, never treated like what it is, and/or is made into a joke

and there's even more rape jokes beyond that, sub-sections: prison, vessels/demons, angel possession, sex work, childhood abuse, monster of the week, sexuality, etc. huge chunks if not whole episodes were devoted to making what amounted to a rape joke.

often ignored non-sexual consent (esp Dean’s actions, including a lot of mind-wiping and violations of body autonomy)

everything about Sam and body autonomy - he is frequently violated (multiple characters have possessed him; he is fed demon blood); how he feels unclean, how he feels disconnected from his own body, how he often is forced to act outside of his control and then blamed for those decisions

actually, Cas goes through that a lot too; he is trained, brainwashed, and forced to do things without his consent, and goes through major depressive episodes because of it

this show has a pattern of girls who are kidnapped, (sexually abused), raised in isolation, and expected to develop some perfect moral compass of acceptable behavior and were then killed off when they didn't. meanwhile, male characters get fourth, fifth chances.

female characters (and I'm talking about ones with speaking roles, who play an actual part in the plot, who are sometimes in multiple episodes) are more likely to be unnamed or given no last name

are you a Mother on spn (as in, that's your role)? you're either fridged for man!pain or abusive or both

it rarely could pass the bechdel test (including in s9 don't believe those fandom lies), and that's including episodes that focused on female characters. if the test included that the characters have to be named, that (small) number probably gets cut in half. if that test included both women are alive at the end...

female monsters prove they deserve to live by killing off their family to prove they're the "good kind" (this is not necessary for male monster characters)

female characters are not allowed to get vengeance

they took the Virgin vs Whore dynamic (and that that's all women are), and devoted a whole episode to it, but in general it underlines of ton of interactions, esp with regards to Dean and women. {I actually never got around to writing it, but women tended to fall into four main classifications on this show, though overlap definitely allowed: Victim [sub-categories: Fodder, (Dean) Mirror, Mother], Love Interest, Sex Object, and Villain/Obstacle. very few female characters were either allowed to outgrow their category or didn't start in one.}

we see the male characters assault female characters but it's okay because [insert supernatural reason here], ignoring that whatever explanations for why it's being allowed, we are still visually being shown this violence against women, and often from our "heroes" (the women are then tossed away from the narrative after the violence and again, their aftermath gets regulated to off-screen who cares)

female characters were only allowed to be "so badass"; female hunters often fought female monsters or they lost/got regulated to the sidelines in battles. this gets even more contrasted as a male character/hunter will often do a nod about how "badass" she is, even as she is very easily beaten.

the whorepobia of this show

had a tendency to strip female characters down to their underwear/make them nude before torturing them, and then adding sexualized torture on top of that

outside of actor injuries affecting this (like one of them broke his arm so he had a sling for a few episodes), female characters are often more likely to visually carry the bruises/violence of violent incidences much longer than male characters

gratuitous filming shots of breasts, asses

the use of the words: bitch, skank, whore, slut; the play on words they do so they can say "pussy"

taking female myths/figures and reducing them to a cheap, sexist storyline (Amazons, Artemis, Lilith, Eve, witches - who are only allowed to live/be "good" if they're men, and are otherwise in league with demons/are evil and lose)

they often kept a character but switched out her actress; helps with the disposable feeling

how they treat women's ages (ex: Jody is not allowed to be a love interest to Sam because she's older than him/calling Dean 'kiddo'. ex: Rowena is played by a woman fifteen years younger than Crowley's actor. ex: Amara being one of the oldest things in existence but still having to age her way up.)

their treatment of teenage girls, ranging from how they sexualized them to expecting them to save themselves to treating them like they are grown adults and not children to the way they kept killing the ones who posted selfies to the fact the pr more than once used the tag "teenage girls - the scariest thing ever" for Claire's episodes

actions and lasting legacies by female characters often got erased or passed on to male characters instead

it's a time honored tradition to treat certain monsters as metaphors for things. specifically for spn, they often use werewolves and vampires for sexual assault. (not the first to do so, not the last to do so.) however, that part of it gets textually glossed over, or treated as a joke, more often than not

and for all the patterns I talk about above, there's plenty of other one-off examples of misogyny/sexism or consent issues/rape culture this show did. like that time a grown man sniffed the bra of a dead teenage girl. not for any reason, just because it was there and that's what dudes do, apparently.

Racism: All the Flavors(+ Bonus Sexism)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring white characters vs characters of color who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, characters of color were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared white character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development.

usually Black men but in general men of color:

a) got humiliated (often using feminization or infantilization) before their death

b) had a more violent death; had a death that visually echoed racism (lynching, shot in the back, etc)

c) often used (racialized) rhetoric that in the real world is used against them

d) often filmed in ways to highlight their physicality, to portray them animalistically, to dehumanize them

e) even when victims, will add context to make them partially responsible for their death

characters of color were the villains or antagonists, very rarely "good guys"

this was a very white show, and while I'm speaking about speaking roles, reoccurring characters, and characters who get their own arcs, I'm also talking about background characters

using lore from groups they should not have and/or turned creatures into racist caricatures

having white actors play characters they shouldn't have

heavily depended on stereotypes for their characters of color

the treatment (esp narrative empathy level) of white angels vs angels of color. again, screen time and character development differences between the two

a summary of (East) Asian woman on this show: fetishized porn/sexualized, “tiger mom”, Yoko Ono/The Girlfriend, monster. they were often silent or had no dialogue. microaggressions (usually spoken by Dean) were leveled at them.

antisemitism (styne issue, erasure of the Judah Initiative, Lilith, the golem)

like the sexism, just had random racist lines or visuals throughout the show (and sometimes those came in the absence of who should be there); some groups literally did not have enough characters to make a pattern, which is why this section looks a lot shorter than it really is

like for ex, I'm trying to stick with patterns but seriously, they put a Black woman in a dog collar and said her white boyfriend was her master/that she belonged to him

the ignorance of how white privilege worked to make them palatable

the replacement and/or elevation of a white character over a character of color (Lisa over Cassie, Bobby over Missouri, Charlie over Kevin in terms of how they were treated under Found Family, etc)

how they treated non-Christian Gods: easily killed, evil, weak. they often repackaged them into a Christian framework and made them lesser than.

Bi/Homophobia, Queerbaiting, and Using Fans

they butchered Charlie. they killed her, they killed her in a way that involved leaving behind plot, characters, and logic to do so, they killed her and used the violence of it for "shock," they butchered her and stuck her in a bathtub. the guy who wrote Charlie in every other episode (Robbie Thompson, one of the better writers of the show) didn't write her last episode (assumption: because he wouldn't) and then he arguably left the show over her death. at one of the cons (comic-con?) the cast literally turned their backs when a fan questioned Carver (the showrunner) about what he did because they wanted no part of it. there was a mass exodus of fandom after they killed her (and another portion actually hung around because they got destiel queerbaited to stick out the rest of the season, and then they left.) she was un-apologetically queer, she was found family, she was widely popular, and they killed her for no reason at all. they didn't just Bury The Gay (their only reoccurring one), they salted and burnt the ground

they spent over a decade queerbaiting Destiel. they built queerbaiting destiel into the structure of the show: season opening/first couple of episodes whetted the appetite, which they then backed away from (usually removing Cas from Dean's physical area) and around this time they'd usually have some kind of heterosexual love interest, then mid-season they'd have some room to be together and share feelings, Cas would again disappear but this time they'd have some bi!Dean thrown in to keep you going, a few episodes before the end they'd have a major connection moment (I need you, I love you), and then the season would end with something to keep destiel fans occupied with during summer. it was never a trajectory, it was a cycle; just enough for plausible deniability but more than enough for fans to believe in. they had whole seasons where the b-plot were mirrors for destiel. they tried to sell DVDs by promising destiel cut scenes. they'd remove Cas from huge chunks of episodes just because they didn't want destiel interacting in the same physical space. they filmed them (I'm talking camera angles, physical positioning, etc) romantically. (and sometimes, someone on crew/the network would accidentally reveal how not-fucking-happening destiel would be, and then backtrack when they realized fandom’s uproar.)

a) Dean was only allowed to care so much for Cas, the narrative would only give him so much room to mourn/miss him. (Sam too.) it's beyond my general complaint that the writers/bros lose all interest in a character if they are not right in front of them (if they even cared when they were), but specifically they will spend episodes talking about how Cas is family, how much they care, and then because Dean and Cas cannot share the screen they come up with asinine reasons to remove Cas, which means Dean/the bros do not help him on his issues, and he is cast adrift until they need him, a push/pull of show vs tell with contradictory answers but made a lot of Cas/Destiel fans argue Cas deserved better.

b) they also devoted seasons to the (subtextual) love triangle of Dean/Cas/Crowley. (I wish I was fucking kidding)

c) "you construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men": the way they use violence to supplement affection (which is actually a larger pattern with Dean and his loved ones in general, but specifically the show is willing to show - multiple times - Dean and Cas being violent (often with an arguably sexualized filming to it) in conjunction with or as replacement for expressing their care.) other side of this: hugging/physical affection outside of the shoulder/hand thing is reserved for escaping or coming back from death, if then (and it took seasons and a few deaths to even get that.)

d) "buddy"

that time Dean was allowed to be textually attracted to his mother and a literal dog (who was visually made to be very clearly a girl dog), but his attraction to men always stays subtextual and/or treated as a joke

they spent the whole show queerbaiting bi!Dean. aside comments, checking out other guys, getting flustered by men he finds attractive, metaphors, mirror characters, the heterosexual overcompensation [which is different from but comes from a similar place of the macho compensation to counteract how he gets sexualized/feminized], everything with Cas and how they play that relationship romantically and with sexual attraction, the character development that led to his relaxation of his macho compensation coinciding with increasing subtextual readings of his bisexuality (and domesticity), the inspiration for his name/character is bi, his relationship to Charlie and the pattern of fictive kinship, etc etc.

why are angels straight???? why do they have gender???? (why are they interested in sex???) minus the queerbaiting of destiel, they spent a lot of seasons pushing Cas into a heterosexual box. other angels were often pushed into heterosexual boxes too. (or left in subtext and then killed.) closest we got to playing with gender was Raphael and maybe Hannah, and at least with Raphael it was not without its issues. (also: both dead.)

random transphobic lines

homosexuality was often treated like a joke/punchline. queer characters/scenes were often treated like a joke/punchline.

outside of Charlie, queer characters were small, two-bit roles, extremely rare, and often killed

how they treated and showcased fandom space and esp queer fans in-show (much less how they treated them in real life), comes from a deeply sexist and homophobic place

The Show Was 328 Episodes Long And the thing is, these are the four big categories, but it's not like this is it. The show flip-flops on calling John an abusive parent/that the bros are childhood abuse survivors. The show doesn't even really call out when Dean is being abusive to Sam, and the way they always, always go back to the Brothers Only format means they are often ignoring or straight-up forgetting the unhealthy aspects of their relationship. The show ignores how their trauma builds (and all the things that happen because of it), disconnecting the current issues with the ones that came before. The way they flip flop on monster morality and never address what the winchester bros do to people who happen to be monsters but aren't evil (or definitely aren't as evil as they are). How violence is always the answer. How the "saving people'' part of hunting got dropped the later the show goes on, and red shirt vessels/hosts die in droves. Depending on how you view it, the way they treat alcoholism and addiction. The ableism. The line between the narrative's opinion on acceptable violence and not is inconsistent and dependent on how much they like the character doing the violence vs who the violence is being done to. Etc.

(The above lists are definitely missing stuff. I haven't done anything in this fandom in like four years, I've forgotten a lot.) I'm not saying people didn't enjoy this show. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy (parts of) this show. I'm saying whether you are basing it on things like writing craft or things like 'social justice issues', this show is bad. It is of poor quality. I really don't know how to explain the hold it has on people, how a show can be charismatic, how fandom was able to squeeze so much out of so little, but that's probably what's got you attracted into the idea of watching it again. If you're thinking of watching it because you want a coherent, well done story, look elsewhere. The finale was the literal last straw, not the only one.

#spn #fandom stuff #inbox and admin stuff #//#also this focuses on canon #(and ok a little abt the cast/crew)#(though among other things not mentioned is how actors of color and actresses got treated re cons & crew demographics)#however fandom has it's own fucking list and I can come for them at any time too #anyway that was a very nice ask #and if you want actual details about any of these I could provide #but I wanted to stick with patterns because I feel like that says more than the individual things they do #of which there are legion #anyway a summary of what I and many other people have discussed over the years about how much this show sucks #////#i really do get the urge though #one of my mutuals makes s15 destiel sound good #but fool me once shame on you and fool me 50x fuck you spn #//////#this is long (you asked a very wordy person) but tbh I've written longer meta #and oh man back in the day this thing would have been full of links that would have taken you to other metas #///////#eta: fucked up my formatting I had to add a) because bullet points wont indent

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myhiddenfandom · 4 years ago

Text

No idea where to submit a fanfic prompt, so I’m just gonna post it here and pray to DianXia that it will be seen and written!

MDZS x TGCF crossover (truer to CQL/Untamed than to other adaptations): what if the final battle in Nightless City was his trial, and he ascends right as he falls off the cliff? If this were novel-verse I guess it would be during the backlash but I think in the drama he has more clarity of mind just before he falls off the cliff.

Maybe cultivators notice the ascension, and start asking themselves how can someone so evil ascend - not quite sure how to reverse their impression of WWX at this point but I would love for some of the more important characters (LXC, JC, maybe NMJ or LQR) to realize they were wrong and had essentially massacred/sentenced innocents to death, and the subsequent angst-filled guilt fest.

Maybe in all the confusion of war, the ascension wasn’t noticed, and with the missing body, they assume WWX died as per canon > the separation years continue as per canon.

Either way, WWX at some point realizes leaving his demonic cultivation notes out in the open was not a good idea, so some Heavenly Officials whom he’s befriended head down to the mortal’s realm to pack them away and hide them, but by that time everything has been ransacked, and the notes are all missing. This sets the Heaven realm on alert for possible evil deeds done with demonic cultivation, idk - maybe they notice when XY and MXY start playing around with it and remove the notes from them before they start getting anywhere with demonic cultivation?

13/16 years later, MXY does not have the expertise to bring back WY but people eager to imitate demonic cultivation build shrines to the Yiling Patriarch and pray to him, so he can hear what’s going on in the world. Also, maybe some people see his shrines and don’t realize it’s the Yiling Patriarch (the demonic cultivators have to disguise his shrine/statue quite thoroughly to make sure they’re not caught), so they start praying to him too, and that’s how he gains another famous name? Either way, this is how he starts noticing something not right when he hears MXY’s prayers, which seems to know some details of his personal life (from the bits he read on his notes/diary?).

So he descends and disguises himself (because in TGCF, they’re not supposed to show themselves to people they know) and canon proceeds from there but with actual WY in disguise and MXY gets to live!

Yi City arc - while XY figured out parts of demonic cultivation on his own, he didn’t have WWX’s notes on the Stygian Tiger Seal and therefore had less power. Up to the author if he still does the whole XXC thing or if he will be less murder-y.

Timeline: This will probably start before TGCF canon, which will happen during the 13/16 years - maybe soon after WY’s ascension as he’s had a pretty bad mind break and needed time in seclusion to help him heal, and so doesn’t know what’s going on with Jun Wu until the Heavenly realm starts falling apart just before TGCF’s final battle? All this of course makes him really busy so that he’s not so tempted to watch over the humans he knows, but of course he still makes time to watch over Lan Zhan and his son when he can (does he realize SiZhui is A Yuan? Or does he only start watching over them later and doesn’t realize it?). Watching JC and JL is too painful, so he just sets up alerts in case they ever get into serious trouble :(

Post-TGCF canon, all his friends including DianXia and HuaCheng can help him through his guilt and trauma, and maybe realize his own feelings towards Lan Zhan.

I have no idea how to write how the others will take the discovery that he’s back - but there will be no punishment meted out for the humans discovering by the time canon happens since the no-meeting-people-you-know law was something strictly enforced by Jun Wu, and with his downfall, the other gods are a lot more lax on it while still rebuilding the heavenly realms.

In a world where none of the righteous cultivators noticed his ascension, I would absolutely love to see their reactions upon realizing WWX has ascended and is now a heavenly official 😂

So many extra bonus points if you can write a good WWX & HC friendship! Maybe even brotherhood, not that WWX would ever acknowledge it as such cos he’s still hurting over JC and JYL. Self blame is very powerful.

Okay I’ve exhausted most of my ideas for this particular crossover. If more come to mind, I will continue!!

#mxtx #mdzs #mdzs fanfiction #fanfiction #fic prompts #fanfic #prompts #crossover #tgcf #mo dao zu shi #tian guan ci fu #heavenly official's blessing #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #cql #chen qing ling #mo xiang tong xiu

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meandmyechoes · 4 years ago

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my, I'm really thinking about Season 2 of The Bad Batch.

Looking the crew and blurb, it'd have to run more episoidic/serial than distinct arcs, as the same showrunners did with Rebels and Resistance who also follow a core cast instead of branching out in TCW anthology style.

It's still a pilot season so we'll get the first four episodes of them running token quests to deepen characterization. The Boba arc can even be repurposed in, if not at least re-introduction of fan-favourite bounty hunters. The middle arc can start the clone angst, bring in deserter clones, bring in Imperial!Cody. The final arc sets up a Jedi-turned Inquisitor, looking to recruit them, because/but if there's one thing we clones know, is how to stop a Jedi. Have them confront their "purpose" as "engineered weapons" - which in the Bad Batch's case, is truer than regs.

(*cough* and a hooded Miralan observes the whole fight *cough*)

I'm pretty convinced "finding new purpose" eventually land them in the Rebellion, however predictable that seems. If they want to keep the Ahsoka novel semi-canon, she can't physically be in the series, well, until season 2. Who better bring in to help set up the Fulcrum intelligence network? Rex is obviously their connection and naturally led the Bad Batch to become one of many Rebel cells. The subplot of Season 2 thus become Rex's quest for Wolffe and Gregor, like Ahsoka's search for Vader Rebels S2.

But before that, I suppose Hondo is a possibility! If I'm really optimistic, Katooni too? Oh imagine them running into Crimson Dawn and that grouchy tomato Sam Witwer gets a cameo again ah. Also I'm not asking, I'm demanding. Show me Barriss. Show me Quinlan. #where's my quinlan-maul duel Barriss for her disillusionment with the Republic and Quin for his "unconventional" treatment of the clones. These philosophies clapping and clashing with the Bad Batch's would've been interesting meta/angst fuel, depending on how (much) the script delivers.

For the Clones, I want to see… everyone, actually. On the wild side, resurrected!Fives. Less but still wild, Dogma. I doubt we'll get Bly… but he is a realistic foil to Cody, and, don't kill me over this, but frankly, a sacrifice-able character? If he's introduced as the enforcer in the middle arc I mentioned above, Cody can be reserved for S1 finale, and Rex's nemesis in S2.

#the clone wars #the bad batch #tcw reviews #marking my words so they come back and bite me next year #i still cringe at putting this in the mai tag but have at it #HAHA THEM VISITING THE CRASH SITE

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sepialunaris · 5 years ago

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Tbh I've been keeping this epiphany a lot for my tlj - tros rewrite thing thats probly not gonna be finished but no matter how disney wants to make him comparabble to Vader, Kylo Ren's set up has always been more like Palpatine's backstory in Legends. Like the similarity is uncanny (there are still differences but we'll get to that), and if only they had used that to somewhat fit in Palps in Kyle's arc of being TROS' big bad, it would've made sense.

Enter Sheev

In the Darth Plagueis novel, Palpatine was a child from a noble Naboo family. His family had great power and influence in the senate, especially his father Cosinga. He hated Cosinga because he has conflicting political views with him and has an overall abusive relationship with him (this one is not like Kyle, as he has a caring and healthy family). And iirc from a young age he also has a fascination of the Sith but with little knowledge about them.

And then he meets Hego Damask, a powerful Muun banker, Plagueis' own persona. And then Sheev forms a close mentor-student friendship with him and together they sabotage Cosinga's political faction, while Plagueis observes if Palpatine is worthy to be his apprentice. This includes an instance that he tests Sheev and asks him on how much power he desires to have. Of course typical Sheev answers everything. And then Plagueis reveals himself as a Sith Lord and offers Palps to be his apprentice, promising power to him. But he has to pass a trial to become a true Sith.

And then after knowing Hego's influence in eroding his political faction (without knowing the Sith stuff), Consinga warns Sheev and stops him from communicating with Hego. Consinga also attempts to stop his political career by sending him away. This angers Palpatine and he keeps communicating with Hego, who pushes him to embrace this darkness. And then during a trip at Chandrila with his whole family, he called out his father and they both scream their hatred about each other, to the point Cosinga admitted he should've killed him when he was first born. An enraged Palpatine used the dark side and proceeded to attack and murder his father, followed by the rest of his family. (Also by coincidence, Kyle was born in Chandrila).

Young Sheev felt guilty of this, maybe not to an Anakin degree but this guy is not that sadistic yet. Plagueis was impressed by this and convinces him that he will cover up his murder. In a mission, Plagueis also tried to absolve him of the guilt by telling him to repeat the story of his murder over and over in a cold planet. Once he deems him as a fully fledged malicious being, sucked from all empathy, he christens him as Darth Sidious.

And the rest is history, he fucks over his master, continued the grand plan himself, commiting monstrous acts in his own behalf, and then gets fucked over a few decades later.

Enter kyle

Kyle came from a loving family and people who cares for him. Leia, Han, Luke. Snoke was interested with him and influenced him to embrace his dark impulses. Only unlike Palps, his ambition is not due to an abusive relationship with his parent figures, it was him always thinking that he has locked potential that Luke refuses to allow him to access. But in the end both Sheev and Kyle wanted the same thing, power. And Kyle chose to indulge on Snoke's suggestions and his mind kept thinking that people hated him because he was "too powerful." It was his choice and Snoke didn't force him and his family tried to stop it (Han and Leia knew of Snoke so she probably knew from Kyle and then told Luke and they are not the type of people to sit idly by when this happens).

OOC TLJ Luke considered killing him after sensing this darkness and just one misunderstanding this made him murder the whole Jedi Temple and become a fascist, as if he already had that in mind from before, just like Palps already hating his father. If he had only lashed out on Luke but not the others, he may have a point, but he lashed it out on innocents, and proceeded to do this the next few years for his fascist power conquest. The comic retconned this and made Kyle not kill the jedi, a random lightning bolt did. And I think its just disney trying to make his redemption makes sense and uhh it doesn't work (I refuse to accept it as canon). The things I think the comic itself nailed about Kyle's characterization tho is that even when he didn't kill the jedi, Kyle thought Luke was scared of his power and tried to kill him and Kyle ran off to Snoke instead of his family for help. This is exactly like Palpatine and Plagueis.

And off he goes. He also murdered his father as some sort of trial by Snoke, even if his father is a decent person unlike Cosinga. He killed his master and continued to become genocidal and egomaniac under his own behalf. He has become somewhat like Palpatine, not like Anakin that killed and done his terrible irredeemable atrocities for love. They both did it for power. And for Palpatine he had to support system to stop his descent, yet Kyle had it and refused it.

They could've had a scene where Palps recalls the story of Plagueis (meme bonus) with a truer version, telling kyle that they are more similar to each other than he thinks he is with Vader, and make him an Aaravos type character that doesn't command Kylo but advices his decisions and makes him powerful by giving him knowledge. An untrustworthy advisor that isn't framed as the main villain (i.e: focusing more on kyle's actions that Palps) while Kyle still independently does heinous things in his own conscience and he himself plans to undermine Palps when he has no more use of him (of course Palps also has a plan to trick him and Kyle is not stupid enough to not know it, so its a matter of who disposes who first)

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badsithnocookie · 5 years ago

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i was curious about your opinion of writing characters like,,, with a different character arc? like, a sort of canon divergence where certain characters end up developing different opinions than they do in canon? like, just an example: someone writing quinn realizing the severe downfalls of the empire (you know, mass propaganda, fascism, slavery, etc.) and moving away from that? or lana being more rigid in their opinions than just following an ls!outlander without question?

i am 100% supportive of writing characters with growth arcs (both towards and away from the ideals of the player and or player character) and of writing them with different outcomes than we have in canon - to use the example of lana you mentioned, she and outlander!eirn butt heads much more in my writing than they do ingame, because eirn is an ls/disillusioned sith who wants nothing further to do with the empire, and lana is... well, lana.

personally, i try to write characters as true to themselves, or at least, my conception and understanding of them, which means inevitably my depiction will be different to canon because bioware a. have limited resources with which to do their exposition (see also: much of my frustration with lana being an exposition bot at the cost of her characterisation) and b. caters expressly to a player power fantasy (chuck has said as much on livestreams), so major npcs are unlikely to complain much about their actions (and those that do are frequently murderable, as of kotfetet - see: senya, koth, indo, atrius, etc...)

(similarly, i tend to hc and write lana as being more manipulative and controlling than a lot of fandom write/hc her as, which has caught me flak from lana fans in the past but to me,feels truer to her personality, especially as it is shown in sor, than the characterisation she gets in some parts of being completely benevolent and selfless)

this isn’t to say i feel that characters should be static or stagnant - sometimes people don’t change, this much is true, and going through a period of trial and doubling down on one’s previous beliefs is both an incredibly human trait and a completely valid character arc. but even that is a growth of a kind, because the character in question has had their beliefs or stances challenged and come away with more conviction in them.

but i am also okay with and (try to write) character growth and change from npcs even in directions that are canon divergent, but... within that framework of ‘doesn’t fundamentally contradict or betray the characterisation’. i will admit that it is something i struggle with, in part because longfic and i are hated nemeses and in part just because i focus far more on my ocs. at the very least, i try to work out where a character would (imo) reasonably have come to, given the events and circumstances that they have been through and the people they have been around.

so for a concise example: under the right circumstances, i could buy quinn having an arc where he comes to the conclusion that there are things about the empire that need changing. however, there is not a circumstance on this green earth where i could buy quinn not just leaving the empire but fighting against it for the republic.

similarly, i could buy an arc where (for example) kira carsen comes to the conclusion that the jedi are not For Her and she leaves to find her own path. however, given her personality and her history, i don’t see any reasonable path to her rejoining the empire and or the sith, never mind fighting against the republic and or jedi.

so like. ultimately, i don’t have a problem with canon divergence when it comes to people writing npcs, not least because.. i do it myself [shrug emoji]

my only sticking point is when people paste ‘improved’ or noncanon traits onto characters - quinn is a great example - without actually showing them developing those traits or behaviours, and defending this as ‘character growth’. if you don’t show the character growing (or having grown), it’s not growth, it’s a whitewash. there’s quinn fic all over the place which has him being Best Pals with vette or mysteriously anti-slavery (in all its forms, not just his ‘these people have no standards’ from rishi) etc without bothering to show how he got from the canon starting point to the divergent fic characterisation, or to show him dealing with more insidious internalised prejudices and beliefs - he just gets dubbed ‘non problematic’ at some point and thereafter is a Good Bean who says and does Nothing Bad.

(and then there are people who just straight up ‘nah i’m just going to remove all his Problematic traits or rewrite his Problematic decisions to be justifiable because i’m an adult and i do what i want’, which... okay, but at that point, he basically turns into an oc with a canon character’s name, so [shrug emoji] all people show when they do that is that they don’t like anything about the actual character or dynamics, just the aesthetics)

(these aren’t problems unique to quinn, ofc, but quinn fandom’s whitewashing of him and his less than stellar attributes is something i’ve butted heads with people over in the past)

but like. fundamentally, people will always write whatever they want, and as a random asshole on the internet, i neither have nor want much control over that. i find people who turn lana into the sort of person who moons over LSV jedi knights or who rewrite pierce into a cuddly supportive big brother to be exasperating but ultimately i can’t stop them from doing so, so [shrug emoji]

...anyway wow this got long sorry D: i rambled

#long post #quinn cw #quinn critical #self meta #theyronshan

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sunken-standard · 5 years ago

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elementary

Thanks! :D From this ask meme thing.

My favorite Episode: Early on, Iliked the Moriarty reveal. And then later, the one where they hadthe discussion about co-parenting and expectations. I really wish Icould remember some of the cases right now, because I know there weresome that were really clever and topical (like the only one Iremember atm was the coverup for stealing sand that would destabilizethe Brooklyn Bridge).My least Favorite Episode: WhenShinwell died. They done him wrong. Also when Joan’s secret sistercame out of nowhere and they became best friends.Myfavorite Arc: Probably Kitty’s entire character arc. I didn’tlike her at first, but I like how she evolved. Next favorite isJoan’s quest for a baby, because it didn’t feel forced or gross (Ithink Lucy Lui probably approached it from her own life experienceand it was written with that in mind). And I like Sherlock’scharacter growth in relation to both of those arcs. My leasefavorite Arc: The Hannah Gregson thing from last season that’sspilling over into this one. There’s nothing bad or sloppy about it,it just gave me a sad.My favorite ship: Platonic lifemateHolmes/ Watson. They’ve got the healthiest relationship on TV and Ilike it. I mean, I love dark and toxic relationships, but sometimesI want good and morally upstanding too, y'know? I like that theyhave conflicts and they resolve them or, if they don’t resolve them,they make peace with the point of contention and move on, but it’snot like it’s erased from their personal history. My favoritecharacter: Joan. Lucy Lui is just so cooland with-it and that comes through in the character. I reallyliked Fiona, Kitty, and Shinwell too.My favorite season: Idon’t think I’m into the show enough to have an opinion on wholeseasons. Like, the quality is so consistent that I can’t point toone season and say “this one stood out above the rest” or “this one was really lacking.” If I had to pick one, it would be5—I liked the lead-up to him thinking he was losing his mind and Iliked the Shinwell arc.My lease favorite: Probably4, with all the Morland stuff. I love John Noble, but I just wasn’tsuper into Daddy Holmes’ entire arc. Who I wish would havestayed till the end: I kind of wish Fionna was still in thepicture, and also I’d like to see Moriarty again. And I was always alittle salty they didn’t utilize Ms. Hudson more.Who I wishwould have left the show sooner: Nobody, really. Kind of overGregson even before last season, so I wouldn’t have lost any sleep ifthey’d written him off sooner.Who I think is the most cheatedcharacter: Mycroft. He didn’t even get to go out with abang.Who got more screen time than they maybe should: Michael. He was a boring Big Bad.What drew me to it: LucyLui and Johnny Lee Miller. I thought it was going to be garbagebecause most American TV (especially procedurals) is garbage, but Iwas hopeful when I saw the leads. I was really pleasantly surprisedwhen it didn’t suck.What kept me watching: The cases. Thewriting is clever and very in-the-moment; I like their takes onupdating ACD canon. And I love the relationship dynamic—it’s sorefreshing.If I would recommend it: Heckyeah I would. Unpopular opinion, but I think JLM makes a betterSherlock Holmes than BC; he just feels truer to ACD’scharacterization than the BBC version.

#from an ask meme #anonymous

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danyreads · 6 years ago

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TITLE: War Storm AUTHOR: Victoria Aveyard RELEASE DATE: May 15th, 2018 READ DATE: May 30th, 2018 PUBLISHING HOUSE: HarperTeen RATING: ★★☆☆☆

[SHARP INHALE] I’M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE i never have to think about this series again. i know that sounds harsh but these books have brought me so much unnecessary anger and frustration that it’s truly a relief to finally FINALLY be done with the series once and for all. i can finally put these books down and be DONE with the characters and the story and v*ctoria av*yard’s nasty ass personality i actually didn’t completely hate this book (which was a very pleasant surprise!! i’m not gonna lie!!) but it was still uselessly long and very poorly plotted out and the final battle + the end was so UNDERWHELMING i genuinely wanted to claw my eyes out. like!!!!!!! @v*ctoria DID I REALLY JUST GO THROUGH 650 PAGES FOR THAT?????????????? i’m not gonna go into much detail about that since it’s very clearly a spoiler. however i WILL MOST DEFINITELY TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE THAT I DIDN’T LIKE ● unrestrained pining: mare and cal spend the first 40% of the book going off about how they CAN’T be with each other despite the fact that they’re ~~ so in love ~~ because???/?????? because cal????????? is gonna be king of norta??????? BITCH THOSE ARE NOT EXCLUSIVE TO EACH OTHER THEY DON’T MATCH UP AT ALL!!!!! like being honest for a second cal and mare don’t need to be married to be together???? they don’t even have to make it public????? EVEN IF CAL MARRIES SOMEONE ELSE (EVANGELINE), MARE CAN STILL BE HIS LOVER?????? JUST AS ELANE IS EVANGELINE’S LOVER DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE’S GONNA MARRY CAL?????????????? the worst part about this is that evangeline, in canon, in text, brings up this idea and she’s like “hey like u can be lovers lmao i don’t care i’m a lesbian i’m gonna hang out over here with my lesbian lover” and mare is like “I CAN’T BE WITH CAL HE CHOSE THE CROWN OVER ME :(” god i’m so fucking angry i don't even like mare and cal together but this was just so beyond STUPID ● strategizing/war stuff: this book was trying way too hard to be the hunger games with all the surprise attacks and battles between the countries ON THAT NOTE when the FUCK did so many countries show up in this universe????? and why doesn’t the book have a map????? v*ctoria i’m a tired college student and i can’t keep up with all these useless countries. anyway the battle scenes didn’t make sense at all, and i feel like v*ctoria had all these sequences perfectly played out in her head but when it came down to writing them she kinda got a little excited and forgot to put some stuff in because spatially i could not for the life of me make sense of what was going on ● iris + the lakelands: USELESSSSSSSSSSSS. DIDN’T DO ANYTHING. WASN’T EVEN ON THE EPILOGUE BECAUSE V*CTORIA HERSELF DIDN’T CARE. NEXT. ● cal and maven: “I swear, these Calore brothers are trying to out-idiot each other.” this is an actual quote from the actual book and truer words have never been spoken, god bless. even though i love maven with every piece of my heart, he did some dumb shit in this book. cal also did some dumb shit. mostly cal did dumb shit. this boy can’t be king even if his life depended on it??? he’s awful at politics???? and no offense but maven in particular felt really out of character to me in the scenes where politics were involved because he just??? sucked??? when he was otherwise brilliant in the previous books???? why did u do my boy like that v*ctoria. why. i’m also extremely mad that we didn’t get the redemption arc we deserved because no OFFENSE but maven had the potential to become a new warner from shatter me and yet here we are :( ● zero character development: THIS BOOK WAS ALMOST 700 PAGES LONG V*CTORIA WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY anyway i had zero hopes for this book and was still somehow disappointed even though i did like some parts of it lmao bye bitch you best believe i’m never reading anything by v*ctoria av*yard ever again!!!!!!!!!!!

GOODREADS LINK

#war storm #victoria aveyard #red queen #booklr #reviews #book review #goodreads #2 stars #fantasy #dystopia

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monstersinthecosmos · 2 years ago

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It's really interesting to see how the trailers have framed romance/abuse so far. I think it's promising that the interviewer brings it up because I'm glad the writers are acknowledging it as abuse, but I'm still concerned with all the things we've discussed thus far PLUS LIKE

I'm really curious about the way it was captioned? I HEARD it in my ears as "abused/abuser" as in to say "victim/abuser" relationship but it was hyphenated like "abused-abuser" so like, is he trying to throw Louis's own faults in his face and imply that somehow it was deserved?

I talked a lot, messy thoughts beneath cut LOL

Don't get me wrong bc like, this show is SO far off canon I don't think we can predict if that holds any water like maybe Louis IS going to be an abusive, terrible person. (He did say in the first trailer that he's being """"hunted"""" even with 100+ years of perspective, so that he STILL feels that way is very telling to me that he knows he was being abused/preyed upon.) But it's, once more, to me, disappointing to twist such a rich story about love & abuse into... something else? (Again like, it is what it is, it's been done LMAO I get it, but like, what exactly about this story stuck out to them that they wanted to recreate bc so far like so many of the major themes are being dismantled.) ((Also just a disclaimer again I know the trailer is likely missing context so don't hold me to this, just some thoughts on what they're showing us as a preview of their work.)) I always felt like Claudia was the big piece of evidence that Lestat was the abuser in the family; we can go round and round about like who was the less reliable narrator but like there's no covering up what he did to Claudia, and why, and even later in TOBT the entire character arc is that he realizes he's a monster (even as a human) and, when confronted by the idea of Claudia, he comes to the conclusion that he'd do it again. (And he does. And then he continues to abuse David until the end of the series.) So far from the trailers it seems like Claudia perhaps has a different origin, so even now it's like. Is Claudia part of Lestat's abuse anymore? Is he not an abuser? What's happening here! So like I'm all for it if they want want to do like a Hannigram-esque hotwrong MESS of a relationship but I really don't like the way we're already framing the abuse here, especially with their comments about how like they have a "truer" idea of Lestat from his other books. It's not a truer version of him, it's an abuser trying to make himself sound better! Wat!

But anyway the interviewer being that rude about it is like, wow what the fuck is this character lmao and what is the angle the writers are going for about abuse and who deserves it and how do we treat victims ? 😂 (Of course like, if it's intentional writing to show that the interviewer is AN ASSHOLE, it is what it is, but that's not my son!)

the cat

daniel gonna get drop-kicked into the sun lmfao

what the fresh hell is this

the horn music

louis saying he & lestat were ever equals

and baby why do you look like one of my toddlers after eating cherries LOL THE WHAT

I have so many emotions

#amc iwtv

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morkaischosen · 7 years ago

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Sage and Joan Gardener

Some More CMWGE Characters

The original idea here came from Wounded Angel, and the idea of doing mirror-image versions of the same character, where each was the other’s sealed-away Blasphemy monster form. Then I decided the version that’s slightly truer to the Nobilis half of the inspiration was better. I’m pretty sure wanting to use Prophet wasn’t even the main reason for that!

(Sage is, as you will likely notice, using standard-issue Fallen Angel arcs, while Joan is on the canonical Angel arcset, yes shut up Prophet is definitely an Angel arc and you can’t convince me otherwise.)

Sage Gardener, the Friend to All Weeds, is a foundling of mysterious parentage. He was raised by the Kichi family, whose sacred pools long ago prophesied his arrival; sealed away within him, the prophecy says, is an apocalypse of fire and brimstone that will bring ruin and destruction to the world. The only way to avert this doom is for him to live a peaceful, compassionate life; if he gives in to anger, the terrible forces he contains will escape into the world.

If anyone can raise him and keep him safe from that fate, it’s Fortitude’s shrine families - but adolescence will test even their tranquility.

Sage is a small, slight boy with a shaved head and a smile that ranges from calm to cheeky, depending on his mood - he almost never frowns. He has a kind word for absolutely everyone he meets; in Fortitude that’s not particularly surprising, but he shows the same polite respect to rampaging abominations of science, monsters, and even door-to-door salespeople.

The grass stains on his knees and the scratches on his hands somehow entirely fail to make him look messy - they seem as much a part of him as his clothes and skin.

Sage is one of those people who can have a conversation about anything someone finds interesting, but his personal passion is botany. He tends a small wildflower meadow not far from the Kichi shrine, full of plants most of his neighbours think of as weeds - Sage maintains that everyone else not wanting them in their gardens just means it’s even more important to make space for them here, and sometimes even transplants weeds to make sure they have somewhere to grow. He’s so used to the thorns, thistles and stings that he sometimes forgets to warn people, which can be a problem when he invites people to sit with him in the garden - it’s not that they don’t hurt him, it’s just part of life.

His unshakeable calm is starting to shake as puberty makes itself known, though. He’s starting to find his mood swinging more than he’s used to, particularly when people are judgemental towards those they don’t understand - he can’t stand that kind of behaviour, but it’s so much easier to be angry about it than anything else. He’s managed to keep it under control for now - despite a few forlorn patches of fresh ash in his garden - but he’s scared of what could happen if he’s not as good at that as his (consistently supportive) foster-parents and teachers think, and too worried about upsetting them to bring it up.

Sage Gardener, the Friend to All Weeds

Superior Holiness 2 (but Sage’s Holiness is entirely unsuited to scourging anything - he can heal people, inspire them, and calm wild animals with a word, but ghosts and monsters can tolerate his presence just fine.) Kindness 2 Meditation 1 Botany 3

If Joan also exists, Sage should have a Connection 1 to her, even if they’ve never met.

Wounded Angel 2:

Dramatic: Sage tends to turn up when people really need someone to talk to - as often for “ohmygod I just read this book and it’s AMAZING” as anything else.

Devices: herbal infusions and incenses with mystical properties, efficaciously channeling his Holiness.

Blasphemy: when Sage loses his last Divine Health Level, he flowers into a terrible mandala of fire, wings, and lidless eyes that scourges away all spiritually impure things - and most things are spiritually impure.

Empowered Wounds: handles everything from holy powers of peace and love through the corrupt powers of a malevolent spirit possessing him (because malevolent possessing spirits deserve somewhere to live!) to manifestations of the terrible doom of scourging flame he could become.

Creature of the Light 1:

Tireless: Sage has access to Miraculous Will while showing compassion and acceptance to the things others reject.

Well-Lit: Sage is a blessed and holy being, and the world shows him to the best of its ability.

The Auctoritas Magister

Appear: Plants often turn out to have been Sage (or have had a Sage sleeping underneath them) when he needs to be where they are.

Transfix: Sage’s calm motions hold people’s attention, bringing peace to the world.

Possible starting Empowered Wounds include nettle stings that mark him as a friend to weeds, allowing him to manipulate plant life and giving an Affliction of “My skin stings like a nettle,” as well as barely-controlled mood swings allowing him to summon fire, with some appropriate Affliction.

Perks: Affliction: “When I give in to anger, things burn.” (Tied to Wounded Angel - currently 2)

“It’s like a home to me” - Sage’s wildflower meadow gives a +1 Tool bonus to feeling at peace.

XP Emotion: Believing In You XP or D’awww XP are the two I’d be likely to hit.

Joan Gardener, the Foe to All Weeds, is a foundling orphan. Her adoptive family are a quiet Fortitude couple who’d already been looking to adopt when she was found, a baby, on their doorstep with a cryptic note explaining that young Joan Gardener needed a home. As she grew older, it started to become clear that she might not be an entirely normal child - nothing that would be that obvious on its own, but the coincidences are piling up.

Joan is a stocky girl with shoulder-length mousy hair, often tied up in a slightly messy ponytail. She spends a lot of time frowning, either in concentration or because someone’s said something she disagrees with - she’s a wilful sort, and her teachers very rapidly learned that it’s difficult to satisfy her with a partial explanation. She’s willing to back down if you can actually convince her she was wrong, but doing that isn’t easy.

She’s fond of most forms of art - a beautiful painting or a well-performed song always replaces her trademark frown of concentration with a surprisingly sweet smile - but she decided at an early age that her true love is gardening. As always, she committed, and every day when her lessons are done, she armours herself in her apron and her gloves, belts on her secateurs and the weed-killing blowtorch nobody will admit to having let a child get hold of, and sets forth to earn some pocket money. Her campaign against weeds is legendary - she fights them with zealous efficiency, often insisting on staying out late if the root system is more extensive than expected.

She’s often frustrated by grown-ups not believing her, especially when she can’t explain why she needs to do something; as puberty starts to make itself known, her parents are finding themselves at odds with her more often. She’s a good kid and she doesn’t like being disobedient, but more and more often, the alternative seems just as bad. It’s frustrating and confusing for everyone, but as ever the idea of backing down is far from her thoughts.

Joan Gardener, the Foe to All Weeds

Superior Holiness 2 (but Joan’s holiness is harsh-edged - she can inspire people, cure infections or drive back a ghost with a word, but when it comes to encouraging growth she’s better off using good compost and the right fertiliser.) Confidence 2 Making an Effort 1 Gardening 3 Flying 0 (she can jump about as effectively as a normal child who jumps a fairly normal amount but has no particular investment in this mode of transportation).

If Sage exists, Joan should have Connection 1 to him, even if they’ve never met.

Prophet 2:

Joan is the Prophet of Pruning, the cosmic principle of carefully cutting away imperfect or unwanted things to allow space for beauty to grow. It’s most deeply tied to gardening, but it can also be found in surgery and the like. Her enemies include Sage (whose message of acceptance refuses to allow the destructive side of pruning); other foes might be an industrial interest representing Productivity - where Pruning cuts away some stems of the bush to promote more flowers to grow, Productivity uproots the whole bush so it can build a factory.

Divine Guidance: Joan can allow the cosmic weight of Pruning to guide her towards what needs to be removed. If she sustains this for a whole chapter, some broader-scale beauty is given space to flower into the world.

Materialization of Possibility: Joan can call on Pruning to solve an immediate problem - coincidence and chance conspire to cut through the Gordian knot, or doubts and confusion are removed to make a chaotic mess suddenly simple and clear. Pruning is reductive - it’s well suited to removing obstacles and bringing clarity, but less adept at creating new things.

Inspiration: When performing the work of Pruning, Joan can escape the bonds of gravity to find the best angle to work from, using the Flight of Pruning; and her actions take on divine force, cutting through obstruction and indecision and removing her audience’s doubts when she moves and speaks with the Confidence of Pruning.

Vestments: Joan has a weed-killing blowtorch of flame. Nobody’s quite sure who let a 12-year-old girl get her hands on something that dangerous, but it’s definitely hers and taking it off her seems like a bad idea. The “of flame” seems a bit redundant, but omitting it feels like abbreviating the thing’s proper name. With this mighty weapon, Joan can burn weeds and purify away all manner of malign presences.

Hallow: given a few minutes to work, Joan can prepare a place for Pruning. This enshrines the region property that “Impure and unwanted things can be cut away to give beauty space to grow.”

Illumination: It can be hard to cut away the things that hold you back; when Joan listens to people’s struggles with what it means to give themselves the space to grow, it can be Foreshadowing or Sympathetic Action.

Keeper of Gardens 1:

The World, Like Clay: Joan Gardener is a gardener and Keeper of Gardens, and thus can garden her gardens with her Gardening skill. But, like, more than normal gardeners can.

Toxic: Joan has a Bond 2: “I make everything simple and straightforward.” Her confidence is infectious.

Land-Rule: The rules allow shifting some points into Superior Land-Rule, but I feel like the things of Joan’s gardens likely respond to Confidence and Holiness well enough that it’s not necessary.

The Great Magic: By wounding a Divine Health Level, Joan can shape the way her gardens grow, allowing them to develop into ever more beautiful forms.

Guide: Talking flowerbeds and sentient water features are possible, but - unsurprisingly - Joan’s most common Guides are created as topiary.

Perks: “It’s like a home to me” - Joan’s parents have let her take over the gardening at home, and the results are elegantly beautiful. (Both Prophet and Keeper of Gardens will allow her to claim more gardens in future).

The other perk slot is flexible if you have a good idea; if not, a second Bond: “I must eradicate weeds wherever they may be found!” should lead to Fun.

XP Emotion: Believing In You XP or Fist-Pump XP?

(If you’re running a martial arts version of CMWGE where everything is inexplicably bound up in martial arts tournaments, Sage is a student of baguazhang, true to his Airbender inspiration; Joan insists that European longsword styles are entirely valid martial arts and shows up in full armour.)

#cmwge #sage gardener #joan gardener #awesthetic

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