#even if I don't particularly agree with the portrayal in question

[orcboxer]

what’s your opinion on the depiction of orcs in Anbennar

I ain't familiar with the setting, so my apologies if I've gotten the wrong impression entirely, but a quick skim of the fandom-wiki for orcs in that setting seems to suggest they're pretty much the same as the classical orc depiction, where they're like inherently obsessed with war and conquest. Including the thing where they don't really create anything for themselves but rather everything they own was taken from other civilizations or ruins.

I can't say I'm really a fan of that sort of characterization of orcs, honestly. For an entire race to be defined by war, as though violence is in their blood, is to plant a lot of unsavory implications about personhood in the setting. It sets them up as fodder, to be mowed down by the thousands, without guilt. And while I understand that this may be at least partly a trope of convenience for the structure of sword and sorcery stories/games, or even in some cases a simple allegorical way to frame conflict (like "what if we symbolically depicted enemies as green and ugly"), it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth for a lot of folks, myself included.

I'm hopefully (and probably) just missing a lot of lore about orcs in that setting, so do feel free to tell me all about em if the spirit moves you lol, but yeah I'm very interested in humanizing orcs.... well not humanizing but... you know what I mean lmao. I wanna know what kind of civilizations they have/had, I wanna know how their language developed, I wanna know what they've built and what they've invented, I wanna know who orcs are without war. That's what's really compelling to me.

[triviareads]

ARC Review of The Mistress Experience by Scarlett Peckham

Rating: 4.5/5 Heat Level: 3.75/5 Publication Date: June 25th

Premise:

Thaïs Magdalene is Britain's most infamous courtesan, and she agrees to auction herself off as someone's mistress for a month in exchange for funding her women's rights institute. The highest bidder is Lord Alistair Eden, who wants her help learning how to please his future wife sexually.

My review:

This is a gorgeous, sex-positive, feminist romance that answers the perennial historical romance reader question: "how do all these heroes come by their sexual prowess?" The answer here is sex lessons.

Thaïs is loud, proud, and unabashed about being a sex worker, and her bawdy sense of humor kept me laughing throughout the book, and kept our hero perpetually blushing. Alistair is starchy, charmingly sweet hero— a cinnamon roll, if you will. Where he deviates from most HR heroes is that he has performance anxiety and he's been celibate for a long time. Enter Thaïs, who agrees to teach him by way of sex lessons. I'm a huge fan of this trope, and the fact that it's a sexually-experienced woman teaching a less-experienced man is something I really enjoyed reading.

One of my pet romance theories is that when you have a main character who has much-higher-than-average sexual experience, the novelty for them tends to be the emotional rather than physical connection with their love interest, so the author needs to build on that convincingly while not sacrificing the heat (because love can absolutely impact sexual chemistry). And I thought Scarlett Peckham did an amazing job of this; I adored all these lovely moments of growing intimacy between them— Alistair cooks for Thaïs and helps her with her correspondence because she can't read or write very well, and there's so much laughter and tenderness and teasing just because of how different they are. And then there's the hugs; listen, if you'd told me hugs can be written erotically a few months ago, I'd never have believed you, but now I'm a believer.

And as this intimacy builds, they both unwittingly start to torture one another with reminders of exactly what will happen once their month together ends: Thaïs insists on judging every one of the dossiers compiled on Alistair's potential brides even as she becomes increasingly hurt over them, and in a particularly heartbreaking scene, they roleplay his future wedding night, which NEVER ends well because feelings are always caught, AND YET. Alistair is hellbent upon doing the Right and Proper thing, namely marrying an upper-class virgin, and Thaïs doesn't figure into his future plans. I thought the class difference conflict, and the portrayal of stigma against sex workers, were both handled well.

Also, can we talk about this cover?? it's so lush and beautiful and harkens back to old romance clinch covers in the best way.

The sex:

This book felt honest about a lot of aspects of sex in a way not many romance novels are. Alistair's performance anxiety is real and the book doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to portraying it, but I want to clarify, Scarlett Peckham managed to make even this hot. There's a particularly steamy moment where Alistair is washing the mud out of Thaïs's hair and like, giving her a head massage. All it takes is her returning the massage favor (which... was honestly so romantic??) and a kiss, and it's game over for him lolol.

I also thought it was kind of great that he built up his *sexual stamina* by masturbating a multiple times a day— you don't get a lot of male masturbation scenes in HR, so I do appreciate this. And once it clicks for Alistair, there is no stopping this man. He's insatiable.

Thaïs is an experienced courtesan and tends to disassociate during sex, and she feels like this is even more critical as her feelings start to grow for Alistair. She also doesn't necessarily orgasm every time earlier in their sexual relationship even though she derives pleasure from their encounters. But once again, once Alistair is able to figure his stuff out (and by figuring out, I mean eating her out), and Thaïs lets go, there's no going back.

Overall:

I can't tell you how much I appreciate Scarlett Peckham for writing a historical romance that falls outside the norm in so many ways, and yet feels true to the subgenre in the way it merges certain realities with the romance of it all. I had so much fun reading The Mistress Experience, and I'd absolutely recommend it to any HR reader.

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[franciskirkland]

pls elaborate on arthur and ludwig being misinterpreted!!! bcos we might agree on some things 😼 love ur writing n ur energy soo much :*

hello anon my beloved! sorry i was grocery shopping when i saw this 😭 thank you so much for saying you love my writing and energy that's very sweet 🥺 i'm trying to crank out this mf easter chapter and update my main WIPs!!

hmmm this is a brilliant question and i appreciate this opportunity so much bc HOOOO boy do i have Things to say about Arthur Kirkland. but it's also difficult bc i might be controversial here. like i fully expect to be taken to the stakes. also, i'm not much of a ludwig expert but i will make an attempt. disclaimer, these are my personal opinions and everyone is entitled to their own. also i don't mean to sound angry here, just passionate!!

so i was here MANY years ago. Artie here is kinda my main man, and i have strong opinions on him. and let me start by acknowledging that in canon, everyone is depicted pretty twinky or a twunk at best. i mean, it's an anime. that being said, there are many different fanon interpretations, but in my opinion there doesn't seem to be enough variation on Arthur/England's character. Blanket Statement Warning; Arthur woobifiers lack nuance. simply put, i find that he's often needlessly feminized, and i could not agree with this less.

i'm not glorifying colonization, but presenting a simple fact; he represents one of the most powerful nations/empires on earth. i believe he is and should be allowed to be masculine. yes, he can be a catty bitch. and no, in general, at least in canon, he is not the most macho guy on earth. (do i have overtly macho characterizations? yes, for example, when he's a punk. i write him several different ways!) but my point stands that this is a grown ass man. we need to allow him to look like one; have broad shoulders and a bit of hair on his chest. i cannot believe this is controversial to say.

i can't really see him as feminine whatsoever, and i don't want to yuck anyone's yum, but i don't understand why this portrayal is so popular. i can't see him as a "mother", or presenting femininely, or being receptive in the bedroom. to me, he's Grandpa. he's a grumpy old man. and a rat bastard. he's a ruthless pirate captain. he can also be Just Some Guy, a posh gentleman, a stern and doting father, or a feral forest imp. whether or not he's particularly "nice" (i have written him as a nice guy as well!) he's a control freak with a hot temper, but a stiff upper lip. he's very guarded, invulnerable, and possessive. his personality is an inherently dominant one. even at his most raw, even with that prickly shell stripped away and showing his most genuine emotions, he's a strong and proud man.

i also would go so far as to say macho-ness and femininity are misunderstood concepts themselves on this Hell Site. but i digress.

now, as is evident, Ludwig is a deeply repressed man. i haven't written much of him nor are my opinions very strong, but he's such a classic character, and GerIta has a special place in my heart. correct me if i'm wrong, and i do notice that the fanon interpretation is indeed changing, but overall i recall him being interpreted as a very one dimensional, mean, cold, loud, and bossy killjoy. is this warranted, because he's like this on the outside? perhaps.

Ludwig strikes me as the sort of lad who has been forced into a certain role of rigid stoicism to the point where he loses himself in the process. he is an order follower, an authority pleaser, in the worst of ways. in the context of WW2 era Germany, he strives to be a image of perfection, of rugged, propagandized masculinity. he's certainly a man, and a big one at that. i'm not denying that, he's definitely a dominant figure! but he hides his vulnerability because he believes he's not allowed to feel emotions or enjoy anything outside of the prescribed perception.

does Luddy himself have a sweet side? totally. he yearns to let his guard down. he longs to give love. was Germany (the third reich, you all know what i mean) ruthless, disgusting and evil at the time? absolutely, and we should not make light of that. does he have anger issues? maybe not as much as it might seem. i believe at his core, he wants to be gentle. he needs to learn how.

thank you again for the ask, and if you read this long. i do hope this clarifies things. my inbox is open for any further questions. haters to the left please 💖💅

[pikahlua]

(Premise: this is just out of curiosity, I don't think it'll ever happen (even tho my gay ass keeps having that tiny bit of hope))

If bkdk becomes canon, what do you think would be the reaction from the JP audience? Cause imo they'll probably react way better than the dudebros here in the west

And why is it so hard to have queer couples/queer main characters in shonen mangas, when a lot of shojo ones had them already?

I'm not the best person to answer this question. I don't really know that much about the JP audience. My impression--and only my impression--is that the younger audiences in Japan aren't particularly homophobic (or at least not outspokenly so). There also seems to be a significant contingent of Japanese fans with the attitude that BakuDeku ARE already canon in some fashion, whether or not it's considered "explicitly confirmed in the canon." Still, conservatism is alive and well in Japan, but the most prominent way it manifests that I'm aware of is a general attitude of: "well, it's just always been this way, so we shouldn't change it."

I'm not well-versed in the specific social mores at play here. I do agree that the shoujo genre has more variety in this regard, but it's also not nearly as popular a genre, which may be part of why it gets away with it more. But the shounen fandom in Japan is not just young teenage boys anymore, and while the WSJ editors seem to be slow on the uptake of this information, there has been a general trend of the WSJ content changing to match this fact. I cannot even say queer couples are taboo to Shueisha anymore thanks to Blue Flag, but by that same token, we should be careful about how we view representation in these properties. On the one hand, Japan isn't always great about how they portray any representation for minority groups, and the history of portrayals of queer people in Japanese media has not been the best. And on the other hand, our concepts of "good queer representation" in the west may not line up with what Japanese queer people would consider "good queer representation." On top of that, Japan does have a tendency to favor ambiguity and open-ended storytelling, and what they consider to be a more "elegant" ending with queer representation may not result in the "explicit canon queer confirmation" a lot of people in the west are saying they want. It's important to keep these things in mind.

[padfootastic]

Hellooo! I know this may be a sensitive question due to the nature of the Marauder's Fandom but I'm curious if you have any thoughts about why Wolfstar is so popular? I know many ships are popular but I kind of feel that Wolfstar is disproportinately so if you know what I mean? If you go to Ao3 and filter out sirius/remus the stories are halved :( which makes me sad bc I don't like Wolfstar but there ought to be good stories there. Even when I filter Wolfstar, it still sneaks in!!

hahaha r/s discourse my beloved <3 (lol i’m mostly kidding. i’ve been lucky to fall under the radar so far, not to jinx it, but ik it doesn’t take long to attract the wrong kind of crowd with such controversial topics 💀)

and like, yeah, totally agree that i think r/s is extremely disproportionately popular. i can think of a few reasons-

- premier gay ship at a time when there was none. it’s a super, super old ship and the kind of proximity and history implied in marauder friendships, particularly the actual interactions between r/s is v tempting. also, wasn’t there something about how the actors were told to act like they were in a relationships or sumn in the movies? idk i never rly saw it but that could’ve definitely effected it.

- it’s a convenient pairing. james & lily, remus & sirius, no one cares about peter. nicely tied up with a bow, yeah?

- stereotypical surface level portrayals of remus as the nerdy, wet towel bookworm and sirius as the hot, rebellious bad boy is a classic trope for a reason. (altho i’m sure this is a vicious cycle on its own—both the portrayal and popularity reinforce each other) there’s also something about like, remus and his hidden darkness contrasting sirius’ very visible darkness yeah? oh also! i often think it’s a bit of a self insert thing too? sirius is so clearly too good for him, he’s super competent and attractive and rich and just has. a lot going for him, yeah? and most people can’t put themselves in his shoes. you know who else is relatable though? meek lil remus lupin. and for him to get the absolute catch that everyone wants? well. isn’t that the perfect scenario? (and like, to be fair, not bashing this. at all. i’m all for self inserts, i love it. i think it’s one of the best uses of fiction one can partake in)

- it’s angst fodder, especially the older interpretations. not just the canon timeline, but right back to the prank—you have a lot to work with. it’s also great for AUs, like u can play around a lot ykno?

anyway, yeah. few reasons why i think it’s popular. pretty sure a lot of it is also just,,,nostalgia and momentum? as well as remus being the only reasonable option for sirius and vice verda bc of the lack of other eligible characters without making things horribly AU. of course, i’m horribly biased bc i don’t think it’s a good pairing at all, atleast not in most of its iteration i’ve seen, and of course, i’ll always, always consider james/sirius to be superior. (i don’t think i’ll ever not be mad that it’s not the premier m/m ship, actually, considering all the material we get for two characters who’ve never been together in real time but oh well)

[wheelerthefroghere]

Hello, I love ur portrayal of ST characters in ur fics so I had a question on if u had HCs if any characters can cook/bake? Or like to for that matter.

I ask bc I feel like if Mike had the opportunity to learn, he'd like it. Idk if he cooks with his mom (so many questions about the wheeler household), but he puts so much effort into his campaigns, and he seems to like feeling needed/doing things for people. And I don't know if he'd want to cook for those specific reasons, but I think he'd come to enjoy it, esp if he does a good job.

Thoughts? And thank you!!

Thank you! I have a few headcanons for this actually.

Mike:

First of all, I agree with everything you said about him. If you take the books as canon (I don’t put much weight on them personally), Mike helps his mom bake cupcakes for his friends in Lucas On The Line. So, he’s probably had to help her more than one time. I could totally see him wanting to bake things though. To me, he seems like the kind of person that’s most happy when he can make other people happy. But I also think he’d be insecure about his skills or worried about being teased about it. So, my headcanon would be that he sometimes bakes with his mom and Holly, and he’ll bring some for his friends, telling them that “Holly made these.” Eventually, the Party would catch on, but I think it would be a cute little secret of his for a while. 

I don’t think Mike would get into cooking until he’s older, but I think he’d be all over that too. I can picture him calling Karen for different recipes and asking her basic questions about how to cook. Mainly because he’d want to dote on Will as much as possible. 

Will: 

Joyce is a bad cook, right? Am I losing my mind, or is that a thing? Anyway, assuming that’s true, I kind of like the idea of Will being a bad cook too. I don’t see cooking/baking as one of his hobbies, but I think he’d help out in the kitchen from time to time (and accidentally add too much salt or something). But, once he and Mike are together, Will wouldn’t want to make Mike handle all of the cooking on his own. So, that’s when he’d make it his mission to improve. While he does this, Mike would say everything tastes amazing because he’s just happy to get “gifts” from Will. But Will would know from one taste when something’s bad. 

El: 

Good or bad, I think El would enjoy cooking and baking a lot. Because she didn’t have a lot of food freedom at the lab or exposure to different types of food, she’d love to experiment in the kitchen. I like the idea of her not being the best judge of what turns out okay. She’s just happy to try new things and usually loves them no matter what. She’d be a wild card. 

Jonathan: 

Because Joyce was always busy working and not the best of cooks herself, Jonathan had to step up and take care of meals most of the time. It started out as a necessity for him, but I think he eventually learned to enjoy it. He likes having responsibilities and taking care of others. Plus, it’s the opposite of what Lonnie would do, so that makes it all the better.

Nancy: 

I don’t think Nancy would want to cook or bake at all. Unlike Mike and Holly (who both would enjoy it imo), she’s never been interested. Even as a kid, she didn’t want to help in the kitchen. Chalk it up to Nancy trying to step out of gender role stereotypes. It would be okay because if she ends up with Jonathan or Steve, they’d probably be more than willing to cook for her. 

Erica: 

She would 110% have an Easy Bake Oven growing up and she’d use it all of the time. Baking is especially something Erica would enjoy. 

Lucas: 

I don’t think Lucas would be particularly interested in cooking or baking, but I think he would have had to help in the kitchen sometimes. If not, Erica would force him into baking with her. 

Hopper: 

I think Hopper can cook okay, but I think he only puts in effort when other people are involved. For example, when he was living alone, I think he would have lived on a more college student sort of diet. Lots of microwave meals basically. He just didn’t seem to take care of himself too well. But once El came along, he would spend more time cooking for both of them. Same for when/if he moves in with Joyce. 

There! Those are my main thoughts on who would/wouldn’t cook.

[soultronica]

doflamingo's conception of family as "Me and Mine" is actually something i wrote about before as a response to the relatively common question of "can doflamingo feel love?" and it's one of my favourite ways to understand his character.

the love question comes up as a reaction to his good treatment of cora and the flashback of him adoring his mother. the assumption some people seem to make from that is that doflamingo is originally fundamentally Good, but he was shaped by his trauma and treble&co into believing his special manifest destiny as a celestial dragon, and then kills cora out of hurt betrayal when cora goes against him. i personally don't think that's right at all.

in the first place, i never really agreed with the assertion that treble&co groomed doflamingo into believing (or reinforcing his belief) that he was special, i have to assume it came from a meta posted here somewhere because i've only ever seen it on tumblr and having reread the passage in the manga multiple times it seems like a bit of a reach. sure they're the 'yes men' that surround powerful people and there's a feedback loop in there but i don't see it as anything powerful enough to actually shape his ideology. it was already shaped in childhood.

you see it in the flashbacks, baby mingo thinks he's a different breed and he's entirely unable to conceive of anyone not of the same breed as human, their suffering and hurt do not even register to him. yet he loves his mother.

this is where his character gets interesting, i think. in children's media there is a tendency to portray the bad guys as bad all around, all their emotions are evil emotions. it's kind of what you'd expect from one piece as well, after all it's what oda's done with the celestial dragons we've met so far, down to their ugly character design. but with doflamingo he gives a more accurate portrayal of a bigot.

it's not that bigots can't love, it's that their love is inherently tied into a conception of "Me and Mine".

first of all, there's an in-group ("Mine") and an out-group: all people in the out-group are not worthy of being considered, all people in the in-group count as real human beings. doflamingo loves his mother, but it's only possible because she's a celestial dragon, like him. she's one of the chosen people. so is cora as doflamingo's brother, and it's why no one from the donquixote family is allowed to touch him, it’s an actual blood crime.

it's possible however to be booted from the in-group, and that's when an individual goes against their rightful special place in the world and the group's interest/ideology as a whole. that's where doflamingo's father comes in. the trauma doflamingo suffers due to this reinforces this conception. it was particularly interesting to me that during this gruesome scene oda chooses to have the villagers recount the things their own loved ones had suffered at the hands of the celestial dragons, and it's worse than what they're doing (making this not a milquetoast "all extremism is bad" issue like again you expect from children's media, but a more complex recognition of the violence created by structural oppression). obviously none of this registers to doflamingo, it's forever irrelevant. it seems to have registered to cora, who suffered the same trauma.

the second aspect is that the whole system centers around doflamingo himself ("Me") (i think the fact that he's the oldest son possibly matters here, i'm not sure if things would've been different if cora was older). thus, it's also possible for people from the out-group to gain special status, by subserving themselves entirely to doflamingo as dictated by their natural place in the world order. and that means total subservience -- we've seen it, members of the donquixote family are meant to die for him without hesitation. here again, i think doflamingo is capable of love towards these people, though it's always within that framework. he seemed sad that monet died, while finding it entirely natural that she would. similarly i think doflamingo was genuinely fond of law, grooming him notably in tactics ie his own strength, though he was meant to die for doflamingo in the end by giving him immortality.

but again, going against the ideology is punishable by death -- cora's crime of betraying doflamingo supersedes his privileged position conferred by his blood status. but up until that point, these people are still naturally his, as is his wont. i think it's an aspect of what the post before this was about, that doflamingo naturally expected law to come back right until he really crossed the line. of course there's a practical aspect to this, because immortality is doflamingo's main goal and only law can give it to him, but i also think he considered law his until it couldn't be denied that he wasn't.

of course this is just my reading of the character! but he's one i really like for essentially this reason.

[insomniziam]

People who believe in zigi... I wonder if they think of this like. Since Zayn keeps calling out the industry (that it's a cage he's trapped in), fake friends, that he doesn't want to be a part of this, doesn't want to answer to certain questions so he replies to fanart instead, etc. Don't they wonder why he willingly participate in pap walks and all ? Coz given all the things he's said, it'd mean that he only participates coz he has to and not coz he wants to. And then, why would he have to? Coz of contracts duh!

Hey nonnie, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me!

And I very much agree with you! To put it frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't care. Not that I can blame them, because there is actually a lot of digging necessary to actually understand what's going on behind the scenes, and a lot of people don't have the time to worry about such things.

However, some of it is completely blatant, like the fact that G can't answer basic questions about Zayn correctly, like his nationality, or how they first apparently got together, or the fact that they don't even take a baby bag with them when taking G's daughter to the Aquarium 🤦‍♀️. Things I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them swept under the rug under the guise that they think G and Zayn look good together, and spend way too much time fantasizing over their "relationship", no matter how toxic its portrayal. (Each to their own, I guess).

But Zayn has known how to fly under the radar for years now. He could travel from the US back to his family in Bradford and we wouldn't know until his family post photos with him weeks after the fact. What is their justification for the fact that the minute he's with G he loses all ability to stay incognito? Does that not raise red flags for these people?

In the rap, he also talks about fakery in the industry quite a lot, a line I find particularly interesting is when he says:

Hard living in pretends

Fake friends won't make amends

There's no need

These mean queens control the scenes

He's talking about his struggles with constantly having to pretend to be someone he isn't, mentions fake friendships (could be read as relationships), and then, in a line I find particularly telling, I honestly think he was shading the Hadids. They're the mean queens and they control whatever stunt it is that they deem necessary to execute, like babygates.

This isn't the first time Zayn has mentioned the fakery that clings to the entertainment industry, either. Go back through his music catalogue and you'd see him use the theme of deception over and over again.

The Theme of Fake Love in Zayn Malik's music

(I didn't think this would become a mini analysis of Zayn's music catalogue, but I'm on a roll and I feel like I need to express this because it'd be a good resource for myself in the future)

Mind of Mine

In his first solo album, the song tRuTh he talks about not wanting to be a pawn in the industry's (or management's) game:

This ain't my scene, this wasn't my dream

It was all yours, of course

I got caught up in this game

And you know I won't say names of who's to blame

His dream was to create music. but the industry has distorted that dream for their own gain, and he learned that too late. As we know, he was very young when he was first introduced to the industry, would have been distracted by all the glitz and glam that comes along with being a famous musician, that he didn't realise that his management had so much control over him and his image, and he was contractually obligated to follow their rules, i.e. getting caught up in their game.

He also talks about fake love in the single SHE DON'T LOVE ME

I think I know she don't love me

That's why I fuck around

I think I know she don't love me

That's why I fuck around

Now in the context of the song, he's very clearly talking about a lover who had no interest in him, and was cheating on him, and so he would do the same to her. However, based on the fact that he would have written this around the time he was still publicly dating a member of Little Mix, and there were constant rumours about him cheating on her, I wouldn't be surprised if this was his way of getting back at her for helping in fuelling those rumours, and turning the tables back on her.

And the obvious one, his collaboration with Khelani, wRoNg:

You're looking in the wrong place for my love

Don't think because you're with me this is real

You're looking in the wrong place for my love (my love)

Don't stop what you're doing 'cause I like that too

Very obviously following with the theme of fake love, he literally states that it's not real.

Icarus Falls

If there were ever a song wrote with G in mind, it's Entertainer:

Guess you didn't know that

You were my favorite entertainer

I watch you, I laugh with and fuck with you

Don't you take me for a fool

In this game, I own the rules

You were my favorite entertainer

I watch you, I laugh and we fake it too

Don't you take me for a fool

I'ma show you a thing or two

It's very sarcastic, and that's why I love it so much. I also think it's important to note that he mentions the game again, except this time, he's the one in control of it. He knows how the game works, and knows how to use it to his advantage, mostly through his music, and I don't think it was an accident that they used someone who vaguely looks like G to play the female lead in the music video.

Know it's harder to take

And let's face it

No one's playing your games, let's face it

I'm bein' straight up

I know a fake love when I see it anyway

I'ma turn you down when you need me anyway, anyway, anyway

Again the obvious mention of fake love, but I also think it's hilarious that he mentions the fact that he's going to turn her down, because he's done that very thing multiple times. The instances that come to mind was that one time G was left outside his apartment building because he refused to let her in:

And then the very distinctive answer be gives to a pap asking him to comment about whether or not they're getting back together:

Nobody Is Listening

You'd think the title itself would be a dead giveaway to these people, but alas, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Our first introduction to Zayn's rapping talent comes to us in the form of the first song off his third album, Calamity:

Fuck all of your fantasies

You're a snake, fell off the ladder

I prefer speakin' in analogies

I've had enough of all this wet

And I can't trust that you're my family

I don't know what's next

The brain dead, that I never miss

Again, he's referencing the use of games (snakes and ladders)but she's the one that will lose, and use the analogy to call G a snake. According to the urban dictionary, a snake is someone who is two-faced, meaning they act one way in front of one group of people and then completely different to another (her followers as opposed to who she is behind closed doors, for example).

My question for die-hard zigis is simple; if he's not referencing G, then who is he referencing? His constant reference of fake love, and fakeness in the industry, who is he talking about, if not his highly publicised 'relationship' with G?

I know that this isn't necessarily what you asked for nonnie, and I apologise for that, but hopefully you appreciate it anyway 😅

Have a good day!

[urshitarespopinions]

The Portrayal Of Butters In Fan Media

One detail I feel very strongly about within the South Park fandom and have seen a lot of is the horrible representation of Butters in fan media.

It's not that people are representing him as a bad person, or even casting him in a bad light - just, from an observers point of view, I see a lot of fan creations (particularly fanfiction) in which Butters is depicted to be 'innocent' and playing very much the part of an ignorant dunce. It bothers me because while, yes, Butters is known to be incredibly naive and he does have his moments of pure assholery, I feel this is a misinterpretation of who he is (as a character but also as a person).

I think a good example of this revolves around shipping Butters with other characters as some sort of "protector x damsel in distress" trope. Of course, the ships are not a problem. The problem lies within the stigma that Butters is incapable of protecting or defending himself, and I have seen some very inappropriate texts depicting Butters in a sexual situation with the mentality of a little kid, which is incredibly disturbing to me because it indicates the author of that work truly believes that is how a typical relationship goes and not the act of borderline pedophilia it symbolizes. You're characterizing a grown adult with the mentality of a child in purely sexual situations. I don't care if he's been aged-up. It's promoting an interaction that feels horrific in nature and horrific in intent.

But I digress; Butters' portrayal in fan media is not, for the most part, a bad thing. Most of it is downright lovely! I've seen hundreds of wonderful creations from wonderful artists and creators on this platform and I agree with them wholeheartedly.

The problem I find with how certain parts of the fandom have been approaching this is that Butters is naive and he is still a kid, yes, but he's not completely stupid. He's a character with strong morals that are repeatedly put into question, but always comes out cheerful on the flipside. My hot take? Butters' inherent sunny personality is a display of emotional maturity, not ignorance.

The best example I could give for this are his numerous speeches throughout the series, my favorites of which being during S7E14 and S16E5. Both speeches have impacted me a lot, which is kind of ironic considering this is supposed to be a satirical show. But both are displays of him acknowledging the terrible cards life dealt him and his decision to be happy anyways. That takes maturity, man.

As a whole, fan representation of Butters isn't some incorrigible offense without redemption. Mostly, I think, it's just misinterpretation. That, and Matt and Trey aren't really known for their character consistency.

Take away from this what you will. I don't expect this to change anything. Just sharing an opinion I hope others will see too. But hey, I'm just a person on the Internet, and you're the cool person who just read through all those blocks of texts, so. Thanks!

[dinawrites]

Hi! ☺️

First of all, I want to say that I hope these asks don't demotivate you. Nothing came up during my brief research on Joel Kinnaman, either, at least not when I googled the actor after reading your story and no one has the time to research every faceclaim in great detail. This is, first and foremost, a hobby that should spark joy and only very few people expect a thorough background check, that is just not feasible.

I also agree with you that while actors like Johnny Depp of Amber Heard are burnt ground for faceclaims, simply because of the association, generally, a faceclaim uses only the physical appearance of an actor, usually even an actor in a role, and says nothing about the author's idea of said actor's character -- especially because usually, they have none.

I do also think there are more respectful ways to let you know your faceclaim has a history of rape allegations. So while of course it is good to let an author know about a potentially problematic faceclaim, generalised accusations and snippy allegations do not help.

As for your recasting choices, I think Sebastian Stan best represents the slightly rugged and but good-natured and protective adventurer and treasure hunter.

I listed a few other possible faceclaims from action TV shows, so I hope they have the right look for edits:

Michael Landes (Hooten and the Lady)

Ricky Whittle (American Gods)

Brett Dalton (S.H.I.E.L.D)

Jeff Ward (S.H.I.E.L.D)

Henry Simmons (S.H.I.E.L.D)

Nick Blood (S.H.I.E.L.D)

Jon Bernthal (Punisher)

Don't worry! The Tourists is still underway. I'm just taking a moment, but the next scene will be published soon.

I also have so many actors cast, from Westwood to The Corpsemen, and I really thought the initial ask had been about Dominique (on my OC account, @decennia) who is in need of a major character renovation.

It is also not a subject matter I particularly enjoy revisiting, so I wasn't about to go through every actor and search allegations. That's the word of the moment, though, isn't it? Allegations. Alleged. We won't know without a shadow of a doubt until the whole entire truth is out.

It really was about the appearance, if I'm being honest. This character was based off of softer versions of Rick Flag and Takeshi Kovacs. That's all. Joel Kinnaman is not those people. He just portrays them, and those portrayals are the influences that contributed to the creation of Elijah Pierce.

Still, I do not want to be associated with this subject matter any more, even if I'm still awaiting the trial. I won't stand for my name being dragged through the mud like this, or my integrity called into question.

For the recast, I've also started learning more towards Sebastian Stan, actually. Robert Pattinson (who has been winning in the polls as of now) is, in theory, perfect, aside from the major fact that he's a bit too... pretty (?) to be Elijah. He's too refined, doesn't menace enough. I have a hard time believing that Malcolm would fear his rage, aside from his portrayal of Batman. But I can't very well have Elijah running around in a bat costume in The Tourists, can I? 😂

As I have been writing The Tourists very much with Kinnaman in mind (in appearance), it's hard to extricate the two for the time being. It'll likely change as I adjust more to the idea of someone else being Elijah, though.

Ricky Whittle is also an incredible contender! Thank you so much.

And thank you for being so kind and wonderful. I very much love and appreciate you 💕

[spneveryseason]

I don't understand the attitude toward "Bloodlust". I found Gordon a memorable complex character and it seems to me that's because he was played by an excellent memorable actor like Sterling K. Brown. Nobody on Supernatural is immune to death, questionable motives or being a monster, including the leads. It the criteria is that no POC is allowed any of those things then No POC would have ever been on the show. I'd rather watch an actor like SKB do a great job.

Okay this has been sitting in my inbox for a few days but I really feel like this needs to be said/explained. Much of what’s in this ask is an assumption of what the issue is and largely misconstrues what people are saying when they discuss this episode.

What people are NOT saying when they talk about Gordon on spn:

-That Gordon is not a memorable or complex character (he is)

-That sterling K brown isn’t a great actor (he outshone them massively)

-That people of color are not allowed to die on tv shows (nobody is saying this)

-That people of color are not allowed to be villains (nobody is saying this either).

What people ARE saying when they talk about the portrayal of Gordon generally:

Art is not created in a vacuum. As much as we would like it to, when we create art and tell stories, they are the products of the societies we live in. Not only are storytellers influenced by their surrondings, but audiences are as well, and the way they take in a story is largely determined by their cultural backgrounds. So even if the storyteller is well intentioned or not, the impact of their stories will be determined by these things.

All this to say: there are elements of the way Gordon’s story has been told that does draw from racist tropes and storytelling features. The general issues with these regarding Gordon are as follows:

1. Specific storytelling choices with regards to bringing him down. I know you specify bloodlust in your message, but 2x10 Hunted contains a particularly telling example: Gordon’s arrest. This is the first and ONLY time the cops are called on an spn antagonist, and it’s specifically used for Gordon. Why? Now this may not have been intentional or malicious, but it is certainly not a good look. Especially not with the context here: for Black men specifically, the police are dangerous and when weaponized against them can be deadly. It’s difficult to remove the decision to call the cops on him from this context. Especially since Sam and Dean find it to be so funny.

2: The larger themes and messaging of spn. The episodes that Gordon features in discuss the “what is a monster?” concept that was common in a lot of early spn storytelling. A lot of the storytelling context behind this premise has…issues. Specifically, when zooming out and examining the basic questions asked here, the protagonists wrestle with the idea of whether or not they are justified with acting as judge, jury, and executioner to beings they consider dangerous. Now, in universe these are literal monsters. But if you put this larger story in context of the messaging and discussions of othering, it presents a troubling picture about the supposed role that hunting plays in this story and the things that sam and Dean get away with with regards to who they hurt and why. Bringing Gordon into the mix and somebody who largely agrees with this othering, and participates in the thinking that anything “other” is inherently dangerous can therefore be read as particularly problematic with regards to the context of how Black men specifically were treated historically in America.

You may believe that I’m reading too much into it and that’s your right. However, I believe strongly that it is difficult to separate the removed story universe here from the larger cultural context this show exists in. Supernatural is a VERY American show and thus I think is subject to criticisms with regards to American cultural context. This is one of them.

[silverskyy]

Here are some questions for the spn ask thing: 9, 14, 32, 59, 64!

9. What was your favourite Destiel moment?

(Disclaimer that I didn't actually watch the confession scene live and don't count it as an option here because it's so tied up in the rest of the Nov 5th hysteria for me). I had to think about this a bit and I reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow, but I think the start of the widower arc--the finale of season 12/premiere of season 13. I'd been fairly burnt out by season 12, so seeing Dean need to be pulled away from Cas facing off against Lucifer in Apocalypse world and his reaction to Cas getting stabbed was incredible to my angst loving heart. And then after a whole hiatus of speculating, Dean's sheer grief over Cas's body was even better than I'd honestly expected! I know lots of folks prefer the fluffier dynamic, but I feel like the times we see the Destiel dynamic at its strongest in canon are when their love shines through their grief or anger.

14. What is your opinion on Saileen?

I love it! I remember the fandom reaction when Eileen was introduced, at least in the parts I occupied, was pretty fully onboard with Saileen immediately; I think their chemistry was easy to latch onto. They were really cute before she was fridged died in season 12 and it was lovely to see them become explicitly romantic after she came back. I'd never been particularly drawn to any Sam ships before, Gabriel/Ruby/Jess/whatever, but now it's Saileen (or a little bit of Sam/Rowena) all the way. My first Supernatural fic after a 4 year hiatus was an exploration of Eileen's disability that touched on her relationship with Sam as well, check it out if you want!

32. At what point during the show did you start shipping Destiel?

Technically I didn't start shipping Destiel due to watching the show. I binged the first 4 or 5 seasons of Supernatural when I was 14, completely unaware of fandom as a concept, and didn't ship them because I didn't ship anything non-canon/didn't particularly know queer people were a thing. A short while later I discovered the existence of fanfic and eventually stumbled upon Destiel fic. Imagine my surprise! When a friend got me back into actually watching the show during season 8, I caught up without heteronormativity goggles on and realized this ship had real legs. Looking back I think it's The Man Who Would Be King that took the dynamic from a fun subtext story to something in which I was actively invested. I don't know how you can watch that episode and not be drawn in (maybe I should change my favorite Destiel moment to Dean turning back to look at Cas in the holy fire lol).

59. If you could have a spinoff about any characters other than the leads of Supernatural and Wayward Sisters, who would they be?

Hmmmm, I think I'm going to go with a show about the angels and Heaven. Back in seasons 9/10 I was very invested in the angel politics and the metaphysical elements of what Heaven actually is, but ofc Supernatural never bothered to follow up on the interesting Heaven tidbits they dropped or let any angel besides Cas have a character arc that didn't end in perma-death. That means there's a lot of room for a secret good spinoff! Hannah my beloved would ofc be an important character who totally didn't die, but maybe bringing in dead humans like Ash could provide character contrast? I'm also thinking about how the later seasons portrayal of Heaven as a bunch of minimalist corporate hallways and boardrooms sucked ass, so it would need to very much lean into the non-physicality or at least seasons 4/5 gaudiness of the space. No idea what sort of tangible plot this sort of show would have, but I'd definitely check it out!

64. Do you like any characters that most of the fandom hates?

Most of the characters that are hated in the fandom spaces I'm in rn I also agree are terrible, so this is a toughie. I'd say I'm a fan of Meg, mainly Meg 2.0, who I hear tell of people hating even if I don't see it happen myself. I also did a big 180 on Amara at the end of Season 11 when she expressed her anger at God and became the complicated figure I'd been hoping for all season, so I like her a lot now! But also don't know how many folks actually hate her either. Oh, maybe Metatron! I know back when he was still alive folks tended to disparage him, but I found his annoying elements mitigated by the fact that his appearances tended to herald great Cas moments, which I ofc hold dear. And he was funny which counts for a lot.

if y'all wanna get more supernatural rambling the ask game is here

[jevilspamton]

if you don't want to answer this, feel free to ignore it!! that's perfectly fine - i don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. but i saw your tags regarding s*nic w*ldf*re and i wanted to know what they did/if i should avoid them, particularly because you mentioned a large age gap & them introducing you to inappropriate content? obv. feel free to ignore/answer on private, i hope things get better for you soon

the inappropriate content part mostly had to do with a separate group i was in when i was 12 i shouldve worded that better in my post sorry!!!

i was initially gonna answer privately but i typed out so much so im like...fuck it. might as well not let my time go to waste

i don't want this to be a ""callout"" post because i dont think this really...classifies as one. i'm just sharing my experiences and my opinion on what happened to me and my friends. this is not an attack. this is venting, if anything.

im going to make this statement and im going to move on! because that's the healthiest choice for me to make! sonic-wildfire can go be mad, he can vague about me, he can call me insults, i do not care. this is for my mental health and my wellbeing.

i'm going to let this out and then get on with my life because i'm finally starting to be happy and i'm not going to allow this to drag me down <3

now onto the actual ramble (i tagged it as #long post (as well as general content warnings like s///icide mentions and all that if you dont want to see this go ahead and filter it):

he didnt have anything to do with explicit images and i didnt say it was a large age gap, just an uncomfortable one, but!!!!!

essentially he is 18 (turning 19 in april), i'm 16. we broke up this year i cant remember if it was before or after he turned 18 in april but regardless it shouldnt have been my responsibility to be the one to prompt the breakup (we were in a polyam relationship with someone else who was about 16 or 17 iirc. we dont talk anymore but thats another story :P)

he projected attraction to a fan artist's version of a sonic character a very clearly meant to have sexualized undertones/creepy OVERtones. the character in question (mighty) is 16. i talked to him about it but he denied it and said he would never display attraction like that to even fictional minors even though i pulled up screenshots of himself going "im gay" @ the images and other portrayals of attraction in tags of his rbs from it, then proceeding to spam delete them after people started dogpiling and agreeing that the topic and the op of the art was very creepy. he got very defensive and said some questionable shit to defend op ("it's not outwardly predatory" etc)

he made suggestive jokes about me and him around the time we were dating, he continued to make them about me and during those recent times i didnt really...realize that wasnt ok so i enabled him by making those jokes back, this was even after i broke up with him which made it a lot worse imo

he was extremely attention grabbing and kind of lowkey passive aggressive/guilt trippy all the time. he also had very bad anger issues and had a VERY heavy history of making a lot of people in the server uncomfortable or even panic

he liveblogged his contemplations and attempt of su*c*de, making my close friend have a panic attack because for the next few hours he didnt say anything. keep in mind 90% of the server has minors in it. he liveblogged this to all these kids including myself who all have triggers related to that sort of topic. we had to set a fucking rule in the server to prevent him from feeling like he could do this again in the vent channel. we understood and were very concerned for his wellbeing and mental health but as one of the older members its supposed to be your responsibility to know where its appropriate to share things like that. in a server with kids, some of them you havent even spoken to once, is not one of those places

i also recall a happening last year with him sharing a gore image of human brains piled in a bathtub while me and a few other people were in a vc with him. had to delete it immediately and tell him to stop. he thought it was appropriate and funny which is so fucking gross, this was during the time he barely knew most of us and we were far from being close friends, and even then that still wouldnt have been appropriate

i could go on and on but tldr hes a very unstable individual who has made a lot of people, both adults and minors, uncomfortable and he threw a fucking fit when we removed him from our server and i blocked him not long after and he called me a "scheming liar" or whatever because i wished to leave off on at least good terms which is why i talked to him before kicking him in the first place. good terms doesnt mean friends. just no hard feelings for cutting connection. he clearly still felt too clingy to me and then got upset when i removed him for good for my mental health

but yknow then he's allowed to vague and ask mutuals for any sonic servers so if he finds us so replaceable idk why hes throwing so much of a tantrum over it??? but yea theres my rant. i was gonna post this privately but, honestly, i feel like people need to hear about this because he is kind of a popular person in the sonic tumblr fandom

to anyone thinking of sending hate or waiting for him to turn on anons again, dont. thats so petty. just let him vague it out of his system because really thats the only way he ever manages his severe anger issues. block him (or block me if you disagree with this ramble or whatever) or dont, i dont care, this is just my story and my experience with him for the past year and a half and im trying to relieve the tension and weight on my shoulders from having to deal with this for the past day or two

TLDR #2 basically just be wary of sonic-wildfire because he has a long history of being very uncomfortable and otherwise harming other ppls mental health and general comfort. you are not obligated to block him. thats your own choice. just please remember these are my experiences and my opinions and i don't expect everyone to adopt these points of view as their own if they do not wish to

[samisadeangirl]

I have a very simple question for you. If you don't like it you don't need to answer it. Also I love your blog so much and I really love the way you talk and throw canon facts at people when they're being dumb heads. BTW the question is .... John or Mary.

Hey there Anon,

It’s great to hear that you like my blog so much!  Your question isn’t as simple as one might think.  I’m not sure if you’re asking me to pick which one I like better or was the better parent, but since the two are tied so closely together I guess it’s still the same question.  It’s not an easy answer though since there are major issues with both.

If we’re only considering the “real” Mary from S1-5 and not the thing that Amara brought back, then hands-down I’d pick her over John any day.  The young Mary that we met in 4.03 In the Beginning and 5.13 The Song Remains the Same was both strong and vulnerable and so passionate about not only getting away from hunting herself but also protecting her children from going through what she had to.  And of course Mary in both 1.01 Pilot and 1.09 Home was willing to sacrifice everything to keep her sons safe.  We didn’t get to see much of her overall, but I feel that she would’ve been a fierce, loving, amazing mother to Sam and Dean if she’d lived.

John on the other hand was a lousy father no matter how you look at it.  He neglected his boys, put them in unnecessary danger, and was emotionally abusive IMO.  Nearly every flashback showed him leaving the boys alone for days or weeks at a time at ages when they were too young to be without adult supervision for so long.  By doing so, he left them vulnerable not only to demons and other monsters but also more mundane threats like sexual predators, human traffickers, or even simply Child Protective Services.  (There’s also Dean admitting in 4.04 Metamorphosis about going hungry for days, which his eating habits support, and it seems more likely that this occurred in childhood than when he was old enough to support himself since we’ve never seen him & Sam being that strapped for cash.)  He even abandoned Dean for 2 months as a teen, and it was simply luck that Dean ended up at Sonny’s farm in 9.07 Bad Boys instead of another juvenile facility that might’ve been far worse.

While most of us can agree that John did need to prepare his sons against supernatural threats, there is no justification for taking them on hunts possibly as young as 8 years old (as mentioned in 11.08 Just My Imagination, though we don’t know if they actively participated in the hunt or just helped with research & prep) and definitely as teenagers.  And these hunts the boys were taken on as kids weren’t milk runs but against extremely dangerous creatures like werewolves.  Even as adults, he regularly sent them on risky hunts, some of which could’ve ended up killing them if they’d been alone (for example 1.02 Wendigo would’ve killed Dean if Sam hadn’t been there), without checking up on them, not even when they called begging for help or telling him one of them was dying.  And for all his talk about protecting them from the demon, what truly put Sam and Dean in the most danger was his insistence on keeping them completely in the dark about what they were up against with Azazel and his plans.

The emotional abuse took several forms.  The most significant was forcing Dean to be responsible for raising Sam and even taking care of John himself while Dean was only a child.  This is called parentification, which is well-documented as being extremely damaging to the parentified child, as well as harmful to the child(ren) they’re forced to care for.  There was the constant emphasis that everything else, particularly protecting Sam, fighting the supernatural, and avenging Mary’s death, was more important than the boys themselves, particularly Dean, and what they wanted.  There was the constant moving around every few weeks or months, coupled with the emphasis on secrecy and only trusting family, that made it impossible for the brothers to establish and maintain relationships outside their family and a few trusted allies.  John himself admitted to being a drill sergeant instead of a father and was apparently so critical that Dean didn’t believe it was actually him in 1.22 Devil’s Trap or 2.01 In My Time of Dying when told John was proud of him.  Both brothers’ self-esteem, abandonment, and codependency issues began with how John treated them.

Despite all that, if we look at the Mary that was brought back in 11.23 Alpha and Omega and then completely ret-conned in S12-14, then I’d have to choose John as the better parent and character.  John had many, many flaws as a father as described above, but there was no doubt that he loved his sons deeply and had the best intentions for his mistakes.   In contrast, Mary was consistently cold and showed little indication that she cared about her now-grown sons, refusing to get to know them and preferring to spend time with nearly anybody else.  

One could excuse her behavior at first as needing time to adjust after the shock of everything in her life changing, but that only worked for so long and didn’t justify abandoning them for months, working with a group that had hurt one of her sons (since Toni being a rogue was BS IMO), preferring the company of a sociopath like Ketch over theirs, lying to them about the BMoL and putting them at risk as a result, picking the AU hunters over them and dismissing their sacrifices as a result, and so on.  One could also point out that John suffered worse--being abandoned by his father as a child (as far as he knew), surviving the Vietnam War, watching his wife die horrifically, learning a demon had plans for his son, etc.--and still managed to give a damn about his sons.

Mary’s portrayal since her return destroyed pretty much everything good we knew about her character previously, above and beyond the reality that who she really was wouldn’t live up to the idealized version created by a grieving widower and toddler son.  No one, least of all Sam and Dean themselves, expected her to cut the crusts off of sandwiches and tuck into bed men who were now older than her.  But learning that she continued hunting after marrying and having children made the earlier version which hated hunting a lie and instead created a woman who didn’t care what might happen to her family while she hunted and didn’t do a thing to safeguard them from her deal despite still being active in the life.  John was thrust traumatically into the supernatural world and didn’t have any choice but to become a hunter and do what he could to protect his children, even if he did screw up significantly along the way.  Mary had the choice to completely remove herself from the supernatural to give her family a normal life or to using her hunting abilities to protect them as much as possible, but she did neither.

[doof-doofblog]

"If You Don't Get A Move On You're Going To Miss It!"

Monday 10th May 2021

Hello again folks! I'm back again with another post. I just want to recap on Thursday's and Friday's episode and applaud the phenomenal performance from Lorraine Stanley! Her portrayal of Karen Taylor has been absolutely stunning and powerful over the last few weeks during Bailey's disappearance and during the aftermath of her losing her job at the laundrette. I do also want to mention how the community and neighbours rallied round her to support their friend and neighbour in their time of need. I found completely touching and was overwhelmingly powerful.

But regarding this week, it's the week the majority of us have all been waiting for since Ben and Callum got engaged! This is the week of the highly anticipated Ballum wedding! Now the big question is, will Ben meet Callum at the alter after he's learnt the truth about him being a grass! (From what the new trailer is to go by, Ben does actually decide to marry Callum) - but oh my goodness, it looks like we're in for some super dramatic scenes this week! For those of you who haven't seen the trailer yet, where have you been? Gray is once manipulating Whitney in to believing that the Mitchell's (particularly Ben) are to blame for Kush's death.

But as Whitney’s grief gets the better of her, she takes it into her own hands to deal with the Mitchell's once and for all, taking a pair of keys, getting into a car and heading straight for them. As this is happening, Phil happens to have learnt the truth about Callum grassing up his family and is eager to have a confrontation with Callum himself, but as Kat tries her best to stop Phil from making a huge mistake - Phil, Callum, Ben and Kat all get caught in the headlights of Whitney's car - who will she hit? And will they be okay?! - I know a few are speculating that it could be Callum or Ben who gets hit, or even Whitney herself getting hurt, but honestly - my biggest fear is Phil getting hurt. Don't get me wrong I love all these characters to appear to be in the frame, but I would be immensely heartbroken if it was Phil to get hurt and possibly be killed off? Hopefully none of them will get killed off - but what are your predictions? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one!

--

So looking at Monday's episode and of course it's all about Ballum!!! But before we focus on the main event I'm going to mention Bailey. Sadly she is still sleeping rough after running away from home. The only company she has is her dog Banjo (who can I just say is the most adorable dog that EastEnders has had for a very long time!) It appears that the only bit of food she has available is a packet of biscuits and of course being a hungry puppo, Banjo longingly stares at Bailey for the biscuit she's about to eat. Bailey willingly gives Banjo the biscuit, but as she begins to gather her things together and move along, a bunch of youths rob her only bag of belongings. Being the hero, Banjo quickly chases after them as Bailey following along behind.

However, meanwhile on the Square as Keegan and Bernie continue to search for Bailey and begin to discuss their concerns about where they're going to find her. Bernie tries to keep positive, informing her brother that Bailey will be found and eventually their luck will change. Of course Keegan is doubtful, but of course we know that Bernadette has offered to be Stuart & Rainie's surrogate, so eventually she will come into some money for the family, but it'll be interesting once her family find out. I'm intrigued on how Keegan is going to react - considering that it was his wife who originally agreed to be their surrogate, now it's his sister!

As Bernie takes her leave, the next thing we see is little Banjo running towards the Square, however the poor little doggo is covered in blood. Keegan understandably relieved to see Banjo, but as soon as he sees the blood coming from the family pet, he begins to question where Bailey is. As Bailey continues her search for her beloved dog, she stumbles across an elderly man named Reg claiming to be a friend of her parents, Mitch and Dinah. Could Bailey perhaps be in danger or is this gentleman genuinely who he says he is?!

--

Elsewhere on the Square, Linda appears to be concerned for Nancy's whereabouts. She reveals that Nancy didn't come the previous evening, even though Mick seems more calmer about the situation, he tries to reassure Linda that Nancy had probably just stayed at a friend's house and would most likely be home by lunchtime, however unbeknown to them, poor Nancy had actually kipped in the gym overnight. It seems that things have gotten that bad between Nancy and her Mum, she could no longer bare to stay in the Vic overnight. As Sharon finds her as she opens up the gym, Nancy promises it's not going to be a long-term thing.

I guess Sharon kind of sympathises with Nancy as she too has felt the raff of Linda, but of course Sharon could be possibly using Nancy to get back into Linda's good books? She offers Nancy to use her shower back at her place and willingly gives her the keys to her apartment. Unfortunately, this is where Nancy once again passes ways with Zack and his awful flirtation. Sorry, but it is a bit cringe-worthy! Zack smooth talks his way with Nancy, claiming that once she's done in the shower he'll treat her to some breakfast!

I have to say I love Nancy's lack of enthusiasm, well I guess you could call it sarcasm also! Honestly though, how would you feel if Zack and Nancy were to become a new couple? I'm not sure how I'd feel about it, as much as I love Nancy, I haven't really made my mind up yet on Zack, I think we need to see a bit of him before I can make a decision. Anyway, they both end up in Ruby's club and Zack is once again flirtatious and eager to get a second date with Nancy, even though she even states that this is anything but a date! As she mentions how she's currently stuck in a ruckus with her Mum, she frets about not even being able to brush her teeth properly as she hasn't got a tooth brush, plus she wants to avoid going home to fetch her one and be confronted by her Mum yet again.

I think in an attempt to win Nancy round he promises that somehow, someway he will make all her problems disappear, but she scoffs at his claim and heads towards to the bar to grab some snacks. But while she's not looking Zack sneaks off and eventually finds himself in the Vic, nosing through all the Carter's belongings, is he simply just trying to find Nancy's toothbrush for her, or perhaps something else? Unfortunately his search doesn't last very long as he's walloped over the head with a frying pan by Linda! Almost like a scene from the Disney movie Tangled!

--

Right focusing on the main story at hand, as Callum and Stuart prepare themselves for the wedding, Callum voices his concern as to whether Ben will truly show up to their wedding. Stuart also voices his concern as to whether his brother should actually go, he can't bare to picture his young brother being left stood up at the alter. But the interesting thing is on the other side of the Square, as Kathy and Phil are discussing the wedding and the fact that Ben would be making a huge mistake if he didn't turn up, Ben is sat on the stairs in the hallway listening to their every word.

Kathy is all dressed up in her wonderful wedding outfit and of course little Lexi looks beautiful in her bridesmaid dress, rehearsing her steps for the wedding ceremony. Phil informs Kathy that Ben is adamant that the wedding is off, but Kathy urges the Father of their son to talk Ben round and make him see sense! Eventually as everyone gathers in the Vic waiting for Ben to show his face, Phil appears all dressed up his suit and breaks the news that Ben has gone missing, he's simply left his suit on his bed and disappeared, much to the family's shock.

While all this chaos appears to be happening in the middle of the Square, poor Callum and Stuart have made it to the register's office and are waiting anxiously for Ben's arrival! As they hear someone bursting through the doors, they look with hope and desperation, but it appears to be Jay. But as much as Callum is happy to see him, Jay gives him the devastating news that Ben has gone AWOL and no one can find him anywhere. Eager to make sure that his brother marries the man he loves, Stuart takes it upon himself to go back to the Square and find Ben and bring him to Callum.

Although it appears that Phil has managed to find Ben before he can. Phil eventually finds his son in the Arches working away on a car, almost as if he's trying to avoid the day itself and carry on as normal. Phil tries once again to reassure his son that marrying Callum would be the best thing he's ever done, even admitting that it took him a long time to come round - this moment really touched me - but also claiming that if Ben was to marry Callum today, it would Phil the proudest he has ever been of his son. I have to say those words really moved me, and to be honest I think it moved Ben - almost to the point where it nearly broke him and he almost revealed what Callum had done.

Ben gets so overcome with emotion, tears are slowly falling from his eyes. He almost breaks as he informs his Dad that Callum had betrayed him, all of them! Phil looks to his son with confusion in his eyes. What does he mean, all of them? But Ben stops in his tracks and makes up the excuse that Callum actually cheated on him. Although it seems as though Phil doesn't believe this explanation, he takes it on the chin and leaves Ben to it. However, once he's back on the Square he comes face-to-face with Stuart ... now this is where everything goes completely wrong! Of course Stuart has no idea what's been happening on the Square, he's just concerned about his little brother waiting at the alter for the man he loves.

As they cross paths, Stuart pleads Phil to inform her where Ben has got to, but Phil seems eager to defend his son after the explanation he's been given, as soon as Phil mentions that he welcomed Callum into the family, Stuart completely gets the wrong end of the stick and reveals everything. Claiming that Callum never wanted to go undercover, claiming that all he did it for was for Ben, putting his career on the line for Ben, even if it meant going behind Phil's back and reporting everything to the police. But you can see from the look in Phil's face that this is all news to him and this is the first he's hearing about Callum's betrayal. Once Stuart realises his mistake he warns that if Phil ever lays a finger on Callum he will come back and kill him!

Returning to the Arches, Ben is once again alone with his thoughts, is he questioning himself whether he should marry Callum? But it seems like another visit from a little lady changes his mind. Lexi finds him in the Arches and comments that it's the same place she finds him every time when Ben decides to take some time on his own. Now this moment I absolutely loved, Lexi questions her Father about love, What does it mean? What's it all about? She claims that she doesn't believe in love, considering that her Mum has had 3 different boyfriends since she's been home and her Grandparents have been married "300 times!". Her exaggerations make Ben giggle, but he tries to reassure his daughter that she should believe in love, because it's the one thing in life that you can't describe the feeling of. It can hurt but it's also wonderful too to be in love. He claims that being with that one person who trusts you and believes in you is the best feeling in the world and with them by your side, you face the world together, forever. As he explains all this to his daughter, she then asks the very important question, "Then why aren't you marrying Callum?"

Listening to his own words and realising that it's been his daughter who's made him see sense, Ben rushes to the wedding reception. As the guests almost sit themselves up and get ready to leave as they believe Ben isn't showing up, Stuart arrives back at the wedding reception eager to inform his brother about what's happened on the Square between him and Phil. But before Stuart can begin to explain himself, both Lexi and Ben burst through the door just in time for the ceremony, to Callum's absolute happiness and relief.  

Only unbeknown to them, back at home, Phil is seen listening to a voice message from Kathy, informing him that the wedding appears to be back on. Ben has arrived at the wedding reception and she urges him to get there before he misses his son getting married. As the voice message ends, Phil notices a picture of Callum on the shelf, all dressed up smartly in his police uniform. Reeling from the news he's learnt from Stuart, he smashes Callum's picture to pieces. What is Phil going to do now?

--

I know there's been a major event happen in this evening's episode of EastEnders, but unfortunately I am one episode behind, so I will review tonight's episode tomorrow instead. I know what's happened but I'm not to comment until tomorrow. Either way, I'm looking forward to witnessing what happens next. Thank you again for reading, I hope you've all enjoyed my post! I'll be back again tomorrow with everything regarding the Ballum wedding and much more! Enjoy the rest of your evening folks! Love you all xXx

[nunonabun]

If you don't mind answer (Since I'm loving you digging into other answers you give!) What do you think about the show's seemingly Anti-Adoption standpoint? Even when it's for the best interest of the child, or the mother's insistent on it, they seem to do everything they can to convince the mother otherwise. Even when the mother couldn't afford the child at all, and had a home lined up for them, they talked her out of it.

Thank you for the question! Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply to, I wanted to attempt a thorough answer but I had a lot going on, so it got a tad forgotten in the drafts.

Your ask is quite a toughie. I don’t know that I’d actually characterize the show as having an anti-adoption viewpoint, I think the show is often trying to be conscious of the way class and other social structures interacted with the adoption system at the time, while also trying to deal with other issues adoption raises. I think sometimes they do well with that, but sometimes, while trying to shine a light on one thing, they manage to fall into other biases. I’ll put the rest under a ‘read more’ as this did get a biiiit long.

Class had (and has, really) a big role in adoption, and views of who “deserved” to be a parent often had harmful impacts. It’s a complicated and difficult subject, and there are lots of factors that can come into play in each case, but shame and other pressures were often usedto essentially force poor and/or single mothers to give up children. Some children were outright taken from the biological mother (or couple, in some cases, though overwhelmingly judgement landed on single women) that wanted them and were trying to keep them. The choice wasn’t really a free choice as they often weren’t given the support they would need in order to make keeping the child a viable option for them, nor were they given support in thoroughly thinking through all of their options and deciding what they truly want. Also, young, single, working-class women were generally condemned for becoming pregnant and were often pressured to give the child up so that they could be given to a ‘better’ family (i.e. middle-class straight couple. Having a British background & being Christian did also come into it).  

Another aspect of portraying adoption is contending with the bias that a ‘real’ family is biological; that there’s some kind of innate bond between people who are biologically linked that is not present between those who aren’t (I’m going to call this the ‘biology bias’ for convenience’s sake). The elements of classism and biology bias (and bias against single parents, homophobia, racism, etc.) can interact in complex ways. Trying to realistically portray negative aspects of the adoption system that aren’t often talked about can result inseemingly playing into the ‘child should stay with their real family’ prejudice. Or it can both critique the class bias and buy into the biology bias. The latter case often takes the form of ‘well I guess the adoptive couple is providing a promising future for the child, it’s just a shame that it comes at the cost of a deeper/truer love, as the child would have had with the bio family’ in media portrayals. Or sometimes the inverse can happen (undercutting the biology bias but accepting the class bias) and you get an attribution of blame instead of an examination of how people are constrained by their situations in a way that couldbe resolved with good social supports, à la ‘those (lower-income) people were just bad parents who don’t deserve a child, the child should be given to a good (middle-class) couple.’ And plenty of other complex issues arise when the axes of race & nationality, physical & mental differences, gender, etc. come into play. It’s really a hard thing to navigate and communicate all of the elements that are wrapped up in adoption, and I’d say portrayals are often in the grey zone.

To disentangle the elements in CtM’s portrayals of adoption, I’m going togo ahead and take a little look at all of the examples of adoption in the show and try to examine what they’re aiming for and what I think they convey. Please feel free to point out if I’ve missed one or if you think I’ve missed elements of one portrayal or have misconstrued things. Strap in guys, this is hecking long. Or jump down to the Tl;dr, that’s fine too.

First, in 1x02, we have Mary, the Irish girl who came to London, was taken advantage of and pressured into prostitution and became pregnant. Jenny tries to help her, but as she is single, poor, still a child herself, and a prostitute, the child is removed from Mary (and in episode 4 we discover that that has seriously mentally scarred her, resulting in her taking someone else’s child in an attempt to regain what was taken from her.) Here we see pretty much exactly what I was talking about above. Society saw Mary as morally unfit (as being poor, a prostitute, and single & pregnant were judged to be personal failures/sins, and there was additional prejudice against Irish people), so there was no safety net for her, no public services provided so that she, even as poor and young as she was, could realistically raise the child if she wanted to. You could say it might be unjust to leave the child with Mary, given her circumstances, but I think CtM is showing that her circumstances didn’t have to be what they were. If she wasn’t judged so on a moral basis, she wouldn’t be condemned to continue in those circumstances and she wouldn’t have had her child taken from her against her will. If she had been given a free choice and support in making it and carrying it out, she may have kept the child or she may have given it up, but either way, the outcome for Mary wouldn’t have been as terrible as it was.  

The second case we see is Doris Aston, in 3x02. Doris is married and has a few children already, and reveals that her current pregnancy is likely the result of an affair with a black man. Obviously, her husband (who is white) will know she was unfaithful when the child is born, and she and the child will be at risk as her husband is abusive (it’s revealed throughout the episode that he is controlling and aggressive, even prior to learning of his wife’s infidelity.) In the end, the child (who Doris names Carole) is taken out of the house, with the husband threatening to kill Carole if she remains. Carole is taken to the Turners’ to foster and then sent on to her middle-class adoptive family.This episode is meant to shine a light on another pressure that results in women not having a free choice in life, particularly around sexuality and children. Divorce was heavily stigmatizedat the time, and it wasn’t easy for a woman to get a divorce from her husband if he didn’t agree to it, especially if the couple already had children together. Therefore, if a woman was unhappy in a marriage, or even suffering abuse, there wasn’t much recourse for her. Yes, in this situation Doris did cheat, but the circumstances of that are complicated. What’s more, as a result of it, she doesn’t really have a free choice in whether to keep her daughter (and sons) and leave her husband (which she wanted) or stay and work it out either with or without Carole. The only real choice she has is to give the child up and hope her husband a) doesn’t find and hurt the baby, b) isn’t violent towards her as a result of him learning about her infidelity, and c) that she can bury her emotions around Carole and essentially pretend she never existed/died at birth. So the episode is seeking to portray the way women, especially working-class women, were unjustly constrained; forced into choices they would not freely have made. Race is touched on only briefly, in that it’s the element that renders Doris’ infidelity evident, and also a mixed-race child is more difficult to place within the adoption system. This isn’t really explored much, as Carole is quickly adopted and we don’t actually really see how her being mixed affects this.An element of this episode that I think they mishandled was buying into the ‘true family is bio family’ prejudice via their attempt to portray the injustice Doris faced and sympathize with her. This mainly comes in near the end of the episode, where they reinforce the idea that Doris is Carole’s ‘real’ mother. Doris herself worries that Carole “won’t know I’m her mother,” and Sister Julienne says “If Carole searches for her mother one day, hopefully records will bring her to us,” Here I think the norm of just saying “mother” as though the adoptive mother Carole will have isn’t really her mother, is partially just because they’re showing that Doris does feel she is Carole’s mother and doesn’t actually want to give her up, however it does play into the biology bias. This is deeply reinforced when Vanessa Redgrave chimes in with a “[Doris] trusted in God that Carole would have a good life with good people who would give her the future she couldn’t. More than anything, she wished she could have kept her because whatever anyone else might feel, it couldn’t be what Doris felt. Her daughter was of and from her. They were a part of each other and always would be.” That could generously be interpreted as Mature Jenny just conveying what Doris believed, but even so, there’s a heavy narrative buy-in to that message, and the message is clearly ‘Doris wanted to keep her daughter and ought not to have been forced to give her up. Biology and gestation result in an inherent, unbreakable bond that cannot be replicated and it is therefore regrettable that Carole had to be given to a family that - though financially secure, potentially kind, and distant from the threat of violence - lack that bond.’ That message again seeks to convey the injustice of Doris’s situation and sympathize with her pain, but in doing so, it implies that adoptive families lack this deep, automatic bond forged via biology and are therefore inherently weaker. They may provide a more materially promising future for the child, but unfortunately, they aren’t as ‘true’ a family as a biologically linked one.Furthermore, Jenny says “[The adoption agency worker] spoke as though Doris had no link at all with her baby,” and notes that the adoptive parents requested no ongoing contact. These elements reinforce the portrayal of the adoption as cold and insufficiently recognizant of how the baby is ‘actually’ the biological mother’s. This bit is difficult, as Carole is not not Doris’s, and it’s totally fair for Doris to grieve for the loss of her daughter. Also, cutting off contact, not allowing any connection at all to the child’s birth family was commonly done and can be a very harmful practice. The adoption agency (and society at large) certainly thought Doris had no moral right to see Carole, as she chose to have an affair and is therefore a Bad Woman and a Bad Mother, and that is justly critiqued by the show. But I think, in this episode, the show is rather clumsy in its portrayal of this complex situation, and manages to imply that the adoptive family (and mother in particular) are kind of interlopers who are only a solution to a problem as opposed to being a potentially very loving family that is just as true of a family as a biological one. Where this reading is a bit shaken is that this is the start of the foreshadowing that the Turners will end up adopting a child, and their fostering of Carole for the night before she is adopted is shown in a very positive light. The whole scene is loving and sweet, and positive comments are made about Carole’s adoption (though sympathy is also extended to Doris.) So it’s a bit of a mixed bag, this episode. Overall I think that it does a good job with the class and sexism elements, but a poor job with handling the biology bias.

The third time adoption is portrayed (3x06), it’s more of a subplot that serves to introduce Shelagh and Patrick to the idea that adoption could be the answer to their desire to expand their family. Colin Monk, Tim’s friend, is revealed to be adopted. Learning this immediately prompts Shelagh to propose that she & Patrick pursue adoption to continue building their family. She comments: “I really don’t believe I’d have to carry a child inside my body for it to feel like ours. If I felt that, it would mean that loving Timothy has taught me nothing.” This is a firm rebuttal of the biology bias and it nicely links step and adoptive families, explicitly espousing a positive perspective on both.The episode does touch on the class & religious aspects too. Shelagh says that the adoption charity she went to was the Church of England Childrens’ Society, and notes: “I think they quite like the idea of us, a GP and a retired midwife. (…) As the lady [at the adoption agency] said, the children have already got off to a sorry start in life, they need the very best parents the agency can find them.” So, again, the show is bringing up the normative judgements around parenting, and the idea that a (straight) professional couple where the mother stays home is deemed morally deserving of children.The end of this episode also sees Patrick getting antsy about the conditions of adoption, correctly foreseeing that (in 3x07) his mental health struggles will cause the agency to deem him less deserving of a child (so here’s ableism coming in to play too.)Overall, I think these episodes did a good job with the adoption plot. They push back against the biology bias while also subtly highlighting who is deemed socially worthy of children in terms of class and health.

Fourth there’s 3x08, wherein the Turners adopt Angela. Here, the portrayal is overwhelmingly positive, with pretty much all of our excitement and sympathies going to the Turners, who are meeting their daughter for the first time. They’re excited about the news that they’re going to become parents in much the same way we see people on the show excited about an impending birth. Holding Angela for the first time (particularly with respect to Shelagh) is treated as having as much weight and love as any parent being handed their biological baby. Particularly, In The Mirror plays, a musical theme that has been used to score previous momentous transformations in Shelagh’s life (and Patrick’s, as those changes are often linked), Patrick says “here’s your mummy,” and Shelagh says “we have a daughter.” For me, that is slightly undercut by Shelagh saying “This is the closest I’m ever going to get to giving birth.” This implies that the experience is kind of a consolation prize, as close as they can get to what they’d ideally want; for Shelagh to carry and give birth to a child that is biologically theirs. I don’t think that’s necessarily what they meant to imply - especially given all the talk before and in later episodes about loving Angela as much as if she were biologically theirs - but that’s how that line read to me. But again, that is largely overwhelmed by the positive tone and emotions portrayed in that scene.Switching into the consideration of the other end of the equation, the biological mother, we have a very interesting choice to comment on the deeply uncomfortable situation that led to Angela becoming a Turner. When Patrick asks what she knows about the situation, Shelagh says: “Hardly anything, just that the mother is only 16 and she was meant to be taking the baby home with her, but at the last minute her parents changed their minds.” Timothy, always involved in the family building (another strong element of the portrayal) says “That’s terrible,” and Patrick reprimands him with a slightly curt “Tim.” Shelagh says, “That’s why they want a speedy settlement, to spare further trauma for those involved.” We, the viewers, are excited and happy about the Turners adopting, and then we’re hit with this slight insight into the other side of the equation. Though “our” family is getting its happy outcome, that results from a terrible thing having happened to a young, single girl (‘Miss Jones’.) We don’t know the class differential here, so there’s not much to work with, analysis-wise, on that front. Here, it’s more that Miss Jones doesn’t really have the option to contradict her parents in this society, which results in her being forced to give up the child she wanted to keep. So again the show highlights the lack of choice women (and girls) had, and hints at the moral judgements around who is worthy of being supported in their parenting project. Interestingly, this actually puts Shelagh (and Patrick, to some degree, though the whole plot really focusses more on Shelagh’s motherhood, which is a whole other discussion) a bit in the moral grey, as her (their) desire to have a child causes them to kind of callously brush past the injustice their daughter’s biological mother faced. Though that is slightly tempered by Shelagh noting that it’s felt that doing this all quickly is the least traumatic option, having her convey this information as they’re all rushing to pick up Angela really gets across how the injustices on the bio mother’s side of the picture just kind of get glossed over in the focus on joy of the adoptive family. We don’t take that bit more time to consider what actually results in the best outcome for all involved. That’s an interesting counterpoint to 3x02, where the adoptive family’s love and joy is glossed over by our focus on the sorrow and pain of Doris Aston. I would say though that 3x08 does a bit better at integrating all these elements, as the hurried discussion of the bio mother is, I think, clearly meant to bring us up short and make us consider that there are elements of injustice in this situation, whereas 3x02 doesn’t really give us much positive about the adoptive family. The following episode does give us some balance too, showing the Turners worrying about Angela’s biological mother while still clearly maintaining that Angela is as loved as she would be if she was biologically theirs. Shelagh and Patrick reflect on this together and with Timothy, and the ensemble decision is to send a letter to Angela’s biological mother (though administrative structures make it uncertain that the letter will reach her), giving her some closure as to what happened to the child she gave up. This serves to send the message that communication in the process of family-building is important, while also remaining grounded in a time where it was generally held that the best thing to do in an emotionally difficult situation was to not talk about it.

In the following episode, the Christmas special, we get the mother and baby home, which switches gear firmly into focussing on the judgement placed on unmarried women who become pregnant (especially young women) and the abuses these women (and girls) faced in the institutions they were sent to. First, there’s the fact that these institutions existed, largely tucked away to reinforce that falling pregnant outside of marriage is shameful and needs to be hidden. Then there’s the medical neglect within the home, the only staff being the Nonnatus volunteers and the drunken matron who runs the place. We see one case briefly where a baby is basically ripped from a young woman/girl who was not yet ready to say goodbye. Of our two main cases, we have one woman who decided to keep the baby though she was initially aloof and uncaring, and one who was totally comfortable giving the baby up and does so. I think a strong point of the episode was pointing out that whole Mother & Baby Home system is a result of and in many ways a reinforcement of the shaming and punishment of young, often poor, unmarried mothers for what was deemed a personal failing. We see this explicitly with Tim’s comment about “moral contagion,” wherein he’s voicing/testing out/subtly criticizing the mainstream view of the time. In England at the time, society operated on the idea that treating these women like any other pregnant women would be endorsing their sin/personal failing, and that would lead to a whole epidemic of this sort of thing, which would obviously be bad. So the episode as a whole is bringing that to light and critiquing it and the actions that resulted from it.On to the two main cases. One is a young woman/girl who decides to give her bio son up for adoption, saying that she’s happy to think that he’ll have a good life with people who love and want him and it’s the right choice for both of them. She is shown to have a supportive mother, indicating that sometimes, the choice was freer. The narrative is telling us that there were cases where - in spite of wider social prejudice against unmarried mothers - keeping the child would have been a viable option, but the bio mother decided that wasn’t what she wanted/what she judged to be the best outcome of the situation, and this is a perfectly fine choice to make.My feelings on the portrayal of the other young woman/girl are a bit more mixed. On the one hand, yes sometimes someone is totally set on giving up a child but their mind changes when confronted by the reality of the newborn. However, this storyline is a bit of an iffy trope and I think using it requires some delicacy. It’s very easy to fall into the ‘it’s your child and you will and ought to have a unique, automatic bond with it,’ which places a judgement on women who don’t automatically feel that bond, whether or not they want that child and whether or not they ultimately decide to keep that child. That normative view of bonding downplays the work that goes into bonding with a child and implicitly judges those whose bond is not automatic, as well as implying that there is a sort of bond that is exclusive to the person who gives birth to the child. On the plus side, that storyline directly contradicts the idea that these young women/girls don’t deserve to be mothers, and that is a point in its favour.On the whole, though I disagree with the ‘automatic bond’ portion of the one storyline, the episode benefits from having multiple storylines highlighting different elements within the overall focus on pregnant, unmarried young women/girls and the injustices they suffered as a result of sexism.

Sixth, we get the case of Marnie Wallace and Dot (and Eugene) Spenlow. Marnie and Dot are cousins, the former is poor, the latter is more middle-class. Marnie is pregnant and her husband has died fairly recently. She’s struggling with how she’s going to provide for this child as well as the children she already has. The main option is to give the child to Dot and her husband, who very much want a child but cannot have one biologically. This gets uncomfortable as Dot offers Marnie financial support on the condition that Marnie gives them the baby when it’s born. Marnie does this but is clearly unhappy about it. When we see Dot and Eugene with the baby, they seem fairly uncomfortable with caring for it/aren’t going about it as Marnie would, though they are happy. Marnie decides she can’t live with this and takes the baby back, and though Dot and Eugene are upset, they come to accept this and give her all the stuff they bought for the baby. I’m not entirely sure what the episode was going for. There’s the theme of poor women being forced to give up children out of financial necessity (lack of resources & support made available to them), and there’s the theme of family pressuring a woman to make certain decisions about her children. I think they were trying to highlight class dynamics, and that resulted in the episode portraying a more middle-class part of a family directly preying on a poorer family member and taking her child. My discomfort with that (and I think it’s a discomfort that many viewers had) is not around Marnie not deserving to have the support she needs to raise a child that she truly wants. Portraying class struggles has always been an important element of this show and a praiseworthy one. The reason this episode drew some criticism (at least, on tumblr), I think, is that the portrayal of the couple who cannot biologically have children feels malicious. It feels like the message being sent is that there’s something virtuous about being able to have children even when you “have nothing but love,” whereas the barren couple is materialistic, not naturally good at parenting like someone who can bear children and inherently unable to provide the love that the bio mum could give the baby. That Dot practically bribes Marnie to give her the baby borders on a caricature and makes me question why it was written this way, as opposed to, say, having Dot and Eugene being portrayed more sympathetically (i.e. not bribing Marnie, offering her help) and perhaps having Marnie struggle to communicate with them that she feels pressured into a choice that she’s not comfortable with. While the situation that was portrayed isn’t wildly out there in terms of things that could and probably do happen within families, the predatory portrayal of the Spenlows seems to condemn them for being unable to have children that are biologically theirs. And that’s not a super great message to send.Oh yeah, and Tom has some feelings about the fact that he was adopted. That part of the episode felt quite tacked on. I think they were trying to communicate that a person who was adopted may have complicated feelings about the circumstances leading to their adoption when they grow up. How do you process a situation in which your biological mother was forced to give you up, but you love and were & are very happy with your adoptive family? What if you just don’t know the circumstances in which you were given up but fear they were traumatic for your biological mother/family? I think those are all very good questions to explore and I would love to see the show do a good job of exploring them. This episode wasn’t it. Putting Tom questioning those things against the backdrop of Marnie and Dot, the negative message of their story casts a shadow over those questions such that, instead of really exploring them, you’re left with the feeling that the show is saying ‘yeah, that was probably a bad thing that you weren’t raised in your biological family.’ I think they tried to provide balance to this by having Tom maintain that he loved his family and had a very normal childhood and he didn’t even think about the fact of his adoption, but I don’t think it worked. I also think that positioning ‘I didn’t even question that I was adopted and never thought about the circumstances of my birth & bio parents’ as the sign of a positive outcome of adoption is problematic. A person can be curious about and care about their bio family and the circumstances that led to their adoption without that being a slap in the face of their adoptive family or a sign that they were/are unhappy/unsatisfied with their adoptive family. Overall, though there were a few good elements to this episode… it was a bit of a trainwreck.

Seventh, there’s the 2018 Christmas Special. In this episode, we get the case of Anthea (Tillerson) Sweeting, who was abused by her father throughout her life and was then turned out by her family when she became pregnant as a result of the abuse. She subsequently formed a family of her own composed of some children who are biologically hers, as well as some who are adopted and some who she (and her husband) are fostering. There is also the case of Linda & Selwyn, a couple living in a caravan who are preparing for the birth of a baby who is not biologically Selwyn’s. Their arc largely involves Linda escaping the cycle of self-blame and accepting that the man she loves and who loves her is fully committed accepting the child as his and continuing forward as a family. With both of these cases, the biology bias is directly contradicted. With the Tillerson/Sweeting situations, we compare a family where the biological father was abusive and the biological family as a whole failed to protect the children (though there are nuances as to the mother’s responsibility in a situation where she too was suffering abuse) to a strong, loving family where the degree of biological relatedness varies. Then with Linda & Selwyn, you have a family where the biological father is not in the picture and the non-biological father is shown to be loving and supportive and very likely a good father. The episode as a whole strongly communicates that it is the choice to love and the continued commitment to one another that makes a healthy family.  

Eighth and finally, we have the 2018 Christmas Special. I’m not going to go into the whole of May’s situation and its portrayal because there’s much to go into about fostering and, while fostering is related to adoption, it’s really a whole topic of its own. There’s also a discussion that could be had about religious institutions and their role in adoption, but that would really go into the role they have in childbirth as well and that is just a whole big other conversation we could have about the show. Also, frankly this reply is long as heck already and a million high fives to you if you’ve stuck with me this far. In this episode, we go to the Nonnatus Mother Ship House and learn that apparently, they run an orphanage. Sister Winifred has a nice storyline with a boy who has disabilities and is therefore unlikely to be adopted. It is shown that children like this were often pushed to the sides and not given the care they needed to flourish. They were also far less likely to be adopted because they have different needs from children without disabilities, so they’re not what people seek when adopting (or hope for when giving birth.) This was a strong point of the episode, as it highlights the ableism in society more generally and specifically within family-building and childcare. Then we have May, who is part of a group of orphans from Hong Kong whose adoptive parents do not show up to pick her up because the prospective father gets TB, so the Turners decide to take her to live with them as a foster child. We learn that May’s biological mother was a prostitute and struggled with addiction and that though she tried to keep May, in the end she couldn’t manage to care for her in the situation she was in. There’s lots going on here in terms of class, addiction, sex work, and international adoption (especially, in this case, the power differential between Hong Kong (a British colony) and the UK (the colonial power in this equation.)) Later in the episode (or possibly in the series), it’s mentioned that May isn’t fluently anglophone and the Turners will have to work on her English with her, but other than that, questions of race, culture, etc… aren’t really touched on. I hold out some hope that these will come up in the upcoming series but I think they could have been introduced a bit in this episode/series. Also on the subject of international adoption, we have the sad (and sadly mishandled) story of the Australian home children. These children were sent to Australia (and other Commonwealth countries) for adoption, but were actually treated more as a source of free labour on farms. We actually did see this mentioned at the end of a much earlier episode (4x01), where four children were left mostly alone in conditions of abject squalor due to a neglectful mother (that was pretty much played straight, we don’t really gain much insight as to what her story was) and after Nonnatus helps them, they’re sent off to Australia where they suffer further abuse. And this is repeated here, the pregnant woman in question loitering around the Mother House trying to gain the courage to enter the last place she was happy as a child and talk about the abuse she suffered when she was sent out from the orphanage within this program. I think there’s a positive to this, in that it’s shedding light on a dark aspect of history, but it seems like there may have been a larger point/concern they were trying to make about international adoption programs and the positives and negatives therein that just didn’t land.So overall, there was a lot going on in this episode, some positive elements around tackling ableism in adoption and orphanage care, and some missed elements in relation to international adoption programs.

Tl;dr (and it’s perfectly fine if you jump down here bctbh I wrote a whole freaking tome up there): Dismantling the notion that someone isn’t a “true” parent or isn’t “truly” a person’s child because there’s no biological link is massively important, as is dismantling the notion that you have this instant “natural” connection with your biological child (in terms of what that implies about non-genetic families, the judgement it holds about people who don’t bond instantly with their biological child, and that it erases the work of bonding.) Dismantling the biases about biological connections is helpful in pushing back against a variety of harmful views both within the context of families and family-building, and more broadly. (I’ve actually done some research into essentialist biases around genetics/”blood” and have some interesting papers on it, so please message me if you’re curious and would maybe like to nerd out about it.)

That being said, it’s also important to remember that not all of the choices around adoption are made freely. As with any form of family building, the social structures surrounding it shouldn’t be ignored. At the time, and even now, class, what is considered morally acceptable in a society, and family structure ideals all play into why children are removed from birth families, and which adoptive families they are placed with. They play a large role in who is given support in making, growing and sustaining a family, and who isn’t. Those structures largely favour(ed) straight, Christian, middle-class couples of British backgrounds and judged as worse or less deserving (or completely undeserving) gay, single, non-Christian and/or working-class people of non-British backgrounds.

It’s a really tricky subject, and trying to communicate that biology isn’t what makes you a parent while also showing how harmful the adoption process could be and how rooted it was (is) in unjust social norms & structures is important. I don’t think CtM always nails it, but I think the show benefits from tackling the subject multiple times, from some variety of perspectives, and with efforts at nuance.