#how is this the same network that wrote seasons 1-5 of supernatural

[angst-is-love-angst-is-life]

I am so fucking obsessed with this show *silence follows as no one is surprised*

One of my favorite things is Barrys attitude about Zoom before and after their first fight

Before was “I’ve already fought my nightmare, the reverse flash.” And him being fairly nonchalant. You can even see it in their first interaction directly before the fight— Barry’s confident, cocky even; everything changes after the fight.

Because afterwards “Zoom destroyed me.” (An actual quote from Gorilla warfare) then he was obsessed with beating Zoom as much as if not more than he was with Thawne. Barry literally had flashbacks when trying to run— and it was all solved with one fucking pep talk

[orionsangel86]

SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos

Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.

What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.

This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.

Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.

I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)

We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.

Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.

1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.

False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.

We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.

2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak

False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.

3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.

False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.

Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.

 4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.

*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.

The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.

Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.

This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.

So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:

Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.

I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.

There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:

The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.

The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.

The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.

Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.

Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.

Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.

The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.

But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.

I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.

Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of? 

We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.

Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.

I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.

I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.

*Deep breath*

The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.

So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).

If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.

I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.

Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.

I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.

Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.

Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.

The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.

El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.

The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.

If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.

I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.

I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.

So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?

The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.

So What Do I Believe?

That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.

I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).

I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).

I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.

I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.

Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.

Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.

The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.

Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.

I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)

So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.

At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.

When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.

All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.

[daemonsrhaenyras]

Umm hi so like 2 months ago ig I found the 100 and I just finished season 5. And I'm already the kind of person who just goes looking for spoilers so yah I kinda know the fucked up shit that's about to happen. Anyways I just wanna know what the hell happened and I know there's never a proper reason but like with supernatural or any other controversial shows at least there are some reasons uk the writer is sexist, racist etc some sort of explanation to the fucked up shit we just saw before our eyes, but everything with the 100 is so silent I'm mostly a Instagram person n tbh the 100 fandom on Instagram is kind of dead... I really don't understand the show was great frustrating n maybe even a few downer of a seasons but lyk wtf happened did the writers change also lyk at the end of season 5 I think it was written "end of book one" or something so was tht supposed to be the end n d networked forced them to do more season which maybe why they wrote the latter seasons so bad..... Godddd I just want an explanation 😂. It will be really helpful if u could answer literally anything honestly u don't have to respond either u could just totally ignore trust me I have no idea why this is bothering me either but yah..

Disclaimer: While I am a notorious multishipper, I do love Bellamy/Clarke above all others in this show, so that probably colors a lot of my interpretations of events. Additionally, because you did mention that you've looked up spoilers, I am not going to be avoiding them, so be warned.

I mean, most of what the fandom has puzzled together is from random comments or conjecture, none of the cast has outright said anything specifically about season 7 (that has been widely spread, to my knowledge anyway).

In my opinion, season 6 was really freaking great. A breath of fresh air after the grim middle seasons, in fact. Which I think made the absolute let down of season 7 even worse.

Most of 'what went wrong' is usually laid at the feet of Jason Rothenberg, the developer and head executive producer. Basically, the guy seems to be kind of a major dick.

Season 6 was meant to act as a sort of reset of the series (which was why S5 ended with the 'end of book 1' thing--and yes there was a big writer change up for seasons six and seven because of the heavy space/sci-fi aspect of it all), and in my opinion, it worked fairly well. (Yes, some areas of the plot seemed to be recycled from earlier storylines, but I didn't see it as a bad thing, more as a chance for the characters to grow from their previous actions.)

But, then a lot seemed to be happening off screen around the airing of S6 and the filming of S7 that soured things between him and some of the cast members and the fandom. (I am only bringing up what I remember as being relevant to the question of 'why season seven was the way that it was' not an entire laundry list of all behind the scenes drama someone else either has done or could do that.)

Since season 3 if not before, JR was hounded on social media by pretty much every faction of the fandom (but predominantly the Bellarke and Clexa fans) replying in bad faith to anything he tweeted with demands for what they want rather than engaging with his actual tweets. Like, tweeting 'we want Bellarke' or 'we want Clexa' to things that have nothing to even do with the show. This got worse and more vitriolic after Lexa's death and after Bellamy got with Echo.

He always seemed to have the attitude that the show was more high brow or some shit than the usual CW show (even though it's on the same damn network with a lot of the same audiences), and was above shipping and romance, and seemed to resent how often interviews, panels, and press would ask about the ships (canon and potentially future). He and others made statements at various points that might have been intended in a way that the fandom did not take it to be, causing a lot of friction.

Bob Morley (Bellamy) and Eliza Taylor (Clarke) got married in May of 2019 and announced it on social media the following month, during the airing of season 6. In fact, during one of the first episodes of the highly teased Clarke/Josephine body snatching storyline, likely stealing a lot of the fandom's attention away from the show.

Bob injured himself at some point during filming for one of the seasons, and at some point during the writing or filming of season 7, he asked for more time to recover. JR responded by basically writing out his character, and then writing in an ending for Bellamy that makes hardly any sense.

After Season 6, Jason decided he wanted to end the series with season 7 and 'give it a proper ending', while at the same time the series prequel was starting to be developed. Speculation on my part, but with the CW's go-ahead to work on the prequel and use an episode of S7 as a backdoor pilot, the announcement to end The 100 was probably more in service to transitioning over to the new show rather than ending The 100. The writing and characters of The 100 were consequently de-prioritized in favor of the writing for this 'new' character (Bill Cadogan) and his story.

Eliza was also supposed to direct Episode 7 of Season 7, but suffered a miscarriage around that time and couldn't direct. I do not know the exact timeline of events, but I think writing for the end of the season was still happening at that point, and in one of the last episodes of the season the show has Clarke basically mourning the loss of her dead daughter who was tortured into being catatonic. Again, don't know if that was already written at the point of her miscarriage, but like??? Seems like something that could have been avoided.

I'm sure there is a hell of a lot more that I just can't remember right now, so if anyone else wants to chime in, be my guest.

[castiellesbian]

i feel like i need a glossary of terms or a contact list for all these people involved with the show. i have shit memory and dont pay attention to the credits who is sera (sara??) and why does everyone hate her!! why is he Bobo!!!!!! please... has anyone posted about this im desperate

lol well including everyone involved with the show would be difficult, but I’ll give you some highlights

Eric Kripke: creator of Supernatural, showrunner for seasons 1-5. People have differing opinions about him but general people enjoyed his run and he’s considered the best showrunner in the series overall. Not much to say because there’s a lot to say lmao (notable episodes: “Pilot,” “Lazarus Rising,” and “Swan Song”)

Sera Gamble: writer who was involved from the beginning of the show, became showrunner after Kripke left. Her seasons, 6 and 7, are typically regarded as the weakest seasons. She was a huge brothers-only supporter, and was responsible for Misha being written out of the show (as well as Jim Beaver, Bobby) in order to get the show to just be about the brothers again. There’s a lot of drama regarding her treatment of Misha/Cas, but more recently she’s known for the Magicians debacle, a horrendous example of the Bury Your Gays trope. She’s also involved with (the showrunner of?) You on Netflix. She was a pretty good writer, but overall fans dislike her because of her showrunning tenure (notable episodes: “Faith” with Raelle Tucker, “Death’s Door,” “The Born-Again Identity”)

Jeremy Carver: writer from season 3 that was promoted to showrunner from seasons 8 through.... some time in 12, the timeline has been a little murky to me. He was the one who brought Cas back into the main plot, as well as allowing the deancas storyline to become genuine subtext (we can argue whether it was queerbaiting or what he was intending to do if he had been running the series finale, but yeah). Unfortunately, he was also the showrunner when Charlie was killed off brutally, which dampens his legacy. People are conflicted about his seasons, but generally he’s looked upon favorably (not related, but the picture that comes up when you search him on google is NOT him, he’s really like a typical white nerdy looking dude lol) (notable episodes: “The Rapture,” “Sacrifice,” “Do You Believe in Miracles?”)

Andrew Dabb: writer from season 4, promoted to showrunner during season 12 and is the last showrunner of Supernatural (he wrote the finale). He was well-liked by deancas fans for awhile because of how much screentime they were allowed to give, and because of the focus on extended/found family. Sam and Dean only fans didn’t like him for the same reasons. Unfortunately, HIS legacy has been marred by the awful series finale, though it’s debated whether that was his fault or because of network meddling. (notable episodes: “Dark Side of the Moon” with Daniel Loflin, “The Prisoner,” “Moriah”)

Robert Singer: executive producer since the beginning of the show (he’s also co-showrunner throughout Supernatural, but I don’t think he typically was involved with the plotlines too often). He’s directed quite a few episodes, including the infamous wire fight episode (s13 finale) as well as the series finale. Married to Eugenie Ross-Leming, writer of the show

Eugenie Ross-Leming/Brad Buckner: writing partners TECHNICALLY from season 1, but they only wrote one episode until they were brought back in season 7. They are regarded as the worst writers in all of Supernatural, responsible for tactless death scenes of fan-favorites (and typically minorities) like Kevin, Charlie, and Eileen. They also feature a gross amount of dubcon/noncon, racism, weird unnecessary sex stuff, and are SUPER into Lucifer for some unknown reason (they have a crush on Mark Pellegrino I guess). They’re also just kind of bad writers in general, their pacing is weird and their plots convoluted. To be fair, though, they have written some good moments, like Dean trying to reach Cas in Hell’s Angel and Dean’s confessional scene in Paint It Black. But overall, they suck. Why are they still on the show even though BOTH sides of the fandom (who never agree on ANYTHING) dislike them? Well, because Eugenie is married to Singer. Nepotism. (notable episodes, the ones I can stand to watch lmao: “Holy Terror,” “Hell’s Angel,” “Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven”)

Ben Edlund: writer from season 2 who left after season 8, but people STILL talk about him simply because he is arguably the strongest writer of the series. Cas fans particularly like him because he did most of the heavy-lifting regarding Cas’ characterization. He also wrote the famous bi!Dean scene with Aaron in season 8, where Dean is flustered after being flirted with. (notable episodes: “On the Head of a Pin,” “The French Mistake,” and my all-time favorite “The Man Who Would Be King”)

Robert “Bobo” Berens: writer from season 9, his first episode was “Heaven Can’t Wait,” which is all you really need to know about his influence on the deancas storyline. He’s also gay, so people particularly enjoy seeing how he approaches destiel in his episodes since it’s not just another straight guy potentially just catering to fans. He was also the one who was meant to go off and run Wayward Sisters, and is responsible for a lot of their development in recent seasons. I believe he also created Rowena? He wrote the episode this season where Cas confesses his love to Dean (along with other heavy deancas episodes like “The Trap”). Sam fans typically don’t like him because he doesn’t give him much focus. (notable episodes: “Heaven Can’t Wait,” “Who We Are,” “Wayward Sisters” with Andrew Dabb)

Steve Yockey: writer from season 12 through the beginning of season 15. Also gay, and also responsible for deancas moments in recent years. Generally loved for his deancas subtext but ALSO because he is an amazing writer who came out with iconic episodes. (notable episodes: “Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox,” “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets,” “Peace of Mind” with Meghan Fitzmartin)

Robbie Thompson: writer from seasons 7 through 11, and wrote some fan favorite episodes in the meantime. He is also the creator of fan favorite characters like Charlie and Eileen. He was also one of the few writers who was vocally supportive of destiel during his tenure rather than just later. I’m not implying anything about his intentions, but it was validating for him to encourage fans during a time where most of the cast/crew ignored or actively dismissed it. Plus his episodes are just fun! (notable episodes: “LARP and the Real Girl,” “Fan Fiction,” “Baby”)

Meredith Glynn: writer since season 12, has worked closely with Bobo during their seasons together. She and Bobo cowrote “The Future,” which is the mixtape episode, so she has been taken in by deancas fans haha. She also wrote the episode where Cas makes the deal with the Empty, so it’s pretty safe to say she and Bobo had worked on the deancas plotline together :) She’s also liked some deancas-related tweets on twitter, so she’s being subtly supportive (notable episodes: “Regarding Dean,” “The Future” with Robert Berens, “Byzantium”)

Davy Perez: writer since season 12 (a lot of the ones I’ve mentioned are, since this is when Dabb became showrunner and made changes in the writers room). His episodes tend to either be horror or bizarre. I mention him because he’s responsible for episodes like “Stuck in the Middle (With You)” (Cas’ first “I love you”) and “Tombstone” (aka Brokebacknatural lmao). I don’t know much about him otherwise, but that’s why he’s brought up usually (notable episodes: “Stuck in the Middle (With You),” “Tombstone,” “Atomic Monsters”)

hopefully this helps, and hopefully I didn’t forget about anyone major. There have been a LOT of people behind the scenes so it’s hard to say who to include. Like, I didn’t mention Jerry Wanek, Jim Michaels, Kim Manners, Thomas J. Wright, or others who might be mentioned from time to time.

[lol-jackles]

Can you explain how residuals work? How long someone receives them and if the amount and time varies depending on contract? Would an actor/actress from a wildly successful show on one of the 3 major networks, let's use Friends or Seinfeld as an example, be able to make a living on their residuals?

Boy you really want me to lose readers by boring them into a coma.

Let’s make this super easy. For reruns in syndication, the actor is paid 40% of the minimum rate for the first rerun program, dropping to 30% for the second rerun, 25% for the third rerun, and so on until it reaches 5% of the original fee the actor was paid for their appearance if the episode for the 12th rerun and beyond. There are also residuals for foreign telecasts of the program; these are arrived at using an entirely different formula based upon the distributor's foreign gross.

Let’s use Gunther from Friends and make it super-super easy by saying the show is on it’s 13th rerun.  In season 1, the actor earned $5,000 per episode and appeared in six episodes so his total salary was $30,000 and his residual is $1,500 every time season 1 airs.  In season 2, the actor appeared in 16 episodes and earned $10,000 per episode so his total salary is $160,000 and his residual is $8,000 everytime season 2 airs.   For seasons 3 and 4, he earned $20,000 per episode, earning $600,000 and earning $30,000 every time season 3 and 4 airs. For seasons 5 and 6, 37 episodes, he earned $30,000 per episode, $1.11 million for those seasons and his residual is $55,500 everytime season 5 and 6 airs.   For the remainder of the series, 62 episodes in which he appeared, he earned $40,000 per episode. That's $2.48 million for the seasons and $124,000 everytime season 7,8,9, 10 airs.  Add it all up and Gunther’s total residual is  $220,000 everytime all 10 Friends seasons air per local station.  So yes, Gunther can live off his residuals for the rest of his life.

Of course residual calculation is far more complex and gets really hairy when you throw in streaming and dvd sales and the foreign market.

Yes the residuals does vary by contract for big TV stars because they will have clauses in their contracts that allow them to earn far more money than the base amount covered by a SAG-AFTRA contract.  Jared’s future Walker residuals are negotiated between him and Rideback production company at the time of when he signed onto the role.

My stupidly simplistic speculation for Supernatural cast --- everytime all 15 seasons of SPN airs on TNT.....

Jared gets $3 million total.

Jensen gets $2.2 million total.

Misha gets $120K total.       

And remember kids, this is before tax, agent, lawyer, managers take their 50% total cut.  Once TNT decreases airtime for SPN reruns or stops all together, then the residuals are drastically reduced or runs out.

All residuals will decrease over time because the rates are usually based upon the performer receiving decreasing fractions of their initial payments even after the amounts reach cents per episode.  Drake was a cast member of Degrassi and twenty years later posted an image of his residuals paycheck on Instagram, it was $8.25.   The Big Bang Theory Mayim Bialik wrote on her Instagram that she got a net pay of one cent for her guest appearance in Doogie Howser, M.D twenty five years earlier.  Garrett Wang showed off his residual check for twenty four cents (X) on twitter thirteen years after Star Trek Voyager went off the air. 

I’ve suspected for a long time that Jared gets percentage of Supernatural profits in syndication, so after his terms of residuals run out he will still be reaping syndication profits for, well, forever.  I don’t think Jensen has the same deal partly because his old manager appears to be a tick and his former WME agent doesn’t appear to be any better.  So Jensen makes up for some of the pay gap between him and Jared by directing episode so he can collect director residuals.  Next, Jensen license his music to the show to get royalties in lieu of syndication percentages.

[spookyboogie3]

The trope Last Minute Hookup shouldn’t be used for LGBTQ+ relationships.

AND DEFENDING MY LAST POST ABOUT THIS.

I DO NOT hate any of these pairings. A good many of them could have been handled differently by the creators, writers, and networks. But this isnt me hating the relationships or characters or shows. Just going off about how they shouldnt have been tacked on at the end of their respective series. 

As of writing this all of these shows have ended their original runs. Except for Supernatural which is on its last few episodes. And Supergirl, which announced its coming to end with season 6.

LGBTQ characters and relationships aren’t as common in the media as straight-cis characters and relationships. Sure things are improving but a lot of networks and writers still don’t fully understand why representation is important why they can’t keep using the same throwaway tropes they’ve been using for the straight-cis relationships.

You could name any piece of media and find and name one character that isn’t LGBTQ+, but you can’t do this with LGBTQ+ characters. We haven’t gotten to the point where they are as common as non-LGBTQ characters.

I have a whole paper I wrote on why asexual representation is important to have in the media and the same logic applies to any part of the LGBTQ+ or anything that falls under minority.

Back to the topic on hand. The trope of “Last Minute Hookup.”

Its exactly what it sounds like. Characters get to together at the very end of the story. These characters could have a on and off again relationship, lots of ship teasing, the classic “Will They or Wont They?” trope. What makes it different for non-LGBT characters in relationships to do this, we know what these relationships look like. Not to say the that both Non and LGBT relationship cant have similar struggles, however members of the LGBTQ+ community know how hard it is to feel like your identity and self matters and is normal.

I know that the whole “will they, wont they” thing is done for drama and networks and showrunners think if they give the fans what they want that they’ll start losing viewers and they have nothing to look forward to. Which is true to some degree. But most of this comes from the writers not knowing how to fucking write relationships.

Let’s just focus on whats it like to be in a non-straight relationship.

Heres an example: you have an action series, with 2 male leads and halfway through the show, they get together. Cool. Now you have a Battle Couple.

By making LGBTQ relationships happen at the end of a series that’s already had plenty of other non-LGBTQ relationships happen before it, it makes it look like the people in charge don’t care for it or were afraid of backlash. But it’s the end of the series so its not like they can get the show cancelled or anything. (The only people who are going to lash out at LGBT couple or characters are homophobic people, we don’t want them around any way so just make stuff super gay, so they’ll leave)

This is especially a problem when the writer and network have spent the whole series queerbaiting the audience with these characters.

 Side note for anyone is doesn’t actually know what queerbaiting is:

It’s a marketing technique used in entertainment, which the writer or creators hint at but then don’t actually depict sex-same romance or LGBTQ representation. They do this to attract (bait) the LGBT/queer or straight ally audience into the show with the suggestion of representation but at the same time avoiding this as not alienate other audience members *cough* (homophobes) *cough*

Definition is from Wikipedia, not a reliable source says my highschool teachers and college professors but fuck em

The Legend of Korra is a great example of Last-Minute Hookup. Korra and Asami had VERY little ship teasing, and that was in the last 2 books/seasons. Any thing that was perceived as romantic came from the fans wearing shipping goggles. So to a lot of people just casually watching, yes this looked like it came out of nowhere. Nickelodeon had some serious balls to say how brave they were for putting 2 girls into a romantic relationship.

Theres a few problems with this.

A. It never actually aired on TV (to my knowledge). The last 2 seasons of Korra were put on Nicks website.

B. The confirmation that this Korrasami was canon had to come from the creators on twitter because of how unclear it was.

C. The show did the bare minimum when it came to hooking them up in the series. They walk off holding hands (very cute btw). They didn’t even get a kiss. Aang and Katara had a Last Minute Hookup at the end of ATLA after 3 seasons of ship tease and THEY GOT A KISS. Hell the original end of LoK*, has Korra and Mako kissing. *(the first season, they didn’t know they were getting more seasons at the time, no matter what you hear the writers say, they’re full of shit)

D. Anything continuation of Korra has come in the form of comics, which her and Asami are in a fairly well written relationship. Yes, they do kiss. Yes it would’ve been great to see this stuff happen in series.

A show that handles this a little bit better is Adventure Time. Not by much though. It implied several times that Princess Bubblegum and Marceline have history together and its shown more and more in its last few seasons that there is some ship tease happening. However its not until the finale where they kiss, and they are shown in the last minute of the show cuddling together in Marcy’s house. HBO has picked up Adventure Time and has a miniseries called Adventure Time: Distant Lands, where Bubblegum and Marceline’s past relationship is shown.  

I had brought up in my original post about being upset with networks making LGBTQ+ relationships canon in the last season/episode. I originally had Catradora tagged. While Catra and Adora have history together, they did not become official couple until the end of the series.

Yes, I was wrong about the network making things canon in the last episode as they’ve always had ship tease with each other, and it probably was the writers’ intent to put them together by the end. They do technically fall under the Last-Minute Hookup, however.

I wanna talk about Once Upon a Time really quick. Fans of the show were hoping and wishing for an LGBTQ couple for the show as a lot of characters, especially Regina and Emma, have alot Ho Yay moments. The showrunners weren’t going to put those two together, for whatever reasons they may have for that (im indifferent on all the shipping going on with this show). The showrunners thought to put two characters together, and hoo boy did it not make people happy. The characters they put together are Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Ruby the red riding hood, which would be fine if they had properly been developed.

The entire episode they did this in was a mess. They stopped the current arc during the season 5 episode ‘Ruby Slippers,’ to go over the characters that haven’t been seen in years, Dorothy was introduced and last seen in season 3, and Ruby was introduced in season 1 and was last seen in season 5 before ‘Ruby Slippers’. The characters get together in the same episode the meet in and are never seen again. The characters barely interacted, barely got along, and showed little to no ship tease or interest in each other and BOOM they are in love and together aaaaaannnnndd they’re gone. Other than having One Million Moms, a Christian fundamentalist organization, protest against the show and want it taken off the air (yes this really happened). The fans weren’t please with this development of the characters either.  

(also Mulan was right there and already knew Ruby from a previous episode, and Mulan already is established to like girls as shown by her being in love with Aurora. Don’t know why the writers didn’t just put these 2 together but whatever I guess)

So they tried again in season 7 with MadArcher. The characters of Alice, a version of Alice in Wonderland from another realm (its complicated) and Robin, the daughter of Robin Hood and the Wicked Witch (it’s also complicated). And the writers did a lot better here. Both characters were allowed to have time together and have a history together too and it was done over the whole season. Not just one episode.

Now even though the writers decided to do something different with the last season and it could be detached from the previous 6 seasons, MadArcher is not really a Last Minute Hookup per say but still falls under my thing about it being the last season so who gives a fuck if One Million Moms gets mad us and tries to get us cancelled again.

 I would like to say I have never watched a single episode of Supernatural in my life. I may one day. But as of right now my knowledge of it is coming primary from what ive seen on tumblr. You know a great source for doing research and looking for reliable information among the piles of shitposting.

From what I know from fans, the writers of Supernatural have been queer baiting for years. I mean it’s the CW, I’m not that surprised. What also wouldn’t surprise me, that by the end of the series Castiel is back and he and Dean actually start and relationship or strongly hint at starting one. I actually fear for the writer lives if they threw out a confession scene after years of queerbaiting and potential ship tease (debatable) and they don’t put them together. Fans are going to be angrier than they probably ever have been with this show and the showrunners and writers really would be known for queer baiting.

From what I know about how previous shows have done and if anyone that has ever worked on this show wants to continue living, Castiel will be back from Super Hell (is that what yall are calling it?) and he will get together with Dean. And they will fall under the Last-Minute Hookup trope and my networks make LGBTQ relationships canon last season.

 One last show I want to talk about is Supergirl, which in has been recently announced that the 6th season will be the last. The show started on CBS but moved to the CW after the end of season 1. So more CW bullshit. There is no confirmation about whether the CW or any of the Supergirl writers are planning to do this, its all speculation. Supergirl is more LGBTQ friendly than some other shows on the Network. One of the main characters came out a few years ago and had a girlfriend a season and has had plenty of hookups with other ladies around the Arrowverse. They even introduced a trans-woman superhero in the form of Dreamer.

Let’s talk SuperCorp. Lena Luthor was introduced in the 2nd season and has been a major character in Kara’s life ever since her introduction. Even if she isn’t involved in the plot, Kara always goes to her to talk and check in on her and worry about her. They are best friends. Since the 2 have met, there has been plenty of Les Yay going on. The writers seem to be aware of the fans wanting SuperCorp to be canon and they keep throwing in moments like Kara and Lena struggling together or Kara carrying Lena bridal style.

Why I bring this up after the announcement of Supergirl’s final season to start next year. We may get SuperCorp. Kara has a relationship with William in the show and not a single person likes this relationship. The writers may scrap it and get put Kara and Lena together for the final season. This is a big maybe though. The Supergirl writers and crew get called out a lot for queerbaiting.

   Let me know if you guys have any other examples of last season/last episode LGBTQ+ hookup.

And please let me know if you see any mistakes. This was all done in one sitting so I may have some things wrong.

Also check out the video by @aretheygayvideos on this topic too.

[mittensmorgul]

Hi Mittens, I have a question. Maybe you've already touched on this in the past, so sorry 😬 But was spn actually "supposed" to end after season 5? I see a lot of people saying that (often using it as justification on why the show should have ended 10 years ago 😒), and I'm just curious if there's truth to it. Was spn actually set up to be a 5 season arc, but then had the support to keep going? Or was there actually no plan to stop after season 5 at all? (Thanks! I love you and your blog btw)

Hi hi! And first off, I’m gonna apologize for how long it took me to reply to this. The timestamp from the inbox:

July 22nd 2019, 12:49:48 pm · 23 days ago

I’m so, so sorry... between gish, a week of vacation, and now trying to get my house ready to sell/move... I’ve... not been around as much as usual. Hopefully that will be changing and I’ll be able to start digging out even older ask messages now >.>

The history of the early years of the show is pretty straightforward, but it’s been built up over the years to a weird degree by fandom. I’ll start by debunking Kripke’s “five year plan” as if it was something that existed from day 1 as a set-in-stone story arc. I wrote this in reply to another post a few days ago (or, compiled might be more accurate, since it’s a lot of links to Kripke quotes and interviews):

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/186959549455/vidya-sankolgar

and that post was written in response to THIS one, which does directly discuss Kripke’s “five year plan.”

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/186956985035/1-im-rewatching-spn-are-there-are-some-things

Kripke has talked a lot over the years about how the vision for the series evolved, from a simple little horror show about two brothers driving around and confronting urban legends and ghost stories that just happened to be real, to the vast cosmology of the Supernatural universe we know today. I mean, it’s incredibly simple to realize that the “five year plan” couldn’t possibly have existed from the start because Kripke had said for the first three years of the show that there would never be Angels on SPN... until he decided there would be.

In the first season, there was a one year plan. They were HIGHLY uncertain whether there’d be a second season at all. Same in the second season. They were writing season-long arcs that could technically stand alone, you know? Then s3, with the writer’s strike, they weren’t even sure they’d get a 16 episode season, or if they’d become yet another victim of the strike season (a LOT of shows didn’t survive that, and Supernatural was TRULY on the bubble). 3.12 was very nearly the SERIES finale.

Kripke has said in MANY interviews that 4.01, and the introduction of Castiel, was the first time he truly felt like the show had achieved security, and he could feel confident writing s4 to an ending that would set up another season. Then at the beginning of s5, he planned to bring the series to a close... except whoopsie! The CW wanted MORE! So Kripke passed the reins to Sera Gamble and moved on... Who the heck knew that Supernatural had legs to keep going for another whole DECADE after that?

I started watching Supernatural back during the era of “ooh, will THIS be the last season?” And that was... season 7... so... they were still going year to year through about s10 when the network issued them a blanket pass going into s11, essentially, and that’s when the story TRULY started to open up to its full potential.

So while Kripke may have written s5 as if it would be the last season, that’s how he wrote pretty much EVERY season of his era, because they never knew going in if it WOULD be the last...

[ncfan-1]

ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S1 EP034 (’Anatomy Class’), EP035 (’Old Passages’), & EP036 (’Taken Ill’)

A bizarre kind of comedy episode (at least it is to me), and lots of juicy, juicy plot.

No spoilers past Season 1, please!

EP 034: ‘Anatomy Class’

- There is something bizarrely hilarious about the story this episode. Yeah, the seven ‘students’ killed at least one person and drove a professor to suicide, but there’s just something so ridiculous about beings who are pretending to be human but are so bad at it that they have to take an anatomy class, and can’t hide it well enough to keep their professor from noticing. And they used placeholder names, and presumably had to exert a considerable amount of supernatural influence (presumably the same influence that keeps more people from noticing that they’re really bad at pretending to be human) to keep people from noticing how off that is. It has all the makings of a weird, gory comedy.

- Here is, I believe, our third statement so far given directly by the statement-maker. This time, it’s a college professor who seems more than a little rattled by everything that happened to him.

- And now we have our first indication that people from outside the Institute know there’s an infestation problem.

- So Dr. Elliott walks into his class to find it populated entirely by pod people. He takes this as well as you might expect.

- The fact that these people are so uncanny and that there seems to be a lot of supernatural “interference” radiating off of them (the fact that Dr. Elliott can’t remember what any of them looked like, and the fact that he didn’t notice anything odd about their names) makes me think a little of Not-Graham. At the same time, though, their ability to manipulate their own bones puts me in mind of Jared Hopworth. I wonder if a bone turner could create a new person from pilfered bones and black magic.

- The detail about Dr. Elliott suddenly being able to hear them breathing is… something. Although he doesn’t seem to want to think about it, the fact that he could only hear them breathing after a certain point implies that they weren’t breathing before.

- They’re very brazen, these seven, altering their bones right in front of the professor, when they must know he can hear them, and probably guess what’s happening. It implies that they are very secure in their ability to escape any and all consequences, which means it’s just as well that Dr. Elliott never confronted any of them about what he had been seeing and hearing.

- I’m sorry. I know the thing with the hearts is supposed to be horrific, but it’s funny. When I listen to this scene, I find myself close to snickering by the end.

- What really makes it funny is that the ‘students’ were polite enough to clean up the lab after they coated it in blood.

- And the tooth-apple is so bizarre I start giggling to myself when I think about it. Jonathan’s reluctant “Did you… eat it?” just makes it even better. Why would they do that? How would they do that?

- I know there’s no reason to believe the other professor didn’t commit suicide, but the first time I listened to this episode, I’d assumed he was so bad at teaching to the ‘students’’ satisfaction that they had killed him, and left that note because they thought that even his corpse would be worthless for educational purposes.

EP 035: ‘Old Passages’

- This is another favorite, not least because we have another appearance of Gerard Keay, and because I think this is the first episode where we’re really presented with a vague outline of the other forces at work in the world besides humanity.

- So I looked them up (being an American, I don’t know these things off the top of my head), and apparently Pall Mall is a swanky shopping district/home to prestigious clubs. The Reform Club is one of those, a private club that was men-only until 1881; if Wikipedia is to be believed, it was the first of London’s gentlemen clubs to open its doors to female members. It’s a popular haunt of political progressives.

- Robert Smirke was a real-life architect. As best as I can tell (I didn’t dig too deep; I don’t have that kind of time), his association with the occult is native to The Magnus Archives.

- And here comes Gerard, a skinny teenager in 2002 with a band t-shirt and a portable CD player. I had one of those. I’ve noticed that people heavily associated with the supernatural shrug a lot.

- The implication here seems to be that Mary Keay sent her kid down to some incredibly dangerous tunnel network to pick up a Leitner book for her. Lady, why don’t you do that yourself instead of sending your kid to risk his neck? What the hell.

- I think this is also my first semi-direct glimpse of Jurgen Leitner, and he sounds about as sketchy as I had thought he’d be. “Some things are too powerful to be owned.” And yet you’re meddling with them anyways.

- “Can you smell it?” Can Gerard sense the supernatural, or something?

- I wonder what the scream was about.

- There are fourteen passages out from the star, including the one Harold, Rachel, Alf, and Gerard went in through. And several of those fourteen are extremely reminiscent of entities/phenomena that’s been experienced in other statements in Season 1.

1. The one they walk in through out of the basement gives Alf and Harold a sense of claustrophobia, similar to ‘Lost John’s Cave.’

2. One is so dark that the flashlights could only penetrate a couple of feet before the light failed—‘A Father’s Love’ and ‘Growing Dark.’

3. One, if you look into it, makes you feel like you’re falling into it—the sense of vertigo induced in some readers by Ex Altiorā in ‘Page Turner.’

4. One makes you feel like you’re burning—‘Burned Out’ (and ‘Confession’), and the later ‘Burnt Offering.’

5. Pages covered in cobwebs—‘Arachnophobia’, ‘Burned Out’ (Tangentially).

6. The one Gerard runs down to get the book has walls covered in what is almost certainly blood—‘The Man Upstairs’ and ‘Killing Floor.’

7. One has at the end of the corridor a stranger Harold was certain meant him harm—the Not-Them, perhaps, seen in ‘Across the Street’, and later in the finale.

So… Fourteen passages, fourteen parent entities? Or was that just Smirke’s assumption?

- Jurgen Leitner has definitely been messing with things he shouldn’t have been.

- The inscription on the date stone, “Balance and fear,” makes the audio distort.

- I wonder if there’s any significance to Robert Smirke having built this in 1835.

- The book Gerard grabs seems to drop small animal bones behind it; this is almost certainly the book the ghost of Mary Keay (if that was even Mary Keay at all) showed Dominic Swain in ‘Page Turner.’

- I’d say the owners of the Reform Club know at least part of what’s up with that star and those passages, for them to insist that the builders rebuild the wall and not pry into it any further. So what’s up with them?

- “And I can’t help but wonder whether that was where they were found, or just where they were stored.” Which suggests that Jurgen Leitner’s books are far more vital to the plot than even past episodes would suggest.

- Tim’s interest in architecture, and Robert Smirke in particular makes me wonder if said interest will come up again.

- Smirke wanted to design churches? Uh, Jonathan, I wouldn’t be so certain he wasn’t designing churches, or at least chapels, considering the one we saw in ‘Growing Dark.’

- I think this is the first time we see worms loose in the Institute building.

- The last bit of the episode is devoted to Martin running into two deliverymen who it’s safe to say are from Breekon & Hope, delivering something to the Archives. Which is fairly ominous, to be honest.

EP 036: ‘Taken Ill’

- This one has a great atmosphere to it.

- As Jonathan pointed out, the way Nicole talks about her fears, and about insects and decay, and her use of the phrase “bleed into” is very similar to Jane Prentiss’s narration in ‘Hive.’ I get the impression that perhaps whatever was behind the deterioration of the nursing home in this episode is connected to the Flesh Hive, or is perhaps part of the same parent entity. After being touched by the pus oozing from that corpse, maybe Nicole got a flash of that visceral feeling, too.

- This one is kind of hard, because both of my grandfathers live in nursing homes. My maternal grandfather has dementia and can’t be cared for at home. It would be perhaps more accurate to say that my paternal grandfather is in assisted living; he’s close to ninety and has gotten to be very frail, and after he had a stroke, he decided he needed to be somewhere he could get immediate medical attention if something went wrong again. I don’t like the idea of someone exploitative taking over their homes.

- “I don’t know why I wrote ‘disease’ just then.” I think I do.

- It’s interesting that Alenka was still trying to call Nicole after the nursing home was decommissioned and John Amherst came in and started enforcing the “new order.”  It sounds like he tried to enforce that new order unilaterally, without the consent of at least some of the staff who remained after it was decommissioned.

- The detail about the heat is important to the episode, I think. In my experience, the summer heat is oppressive, and especially so because summer here is so humid. It’s thick and close and cloying; the air is too damp for your sweat to evaporate and cool you off, so it just sticks to you while you get hotter and hotter and hotter. I’ve heard it’s very humid in the UK as well, so I imagine summer feels much the same there as it does here.

- I’m guessing John Amherst is one of those people who’s only human in appearance. I can’t see any normal, conscious human not reacting as a fly crawls over their eye.

- It sounds like Amherst was trying to turn the entire building into one big pus-oozing wound.

- The fact that the pus could make Nicole’s skin burn even through a (presumably latex) glove gives the lie to Amherst’s claim that what killed Miller wasn’t contagious. If you didn’t automatically assume he was lying, that is.

- Nicole’s uncle seemed to grasp at least part of what had happened to Bertrand Miller. Why the calls he made didn’t result in the nursing home being cracked down on, I can’t imagine—I can only assume the reasons fell under some category of “Not my problem.” At least he tried, anyways.

- I can just imagine the uneasy pall over everything as Nicole drove back to Ivy Meadows that last time. I can just see the sky turning red as the afternoon grew older and the shadows growing—no breeze, nothing to break the rolling walls of heat. Just still air, so close it’s hard to breathe.

- The detail about the plants turning white reminds me of the plants in front of the farmhouse in The Colour Out of Space.

- Alenka banging on the window, it becoming clear her last phone call was a last-ditch cry for help, is a horrible moment, even before the flies enter the picture. Because we just see her. What about the residents still trapped in the building with her?

- It’s clear that the man who tackles Nicole is Trevor Herbert. This is the first time since ‘Vampire Hunter’ that we’ve seen someone out and about with the explicit purpose of hunting down and destroying supernatural threats (Well, asides from Gerard Keay, but there’s a caveat there in that I can’t tell if he proactively hunts them, or if this shit just sort of happens to him). They’re thematically linked, and the physical descriptions match up. This, despite the fact that Trevor Herbert is supposed to be dead. Don’t know who the woman with him is supposed to be; I hope we’ll see her again.

- The fact that John Amherst doesn’t seem to even officially exist further suggests that whatever he is, he’s not human.

- “Workplace accident.” Yeah, sure. I hope, at least, that getting rid of the hand means that the infection can’t spread any further.

- And Jonathan finds out about the deliveries. The smaller of the two packages is a lighter with a spider web design on it, and the larger is… worrying. The table from ‘Across the Street.’ Oh, that’s not good.