#i get that episodes like this are often fix-it fics for the writer's own messed up parents and i understand that

[artemispanthar]

I thought my opinion on the episode where Monk meets his dad might have softened after all these years, but nope it is still absolutely infuriating. Like this guy ditches his family basically because he was tired of them (and the show makes it clear this abandonment had a profound effect on Adrian [who was 8 at the time] and his mother and brother) and then calls up his son for the first time like 40 years later solely to get out of jail, proceeds to act like a dismissive jerk the whole episode talking about his other son from his second family the whole time, gets angry and blames Adrian and his brother's mental disorders for why he ditched them when they were kids, and then just barely apologizes for anything and we're supposed to be okay with all that because he teaches Adrian to ride a bike at the end. Like it is just as frustrating as I remembered it. Like I cannot believe Greg Universe co-wrote this.

[recurring-polynya]

What are your thoughts on Bazz-B? He and Renji seemed to have developed a good rapport and I feel that they would’ve been good frenemies had be survived. I can imagine them exchanging fashion tips which would have interesting results!

I imagine that in another universe, they could have been friends, but I feel like the fact that Bazz grievously injured/ambiguously killed one of Renji’s best friends would put a big damper on that.

I really, really, really do not like the Sternritters. I don’t even like them as villains. Out of them, Bazz is probably the least objectionable, but I still don’t like him.

Here are a few thoughts on why, but I’m gonna put them under a cut, because that’s my policy when I say critical things about characters. If you like the Sternritters, I’m glad for you and please feel free to skip the rest of this post!

One of the major themes of Bleach has always been about moral ambiguity, that people are rarely pure heroes or villains. In the earliest episodes, Rukia warns Ichigo to kill Hollows from behind, to never try to glimpse the person they once were, advice that Ichigo roundly rejects as he’s constant turns enemies into friends/allies. This works really well at the beginning of the series and... less well each time we got through this.

My understanding is that Kubo’s original plan for Bleach ended after the Soul Society Arc, and that makes sense to me, because it seems so well plotted out to me, and then the subsequent arcs just seems to try to be recapturing the magic. The thing that is coolest to me about this arc is that the shinigami characters have real depth, and that our initial impressions of them are insufficient. The Gotei is going through an existential crisis, where an injustice (Rukia’s execution) is being prosecuted, and in addition, Aizen has laid a groundwork of mistrust and misinformation. You have characters like Renji, Kira, and Hinamori, who are torn between their orders and deep personal feelings. You have bystanders like Hisagi and Komamura, who don’t really have skin in the game, but feel a sense of unease about the way things are going. You have characters who seem sympathetic-- when Aizen comforts Hinamori that Renji won’t be fired, and the fact that Tousen seems to be someone who would be on the side of justice if only he had the full story, that turn out to be disingenuous. Then you have characters like Kenpachi, who, at least in the second half of the arc, is on Ichigo’s side, but not really for any noble reason, just because he likes Ichigo and also he wants an excuse to fight other captains. There’s Kurotsuchi, who is nominally on the side of the good guys, but is not, in fact, a good person. By the end of the arc, I feel like Kubo has done a really good job of presenting a diverse group of people who live in a flawed system and who were played by someone who took advantage of that. I have no objection at all to the idea that Ichigo considers many of the shinigami his friends afterward, including a very strong friendship with Renji, who is presented as a villain initially.

The Arrancar arc, is more of a mixed bag for me. I still think it mostly works. Arrancar are not humans. They follow Aizen, but in some ways, they are also his victims-- post-Arc, I don’t find myself begrudging any of the surviving Espada for having gone along with him. They are Hollows, and they come from a life of violence and anger and brutality. They have risen above that, which means different things to the various Espada. Harribel, Starkk and Nel are all sympathetic, even tragic characters. Nnoitra and Szyalapollo are monstrous, but in the way that terrible humans are monstrous. Grimmjow is an interesting character, because he falls somewhere in the middle.

I read a fair amount of GrimmIchi fic, because a) it often features Renruki as a side ship and b) there are a lot of really, really talented GrimmIchi writers, but I do not love the ship for it’s own sake, and it’s mainly for one reason: Grimmjow purposely hurt Ichigo’s friends in front of him, and I do not think that’s a thing Ichigo would take lightly. Now, one of the things that make GrimmIchi writers so good is that they are often willing to do the heavy lifting of examining Grimmjow’s brutality, and way Ichigo views the Hollow within himself (for some people, this is even one of the attractions of the pairing). We get a lot of canon scenes with Grimmjow in various situations-- when he backtalks Aizen, when he “rescues” Orihime from Loly and Menoly, when he tries to get her to heal Ichigo just so he can fight him again, when we see him willing to fight his fellow Espada. He’s a meaty character and there’s a lot to dig into. I would still, someday, like to see Ichigo say, “Hey Grimmjow, y’know, you badly hurt my friend Rukia and it messed me up a bunch and I am having trouble getting over it,” and for Grimmjow to have to deal with that. (Polynya, you say, didn’t Rukia kill one of Grimmjow’s Fraccion like 5 minutes earlier? Yes, she did, and whether Grimmjow would respond with “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and it hurt my feelings too!” vs. “yeah, well, Rukia killed my friend and you don’t see me crying about it!” are both really interesting ways you could take this)

ANYWAY, getting back to the Quincy. From our earliest introduction to Uryuu in the series, we know that Quincy ought to have a legitimate beef with Soul Society. For starters, there is their underlying philosophical difference: Quincy don’t think that the shinigami do enough to protect the Living World, and they have taken matters into their own hands. They want to see Hollows annihilated, rather than purified. Then, on top of that, the shinigami eradicated their people, and treated them like lab rats. You could spin a lot of gold out of this, but instead, we got the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

The Quincy are, basically humans with powers, and yet they are extremely bloodthirsty and cruel. We see Bambietta killing people to blow off steam, they take glee in killing lesser opponents (both Hollow and shinigami), As Nodt tortures Byakuya rather than just killing him cleanly, Giselle takes over Bambietta’s body in a horrifying way. Yhwach chastises Yamamoto for having “gone soft”, and says “you used to be cooler when you were a murderer.” The Vandenreich isn’t about justice or improving the system, it’s just about revenge and power and proving racial superiority. Are y’all ready for the hottest take I have ever had? Here it is: The Bount Arc, which is bad and should feel bad, provided a more well-characterized and relatable set of villains than the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

I mentioned earlier that out of all the Sternritter, Bazz is the best of a bad lot. He gets some good flashbacks and his story evokes both Renji and Rukia’s childhood relationship as well as Gin and Rangiku’s. He's shown hating Yhwach in his youth, but then it’s never really followed up on. Nothing about this works to make me like Bazz, though, it just makes me feel like Yhwach is terrible, a person who ruins lives in both big and small ways.

I honestly hate the scenes where Bazz and Renji banter. Up until this point of the story arc, we have been slammed over and over with how much worse the Quincy are than previous villains. They cause massive destruction, they maim and kill beloved characters. Then, halfway through the arc, Kubo suddenly tries to start walking this back. Byakuya and Kenpachi were supposed to never fight again, but, uhhhh, Byakuya got healed in the Royal Realm and Kenpachi... got better? Look, we fixed Kira! Mayuri brings everyone back as zombies, that’s cool? Let’s have some banter, ha ha, the Quincy are fun! I don’t want to blame Kubo on this because he wasn’t feeling well and also, all of this smacks of editorial pressure, but it doesn’t sit well with me. It seems out of character to me for Renji to joke with someone who has hurt his friends and destroyed his home, and I sometimes justify it in my mind by saying that Renji probably doesn’t know that Bazz was the one who hurt Kira, but in some ways that makes things worse.

To be honest, a much better way to humanize the Quincy would have been to do so through Uryuu. One of the huge flaws of this arc is that there is so little focus on him, the character who ought to tie all this together. Uryuu has been harping for years that shinigami are his enemy and that he’s proud of his heritage. This is literally exactly what he has always says he wanted, and the fact that I, the reader, never believed for a microsecond that his loyalties were divided speaks to how awful the Quincy must be. How did Yhwach first approach Uryuu? It would have been cool to be introduced to the Vandenreich via the narrative device of Uryuu’s introduction. Was anyone nice to him? Do the Quincy have any redeeming value? What if there had been a scene where Bazz-B is goofing around, maybe training with someone, and Uryuu says to himself, “He reminds me of Renji and I hate all of the feelings that are currently in my body”? That would make a cool fanfic, actually, and anyone who wants can have that idea because I will never, ever write fanfic about the Sternritter.

Finally, on a note about fashion, the Sternritter uniforms (along with all their other symbolism) skirts way too close to “Nazi” for my tastes, and one more thing I hate about them is that they have retroactively ruined Uryuu’s aesthetic for me.

[mittensmorgul]

When I talk about samwena, someone always says that their relationship is motherly, just like when I talk about destiel, someone always says that they are like brothers. Although I firmly believe that Sam and Rowena's relationship is not motherly, it bothers me that Rowena said "this is my boy" to Sam, because she also talked about Crowley, her son. Do you think this was an attempt by the writers to try to turn samwena into a mother-child relationship?

Aw, hi there! and I’m gonna start this by saying that I have written a lot on the subject, and none of it has seemed to change anyone’s mind, so I don’t know whether writing another long post on the subject will, either.

I’m putting this under a cut because it’s long-ish, and because I don’t need saileen shippers attacking me again... y’all have been warned if you don’t wanna read stuff that isn’t glowingly heart-eye’d about them... bearing in mind that I read all the positive saileen posts and just smile and nod politely at them and then move on with my life while shutting up about it...

(sorry about that... I edited this post for a typo and it seems to have messed up the read more cut...)

For years, we’ve watched the relationship between Sam and Rowena grow slowly, and it reached a point somewhere along the line where I couldn’t ignore the blatant romantic themes. The thing is, for me, their relationship can’t possibly work as her being “motherly” toward him. Because Sam has just as often been the provider of comfort/security to her as she has to him, you know?

I’ve seen a lot of people just flat out reject the read of their relationship as romantic, but I think that’s mostly because folks were clinging to the notion that Eileen was actually still alive. Granted, the fact that she had actually been dead all those years was only confirmed after Rowena’s death, but I think folks were dead set on them picking up their “romantic” relationship (which I don’t even think approached romantic in canon until Sam offered her that parting kiss, but again, that’s just me) and immediately were able to dismiss Rowena with that. Despite the fact that Sam (in canon, again) couldn’t just dismiss Rowena and strike up a relationship with Eileen (even after he verbally, repeatedly confirmed that he and Eileen were “not like that” after Dean’s prodding, a lot of people still only had heart-eyes for the two of them, and I get it, I really do, but I don’t see it, and can’t see it as ever having been romantic in canon before that point).

I personally do not think that Eileen will be back as Sam’s endgame love interest, and never have. I know that comment upsets a lot of people who cannot see a happy endgame for Sam without some sort of relationship with Eileen. But canon literally has not laid the groundwork for that. She could come back, he could call her at the end and suggest they give a relationship a try, but to me it would be just that-- not some Grand Romance that has been years in the making, but the very beginning of what could potentially be a happy life together. And I just find that... disappointing on so many levels. But again, that’s just me. If that’s what the show gives us, I’ll personally be incredibly meh about it.

In 15.03, as Rowena is attempting to convince Sam to kill her, to sacrifice her for the spell that was SUPPOSED to save the world, to finally free them from Chuck’s Final Punishment and heal the rift he opened into Hell, she sacrificed herself believing it would be to save Sam and the world. And the key thing to understand here is that her sacrifice did NOT end Chuck’s game of horrors for them. He was SUPPOSED to have left their world after that, and yet he didn’t. He just kept writing, destroying, and pushing them. Eileen was a pawn in his game. I can’t see her as anything more than that, as far as Sam goes anyway. In fact, her return prompted Sam to spend that entire episode thinking about Rowena, learning he was the only one able to enter Rowena’s home without being cursed by her security system. Had to bear the weight of the fact that he was the one who killed her, even if she basically had to force him to do so... Eileen being resurrected felt like cold comfort, especially when Sam still thought it had been Rowena’s one-time-use spell that had brought her back.

Learning that spell had been planted there by Chuck, after Sam had gone to Rowena’s in search of a crystal to trap Eileen’s soul for an eternity (better than going back to Hell or wandering the earth until she went vengeful), (which is admittedly not a very romantic start to any of this), and then learning that Rowena was first Queen in Hell and then had apparently lost control of the place by the next time Sam and Dean went to seek her help... I mean, the whole notion that Rowena was actually happy there is blown to shreds. 

Heck this is getting long, and I already wrote a dissertation on Rowena’s character (too long for tumblr, it’s on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641770). Somehow every time I start talking about Sam and Rowena’s romantic potential it always devolves into a dissertation on why I can’t see Sam and Eileen as a romantic potential, but that long essay is almost entirely about Rowena herself and has very little to do with shipping at all. I’m not interested in ship wars here. If y’all are happy thinking about Sam and Eileen together, congrats! I’ve written them as a couple in fic! They are cute together! But in canon, there’s no there there...

But back to Rowena, and that final line from 15.03:

ROWENA Hell's closing. The walls are falling. SAM There has to be another way. ROWENA I wish there were... I do. I don't care about anything enough to take my own life. Not you, your brother... not even the world. But I believe in prophecy. I believe in magic. And I'm here, and you're here, and everything we need to end this right is in our hands. [She puts the dagger in Sam’s hands and tries to get him to stab her.] ROWENA I know this in my bones... it has to be this way. Do it! Kill me, Samuel! [Sam hesitates. Rowena puts a hand on his shoulder.] ROWENA I know we've gotten quite fond of each other, haven't we? But will you let the world die, let your brother die, just so I can live? [...] SAM No. [He stabs her, crying. Rowena touches his face.] ROWENA That's my boy. [She twists the dagger where Sam stabbed her. Then, she takes it out.]

(and for every reason why I believe that entire conversation is key to Rowena as a character, again, see that long essay)

Rowena doesn’t do “fond.” She wields flirtations as defensive weapons. She manipulates and shields herself with favors and sensuality. I mean, remember every man she’s had flirtations with-- from the men she’d attempted to con into relationships in order to take them for everything they were worth to flirting with the most powerful being in the room from Chuck right on down to Cas. We know her history, from Crowley’s birth story to how she’d survived for hundreds of years by ingratiating herself to those wealthier and more powerful. Remember those witches in 12.11 who’d basically used her up and dumped her out again. But with Sam? With Sam she’d never made a power play. She’d never aggressively come on to him, never felt the need to assert herself to control him or defend herself from him. He was the only person she’d ever been entirely honest with, about her fears and her concerns.

Sam was the only person, possibly in her entire life, that she trusted fully.

And in return, Sam literally held her life in his hands. Nobody else had the power to kill her, and that is a fuckton of trust to have in someone you will then refer to as “fond of each other.”

I mean, honestly

how is that not romantic?

And yet her final attempt to comfort him after he’s done what she asked of him and has tears streaming down his face is “that’s my boy...”

What was she supposed to do? Kiss him? Knowing she would die and condemn herself to Hell didn’t seem like the right time for anything else... And yet now she is trapped there after a futile sacrifice that failed to save the world.

The look of abject shock on Sam’s face in 15.08 when they find her in Hell is telling. She dismisses him to refill her drink, because I don’t think she could bear that look on his face, and then advises Dean and Cas to fix their own mess. And that, to me, only served to underscore the fact that her own mess remained unfixed, and possibly unfixable at that point, you know? She was still dead, still trapped in Hell because of her own choices. She hadn’t even earned redemption for that sacrifice.

Are we supposed to believe that she’s still condemned to that fate, and that’s just the end of her story in an “oh well, moving on” sort of way just so Sam can have a cute lil fledgling relationship with Eileen (who left, with no immediate intention to return) and forget all about all of that? Nah, no thank you.

There are seven more episodes to air, and one of the major things I personally feel needs to be resolved with Chuck’s imminent dismissal from his creation (because honestly do any of us believe that Chuck won’t be defeated in the end?) is the reorganization of the whole of Heaven and Hell. Something tells me that without Chuck manipulating creation, Heaven and Hell will not survive as they are, and then what would happen to Rowena? I think she’s still important to the story, or at least I hope she is.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, and I don’t have any definitive guesses about anything, but to me, this is the only way things can play out happily for Sam, saving Rowena the same way Cas once saved Dean (sorry Saileen shippers, I know Sam “saved” Eileen already, but uh... there’s about 50 asterisks on that where Chuck’s desired story just falls apart all over the place, especially the peek into the future Chuck gave Sam in 15.09).

[avauntus]

Supernatural - a retrospective

This is super self-indulgent, and I have so much else I’ve promised-- I owe a long-fic rec post, and ao3 comments, wip work, and that’s just my fandom stuff I’m behind on. *sigh*

But it’s late on a Saturday and now I’ve finished Supernatural, I want to share what I think are my top few eps, and a few other comments. I promise some of this will be different from the “greatest hits” you probably usually see, and I’ll try to make it worth your time. *wry smile*

Look, we have to have categories like: “Most Likely to Live in My Head Rent-Free for the Rest of my Life” and “Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction” that are different from “Favorites,” because that’s just the cursed energy this show has. ;-)

My top five

#5 - 13.01 - “Lost and Found”

Written by: Andrew Dabb | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

In fandom, this is most often referred to as the start of the “Grieving Widower” arc, tongue-in-cheek. Also has Alexander Calvert (Jack) walking around completely in the nude for the first third of the ep. (Neither of these are why this is in my top 5, but he has a good story about wardrobe for his ‘first day.’) 

I didn’t expect much out of this episode the first time I watched it, but I’ve gone over this ‘section’ of the show maybe 3-4 times in my Netflix catch-up, and I watch this one in full every time. From Jack being...not at all what anyone expected and an unsteady vindication, to the stunning cinematography (there’s a post that compares shots to Brokeback Mountain, but I think the shots here might be better), to the sheriff who takes the time to remind her deputy that “...there’s no such thing as ‘weird.’ Everyone’s normal in their own way,” to the slow reveal of exactly how hard the events of the previous night (12x23 - All Along the Watchtower) are hitting Dean and Sam and in different ways...(how long the episode takes to reveal to you how Dean fucked up his hand, and what he was saying when he did. Augh!) The Winchesters are trying to rally, but they have been taking hits for a long time, and the cracks are showing.

 #4 - 15.06 - “Golden Time”

Written by: Meredith Glynn | Directed by: John F. Showalter

Supernatural  has a terrible track record with representation in all stripes. It is infamously consistent in killing off anyone minority, female, or non-White. One of the interesting things about the chaotic meta-narrative of season 15 is you can see the lack of fucks some of the writer’s room had to give about not even being subtle about tearing down that type of ‘White-male-hero-journey” now that they were in a literal “what will they do, fire me?” situation.

I’m a Cas fan, and this episode, which gives him an actual, ‘case-of-the-week’ hunter’s narrative where he gets to save the day on his own, successfully, was wonderful. I love that for him! But more than that, for me, this episode is emotional to me for other reasons-- the way Dean and Cas circle around each other on their angry phone call (with the body language! They are broadcasting so LOUD and neither can see because they’re on the phone!), Sam’s story here, where he’s inheriting things from Rowena that allow him in turn to save Eileen, to Cas’ speech and quick anger at the lake when you reflect on his entire journey of self-realization from a soldier of blind faith to an agent of free will... “You selfish little men in your positions of authority...” I just... *clears throat, grabs tissue* 

#3 -  6.20 - “The Man Who Would Be King”

Written & Directed by: Ben Edlund

Speaking of Cas’ journey... I know some folks don’t like the angst and drama of the ‘Heaven and Hell’ plots of Supernatural, but I am here for it. Oh, did we need another reason to include this episode? This has some of the most metal quotes I have heard from any TV show. Ever.

I mean, look at this:

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have said: Freedom is a length of rope. God wants you to hang yourself with it.”

“Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like explaining poetry to fish.”

The delivery of: “It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!” “Dean, it’s not broken!” is one of those Supernatural bits that will live in my head until the end of time. All of Edlund’s episodes are among my favorites, but this (along with “5.04 - The End”) was on another level. 

#2 - 5.16 - “Dark Side of the Moon”

Written by: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin | Directed by: Jeff Wollnough

I think of this episode every time  I hear Bob Dylan sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” This is kinda a giant montage episode, but the connecting concepts are so...satisfying. 

“Heaven is your favorite memories.” “ It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt.” “This is your idea of heaven? Wow, this was one of the worst nights of my life.” “I don’t think I realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.” “It’s awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory.” “Everyone leaves you, Dean. You noticed?” “Why is God talking to me? Gardner-to-gardener, and between us, I think he gets lonely.” “You son of a bitch, I believed in... ” Whoosh.

#1 - 4.01 - “Lazarus Rising”

Written by: Eric Kripke | Directed by: Kim Manners

So...this is the episode where Castiel, angel of thee Lord, shows up. And that’s primarily why it earns the no. 1 spot, because 80% of my enjoyment of Supernatural from this point on was Cas-adjacent. Plus this entire episode just hits. ALL OF IT. Dean’s homecoming. Ruby, my darling. Bobby’s entire vibe. Pamela Barnes, easily one of the most interesting women Supernatural ever introduced. Cas being so hot to say “Hi” to Dean he forgets he wounds people. 

But beyond that-- the way the show writes their ‘oh, by the way, angels’ narrative! If you haven’t seen this episode, would you believe me if I told you that THIS EPISODE, the episode where Supernatural said “canonically, Judeo-Christian Heaven is real, btw” involves no churches but does involve a séance, a soulmark handprint brand, and a himbo angel that “gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition”...but they were all “no homo, guys” for years?

Truly no one was out here doing it like Supernatural even back in 2008.

Others--

15.18 - “Despair” 

“Most Likely to Live Rent-Free in My Head for the Rest of my Life”

Written by: Robert Berens | Directed by: Richard Speight, Jr.

You know why this episode is here. It broke reality. I could be wrong-- but I’d put good money on this episode being the subject of academic theses in the future. That doesn’t automatically make for interesting story, but...

Has there ever been a case, in a mainstream US TV show where a major lead character (Cas) came out as queer so late in the game in a narratively-important way? I’m not aware of it, but I might just be behind on my television.

This episode has great writing, and (blessedly) amazing direction and blocking anyway. Check out the above gif - that is some next level foreshadowing going on in the cinematography, and this isn’t even the most remarked upon shot in this episode. (Seriously, I had to search for 40 minutes for this gif, please respect my game, lol.) Everyone who was involved in 15x18 is giddy talking about their investment, from the costume designer to the actors to the director to the writer...

...And then a bunch of them steadfastly have avoided posting much Supernatural-related since. So that’s...loud. There is a bunch of subtext in this episode that is screamingly loud; there is a bunch of text in this episode that makes several things clear fandom has been chattering over for years and years. The meta-commentary around this episode continues, months later. There are over 700 fics on AO3 with this episode tag.

I have more to say about the themes of ‘free will’ and ‘love’ and ‘identity’ tied to this episode, but seriously-- you’ve probably read 17 versions of it on Tumblr already, so.

This is the last time we see Cas, and the last time Supernatural can claim anything close to narrative consistency. For that alone, it’d earn free head-space.

Runners-up: “4.20 - The Rapture”; “5.04 - The End”; “7.21 - Reading is Fundamental”; “8.21 - The Great Escapist”; “9.06 - Heaven Can’t Wait”; “12.19 - The Future”; “14.08 - Byzantium”

6.17 - “My Heart Will Go On”/8.07 - “A Little Slice of Kevin”

“Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction”

Written by: Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder (6.17); Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia (6.17); Charlie Carner (8.07)

Usually the show kills off it’s “one-episode” female characters, but do you know one time it didn’t? When the Moirai (the Fates - specifically Atropos, the shearer of the Threads of Fate) showed up in canon in 6.17. She was posited to have “two older sisters that were bigger than her- in every sense of the word,” ...and Castiel had to back down when she challenged him to a cosmic game of chicken over the Winchester’s lives.

Then they never returned to that idea again. 

“A Little Slice of Kevin” is on here for the opposite reason -- an amazing idea that was really underwritten in the episode it showed up in. Dean Winchester has been dragging himself across the fabric of universes; the literal Word of God is in play in a warehouse in Middle America; Cas is back from Purgatory, but what does that mean, micro and macro? As a person on the street, what would it mean, or feel like, to learn you were a Prophet of the Lord, uncalled? That what you are, everything you are, is a cosmic contingency?

Maybe Fate has an opinion on all these shenanigans?

Perhaps all that doesn’t make sense, but it certainly made an impression on ~2012 me. To this day, it remains the WIP I can open up and fool myself with the ‘twist.’ I wish I remembered where I was going with it so I could finish it.

Runners Up: “2.20 - What Is and What Should Never Be”; “5.04 - The End”; “6.15 - The French Mistake”; 12.12 - “Stuck in the Middle (with you)”; “13.05 - Advanced Thanatology” “14.03 - The Scar”; “14.10 - Nihilism”; “15.15 - Gimme Shelter” ... and “15.20 - Carry On” (obviously)

Fifteen seasons. There were plenty of other episodes I loved that didn’t make these limited lists. But overall -- thank you, Supernatural, for the run. Even if I’m upset at the ending, I can appreciate the game. If you watch the show, what were your favorite episodes?

[halfthealphabet]

OT3 Audrey, Nathan and Duke ship questions :D

guys im so mad i had this really long and nice response written out!!! and it’s goneeee 

When I started shipping them: i think 1x03 is when I started shipping them all cause duke and nathan’s ex boyfriend vibes were so freaking strong that episode and also i didn’t love duke and audreys first scene but this episode they were much cuter and also she is like,,, asking him to take care of nathan and honestly it was a total mess and i loved it 

My thoughts: the POTENTIAL it kills me!! cause you know, you KNOW they all love each other so much, it is so apparent, and yet they just are so beyond dysfunctional. here’s a traditional love triangle that is actually completely reciprocated from all three people and the writers completely messed it up and couldn’t even imply it at the end and no one processed their emotions and their trauma 

What makes me happy about them: oh all their banter and shared dorkiness!!! like they have these cute scenes together where they gang up on a shared enemy or have a domestic moment together and my heart melts!!! (like the end of the christmas episode, or the start of lockdown, or the end of friend of faux) (i just love them being cute and dumb together) 

What makes me sad about them: the fact that instead of growing, they kept regressing??? like, nathan keeps going back to hate on duke for most of the show after being like, oh yes, my friend, which is beyond maddening (the tattoo kills me)  

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: um, I feel like the emphasis in a lot of fics is like audrey x nathan and nathan x duke and audrey x duke often gets pushed to the side a bit??? not like a ton, but there’s less focus on their relationship together. ofc a lot of them also focus on all of them together as a unit, so that’s wonderful.

Things I look for in fanfic: fix it fics and fics that ignore like,, most of s4 or all of it and all of s5. aus are fun too!!! 

My wishlist: honestly, i would have been okay if they had all been alive at the end, with their own identities, like they didn’t even have to be like, oh yes, they are all canon cause they had already admitted to the importance of each other in their lives and that would have been enough (at least I think, maybe if I got that, I’d still want them to all be canoncially romantically together) 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Nathan x Audrey and Duke x Jennifer seemed like what could have been endgame, and I would have liked that as well, but I also would have been okay with Nathan x Jess, Duke x Evi, and Audrye x Julia 

My happily ever after for them: Just alive, raising Jean in the summers together, maybe adopting more kids (they seem like they all want kids) and get a dog and have really elaborate vacations once a year and like,,, addressing their trauma and also in therapy??? 

Send me a ship!! 

[blueraith]

Hello, and Welcome Back...

To my ongoing series of, “Why the Fuck Can’t the Fandom See What Is Happening Right In Front of Their Fucking Goddamn Eyes?”

It’s a working title.

In today’s episode, we’re actually taking a look and analyzing some dialogue. Good golly, this is gonna be enlightening!

No, but seriously, last post I said that one really, really needs to learn how to read body language and facial expressions if one truly wants to learn how to write accurate characters that one doesn’t own.

But, to my chagrin, I realized in the shower—yes I am stereotypical and come to life affirming realizations in the shower though this one wasn’t of the life affirming type—that not only is the fandom really fucking blind, they’re also selectively deaf. Because the vast majority of fic writers who write Eliza as irredeemable trash, seem to latch onto very specific information. Information that is shared almost exclusively, through dialogue, from Alex.

Now, you are never going to see me claim that what Alex lived through wasn’t real. Because I’d wager that I know Eliza’s version of emotional abuse better than most. Particularly because Eliza has never seemed to have sank to the levels that I have experienced in my life. Not that it makes Alex’s experiences any less real, but only more frustrating. On the fandom’s part, not on Alex. Because Alex seems very willing to move her relationship forward with her mother, learn to forgive, and to repair. The fandom, on the other hand, seems convinced that Eliza has utterly destroyed Alex’s self-esteem and takes pleasure in that.

It’s honestly really fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, Alex is where most of these folks seemed to have learned that Eliza is an awful person. When Alex claims that her mother has always been harder on her, that she has never been good enough, has always screwed up as far as Eliza is concerned, the fandom not only takes her at face value, they also exaggerate these things. Because, and I don’t know about you, but when I describe how awful my mother has been to me, I am venting. Which means that I don’t tell y’all when my mom is actually my mother. The supportive, kind, and loving person she is fully capable of. I know this, I’ve lived it, even recently, but that doesn’t make the times she’s awful hurt any less. Because I know what she’s capable of. I know that she doesn’t have to be terrible to me. Yet she is. And that almost is worse, because it feels like I’m waiting for something that’s probably never going to happen. Waiting for her to just be the person I yearn she could be, and we could repair this rift between us.

And I believe that Alex is very similar to this experience. Eliza is not a monster in Alex’s eyes. And I will explain this in detail, because for god’s sake….

I don’t believe Alex is lying when she describes her interactions with Eliza, on the contrary, she’s probably being painfully frank. However, I do think that she’s biased in this instance. Like I said, I don’t think she’s as upfront with how Eliza actually loves her. I mentioned earlier that a writer should never fully depend on dialogue to write fanfiction, because people are sometimes biased. When a character is describing something from their point of view, you must assume that they are biased in some way because that is how people act in real life. Fiction is not exempt from this. If you asked Alex and Kara to both describe how their bond as sisters feels, you’d probably get two different answers. Because emotions are not facts, you aren’t going to get a dry run down from either of them over how they feel about the other. Similarly, you cannot depend on Alex to be factual about her relationship with her mother. And this is not to say that she’s lying. She’s not, she is being honest. However, she is being honest from Alex’s point of view. In terms of the pain Eliza has inflicted on her, and only the pain. She’s biased.

Alex is not a very forthcoming person in terms of her emotions in the first place. Many of these details she has shared about Eliza is to Kara. Which is very important to remember, because Alex knows that Kara knows that Eliza actually does love her. Alex doesn’t need to sit down with Kara and describe the ways Eliza has been kind to her because Kara was probably there and witnessed these things first hand. No one vents about good things. Not the same way that they do with their pain.

Again, look back at Thanksgiving 1. Alex is mad and upset with Eliza. Case and point is when she bitterly refuses to go along with Kara’s ‘Let’s talk about what we’re thankful for.’ Because Alex is not feeling particularly grateful at the moment, she’s resentful, in fact. She comes out about the DEO because part of her wants to get Eliza’s disapproval over with. The both of them are not in anyway interested in keeping that interaction from blowing up into a fight. Again, I am very familiar with this kind of thing. If Alex actually wanted to make that as undramatic as possible, first off, she wouldn’t have told Eliza about the DEO in front of Winn. Remember that Winn is not yet Alex’s friend, he’s just her little sister’s best friend. Alex is not normally forthcoming about her feelings. Why in this wide world would she have made to have this conversation with Eliza, in front of someone she is not remotely close to no less, if she planned on making herself emotionally vulnerable in any way?

The answer, is that she wasn’t. Ever. Anger is not vulnerability to most people. Anger is often something people hide behind, that they use to defend, to attack, to lash out with. I do the same thing with my mom when she really pisses me off. Just push, prod, purposefully bring up things I know she won’t like, argue with her simply to argue, say things I don’t even personally believe in but I know that she hates. Just to see her get as angry with me as I am feeling with her.

Alex wasn’t quite at that extreme, but she’s coming clean not to get Eliza to say that she’s proud of her. She knows that Eliza won’t like that she’s working for the DEO on some level. On another, she is hopeful that things will go well. That’s where the look of surprise comes from when Eliza smacks her right down immediately. Because Alex yearns for her mother’s approval, and not getting it, even when she doesn’t expect to, is a punch to the gut. Alex wants nothing more than to make her mother proud, it’s what she most wants, it’s what she hopes and prays for in every interaction that they have. To not get it is a horrible sinking disappointment every time.

Alex is terrified of failure. And when you are terrified of failure, you have to have failed at some point in your life. Repeatedly. There is nothing quite so back crushingly exhausting than failing repeatedly in your life no matter how hard you try to succeed. And at some point or another, you just get used to failing. It’s the default, why even try anymore? As far as Alex is concerned, that is where she is with Eliza. She’s used to not being good enough, might as well just come clean now, fuck it, she’ll react however she wants to, it’s not my fault, it’s not going to hurt this time, she can think what ever the hell she wants, let’s just get this bullshit over with.

Except it does hurt, and she knew that it was. Hence the drinking.

Now, I, again, brought up Thanksgiving 1 to highlight the ways Alex and Eliza actually were messed up. Both from what we know Alex says, and the way Eliza acts. That is the rift between them. Here is where the fandom becomes selectively deaf. Eliza apologizes to Alex, while they are alone, so that Alex can actually be herself in that conversation. Alex cries, Alex asks her, again, why she isn’t ever good enough. But this time, she’s not lashing out at her mother. “I will never win with you,” is something you say to someone when you want to make sure that they know that a rift in a relationship is all that person’s fault. “Why wasn’t I ever enough?” is something you say when you blame yourself. Yet know that isn’t quite right either. It’s what you say when you know something is wrong between you and you don’t know how to fix it anymore.

And the following conversation, one that I won’t be breaking down because for god’s sake go watch and listen to it this time instead of writing it off, completely addresses that very vulnerable question. One that only a child asks. One that is often taken into adulthood because that sinking feeling of being a disappointment has followed them for years. “You have always been my Supergirl,” was said purposefully. Eliza did not just watch her grown daughter break down in front of her, something that probably hasn’t happening in a long time, and just ignored that. I don’t think Alex quite believed her in that moment, and I don’t think Eliza quite earned that yet, but it was said and it’s now up to Eliza to prove it.

And she does. Off screen, too.

Because now we’re at the part I started this long ass post for in the first place. Two lines of dialogue that actually says everything there is to be said about how this relationship is no longer a mess. It’s not quite healed, but it is scarring over.

Here is a good example of when to actually take dialogue at face value.

The difference between Alex being biased about Eliza and taking what she says as serious, but not quite damning, is that Eliza is not in the room to defend or confirm Alex’s words.

Now, let’s take a look at when Alex comes out as gay to Eliza. Eliza says two things, that I believe are often overlooked.

One. “Keeping secrets disagrees with you, sweetie.”

Alex, Agent Alex Danvers, is exactly that. A fucking secret agent of a shadow government organization. We all know just how good Alex is at her job. She kept up the secret from Eliza for years. She should be very good at keeping secrets. Just look at Kara’s entire existence, for god’s sake. Yet, Eliza now claims that she can tell when Alex is lying. And Alex seems completely incapable of lying to Eliza right now. She’s so painfully obvious in this scene. And if there relationship was just as bad as it used to be, she shouldn’t be, right?

So this tells me a few things. One, Alex doesn’t keep secrets from Eliza anymore. It seems to me, that they have been speaking with each other.

Which goes right into the second piece of dialogue. “Is this something to do with Maggie? You talk about her a lot.”

Which confirms that they speak regularly. Because when would Alex ever have the chance to talk to Eliza if they don’t flat out call each other on the regular? Because, at this point, Alex and Maggie haven’t known each other for a terribly long time. Yet, Eliza not only knows that Alex’s secret has to do with Maggie, but knows Alex cares about Maggie as well.

I mean, Christ, this is some pretty clear cut shit. They’ve been repairing their relationship on their own terms, off screen for a while. But, there’s still that lingering hurt. Which is why Alex was afraid of coming out in the first place.

This is a stark difference between Thanksgiving 1 and this scene. Alex was angry at Eliza during T1. She told her about the DEO in a way that wasn’t conductive to becoming emotionally vulnerable. I.E. alone, with Winn not right next to her. There weren’t going to be any tears, any heart felt questions, or any vulnerability so long as he was right there.

During T2, Alex gets even more drunk because she knows she can’t handle the emotional fallout here either. However, she does try here because most of the people there are actually her family at that point. With the exception of Mon-el. She’s not looking to have a one-to-one conversation with Eliza, though. That’s the whole purpose of coming out surrounded by people, I suspect.

But this time, they are alone. Alex does not decide to hide. She could have. Eliza was going to drop the matter. Alex decided to keep the conversation going when she asked, “How?” Alex is not angry right now. She is afraid. She is afraid of being a disappointment. Which is different from being a failure. A failure is something you do. Or fail to do, rather. It is on your shoulders, it is your fault. Being a disappointment can be different. It can be linked to failure, to being your fault, but I don’t think Alex was thinking this way in that moment. She was afraid that Eliza was be disappointed in what she was, not who. You can see this has nothing to do with anger because Alex immediately bursts into tears while stone cold sober.

The fact that Eliza was surprised that Alex was so afraid speaks volumes, too. She’s not oblivious. She knows she’s hurt Alex in the past. That’s the whole aftermath of T1, after all. But they’ve been getting closer, they’ve been speaking, Alex doesn’t remember how to lie to her, Eliza knows that not only is Alex gay from the mere descriptions she makes of Maggie but that Alex also speaks about Maggie enough for Eliza to even realize that Maggie is an important part of Alex’s life. They are in the midst of healing. Eliza is surprised because she thought they had moved past this. Only to find out that they haven’t, and Eliza chooses to tell Alex that she is exceptional.

This is dialogue you cannot just brush off. Alex and Eliza are only talking about each other to each other. This is not biased dialogue. If it were, one of them would have started arguing, most likely Alex. But that’s not what happened. It was an emotional, vulnerable, and open scene between these two. Which means that they were both completely and utterly honest with each other.

I’m sorry, but this is not the actions of two people who ignore each other until Eliza decides out of the blue to come visit National City, and “Alexandra, surely you won’t mind, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

And “Shit, Maggie, my MOM is coming here? What am I going to do?!?!” 

“Alex, babe, please put down the scotch. I’ll take care of her for you if you want.”

“Thanks, Mags. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

I mean, for god sake.

What the fuck?

[trainsinanime]

Sword Art Online Abridged - Season Finale

As of this writing, episode 11 of SAO Abridged (the final one of this season; no word on whether they'll do season 2) is only available to Patreon subscribers as far as I know - correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't see it on Youtube - so posting a review right now seems premature. On the other hand, I've had this text sitting on my computer for long enough now.

I've mentioned Sword Art Online Abridged before and how it's really good, and clearly I'm not the only one who thinks so. Just about everyone commenting on the series says that it is much better than the, shall we say, less than perfect original. This is not a joke or an accident along the lines of "the original is so bad that even the parody is honestly better". SAO Abridged is fundamentally a fix fic. And it works.

To do this, it starts out as this broad parody with characters (especially Kiritou) that are just sociopathic assholes, then gradually forces them to change and grow - often in brutal ways. Thanks to the low starting point, it becomes much more rewarding when these characters do grow. Having this whole range and keeping the bad parts along the entire ride makes them much more interesting characters. Episode 10, easily the best of the bunch, is a nice little microcosm of that: Two broken, flawed, weird assholes start with a petty and immature mind-game. By the end of the episode, they've managed to form an actual loving family purely by accident, and it's genuinely sweet and heartbreaking.

This is fundamentally the same thing that e.g. Gintama does. While SAO Abridged is a lot more mean-spirited, it works for the same reasons: It's a much bigger step when the drunken lazy looser Gintoki picks up his sword and gets serious than when always-angry always-serious designated hero Eren Yeager gets really angry, serious and heroic. Even if the resulting fight looks much cooler and the opening is the best ever (but Gintama wins on the endings).

The season finale of SAO Abridged represents the culmination of all the development that the characters, in particular Kiritou and Asuna, have been through. From sociopathic assholes, only one of whom knew how to open a menu, to awesome and caring heroes. In short, they've become… the characters they always were in the anime. And that's the fundamental problem with this episode. It's not really a parody of the end of Sword Art Online, it's a retelling with some jokes added.

That means it gets to share all the structural issues that the original had. For example, lack of Asuna. The end has the classic anime problem where interesting competent female characters are built up, then sidelined so the boys' stories get told. Twin Star Exorcist is officially the worst offender ever in that regard and I will hate it forever for this, but things like Fairy Tail and Bleach are hot on its heels. The original SAO slots in somewhere between there, and this episode does very little to fix that. For example, paralyzed Asuna now tries to kill the big bad with her thoughts, and she clearly rejects the idea of killing herself over a broken heart should Kiritou die. Welcome touches, to be sure, but in the end Asuna still doesn't do anything except advance Kiritou's story.

Instead this episode is mostly a dialogue between Kiritou and Kayaba/Heathcliff, just like the original. And just like the original, these two don't have any meaningful preexisting relationship, and Heathcliff, the straight man and canon Mary Sue, has little in the way of personality. It all feels kind of underwhelming.

The show acts like these two had meaningful conversations before, but they weren't shown, nor was there any hint that they had happened off-screen. By comaprison, Don Fluffles has actually been built up as a much more compelling antagonist. There's a reason why in every James Bond movie, 007 meets the villain in a social setting and humiliates them in a polite way long before the finale. This is what's missing.

Without that, we get an actually well-developed weird, broken and interesting Kayaba. Sadly, he's in a world where literally everyone else is doing the same thing even better. It's still fun, but it's lacking the emotional attachments to the characters we know and love.

That said, it's still a lot better than the original. There are some nice twists about the final boss fight, or about the nature of Kayaba's plan, that manage to be surprising, hilarious, but also consistent with that show's own reality. I also have a lot of love for the final moments between Kiritou and Asuna, which are not poetic declarations of love over beautiful tears, but two messed up kids blubbering and blabbing while crying like surly drunks. It's full of personality and feels much more real and fitting as a result. It's a really solid and good episode. But the ones before were truly amazing.

And yes, it does seem odd to evaluate this fan-based parody as if it were a serious work of dramatic fiction, but honestly? It is, and not a bad one ether. And it's obviously what the writers were going for. They did good work, even if most of this text is me complaining. That's just because it's easier to spend a few hundred words bitching than praising.

If you haven't seen SAO Abridged yet and you always thought "Damn shame about Sword Art Online, it could have been so good", then you owe it to yourself to check this out. As american retellings of japanese animes go, it's definitely the best one in the past two weeks by a very wide margin.

[mild-lunacy]

My fannish feelings (let me show you them)

Man, fandom really alienates me in 28846851 ways, as I often say. And it's funny 'cause I really admire it. I admire the transformative nature of fandom... from afar. But comparing Johnlock to transformative ships like Harry/Draco or Sherlock/anyone else (hah!) or saying we're 'free to engage however we wish' misses the point. Personally, I know I'm free, but then I always felt free. Canon always feels like home, not a prison, no matter what happens. I just don't want to 'break free', unlike Moriarty. Like, I understand that people write these things because others or they themselves are really upset and/or looking for something to cling to or believe in in a cold, hard universe or what have you. You gotta find your comfort where you can. But that's why I said fandom frequently alienates me-- conspiracies, fake-out episode theories and even fanfiction in general has never been even close to 'enough'. It just... doesn't help. It doesn't work at all, haha. I understand why people react the way they do, but sometimes I think I have an innately different idea of what fanfiction is for.

It's true that Series 4 didn't fulfill all my hopes and wishes, and obviously I was wrong about the direction of the Authorial Intent, and I still think that's a crying shame even though I understand the limitations of thinking about that in the context of textual interpretation. But like I said in that meta yesterday, issues of intent have to do with the social aspects of fandom, not fanfiction (obviously). But of course, turning to fanworks to fix or somehow escape canon (whether it's speculative meta or fanfic) is part of the fundamental nature of fandom. I just... don't do that. At all. And I've never particularly enjoyed fanworks that willfully refused to follow canon in any obvious way instead of integrating (because that tends to read as OOC to me). Just for example, I may not be crazy excited about something like Sherlock/Mycroft, which is clearly acanonical, but normally it genuinely doesn't bother me. But if I see a ship like that combined with Johnlock so that it replaces it, where Sherlock chooses Mycroft over John, then I get pissed. And it's not because I'm a shipper (or not just) but because it's so blatantly not only OOC but transformative in a way that's anti-canon. Like, you really cannot sell that after the scene in TFP where Sherlock seriously considered shooting Mycroft, and in fact, it's clear that this writer didn't want to consider it. They were disregarding canon reality and substituting their own, and that sort of thing drives me batty with fic. You can always tell when the fic is going out of its way to misread the characters and/or rebelling against canon, and it never once worked for me in all my years of reading oodles of fanfic. I was never even tempted by 'Epilogue What Epilogue' fics in HP (needless to say, breaking up Harry's marriage held even less appeal). So yeah, I definitely can't look forward to years of doing that post-S4, haha. Not that... I think I'd have to, 'cause the door to Johnlock is wide open after TFP (and unfortunately, so is the door to other ships.... And hell yeah, that's pretty unfortunate, seeing as the very existence of straight!Sherlock seems like an abomination to me, honestly).

My reasoning for why explicitly canon Johnlock was definitely important and necessary goes like this: 1) it's the natural conclusion to Sherlock's arc and the emotional resolution to unresolved developments in Series 3, beginning in TRF; 2) representation and avoiding queerbaiting. But there's definitely also 3) cutting off straight-washing of Sherlock and John in the fandom and vindicating/establishing our understanding of his characterization as canon. I don't apologize for that. I still firmly stand for that. Straight or bisexual Sherlock is not something I calmly accept in the context of his BBC incarnation, not least because it's ridiculous and OOC, and you have to do some serious mental gymnastics to justify it canonically. But I also honestly simply find it harmful in the context of fandom as well as being queerbaiting in canon.

Obviously, I mean, fandom has but a fraction of the social power and cultural resonance that the hugely popular media property of BBC Sherlock does. But heteronormativity is always problematic and it's not more present in the media than in fandom in the sense that it's present everywhere equally, by its very nature. Obviously, we fight against it more here, so there's clearly less of it here in one sense, but heteronormativity always remains something to push back against with the intent to eradicate. And in the context of the canon characterization of BBC Sherlock, even reading Sherlock as bisexual (as in, displaying actual or potential attraction to women) is quite blatantly, extremely heteronormative, and so it's pretty distasteful to me. I do think it's that obvious that he's gay, yes. And so... a future of endless fanworks at this point is definitely a very mixed blessing.

No. Nope. Uh-uh. I didn't think that, and I didn't ignore or avoid willfully. I side-stepped and tried to build on canon while trying to integrate every bit of characterization possible. And further, I only started new Harry/Draco fanfic before Harry got together with Ginny permanently. He was together with Ginny at first in some of my fics, but I made up the characterization so it would fit; when I saw that he genuinely wanted her, I just wanted him to be happy (and I guess when I did take him away from her, it wasn't a happy story). Even before, I never wrote him as gay or tried to ignore his interest in Ginny (I just kind of wrote speculative Ginny characterization sometimes that took her down alternative paths... but I didn't think it was OOC at the time). The fact that people ignored or avoided canon and embraced OOCness to write an admittedly transformative slash ship used to drive me insane with constant, neverending frustration back when I was in HP fandom. It's also something that bothers me about the way people write Kavinsky in The Raven Cycle, too. People mess with characterization and the entirety of apparent canonical intent to write the stuff canon left unexplored on purpose, which is understandable... but not necessary.

I used to write lots of meta back in the day about how, you know, you can build on canon and do anything-- certainly, you can write redemption arcs and stuff-- if you're careful about starting where the characters really are. It's not like I was ever obsessed with JKR's intent regarding Draco Malfoy, but then neither did I ignore it, see. She said stuff to the effect of him being a 'little cockroach', as Hermione might say, and she warned about young women denying or ignoring that, but I didn't deny or ignore it! I thought that was important. He was a little prick in my fics, and I tried to work with that. I did my absolute best not to romanticize him and I constantly wrote metas imploring others not to, more or less; I wanted to let him grow up and develop, not deny he needs the development. This was not because JKR told me not to, of course. At the same time, I genuinely believe that if you read the text closely enough, you'll come pretty close to the perspective of the author anyway, given it's a good author and given you're not the sort of reader that has an agenda. And as for myself... I don't have an agenda, man.

I guess that could be hard to believe, if you thought of me only as a TJLCer (not that I'm aware of anyone doing that). I mean, people have certainly had a tendency of accusing us of projecting onto the text, though the aphorism about stones and glass houses definitely applies. But anyway, obviously I've never seen canon Johnlock as wish-fulfillment, and I get pretty incensed when I think people misunderstood that, not that it wasn't a wish to be fulfilled. Not only did I wish, I still fully and firmly believe it should have happened explicitly, even if I'm starting to understand where the misconceptions we had about Mofftiss were. Anyway, it's not that I don't see myself in the story or identify with characters. I just... don't really project. That's the source of my alienation, I think. I don't see a show or read a book I like, that's remotely internally consistent, and think, 'I know these characters better and I and/or fandom could have done better', the way so many people in fandom have done after Series 4 of Sherlock or the last book in The Raven Cycle. I mean, I get disappointed, but it's really been weird seeing people's issues with The Raven King. It's more understandable with Series 4 'cause they did drop an apparent arc, in the sense that they didn't actually fulfill it except by implication. That's not really what happened in TRK; all the arcs were completed, but many people complained about the stuff that was left out or not focused on that they wished would have been. That's really weird and unnatural to me, possibly 'cause I just really believe in the importance of reigning in self-indulgence.

Basically, the whole problem with TFP was essentially self-indulgence! Calling for more of it, or even critiquing Series 4 for essentially not having more of the right kind (and even accusing TJLCers of only wanting that and nothing else!) is hard for me to relate to. Alas, as usual.