#just random thoughts and pure speculation tbh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vnshkk · 6 years ago

Text

Let's talk about Kyo's media blackout.

It is with a slight reluctance that I post this. It's not wise to mention Tanuki online nor share what they talk about within the overseas fandom for a multiple of reasons.

1. I don't want them to get angry at me

2. I don't want the overseas fandom to flip out and judge the Japanese fandom

3. I just want everyone to be chill and happy and flowers

But I've seen a lot of people freaking out, a lot of random theories floating around and people worrying so I wanted to post this theory and open it for discussion.

Of course this isn't fact. It's pure speculation. But given the timeframe, PERSONALLY I feel like this may have had something to do with Kyo decision.

So I post this with two DISCLAIMERs.

1. As mentioned this is not in any way fact. There is no proof that Kyo does or doesn't look at Tank. I simply find it interesting the sequence of events, the timing of the media blackout and I am only translating this for those who are interested. I hope this doesn't cause any huge arguments or any bad blood. It's simple here to discuss and consider.

2. Please do not judge the whole fandom based on Tank. Just like any forum, any comment section on the world wide web; there will be people who leave negative feed back. It is a tiny portion of people and not a reflection of the Japanese fandom as a whole. Judging them based on what they said would be like someone looking at negative comments or sarcastic jokes on Tumblr and judging the English speaking fandom. That's not to say what they post is okay, but it's just dumb shit posting and shouldn't be taken to heart.

you get me fam?

Okay, so I contemplated posting screenshots and translating what happened immediately after Kyo changed his profile picture up to when he deleted everything but as I said I don't want to be taken out by angry tank users so I'm just gonna translate a selection of posts.

These posts are taken from the Meg thread (remember the girl linking arms with him at a concert? That's Meg.) which to be honest is a shit show. It was a thread born from those notorious pics and for over a year now has remained a place where people post rumours, shit talk, complain and just make shit up a lot of the time. So please, AGAIN, bare that in mind. It is a place of negativity born from a scandal that shocked a lot of the fandom. Aint nothing nice ever gonna be said there. Periodt. In reality a lot of the people who post there are still fans of Kyo. I think they're just still a little hurt by the way it came to light about Meg.

After Kyo posted his new picture I checked tank before going to bed because I was curious about what their reactions would be and everyone had exploded. During the 7 hours I was asleep Kyo deleted everything and left the internet forever so tbh given the fact he was probably bored in a hotel in Fukuoka, just did a radio show, probs wanted to see peoples reaction, etc I personally, believe he was on Tank. This is a running theme in the thread itself and people often say he actively browses it (this is not a major thing, a lot of guys in bands browse tank same as celebs browse twitter. Why Kyo would look at the meg thread in particular? idk. )

SO TLDR

Yesterday around 7pm the thread suddenly changed to mixed reactions after Kyo changed his Twitter pic.

"His new twitter icon had me shook lol"

"I hope he changes his instagram one too"

"Idk I don't like how quickly he's become some kind of social media old fogey"

"Kyo's turned into a social media monster too" (*edit; my bad Yuchi is beer monster, Shinya is social media monster lol)

"It's kinda cheap"

"I get you, it's like he's lost his values" (probably because Kyo has always made big deal about how much of himself he shares)

It continued like that for a while with people more or less saying the same thing until he posts about leaving social media.

"He just suddenly said he's not gonna do social media anymore"

"lol after he went to all the effort of changing his profile picture"

"I'm shook"

"annoying 40 year old nut job"

"Bet you he came on here"

"Do you normally change you icon then quit"

"Join Kyo online"

"idg why even though Kyo's had so many haters since he first started twitter he's suddenly affected by it??"

"I still think he's cute even when he's sulking like this lol"

"I knew he was looking at Tanuki"

"I don't get why he's suddenly deleting it after all this time?? It's like what is this old man on about?"

"It's lame how he's making such a big deal of out saying he's quitting"

(lots of people agreed with this post saying that he's acting childish)

"I wonder what happened? Like everything seemed fine recently. I mean we'll never know but like I'm sure he has a lot going on.."

"I can't believe he basically wiped his instagram clean but left all the pics of cake and omurice lmao"

"If only he'd go to sleep earlier and eat a banana the serotonin would fix everything"

The random comments and mixed reactions continued for all of Friday. One of the main points that stuck out after the initial reactions was how people began to become suspicious that this was merely a tactic to get people to join Kyo online with people claiming this was typical of business man kyo, that it was about that time of year where they usually begin to advertise and promote in order to get new members.

So, allow me to play devils advocate for a second. As someone who is a member of Kyo online I have to admit since he started posting more and more online (compared to hardly ever on Kyo online), the membership has become more or less invalid. In the past it was worth the money for the videos and pictures that as fans we rarely saw. But if he's going to post them online then it raises the question (tickets to concerts aside) is there any point in being a member if you can just get the content for free? I'd imagine that this plays some kind of role in why the reactions are often negative. Members of Kyo online have suddenly gone from having something exclusive that was only for them, to simply being a part of something anyone can access.

Another point someone brought up is that whilst it's acceptable for Kyo to be upset. It is very, very childish and the timing is selfish. Sukekiyo literally made their instagram days ago and suddenly Kyo states how he isn't going to post online anymore. This act instantly casts a negative feel on Sukekiyo's insta. It almost gives a vibe that any picture Kyo is in might be "against his will". Kyo is not new to criticism. He's been in this game for 20 plus years. Everyone who is in the Indies scene knows about Tank. Every fan, every bandmen, knows it's a bad place filled with mostly shit posting and rumours and doesn't represent fans a whole.

The meg thread is simply fans flogging a dead horse, posting any poor Japanese girl with a straight fringe and some tattoos, anyone who looks even a little like Meg and saying she MUST be a groupie of Kyo. Which begs the question why would Kyo go there? Why would he look at that? Why would he want to subject himself to that kind of thing and then punish the majority for some dumb comments a few bored fans made? What was he expecting by going there?

Of course there is no proof Kyo lurks. But the reality is he probably does, I mean he's only human, he' s bound to be curious about fans reactions for Madara, etc and where else to get honestly reactions than an anonymous forum? Personally, as someone who has lurked tank for a few years now, I think he reads it. There have been times in the past where he's mentioned certain things, done certain things and I've thought "hmmm that's weird tank was literally talking about that". But once again there's no proof. It's just one of those vibes you get sometimes. (one major one I can think of is during the interview for mode of gauze where he said everyone massively complained about it. I know people can submit questionnaires after lives but I feel that a lot of Japanese people are more brutally honest when they can hide behind anonymity. )

Considering the "staff" posted a pic of his feet on the sukekiyo instagram today, I feel like this is just Kyo being (sorry to say) butthurt and it might just blow over. A lot of the comments mention his age, mention how he's clearly trying and failing to copy 20 year olds by using insta, that he's lame or cringe and that's gonna hurt anyones pride. But I honestly think Kyo should be looking at the billions of comments on instagram of people who love him rather than a few trolls online.

So with that being said I hope this was an interesting read and gave a little insight into why Kyo is often private. It was a big deal that he was posting so much and actively using instagra. I for one was very happy. I believe that in this day and age it is something that is required in order to engage with your audience and keep a good relationship. Hazuki and Ruki are good examples of this and Ive been saying for the longest time I wish Kyo would get more on board with it. So it's a shame he's left at the first hurdle.

Oh well. This is why we can't have anything nice isn't it.

#Kyo #dir en grey #instagram #translation #sukekiyo #drama I don't like drama why can't we all just be chill #remember this isn't fact its just my theory

62 notes · View notes

bat-lings · 6 years ago

Note

Hey, you mentioned in an earlier ask any Damian that Tim was also low-key sexist and tbh I'd love examples cause I feel like this has never been brought up and it's interesting??? Anyway, thanks Ur stuffs super interesting and insightful!

Thanks for your interest & nice words!

Let’s be clear tho Anon (I assume it’s the same Anon both times?), you are 200% entitled to disagree with me. Yes I am unapologetic about my opinions and write looong paragraphs of questionable pertinence to give arguments but like. The goal is to explain “why I think what I think,” never to tell you “why you should think what I think”. You’re very much welcome for the Damian post btw

Now I think Tim, precisely, shows internalized sexism. Doesn’t change the end result all that much though.

Random sequences

Let’s get the most straightforward stuff out of the way.

[Robin (1991) #1 || Robin (1993) #43 & #179 || Detective Comics (1937) #687]

Dunno about you but the first two are particularly cringey for me. That and the agenda section.

Okay to be fair: He does attempt to defend Lynx (first example) beforehand, throwing the on-point “she doesn’t have to go with you if she doesn’t want to” line. All is good for five seconds and then he goes “maybe she likes that treatment”.

We may have different sensibilities but the mere fact that that went through his head for even a second is the perfect illustration of what’s internalized sexism imo. Conscious thought & action level: A+ behavior (being able to identify a visibly wrong situation and taking action against it). Unconscious level: blatant sexism (”maybe she likes it” aka a less visible/more subtle manifestation of bigotry).

He has a… pretty specific way to regard women’s agenda. And is overall patronizing to straight-out disrespectful.

Tim’s treatment of Steph is a well-known fact but this is a call-out post so have a non-exhaustive bunch of examples:

[Robin (1993) #4, 41, 35, 44 || Batgirl (2009) #8]

On we go and see how there’s absolutely no ill-intent on Tim’s part in the next examples, yet I have a big problem with how he’s considering the ladies’ agency:

[Robin (1993) #182 || Red Robin #10]

Notice how it’s all about him whether the lady obeys him or not. His failure to impose the necessary authority or his failure to give the right directions. The girls’ choice/independence just doesn’t factor in. It’s a cop and a vigilante we’re talking about, not some civilians caught in the crossfire.

((btw it’s disputable but his apology in RR#10 is too little too late as far as I’m concerned. Tim gets a pass since Nicieza has him referring to his dumbass traitor!Steph arc but he doesn’t deserve any additional credit either. Okay no I’m being mean, he gets kudos for making a step in the right direction with Steph. Tiny kudos. It’s a tiny step.))

[Red Robin #5]

Tam? Okay. She’s the civilian who got embarked into this crazy story, she is in need of saving. But Prudence? Maybe don’t automatically assume that the assassin needs you to pat her on the back to even consider pursuing her own wishes, Timmy.

Tim can be arrogant to everyone yeah (more on that later), but I don’t remember him negating a man’s agenda like that.

[Robin (1993) #25]

Yeah the kid who will feel betrayed when Bruce tells his identity to Steph just elected to tell her name to Connor whom they both don’t know well yet. While talking in her place rather than letting her answer for herself (something he’s done on several occasions). Then he attempts to decide for her whether she has a right to participate, again. On that note: thank you Connor for putting Tim in his place, that sure doesn’t happen often.

[Robin (1993) #6 & #28]

Uh, yes you can. Give the adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before you were born some credit, Tim?

As for Helena, the scene in itself is… well, not okay exactly. He’s basically dismissing her wish to handle a personal matter alone, which could imply he doesn’t think the other adult woman who’s been handling Gotham’s streets since before he was born can handle the case.

I’m just putting it with his constant attempts to keep Steph from participating, often to cases that concerned her directly, and how he tends to take it personally when she doesn’t obey… but he casually brushes off Helena when she’s saying she’ll handle a personal case alone. Double standard? Maybe I got too specific a reading but. I don’t remember that sort of thing happening between Tim and male characters– do call me out if I’m remembering wrong though.

And then there’s the “another vigilante” remark.

Anyway yes Tim can be arrogant towards both men and women. Much like Damian being antagonizing to everyone didn’t negate the possibility of him being sexist, Tim being generally arrogant doesn’t negate that possibility for him either.

Plus the only male characters I’ve seen him be that patronizing with are Chris Kent in World’s Finest #3, and Damian. The ten-year-old who’s regularly antagonizing him and does deserve to be put in his place. Oh yeah, and maybe Dodge, another brat. So yeah I do think there’s a slight difference between Tim’s treatment of men and women, if only in frequency. (and in intensity tbh.)

Yes, he’s been consistently disregardful to his girlfriends.

Anon, you say very rightfully that we shouldn’t automatically assume it’s due to them being girls. Please believe it’s not a conclusion I’ve come to automatically though:

A) While I realize that Tim only having canon girlfriends is due to heteronormativity & homophobia rather than a conscious writing intent to highlight any character trait, assuming that he wouldn’t have behaved better with boyfriends is pure speculation– aaand I am totally speculating he’d behave better if only because he’s never that patronizing or that dismissive of his peers’ agency (examples above) when they’re men. that’s part of why I ship tim/kon more easily than tim/steph.

B) Like with everything I brought up on this post I’m not considering his behavior with his romantic partners separately. It’s a character fault that could take its roots in several things, but Tim’s global characterization makes me think the root is sexism.

C) I understand why you’re thinking there’s no reason to conclude his disrespect is due to them being women; in the same vein I think there’s no reason to conclude it’s not. It’s kind of a stalemate and both conclusions are valid.

Skipping Tim’s habit to break up by letter or by phone, ‘cause that’s not cool and obviously disrespectful but even I think it’s more due to cowardice/inadequacy than sexism.

I don’t think I need to speak about Steph again. Let’s go with Ari. Who Tim casually cheated on by kissing Steph on several occasions.

Being a cheat is, in itself, a distinct character flaw that doesn’t always takes its root in sexism. Plus it’s something I have my reasons to assume Tim has grown out of.

It’s his reaction when he learns about Ariana “"cheating”“ on him (she went ice-skating with another dude once in the 87 times Tim stood her up) that ticks me off. Btw and unlike Tim who didn’t seem to feel all that guilty, Ariana did try to tell him about it but he fell asleep during her confession.

[Robin (1993) #15 & #17]

Two things bother me here, a lot more than the cheating in itself: the possessiveness and the hypocrisy. You really don’t have a right to go all “My Ariana” and to chew her out for the grand treachery that is ice-skating when you’ve been casually kissing Steph, Timbo. What those panels prove is that there’s a double standard in Tim’s head. Which one exactly is up to your interpretation and that’s probably where we’ll end up disagreeing. I read it as the “proper girls don’t get close to several boys at one time, but boys who get close to several girls are either ladies men or boys being boys” double-standard, hence Tim’s blatant lack of self-awareness here.

Btw and the thing that solidified my opinion here: Tim, as a rule, tends to be pretty self-aware, at least retrospectively. He puts himself into question and has no problem admitting when his judgment was clouded. I dunno take YJ #55 or Robin #119 for example (I even selected examples that both have Tim recognizing he wronged a girl!)

So if he’s generally self-aware, but doesn’t see anything wrong with his own behavior in the specific situation where he’s cheating on his girl then chewing her out? I explain it with the above double-standard. He internalized a mindset that keeps him from realizing how hypocrite he’s being in this situation. Also he doesn’t confront Ari immediately, he had time to think about it, it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. That should’ve been enough to allow him to step back and evaluate himself but he just. Didn’t.

Bonus: Jack has been hinted to be sexist, and contrary to Tim it’s safe to assume that was totally intentional.

[Batman (1940) #441 || Robin (1993) #122]

Only two occurrences in decades of canon arguably don’t make for solid basis but they still allow me to build a coherence since our parents do influence us without us realizing. And given how much Tim loved his dad (he said himself how much he got from Jack), it sure isn’t an element that could plead against him being sexist.

There’s a bunch of other sequences that I low key read as sexist, but that I’m more mitigated about or in which I gave Tim a pass for various reasons so I didn’t include them here.

All in all when I take a solid look at Tim’s global behavior, I see sexism. While it may not be a “solid canon fact” since it surely wasn’t intentional on the writers’ part, I really don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to infer from his very canon behavior. And tbh writer intent doesn’t excuse much. Factually speaking that portrayal has been there since Tim’s early days,he’s been consistently dismissive & disrespectful of his female peers and/or of their wishes and agency. It’s part of him & his history.

It’s not incoherent with his character either– Tim has always been intended to represent a normal boy/teen (dude was legit marketed around the fact that he’s relatable). It’s not baffling or coming out of nowhere that a random teen just so happened to have internalized sexism. It’s pretty damn common, even. It’s not like Tim being sexist was a brutal turnaround that contradicted what makes the core of his character to the point of making him unrecognizable (*cough* Talia’s current characterization *cough*).

Hope this explains that.

Thanks for the asks!

#tim drake #dc comics #stephanie brown #batfam #batfamily #meta #red robin #timothy drake #tam fox #asks #zae chatters #my stuff

123 notes · View notes

ask-gijinka-creationtrio · 6 years ago

Text

clarification on that bit on gender and contemplations on other stuff

If anyone actually bothers to read this lmao

Dialga: This question was pretty much inevitable.

Palkia: I’m honestly fine with being referred to as an “it”.

Giratina: Why the hell should we worry about “it” being “dehumanizing” when we’re not human to begin with?

Something that I knew would eventually get brought up is the genders of my interpretation of the trio. The simple answer is encapsulated in the prev post: they’re dragon gods. Gender is a societal construct; sex is for reproduction. Legendary entities that represent the fundamental laws of the universe don’t really have a need for either society or reproduction. So as with the games, they’re all officially non-binary/genderless.

That said, my designs gravitate towards one or the other. One reason is that i’m not creative, bold, inspired, or talented enough to really translate that genderless attribute into humanoid form. Another is that someone pointed out to me a while ago that Palkia has a low waist-hip ratio, stiletto clawed feet, and some designs will feature a more prominent chest. That and the gendered color-coding Pokemon started doing with blue males and red/pink females, like with the menu screens starting from Gen III, the Eon Duo, Jellicent in Gen V, and Team Skull Grunts in Gen VII.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of these reasons, as you could also make the counterargument that Palkia looks somewhat phallic. So I kinda wanna get into an Extended Rant™ on why I choose to depict my OCs the way, even though no one probably cares lmao

It starts out with the Kanji/Hanzi for “Universe”: 宇宙, Uchū in Japanese and Yǔzhòu in Chinese. You might recall it if you’ve read Pokemon Adventures.

You might also remember if you visited that one dude on Route 228 in Diamond and Pearl who gets yeeted out of his house by Cyrus’s contrite grandfather by the time Platinum rolls around. Okay, realistically, barely anyone probably does (that guy wasn’t that memorable), but he basically says the same thing as Cyrus in the panels above: 宇宙, coined by the ancient Taoists, esoterically means something like “the totality of extension” + “the totality of duration”. In other words, the ancient Japanese/Chinese word for “universe” is lit. “space” + “time”. This is actually a somewhat obscure, unnecessary detail that even many native speakers seem to be unaware of. It also ties in heavily with the Yin-Yang 陰陽 of Taoism.

I know Taoism is more a Gen V theme, but it’s a concept implicit throughout the franchise, hence games generally come in twos, sharing complementary/opposing or dualistic/dichotomic themes. Even trios tend to have the third member as the odd one out or mediator. There’s much more to the Yin-Yang than just Truth/Ideals and I sorta wish Game Freak would explore it more to really unite the franchise as a whole around the interconnected theme of both diversity and harmony.

The Yin-Yang isn’t strictly about Truth/Ideals as much as it is about the fundamentally dualistic nature of existence and the oneness implicit in the inseparability of coexisting complementary concepts. Thus, truth and ideals are two sides of the same coin, as are time and space as relativity revealed. The Yin-Yang is vague enough to basically be an umbrella representation term for any complementary duality. It should be noted that the feminine Yin and masculine Yang don’t refer to stereotypical/conventional notions of femininity or masculinity, but rather requires an abstract interpretation.

The Yin-Yang is composed of an active component, and a passive/reflective/receptive one. More easily understood in that one aspect creates the body and the other gives it life. One which shapes/nurtures/mothers being and one which animates/directs/fathers it. Abstract interpretations of the feminine Mother and masculine Father follow suit. As do dualistic concepts like particle and wave, existence and essence, ovum and sperm, object/entity and idea/concept, magnitude and direction, defense and offense, nature/tradition and technology/advancement (Gen I & Gen II), space and time (Gen IV), truth and ideals (Gen V), night/moon and day/sun (Gen VII), and shields and swords i guess (Gen VIII).

I excluded Gen III because among the classical elements, earth and water are both traditionally considered reflective/feminine, with fire and air being active/masculine, but i suppose if you factor in Primal Reversion in Gen VI, it works. With the Aura Trio, I read something unrelated but interesting about how apparently Ohmori Shigeru hinted at parallels between the Weather Trio and Aura Trio. Can’t find the source though. Blue - Seas were the first (Alpha) source of Life; Red - fiery, desolate Lands signify the Death of all in the end (Omega); Green - Order/Balance mediates between two forces of nature that can be malevolent/chaotic left unchecked, with the trio master possessing abilities that cancel out the other two.

Going off the rails a bit more, speaking of color-parallels, there’s probably going to be one of the subtractive colors between Gen VIII and the (highly probable) Gen IV remakes this generation, with Cyan - Dialga, Azelf, Lucas’ accents, Za-cian; Magenta - Palkia, Mesprit, Dawn’s accents, Za-mazenta; Yellow - Giratina, Uxie, Barry’s accents, whoever the third member of the Gen VIII mascot/box art legendary trio is going to be. I wonder how they’re going to incorporate the parallels tho

Anyway I digress. The ancient Daoists associated feminine Yin with 宇/Space and masculine Yang with 宙/Time by virtue of insisting the feminine aspect precedes, but even disregarding that, Space fits in with the Yin criteria of that which represents the body and Time fits in with the Yang criteria of that which initiates life.

So while they’re genderless, Dialga represents the concept of masculinity and Palkia femininity in their most pure, abstract, and universal form according to the Dao. While this doesn’t make Dialga a dudebro and Palkia whatever the hell the feminine equivalent is, in my mind, Palkia has a strong maternal instinct and Dialga is very much a dad. Giratina is weird chaotic goth aunt/uncle who gives u ur first taste of alcohol just to spite grandpa and reads fanfiction with candles and a glass of wine like it’s a fucking literary hour.

That’s my logic and explanation behind it anyhow. The distinction goes something like Palkia will concern itself more with the state or properties of something (who, what, where) whereas Dialga will concern itself more with the role or activity of it (when, why, how). As time and space are, however, they’re deeply intertwined and cannot be separated.

I might move this bit to a separate post somewhere down the line since this has already dragged on long enough, but I’ll share some thoughts on Giratina here and tie it in with the overarching topic of assigning gender roles lol. According to Game Freak, Giratina represents antimatter, but there are some inconsistencies. I know this shit has to be taken with a grain of salt because of Pokemon logic/science and whatever, but I gave it some thought regardless. My personal headcanon is that Altered Giratina represents dark matter/energy and Origin Giratina represents antimatter. Whatever tf Gira represents in Pokemon lore is based on a combination of the two, with the Reverse/Distortion World probably alluding to the idea of an anti-universe. Antimatter and dark matter are not really the same thing, but they’re both trippy cosmic constructs that sound somewhat similar, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I wanted to make a distinction because while antimatter doesn’t distort spacetime any more than normal matter, it’s speculated that dark matter (actually dark energy) does, and is responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe.

This would also go along nicely with Gira complementing the the Spacetime twins while also complementing Arceus. It would also fit as justification for Giratina having to switch from Origin to Altered Forme upon entering the universe presided over by Dialga and Palkia, not because of the shift in spacetime stability, but rather due to the violent, annihilating reaction that occurs when matter and antimatter come into contact with one another. It’s by no means a perfect resolution hc, but it is one that I’ve gotten attached to.

Anyhoo, I designed Giratina to appear more androgynous (or at least attempted to). However, going by that masculine active/feminine reflective duality highlighted in the Yin-Yang, Origin Gira, with antimatter a reflection of normal matter, appears a bit more feminine-androgynous, whereas Altered Gira, with dark matter an active driving force for the expansion of the universe, appears a bit more masculine-androgynous (though iirc it hasn’t shown up yet and i’m not too great with consistency regardless). That was my idea behind it in any case. Origin Gira wears a binder under that big dastardly overcoat. i guess it’s technically genderfluid.

Digressing a bit, but another artistic choice was the skin tone of the trio. 0 points for subtlety on my part, but the color is Cosmic Latte, the average color of the universe. Like that bit on gender, I wanted to base it on some aspect of reality. I juggled between that and pure black with stars for freckles, but in the end i’m a lazy piece of shit who cuts corners for a living, so i settled on Primordial Clam Chowder because it was easier lmao. that’s why they pasty af

Anyways, if you have any design ideas or you wanna see a member of the trio in another form, feel free to submit your ideas or a magic anon or whatever!

TL;DR tbh this wasn’t even a structured rant it was just me going off the rails and sharing random useless deetz. this isn’t even a tl;dr. what the fuck

#might try to finish that cover image #well it's not like i edited much to begin with #pokemon #hc #gijinka #dialga #palkia #giratina #text #ask blog #analysis #long rant #pokemon analysis #sinnoh #gen iv

16 notes · View notes

courage-a-word-of-justice · 5 years ago

Text

Stars Align 5

Geepers, I accidentally read some spoilers before watching this episode…so I realised that the person in te clubroom was Toma without his glasses, but it took me a bit to realise still.

“Makimaki”…cute.

Don’t give Maki’s father your name, Toma. Names are weapons for guys like him!

It’s ben a while since I’ve done this type of maths, although the answer appears to be correct.

Huh? The ED went straight to the teachers instead of going to Kinuyo/Ruriha/Kaori (whatever her name is)…

Oh! That heart gesture hints at the fact he has a sister (I’ve forgotten the guy’s name though) – he might’ve learnt some dance choreography from watching idols or magical girls with her. Update: That’s Shingo.

Dr Stone 19

Rule no. 2 of shonen – don’t underestimate the bishonen.

The guy who kinda looks like Kirishima with orange hair is definitely going to be important…(rule no. ???? of anime).

Ooh! The themes I thought would never came back…came back!

Some people do consider underpaying people a modern form of slavery, y’know.

Does Tsukasa always have to be called “the strongest primate”, though…? It’s a badass title, to be sure, but it certainly wouldn’t be said a lot in a normal conversation.

Judging by the flame (homura) she carries, I’d wager her name is Homu-oh, dangit. Her name really is Homura!

Senku teaches Fire Safety 101.

Ginro’s not holding his bokuto (wooden kendo practice sword) anymore…hmm.

I didn’t think Sulfuric Acid lady would be back…ever.

The funny thing is that Tsukasa seems to be a gender-neutral name, so telling the brawny men to “go suck on Mommy Tsukasa’s teat”…LOL.

Hyoga has that mask thing of his anyway, so he’s probably better off than, say, Homura.

Is that a Death Star??????!!!!

Kensaku means “search”.

Cell phone…you’d need extensive knowledge of electronics and/or IT and architecture (for the larger networks, or at least the towers) to get one running.

“…who’ll be our double agent?” – No duh. It’s either Gen (as suggested in the scene just before) or Taiju and/or Yuzuriha.

I never thought a smartphone would make me feel sad for what has gone before, but it just did when all these quotes from the past came through.

Okay, so one of the ingredients is steel (hagane).

I love how Gen gets the wine image. He’s a stage magician, so his fancy suit matches the image of a sommelier.

Byakuya seems to be the one represented in the battery image.

BnHA 67

Yay! Amajiki, my booooooooooy!

Shinchou Yuusha 6

I never thought I’d say this to my seasonal husbandos – I don’t even say this about zaShunina, the random yandere – but…Seiya, you a**hole!

Lemme guess…Seiya’s gonna use some speed seeds?

I read on Leviae’s status earlier that she has an immunity towards fire…*gulp*

A nurikabe is a wall youkai that blocks travel, while a hyosube lives in a river and eats rice plants.

What’s the age gap between Mash and Elulu? I know Mash is hot enough (in the manga) to be compltly within my range, so I’d say he’s about 16 at the youngest, but Elulu is, what, 12…? Update: There’s no real indication as to what the characters’ ages are, but Mash is lvl 16 and Elulu is lvl 8.

Ooh, this is new! Seiya’s thrown caution to the wind for once for the sake of Elulu!

No Guns Life 6

“Strong Smells” (on the can) – Yep, Olivier seems to be proving that name right.

Motor City…I didn’t really care for it at first, but now I’m starting to warm up to it.

Ooh, it seems the implication here is that Olivier inherited the title of EMS commander from her dad.

“…I’m gonna get shot!” - I guess when you’ve got a gun for a head, the assumption is you’re gonna get shot.

Armed Tokisada seems to be this world’s version of All Might…(but then is Juzo Deku? LOL.)

Iruma-kun 7

This OP is a lot more battle-oriented than I remember…

I want a GIF of sparkly Amelie, stat!

Iruma’s voice as Rin is too CUTE! LOL!

Kawaii Comics, LOL.

Ooh! I can recognise Opera by his nail polish now…! His nail polish appears to be purple today.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Opera express his own concern for Iruma until now. Maybe he’s like a surrogate mother to Iruma by now…?

They even have monsters to call out bell noises…LOL wut.

Hmm…I just realised Azz speaks to Iruma rather formally. Not just the –sama, but the keigo as well.

Azz is rather observant too…(Seriously, I swear he’s been teetering on the edge of being my husbando from this show, but since he’s so subservient, it’s a bit of a hard concept to grasp. Not to mention the guy is, what, 14…?)

Even the shadows of background characters are blue and pink…

The little arrow over Clara really sells the moment.

The bird is so cute~!

I only realised it this year, but boba is really in, all over the world, for young people. *stares at all the boba shops that have appeared around my area lately*

I think Ameri = watashi and Iruma = boku. It’s politeness all the way ‘round. I think Sabro might’ve used ore.

“Don’t let go. Desire is your life.” – Sarazanmai ad <- I think this quote is appropriate for this episode.

Oh! We see Kuromu the Akudol in the ED…I didn’t realise that. (<- knows about her due to spoilers)

Oh! I think next episode might be Clara’s seduction class! Ooh! Interesting…

Dr Stone 20

Come to the dark side, we have candy…amirite???

Dr Stone 21

The pun here is that tou is a way to pronounce “copper” and “steal”, so Chrome copped copper in the Eng subs.

Couldn’t Ginro just use the word “s***” instead? That would’ve made the pun a lot better, tbh.

Thy translated all the dialogue in the fake menus! Yay! (<- translator’s brain showing up) For instance, Senku’s attack is listed as 1 while Suika’s is 3 and Gen’s is 5…LOL. The one that really made me laugh was “Runs away the second he knows he’s at a disadvantage. You’re scum, Ginro!”

Magma wasn’t in the fake game menu…!!! (I like how Magma questioned how Senku suddenly started calling him a “friend”.)

No Guns Life 7

I feel like the length of time between distracting the guard and Tetsuro conveying his plan was a bit much, but…okay.

Shinchou Yuusha 7

LOL, Beel Bub…y’know, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies.

If Seiya were watching No Guns Life, he’d freak out…

Is that Cerceus in the back-yep, thought so!

Shinchou Yuusha 8

I almost expected Rosalie to woof…that’s how doglike she is!

Why do I get the feeling we’ll 1) find out what the Warmaster looks like next ep and 2) find out Rosalie’s armour is actually the armour Seiya’s meant to look for…? I could be wrong, but my intuition has some chance of being correct, even if I think up stuff that’s pure speculation…

Stars Align 6

Does Yonex sponsor this show, like Mikasa for Harukana Receive…?

LOL, Mitsue’s reaction.

If this were the Amazing Race, the hometown advantage would suck…but this is Hoshiai no Sora, so this could go either way.

“How to Soft Tennis” indeed…sic.

Wait, who’s Takada…? Update: She’s on the girls’ team, IIRC.

The Takenouchi/Souga pair is a bunch of trolls…LOL.

Oji seems to be the leader, full stop. Same way Katsuragi has been running things.

It’s been a few weeks since I last watched this show, but…is Oji the guy who threatened to punch them all…? He is, isn’t he…?

Stars Align 7

I feel like Mitsue’s bitterness is fuelled by personal experience in the manga field…

Well, the guy’s name isn’t Arashi (storm) for nothing! Update: The guy’s name is in katakana, which may or may not prove my point…

Arashi’s surname sounds like the Japanese word for “prince”, if you’re wondering.

I LOLled so hard at the line “Versus Arashi?” Y’see, there’s this game show with a group called Arashi. Therefore, its name is “Versus Arashi”.

I learnt most of what I know about tennis from Wii Sports, LOL.

I mentally cringed when I saw Itsuki’s burns again…

“…years and experience.” – That’s two things, Tacky!

Souya from Planet With would be in heaven here…what with all this meat.

Doesn’t “Kamuy” mean “god” in Ainu…? That Ouji, so conceited! *huffs at how arrogant the boy is*

Girls do eat like fiends…LOL.

I can’t believe 7 episodes in real life time was only a month in Stars Align time…

Yuta’s really sensitive to Toma’s mood…probably because the former likes the latter. (Yeah, I’m a derp for saying what we already know.)

Stars Align 8

I-I wanna cry…you do realise I gave up piano halfway through high school, only to become an absolute bum when I got into higher levels because I can’t use my piano lessons to demonstrate I can manage my time responsibly anymore???? I quit Chinese the same year and now it’s the one thing that’s preventing me from getting a bunch of beneficial opportunities because now there are so many Chinese people in my region! Studies are not your life! (distant crying can be heard in the background)

I kinda get where the mother’s going with this, but knowing what I know…please compromise, you two.

“The handsome half” – I wasn’t sure what that meant until I saw the image…”half” meaning ha-fu, or a person who’s half Japanese half something else. It’s like calling someone gweilow in Cantonese –it’s vaguely derogatory at the very minimum.

*Yuta’s sisters suggest clothes for him to wear* “Don’t tell mom about this.” – Oh, I have a bad feeling about this…(Then again, I got vaguely spoiled for this point by the This Week in Anime segment…that’s why I decided to watch 3 episodes in one shot.)

Maki’s shirt says “to continue”, as if it’s echoing his nonchalance. Like, “Yuta, please continue” or something like that.

To be real with you, the first resource I consulted to start thinking about the LGBTIQ+ spectrum (outside gender-bending fiction) was a book about an FtM person, so I guess I’m the most used to that sort of thing.

This is why empathy is so good, Maki.

Go, Mitsue! Be the diversion!

Who’s “Kanacat”? Kanako?...Oh, it’s Mitsue. Rigggggggggght.*facepalm*

Why do I get the feeling Mitsue wants to join the soft tennis club…?

Sakurai-sensei’s glasses are all fogged up, LOL.

Ohh (sounds down). These kiddos are soccer nuts.*grumbles about soccer nuts*

Update: To be honest with you, I’m fine with not making hard gender decisions too…Just so you know.

#simulcast commentary #Stars Align #hoshiai no sora #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #No Guns Life #mairimashita! iruma-kun #Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun #Dr Stone #Chesarka watches NGL #Chesarka watches BnHA #Chesarka watches MI-k #Chesarka watches Stars Align #chesarka watches dr stone #shinchou yuusha #kono yuusha ga ore tueee kuse ni shinchou sugiru #this hero is invincible but too cautious #the hero is overpowered but overly cautious #Chesarka watches Shinchou Yuusha

1 note · View note

hulahoopingholt · 6 years ago

Note

idk if you've seen crazy ex yet so sorry if i spoiled you (they broke grebecca up) but somehow i feel like this isn't the end for them? like the break up was way too lowkey for the fact that they brought someone from s2 back especially with a new actor, like all this.. for nothing? if you still have hope could you write a meta on why you do? i think i read one of yours recentely and i loved it!

I.........

I don’t know, tbh.

To be clear, while I’ve always really enjoyed Rebecca and Greg together and thought they had potential to be amazing together if they both worked on their issues, my main otp has always been Rebecca x Happiness. It just seemed to me that of the guys on the show, if CXGF winds up with an “and a guy” ending that Aline has said she loves, it seems to me like Greg would fit the best into that narrative.

This isn’t super fleshed out, so I apologize if this isn’t the meta post you’re looking for LOL but just some assorted thoughts:

I thought it was REALLY interesting that Rebecca broke up with Greg because she needed to spend some time on herself, and then almost immediately Josh and Nathaniel were clearly plotting how to get her back. It’s such a direct contrast to what we know Rebecca needs right now, so I see both their efforts blowing up pretty spectacularly.

Plus it also shows that Josh and Nathaniel are putting their own desire to be with Rebecca first, whereas Greg even from the previous episode was trying to give her space and wanted to make sure she was taking care of herself.

They did drop the snippet in about Greg thinking about reopening his dad’s restaurant as his thesis project. That could have been a red herring, or even just a random detail they put in to have something for Greg and Nathaniel to talk about, OR it could have been laying the groundwork for Greg to be staying longterm.

This is purely subjective tinfoil hat, but their reprise to Hello, Nice to Meet You was absurdly sweet and unlike any other song we’ve ever seen on the show. And don’t think I’ve forgotten how Rebecca didn’t hear the love trill when she saw Greg, unlike how she did with Josh and Nathaniel in the same episode, and how Greg does NOT make her feel like glitter is exploding inside of her.

When Greg left, they made a big point of saying how they wanted to give him a meaningful farewell. Rachel has said in the past that Greg reminded her of herself at a different stage in her life. They sent him off, and we hear from Marco in S3 that he was happy and doing well. I would be REALLY surprised (and frankly super disappointed) if after all that, they brought Greg back just to have his heart broken by Rebecca again and then post-series we’re left again to wonder what’s going to happen to him. It just feels odd to tie a character’s arc up so neatly just to unravel it with a few episodes left in the series.

I have seen some people speculate that they did it so fans wouldn’t do the “oh, but what if Greg came back,” to just end any question of whether or not Greg and Rebecca could make it work. That doesn’t really hold up to me though, because, um, he had a serious girlfriend who (as far as we knew at the time) he was in love with, and Rebecca slept with his dad, soooo...I think that would squash most people’s “what if’s.”

And then just from a creative standpoint, recasting a character is always a risky move. Now, CXGF has never shied away from taking risks, but this seems like a hefty one to take JUST to have Greg and Rebecca date for a couple of eps before he drops out of the picture again. (Not to mention just the budget of taking on another recurring cast member...seriously this cast was already getting really big, and I don’t know what Skylar Astin’s going rate is, but you know they had to check the financials of bringing him back on.)

All that said........honestly, I don’t know if Greg and Rebecca will end up together. I think of the three he’s probably still the most likely? But I can really see a world where she ends up with nobody, and while I’m personally mega meh about this theory, I can see her winding up with Jason as a final subversion of the rom com tropes. I’m curious to see the press releases for the final few episodes, and that may guide my theories a bit more. But I’m pretty sure Rebecca herself will not be into any romances for at least two more episodes (even if Josh and Nathaniel try), which then I guess just leaves the question if they can pull off a believable reunion in the final two eps.

I generally trust the writers, and while I personally would love to see Greg and Rebecca end up together, there’s a world where I could still love the ending of the show even if they don’t work out.

I’d just rather they would.

#Crazy Ex spoilers #Crazy Ex discourse #not dropping this in the tags bc ship wars are SUPER not my thing #not looking for debates just sharing my own admittedly biased opinions #bc Greg is one of my faves #and I want him to be happy as much as I want Rebecca to be happy #Anonymous

13 notes · View notes

orionsangel86 · 7 years ago

Text

13x18 - Episode Review - *Deep breath now*

Lets just say this ones been difficult. Bucklemming aren’t exactly the deep meta types and any message they put across tends to be about a subtle as a brick to the face so I don’t particularly think there is much to really dig into here. But others may disagree. The episode hit the marks and themes which were most likely laid out by the Showrunner for season specific reasons, but other than that it can go on the trash heap for all I care.

*breaths*

I’m gonna focus on the positives, because there were a few that I want to discuss, from an objective, meta view point, though from an emotional viewpoint I have been raging about this festering piece of shit episode all weekend.

Anyway, positives, positives...

Dean and Ketch and the AU world

Of the three stories being told simultaneously, this was the only one that actually held my interest. Probably because Jensen Ackles and David Hayden Jones have great chemistry and know how to captivate their audience.

I think it is extremely clear now that Ketch is going to get a redemption arc. He carries guilt over what he did for Mary when he always did have feelings for her even if he never admitted them and she would never return them. I think that was made clear in season 12 and now in this episode it seems pretty obvious this is where we are headed:

“And your mother. She’s in danger. I owe her that.”

Mary is the reason Ketch wants to help, to “wash the blood off his hands” I can see him sacrificing himself to save Mary in the end, thus getting his redemption in death (the only way he should be allowed redemption tbh)

Am I happy about that? Not at all. I still feel Ketch’s return was unnecessary, especially when I now don’t think we will be getting Eileen back. After what Ketch did to Eileen I don’t personally think he SHOULD get redemption, and he should have remained dead after 12x22.

However Ketch is currently being presented as a mirror for both Dean and Cas. He has been a Dean mirror throughout his entire series run, representing Dean’s toxic masculine side and his killer instinct – the monster Dean feels resides inside him. In the past two episodes he has also mirrored Cas with his need to redeem himself to someone he loves (very season 6/7 Castiel) and his insistence at staying behind in the mirror purgatory to do his penance. The healing scene brought this to light quite clearly imo, with Ketch taking the time to take care of Dean even when he tried to brush it off. Ketch was also quite good at being able to read Dean – knowing that there was more to the Charlie thing than Dean let on, but still not actually making the correct assumption.

Ketch assumed that Charlie was a romantic connection, when she was a sisterly connection. The wrong assumptions between romantic and platonic love have been plaguing Dean and Cas for years at this point. I thought it was interesting that this was commented on in the text in this episode – like I said, it’s not like Bucklemming know how to do subtlety.

Moving on to Charlie’s return, I am also on the fence about how I feel about this, but pushing my emotions aside I can see why she was brought back in the AU world. This world is the polar opposite of our world, and without Dean and Sam, all those people who died because of them, survive in the AU. So like Kevin and Bobby, it makes sense that Charlie lives over there.

At first I was angry about Bucklemming somehow trying to redeem themselves to fandom by bringing back Charlie, but after applying some more sensible, less emotional thought to the matter, and speaking extensively with friends about it, I realise this is not the case. I am vaguely aware there has been wank about this point. First off, lets make this clear; Bucklemming don’t give a fuck about fandom and wouldn’t even bother trying to redeem themselves over something that they still celebrate themselves for doing in the first place (Charlie’s death in their own opinion was still a good choice and they still pat themselves on the back for it – fucking assholes that they are). Bringing an AU Charlie into the picture is nothing to do with fan service or trying to win favour with those of us who despise them. They don’t give a fuck. Bringing AU Charlie back was purely because it makes sense in an AU world that works in opposite to this world. It was also for Dean’s development, because whilst Bucklemming don’t appear to give a fuck about Sam or Cas and their story arcs, they do take an interest in Dean’s. Dean is the only character they actually understand and the only character (other than Lucifer) who they seem to like writing for. By introducing an AU Charlie, and having Dean face that Charlie, it will help Dean to let go of some of his guilt over her death. I say this specifically because of this:

DEAN: “I don’t wanna lose you again”

CHARLIE: “that’s not your call”

Dean tried to bring Charlie back with him to keep her safe, but Charlie chose to stay in danger. Just like original Charlie chose to face danger to help Dean back in season 10. It was never Dean’s fault that Charlie died (it was stupid writing) It was Charlies own decision to put her life at risk, hopefully this Charlie can teach Dean a lesson about holding on to guilt and blaming himself and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This line was also very relevant for Dean in regards to Cas, who Dean has been trying to protect ever since he got him back in 13x05. Dean may have been able to say those words to Charlie, but he has so far been unable to say them to Cas. Yet another example of communication that needs to be had between the two of them. WILL YOU BOYS PLEASE ADDRESS THAT FUCKING ELEPHANT ALREADY BECAUSE ITS MAKING A MESS AND NO ONE IS CLEANING IT UP.

This is why the confusion over what Charlie was to Dean was also so interesting. Because so much of what was said about her is so relevant to Dean and Cas now.

KETCH: “Old girlfriend? Let me guess, she broke your heart”

...

CHARLIE: “And you were friends with her, me? Her.”

DEAN: “Yes very.”

CHARLIE: “How very?”

DEAN: “She was into chicks.”

CHARLIE: “Oh, I like her.”

Both Ketch and Charlie herself make the wrong assumption about Dean’s relationship with her. Dean has to clarify to both of them. Just like he needs to clarify to Cas and USE HIS WORDS.

The one final point I want to make about the AU world is in relation to the “Commander”. I have seen the awesome speculation post by @charlie-minion and I want it to be right. I would love an AU!Cas to appear as I think it would be extremely interesting for Cas’s own development arc, and for Dean’s. I certainly found it interesting that we weren’t given a name, and also thought this angel was far more captivating and memorable than any other random angel we have met in the AU so far. Even Zachariah didn’t really get this much screen time. I hope we see him again anyway, and I hope Charlie’s spec is correct.

Sam and Gabriel – I need you = I need your help

Sam’s speech was honestly one of the highlights of the episode, until Bucklemming ruined it by going back to the fucking porn stars point, but regardless, it was a beautiful moment for Sam, and I did enjoy it:

“Gabriel, you have to dig yourself out of this hole. I know you think it’s safer inside. No more torture, no more pain, no more expectations. I’ve been there. You are nothing like your family, you sure as hell weren’t like your dad, me either. And just like you I got out, or I thought I got out. But then, then my family needed me, and this is my life. No matter how many times I try to fight it, this is what I was put here to do. This is where I make the world a better place, and sure yeah hookers and Monte Carlo sounds great, but your family needs you, Jack your nephew needs you, the world needs you, we need you. Gabriel I need you. So please, help us.”

There is a lot to dig through here, because this is Sam admitting that he has accepted the life he leads. That no matter how many times he tries to escape, he has a duty to the world and to do what’s right. It is somewhat sad to be honest, because unlike Dean I don’t think Sam actually enjoys the job, the hunt, or any of it. But Sam has resigned himself that this is his duty. It does make me wonder about Sam’s endgame to be honest, because it wasn’t a particularly positive speech from Sam’s own point of view. He is much more like Cas in this respect that he sees this as an obligation, as his duty, rather than something that brings him any joy. Both Sam and Cas are similar in that they need to find something else to bring them joy in the life. Dean does get some form of joy out of the hunt and of saving people. Though even he is desperately seeking something more – as many moments over the past few years have shown.

Obviously everyone freaked out about the use of the words “we need you, I need you” but the situation was so extremely different I just cannot correlate the two scenes. Everything about the original Dean/Cas scene was romantically coded. Everything. But nothing about this scene really was. Sam is desperate, he is relying on Gabriel to save them, to help them. He wants to put his faith in Gabriel and you can see the tears in his eyes when he admits this, but Sam’s speech was all about getting Gabriel to help him and the world, whereas the original Dean/Cas speech was all about Dean trying to save Cas. There is a huge difference there, and I cannot see past it. So as much as I am happy for Sabriel shippers who have finally been given some canon to work with after all these years, from a meta perspective, there is nothing romantic about it.

In fact it only reasserts the continued themes of communication problems between Dean and Cas. Sam uses the word “need” correctly here. He uses it because he does desperately need Gabriel to help them. But when Dean used that word originally to save Cas, just like he used it again in 13x14 “we needed you back” he used it wrong. Dean doesn’t need Cas to help them in whatever world ending situation they have got themselves into, he simply wants Cas by his side, to love, and be loved as who Cas is, regardless of whether Cas is actually useful in the fight or not. The difference between needing a powerful ally (Gabriel) and wanting the love of your life alive and by your side (Castiel).

Other positives from the episode

Anael breaking free from her abuser and basically telling him to fuck off. You go girl.

Ketch once again referring to Cas as “your angel” because like everyone else, Ketch knows there is something more between Dean and Cas.

Asmodeus going up in flames – Kentucky fried style – yes we all got the joke. Ha. Ha.

Charlie is strongly hinted at also being a lesbian in the AU and well, she bloody better be.

The final scene and seeing the sheer emotion on Sam and Cas’s faces as they watch Dean break down. When does Dean ever really let them see him lose hope like that? It was a difficult scene to watch sure, but it made an impact. I like it that it was Cas that tried to reassure Dean that they would find Gabriel, rather than Sam. Sam regresses to the little brother at that moment. Full of guilt and worry. But Cas does attempt to stand strong and reassure and console Dean. Cas has been framed as Dean’s spouse throughout this entire season, and I thought this end scene was yet another example of that.

Onto the Negatives...

Okay so yeah I couldn’t just keep my mouth shut on these points. But they are going under a cut because I get proper ranty down there. You’ve been warned. Please don’t read any further if you are only gonna get offended and annoyed and come into my ask box to bitch. Sometimes we need to vent about stuff that pisses us off. I suggest you only read further if you are also feeling royally fucked over by these incompetent asshole writers and want to therapeutically live through my rage. If so... enjoy...

First lets talk about Gabriel. Because I’m pissed. I’m SO PISSED about him. I never really gave my opinion on him being brought back after the reveal at the end of 13x13, because I didn’t want to appear too negative at the time and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding his character. I also really hoped that Perez would tackle Gabriel’s backstory last episode instead of leaving it to Bucklemming. Unfortunately that was not the case and like I suspected from the moment we got Gabe back, they butchered him.

So I’m pissed. We can all officially say sayonara to Fanon Gabriel because he is dead, and isn’t coming back, and Canon Gabriel just had his original redemption arc robbed from him.

I actually found it really awful that they even threw that line into the episode “thanks for the redemption arc” Gabe says at the end… because it proves to me that Bucklemming were totally aware that they were destroying Gabe’s original redemption arc by writing his bullshit backstory. So yeah, I’m pissed.

Gabe tricked Lucifer with yet another double, and was “free” to go and spend his time with porn stars. Lovely. He then gets captured by regular boring demons. Like how? And taken to the weakest of the princes of hell to be his milk cow. Again HOW? One of the only reasons I liked Gabriel to begin with was because whilst he was always ambiguous and a tormentor for Sam and Dean, he always had his own moral compass. He punished people who were dicks basically. Assholes who got their comeuppance in horrifically ironic ways. He ran away from his family because he couldn’t stand the fighting, and he chose to side with the Winchesters in the end because he knew it was the right thing to do. The whole point of Gabe standing up to Lucifer was because he admitted back then that he didn’t want to see the world destroyed, that he liked humanity and found enjoyment in it, and that Lucifer and Michael would destroy that. So this new information about him running away and leaving it all up to Sam and Dean makes NO SENSE. He had chosen to stand by them, put his money on them, and then left. His original redemption is now worth nothing. It is no longer redemption. It instead proves him to be a selfish pervert, and nothing more.

The fact that he was then captured by fucking demons and caged by the most incompetent irrelevant demon of all is another massive insult to his character and his power. It again makes no sense that regular demons could even figure out he was still alive where Lucifer and all of heaven couldn’t, and actually have the strength to capture him in the first place.

Then there is the porn thing. Which I think was a gross, irrelevant, unnecessary joke that failed to hit the mark every time it was mentioned. Having him write it on the walls as part of his story when he was clearly traumatised and catatonic wasn’t funny. It was absurd and made me cringe. Someone please explain to me why bucklemming are so obsessed with porn and sex. PLEASE. Do they actually think these jokes are funny? Are they trying to glorify the porn industry? Or do they just like the idea of an archangel being obsessed with human pornography and porn stars? What is this shows fascination with fucking porn stars?! Jesus Christ stop fucking glorifying the sex industry. It has NEVER been funny. NEVER. FFS Bucklemming if you are that obsessed with the fucking porn industry why don’t you quit SPN and go WRITE for the PORN INDUSTRY. Your outdated stupid and nonsensical writing style would probably be suited to pornography. You can write all the ridiculous stories about Lucifer having dubiously consensual sex with sexy female “angels” as much as possible then. You’ll probably have more free reign to add in your own brand of horrific racism in porn as well in that case because god knows you love the busty Asian beauties bullshit.

So now Gabriel is a disgusting, porn obsessed fuckboy who chose surrounding himself with human sex workers over helping to stop the apocalypse. And then completely ruined Sam’s speech by once again reiterating that point as if the fact that they were PORN STARS SAMUEL was enough of a reason for his running away. Whilst Sam was practically in tears. You ruined that moment. No. I’m sorry. I don’t care if you managed to get all access to the fucking playboy mansion, its crude, its gross and it’s demeaning to women. It’s outdated and shouldn’t be a plot point in a show in 2018. This isn’t “Two and a Half Men” and you are not Charlie Sheen. Who was also disgustingly gross and I was glad when that series got rid of him. I mean, is this the kind of character that Bucklemming think their audience is going to celebrate? Applaud? Urgh. Fuck right off with that. Seriously.

So yeah, sure, Gabriel will probably have a change of heart given the synopsis for later episodes, but that is irrelevant now, Bucklemming have fucked over his character. Just like I thought they would. Seriously I wish they would just fuck off and retire already because I am so done with their outdated crappy disgusting story lines.

As for other completely pointless and irrelevant characters, Asmodeus was burned by his own creators. I guess Bucklemming finally realised that they were shit at creating characters who could be even remotely three dimensional and decided he wasn’t necessary for the story. His death has only proven to me what I thought all along: that he was pointless. That he had no significance to the story, no depth, no motivations, nothing. He was one gigantic joke. I’m glad he is dead. Good riddance. You will be forgotten in a matter of weeks.

Next up Lucifer. I have nothing to say about him. Other than that I found every scene he was in cringeworthy beyond belief. To the point that I feel ashamed when watching his scenes because of the terrible poor quality of acting and writing together makes me so embarrassed to call this show my fave. The exorcism had me dying of second hand embarrassment. Are the supernatural creators PROUD of shit like this? It was goddamn awful. The worst piece of crappy filmmaking I have seen in a while. Every scene with Lucifer is like this for me usually though so I shouldn’t be surprised. I want him killed off and done with now. He brings down the quality of the show to abysmal levels. It’ll never win any awards whilst he still exists in its narrative. I have nothing to meta about him. I can’t separate my meta brain from my hatred of everything he is, and everything Bucklemming have made him to be. I just want the show to be done with him – like I want it to be done with his horrifically terrible writers who wouldn’t recognise decent writing if Shakespeare himself rose from the grave and beat them both around the head with his entire catalogue of sonnets and plays.

Overall, it makes my heart ache when I think of episodes like 13x01 and 13x05, which were spectacular examples of the highest quality writing, direction, and overall production I have seen in a while. If ever I was to choose an episode of this show to introduce it to someone who hasn’t seen it before, I would choose either of those episodes. What amazes me is that those episodes exist in the same season as utter shit like this episode, and 13x13. Perhaps I am being harsh, as the Dean/Ketch/AU stuff in this episode on its own worked well. So perhaps it wasn’t so bad, but seeing as everything else brought it down so badly, I just can’t separate them out. I still struggle to wonder why Bucklemming even bothered to have Cas in this episode at all. He was severely underutilised.

I’m just… so done with Bucklemming episodes. I am so done having to sit through their bullshit and try to force myself to find meaning and anything of analytical worth. Yes, I was able to find some positives, yes, I was able to find some stuff to talk about, but it was a struggle. Half the time I wonder if any of that stuff was even intended, and if it was I reckon it’s only because Dabb had to sit there with their shitty script and fix it as much as possible because I know by now that whenever they write anything of any worth, it must be due to someone elses input. I can’t equate the writers who wrote this utter bullshit about Lucifer and Gabriel with the same writers who wrote Dean’s confession in 10x16, or 11x18, or even the Dean/Ketch/Charlie stuff in THIS episode. How can you be so awful and yet still have stuff like this? You must be getting help.

I’m so sorry to those of you reading who disagree with my above assessments - though to be honest I did warn you. I have re-watched the episode a few times now but each time my rage just boils up again. If Dabb doesn’t start putting a tighter leash on these atrocious writers, then this series will fail in quality. It already has to be honest. I don’t see how we can deal with Bucklemming writing the penultimate episode. Knowing that the fucktards who penned this episode are also basically showrunning the mytharc plot is heartbreaking. I adore this show, but if Bucklemming continue to have control, I’ll be tapping out. Destiel or no Destiel. I can’t watch crappy quality. I certainly can’t watch crapy quality destroy something I adore from the inside out. But that is all I see them doing.

*sigh*

I’m sorry. I hope that Yokey’s episode next week will redeem Supernatural for me. I hope that we will start to get back into the destiel subplot, because tbh I have felt like it has been severely lacking since 13x06, with only a minor reprisal in 13x14. I hope that we will actually get some focus on Castiel again, because I feel like his story has been lost along the way, and right now it seems he isn’t doing anything. We need to explore his own development arc again but I just can’t see it. I can’t see it at all at the moment. I want him to exist for more than just Dean’s freaking guilt and worry. I had such high hopes going into this season, but the further we get into, the more I lose faith and see the mytharc plot like a slowly loosening thread. Dabb needs to pull it all back together, because the longer Bucklemming keep their grubby porn obsessed hands on it, the more it will fall apart.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough if all our focus and devotion has actually been worth it.

#episode review #spn meta #13x18 #spn spoilers #season 13 #my meta #destiel #spn speculation #fuck you bucklemming #wank for ts #negativity for ts #my opinions #don't read under the cut unless you are prepared for ALOT of negativity

34 notes · View notes

shixpe · 7 years ago

Text

Yeah I’m bringing this back.

Gonna preface this post as always with the warning to take everything meta or speculation with a grain or sack of salt. It's always possible we (mostly me) look far more deeply into the visuals of the show than the writers and directors.

Secondly, this is gonna be a post about the tarot cards from the tape ball tease (yeah that up there), so it’s wishy washy at best and I’ve been told by other writers that the cards probably only had relevance to the one episode they appear in (13.03) and Patience. I somewhat disagree so I did this little write up.

I tried to keep the meta on what the cards look like and any history attached. Instead of how they are read for an individual like a daily zodiac.

Okay! My crazy ramblings.

I’m sure some of ya remember the tarot spread and the meta that followed (particularly about the Hanged Man and Cas), so when I remembered it recently I wanted to go back to it with the knowledge we have so far of S13.

Starting in the middle are two cards; the 10 of Pentacles (reversed) and the King of Cups. I’m gonna start here because to me it’s still a little vague.

10 of Pentacles: According to random google research of questionable websites, the card represents stability and wealth in finances, family, and love. While the reverse that we have indicates financial instability, broken home, unrequited or shattered love. Now I could see how the problems with family and love could fit with TFW 2.0 and Mary but the financial part confused me at first so I let it be until later.

King of Cups: The card visually portrays a wise and wealthy king sitting on a throne wearing a fish pendant. Behind him is a tumultuous ocean with a fish on one side and a ship on the other (more fish and ship/ocean imagery if you like that sorta thing). Now I have a tie to the 10 of Pentacles. This king is sideways on top of the card that portrays the opposite of what he represents.

The King of Cups is considered a guide and mentor, he helps others unselfishly, cares sincerely about others and “heals with a gentle touch and a quiet word”. He also is said to possess a balance of both masculine and feminine energies. My first thought was that this all reminds me of angels in some way. We’ve seen them as both male and female, and they are healers (if they want to be).

However, the last thing about the King that I have to bring up is the connection to Solomon. “Solomon is portrayed as great in wisdom, wealth and power beyond either of the previous kings of the country.” I have my own thoughts, but it would be future speculation about where the Solomon arc is heading.

Behind door number two we have the four other cards in the spread. I’m gonna start with the one on the right because it was the most unique, it has three characters in the art instead of one and is a minor suit card.

Three of Pentacles: There are three people in this card that are building a temple together. The card represents teamwork toward a goal, cooperation, and competence. They are working together as a unit and that has led to their desired outcome.

In some places I read that the mason on the left was less experienced and possibly a kind of apprentice which led to me having two thoughts on the card.

1.The card represents TFW 1.0, possibly Sam and Dean helping to guide Cas in his goal to raise Jack to be strong and good. The important aspect is that they need to cooperate and listen to each other. Right now while they are working together, I see a rift between them, they argue and have differing ideas all of the time and now Cas has decided he is a soldier who does whatever he needs to regardless of the group’s thoughts or warnings.

On the other hand this set up reminds me of earlier this season when Sam (though not really Dean) was trying to teach Jack, the apprentice, to use his powers responsibly. Jack decides to also try and mimic Dean, making Dean a teacher regardless. He didn’t trust Jack but he went along with Sam to humour him in a way. After Cas returns, Dean flips entirely and now Jack is family. He can see the importance of helping the young man just like Cas and Sam.

I’m not sure which reading I came up with makes more sense even to me but either way I like them.

The final three cards all have one individual person and are considered trump cards or part of the Major Arcana suit (bear with me I know nothing of tarot).

The Hermit: The ninth trump card, shows Gandalf the Grey (half kidding, come on), an old man standing in a wasteland, holding a staff in one hand (the “patriarch’s staff”, indicating a narrow path he has to follow, and also seems to bring up imagery of father figures) and in the other a lantern called the Lamp of Truth that he uses to guide others (“the unknowing”).

He is also known as Time, The Sage, and Heimdallr (“watching for the signs of the coming of Ragnarok).

The thing I found most interesting about this card is that inside the Lamp of Truth that he holds is the six pointed star/hexagram. Also constantly referred to in everything I found as the Seal of Solomon.

To be honest I fear that all of the ingredients of this portal spell might simply be played off as meaningless trinkets and/or random one-episode characters. But still, I persist.

I had no other real interpretation of this card other than the possible reference to Solomon and the wasteland + guidance.

High Priestess: Honestly I like this card the most, I just think there is a lot about this card that is mysterious, subtextual and flips the script in a way.

Visually, the card is crammed with plenty of important imagery and is a bit garish tbh so there’s a few things I wanted to bring up about it.

The High Priestess card is overflowing with feminine energy, but not just the female, specifically the rebellious one.

In another tarot deck the woman is wearing a papal tiara, the crown of a Pope, and likely referencing a fictional person called Pope Joan who was a Pope for several years disguised as a man.

In our deck it is not a pope but a priestess, beside her are two pillars that tell us she is sitting in front of the Temple of Solomon, where there were no priestesses at all.

Finally there’s the wall behind her. Yes those are pomegranates, but they are growing next to palm trees. I am no horticulturalist but a little searching shows me that the trees pomegranates grow on don’t look like tropical palm trees.

But (if y’all been looking at some posts recently about the fruit of the tree of life), what we saw in the episode looks more like a “mangosteen” which is a purple tropical plant whose trees generally do have large leaves.

At this point my religious fanon is that this tapestry represents both the trees of knowledge and life.

All in all we have a card that represents tons of rebellious female energy, and in particular women who have made an impact, or continue to make one. In my opinion I like to think it portrays our SPN ladies who are powerful, who rebel, and who seek knowledge beyond any rules.

The Hanged Man: There’s been so much meta done on this card but I don’t care. This is the one that came up again recently and made a spark of interest that led to this clusterfuck of a post.

I honestly have nothing much to add to the work others have already done between this card and Cas except for this purely speculative pattern that my brain saw when the card came across again.

#supernatural #spn spoilers #spn season 13 #spn meta #spn tarot #i need a drink

28 notes · View notes

elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

Text

12x22 watching notes

*loud Dean!girl tears*

Cup of Tea No. 1:

Expectations - Berens Buckleming Clean Up Operation, which tbh when you rank writers by skill at this job WAS the top of the game over Dabb but then Perez showed up. But I still expect a competent job.

This appears to be the BMoL and Mary wrap up episode, although on this show appearances can be deceiving.

As a fervent Mary stan this season, I'm hoping they don't kill her but if they do kill her she dies next episode for heroic reasons, not this episode for rubbish hubris reasons, although I am open to being won over to a tearful passing if they actually get to friggin communicate everything with her, and in that respect I feel we've been waiting since 12x03 for Berens to get back to the point he was making there...

I EXPECT Ketch to die bloody, but ever since last episode I've been pre-emptively disappointed that he's going to be mauled by his own hellhound. Slightly less disappointed if Dean opens the cage and says "Sic 'im, boy," to the dog, because this IS an episode by Bobo "Drowley" Berens.

Aside from that, I've pretty much got nothing because I haven't been speculating ahead on much or really daring to entertain any ideas, except for firmly staking my entire farm on the mystery dude from the 2 in 1 trailer being "Garth with padding" so I expect I will be handing over my farm soon. Although I assume that's in 12x23 and therefore not yet and maybe not for hours.

[note from past me ‘hours’ yeah okay this episode literally ended up making me bedridden and too weak to move by the halfway point so I took like 24 hours from start to finish :P]

Oh yeah, Dean's got a pending 7 years ago "welcome to next time" for Walt or Roy from Dark Side of the Moon. One or the other is supposed to be in this episode. The reminder of 5x16 nudges all its themes onto the table, and it's nice that it's a Dabb episode, the one that wrecked Dean n Cas's faith, ruined Heaven for Sam n Dean, and had Zach attempt to ruin Mary for Dean with that chilling speech that after 12x03 we were saying really cut too close to home on what Dean might have thought after Mary walked out.

Quick Jody recap. Not entirely sure if the "Jody is good people" line comes from 10x20 about Claire, or 7x22 about not!Jenna, the Alpha's blood slave, but it certainly wasn't about Alex, although it's laid over a clip of them together, and the only reminder about Jody is that she adopts wayward daughters.

Blah blah murder!Mary, capturing Toni recap, Mary is brainwashed, bunker is gonna kill you... Noticing Ketch saying the air will "reverse" which means what, exactly, but anyway goes with the theme of reversing things. He also has an extremely punchable face, and since DHJ grew his beard back, all these con photos from the other day have been literally unrecognisable and I keep wondering who the normal looking bloke is hanging out on stage with them, because I'm so used to him looking like this:

(brief break because Berens episodes always make me really sick for some reason)

Anyway.

NOW.

Dead guy (thing?) on a truck.

Dead guy. Mary used some reaaaally horrible cat claw looking knuckle dusters or something to kill him. BMoL including savergy as part of the deal; Mary is the hellhound who tears up these guys. Not just being effective at killing - it has to be horrible too. And Mary's been getting used to killing monsters horribly - why should it matter when it's people?

the obvious problem next season is the hunters have been decimated so monsters are going to be a much bigger problem and sam and dean can't rely on all these random nobody hunters to stop the next generation of tragic backstories.

This one was called Lester, and I watched 10x02 waaay to recently and that's the guy who got screwed over by Sam's demon deal shenanigans and Dean killed.

Oh no I think he worked in Auto Repair - Bobby would have been a target if only they still had a Bobby

Bobby would not have stood for this. Mary would have been in the panic room in a flash through some trickery and smart paranoia :P

Aaaaah Jody's on the hit list. Who did Jody ever hurt???

I can tell you why that's stupid even for the BMoL: aside from killing law enforcement being a dumb idea in general to not draw attention to yourself, the local sheriff type hunters will literally always be the sort to get involved in cases on a local level and start hunting for themselves to protect a small town like Jody did... you're never going to stop them popping up and you're removing a valuable local level resource and I bet there are others like Jody who just didn't have the misfortune to know the Winchesters who literally never fight above their weight limit but are ready for vampires to come to town >.>

I know she's on the hitlist because she's an associate of the Winchesters but I mean... their overall plan is STUPID if they're going after hunter cops in general. Pfft

*Sam, Dean and Toni bicker entertainingly*

Toni argues that they NEED her so THEY don't kill her. It's like... on the endless infinite loops of Crypt Scene reversals, this one is Toni arguing for HER life to UNDO a brainwashing if they don't kill her, using the keyword "you need me", and... yeah. Same sort of deal - someone saying stuff to not get killed and there's brainwashing involved.

Sam: "LORE"

DAY ONE

Remember how 11x14 is one of my favourite Sam episodes because Berens just sometimes writes the Perfect Sam, and he's all peppy and researchy? I've seen literally 2 seconds of this scene and I'm like, yeah, he's at it again.

Berens's take on Sam is probably the interpretation I've funnelled into Terrible Coffee AU, mostly because I laughed SO HARD at excessively caffienated Sam in 11x14 and what it did to his personality, I decided then and there I would never write a scene with him where he hadn't had at least 4 cups of coffee

Sam found a gremlin spell :D

Pfft they need to purify some blood to make it work. While the Bunker is on lockdown and the lights are flashing red. Dean's even wearing a red shirt, though it's a plaid one, because he's in the family again unlike 10x03, and Toni's the ~invading element~ who last episode like demon!Dean spat a load of bitter truths at Sam, did the same to Mary.

Aw they're all combining their blood. They're in like some sort of pact now, that they all at least want to live, at least long enough to try killing each other in free air. But yeah, no one of them is being relied on to be the purified one - symbolic that while they hate each other, when it comes to getting free none of them is being more self-righteous than the others, and also an admission that none of their bloods are pure enough that any of them could have lorded it over the others.

(Sam, of course, is working with Toni and compartmentalising everything about how she tortured and mind-raped him)

Brains failed, now for brawn. (Sam and Dean still being aligned this way, and each having a day to try their thing)

I hate seeing a map of the Bunker as if it makes sense, but it reassuringly magically produces a brand new wall we've never seen before with a convenient exit right behind it - "let's Shawshank this bitch" - so I figure its magic is still at work. It's brainwashed too - it doesn't want to kill them, so it's doing its best to help :<

They need to manually override it.

Dean immediately gets repurcussions for his idea by getting a shard of concrete in his eye. Probably not symbolic

Also they probably wasted a ton of air doing that

"how did this happen?" "which part?" "all of it" - haven't hit play but cosmic consequeeeences

"We had Cas back, we had Mom back"... I assume Dean's priorities have been pointed out by everyone but I'm doing it anyway. Even if you just say he's listing them and had to go one way or the other, and "Mom" is the more surprising one, but still... Cas being got by Lucifer was like, up there with things that getting him back was like getting Mary back, in how happy it made Dean. That is a Thing.

Also belatedly had some Thoughts and came back to this point, that Amara is really the big bad of this season too, but as an abstract concept of chaos, which she represents, where her 2 actions for Dean were to give him Cas and Mary back, but between throwing Lucifer wherever to let him carry on as he liked, and bringing Mary back to get tangled in this, she creates the two heads of the end of season chaos, and both arcs (and Mary and Cas have been mirrored all the way as the two sides of this sort of looping around each other)... I guess what I'm saying is I expect chaos and I'm blaming it on her, but it's belatedly given me a really interesting way to look at the randomness of the season.

Sam's regretting things. Give him a dog. *ruffles his damp hair* He was just too optimistic for his own good. He wanted the world wide scale doing good thing, and wanted to follow along instead of leading.

Whenever I think of Sam and leading I think about boy!king Sam and the plans that were apparently there for him. He had the "I'm not a leader" arc like 6 years before Cas did, and it turned out it was all a con anyway, but the point is, Sam very very firmly does not like being put in a position of responsibility, probably has season 2-3 trauma related to it, since it was how he first died, and then how Ruby met him, swearing loyalty to him as if he would be that leader...

Ironically in 12x14 and Berens knows this full well as he writes Sam saying this, Sam took control and leadership of the situation and crisis-managed it all the way through to a dead Alpha vamp, getting the hero shot and everything, but he still blamed the BMoL over and over that they were the ones who did all the hard work, and turned to them for guidance, instead of seeing what he did there.

As Leviathan!Dean once said, but, uh, reapply this to being a GOOD leader, they're strong and smart and so on... He just went to the end that it was a perfectly good opportunity to subjugate the weak (which is what the BMoL want) and of course Sam would rather not do that :P

Cup of Tea no. 2

Oh crap, they're have a Moment about how they want to die, talking about how they didn't imagine it being this way because, well, who plans to be murdered by their own Bunker

I don't think Dean plans to die this way any more

Did Dean just....

he did

Toni hates the Americans

YEAH DEAN

He's gonna remember that forever.

If he's not dead and tbh if he is he just died happy

Having an explosion in the Bunker was a terrible way to use up all the oxygen

YAY Dean did the thing and all the smoke is clearing

I suppose because this is on the CW Dean doesn't stumble in with a massive boner from finally getting to use it

This was already a symbolic victory for the crazy American way of hunting.

Oh dear, it's Mary.

She is covered in blood and just walks up to the door, and Jody's like... okay I guess this is what happens with the Winchesters.

I think 12x06 softened her up too much to the idea they just show up covered in the last hunt and want to watch TV

Omg GARTH IS ALIVE. For now?

"You and Bess need to get someplace safe" :3 Thanks for looking after them for me

I mean now Eileen's dead and Garth is still alive I feel sort of bad for using his life to bargain with. Hence hoping he's mystery guy.

Nyoooom

oh that was a cruel fake trail of blood.

I mean real blood but fake anyone got killed because Jody is upright and Alex is next to her and Mary's just got a bleeding nose and a smirk while being wrapped in rope.

"Hello boys"

Heee Alex and Jody took down Mary and they're being proud of each other for doing it

I love them so much so I am in absolute terror that one or both of them dies

oh dear Dean's stuck in a room with Jody and Mary and she's taunting Jody for playing mom to Dean - 9x19 comes immediately to mind, and Momma taunting Jody for doing the same to Alex, which is how she got her in the first place. And Mary's tied to a chair and all she's got is the same demon!Dean thing from 10x03 to snark at Dean and tell Jody she can have him.

Honestly, Dean's adapted a lot very well to even survive watching Mary say she doesn't want him to his face.

He doesn't look HAPPY but he didn't like, burst into tears and/or storm out the room

"What's the matter, Dean? Am I too different from the Mary you know? Or too much the same?"

The whole messed up family thing in one go here >.> Mary mirroring Dean as demon!Dean having a dark side that renounced his family and claimed to have always been this thing, and Mary doing the same...

Lol Mary's hiding behind "inpenetrable psychic walls" - that's not the metaphor the Bunker was warning about us or anything, OR anything deeply symbolic about all the character stuff for Sam and Dean where they hide behind walls of "the story became the story" and all that. Looks like maybe this is how Dean is forced to tell Mary all the dark horrible truth about her deal and all that we saw in the script they teased? That he has to try and find a way to ease her out from behind it, maybe taking a few scratches and shrapnel in the eye to get there, but... Can he grenade launcher through it with his words??

"They can't be torn down with grenades"

Dean is too sad to even do a "watch me try"

Random hunters!

And Walt and Roy!

"No hard feelings" yeah it's much easier to understand when Sam's alive and that was 7 years ago and honestly so much character growth since then or something

Nice demonstration of putting aside bad feelings to work together

Dean leaves Sam to do the big presentation and Sam stumbles over introducing it as a personal problem he and Dean have ended up with, but then suddenly drops into inspirational speaking about "our people", taking on the burden as a leader :D

(I mean that's like the one thing they told us in PR but it was "sam n dean" and look I'm really proud of him okay? Berens writes a Sam I love)

Sam also admits, in front of Walt and Roy even, that he was one of the hunters who messed up and were suckered in by their flashy tech. Admitting that the current terrible scenario is his fault again, when that's what they originally killed him for - whatever was on the hunter grapevine about what Sam Winchester had done...

blah blah America is great land of the free etc *Sam finishes the speech with an American flag flying behind him*

But I mean good laying out of the philosophies of what they see hunting is really all about - the whole cops and robbers thing Sam talked about in 12x14 but thought the BMoL could help with that instead of seeing they weren't going to be anything like what he idealised about the job.

And he asks them to follow him :')

I hope the near-death experience made Dean change his mind about dying bloody too

Dean's so proud

Me too

Oh no he's sitting it out. Literally because he blew his own fucking leg up.

I'm sitting this out too... I'm in too much pain to continue doing anything useful right now

Cup of coffee no. 1

Morning! So Sam gets his big character growth moment to maybe not mess up leading a thing this time (people are going to die but they know that... more alarmingly, Jody's going with them >.>) and Dean's saying behind to fix Mary. He gives a speech to Sam about doing that which sounds almost exactly like the sort of thing Sam was saying about demon!Dean - if there's any of them still in there they're going to find it and bring them back.

The Mary stuff has always been emotionally more on Dean's side just because Sam would be perfectly content for her to exist and see what happens (which is probably an unspoken part of how the BMoL suckered him in that he didn't mention in the big speech to the other hunters) - he gets the external evil to fight, something which helps fix his and especially Mary's mistakes by taking down the operation, while Dean deal with Mary.

It only just occurred to me typing this, even though I've had like 14 hours since I found out what the plan was, that that puts Sam in a Ketch-ish direction if he's going to be anywhere predictable. I'm still torn about this because I want Sam to kill him for Eileen but Mary's got a personal beef too and I'd honestly be sort of confused if despite being the least-most-invested in killing Ketch, Dean doesn't get pitted against him, partially because this is The Raid pt.2 (this time the hunters doing exactly what the vampires did when they were all being killed off) and partly because stuff just kind of happens to Dean more. But it's entirely unfair of him to hog ALL the emotional catharsis if he's got Toni and Mary with him trying to fix Mary, and then ALSO has to deal with an unexpected Ketch

Oh dear, Alex just told Jody to kick it in the ass while heading off to a safe house with Donna. It's sort of the show generic rallying cry because Kim Manners, but it's also the Ellen and Jo bye bye phrase, and I don't like this. I have suddenly remembered I am very very worried about one or both of them, and Alex unfortunately still don't have much point to be in this episode except it's weird to pretend Jody doesn't have a family just because the actresses need herding, Claire's purposefully driven off into the sunset so doesn't seem to be a part of this, and that leaves Alex here to either kill or react to Jody being killed.

Sam and Dean do the bitch/jerk thing which in a show where there was actual threat to either of them dying would make them having a "don't die pls" farewell unnerving for the exact above reasons, but just makes me feel like everyone's having tearful goodbyes to try and pretend the stakes are equally high - at least, the characters think so - to obscure killing off Jody.

The BMoL have Sam and Dean on their board with "ELIMINATED" underneath them. Losers.

Aaaah I forgot Claire was a potential target though. The WORST thing they could do is kill her off-screen without ceremony and let Jody and Alex find out because Jody bursts into the control room and sees Claire's picture with "ELIMINATED" under it

Oh nope Ketch is getting nervous about where his asset is so he gets the "keep it between us" info that Mary's in Lebanon, Kansas, aka time for Ketch to not be around to get killed in the base (making it infinitely easier to raid for everyone else) and for him to go exactly where I assumed he would.

Sorry Sam, you get the second hand reassurance that Ketch paid for it >.>

Nighty night, Dean and Mary :D I'm surprised they didn't just say African Dream Root but I suppose the BMoL have had time to develop these technologies and magical chemistry that makes the stuff work, and dream root does come with the problem that you can literally kill someone in one of the dreams, it's so real, and tidying up all the lore on how to do this sort of thing would make sense if they wanted to not have to deal with any odd plotholes from that. Using electrodes and stuff to link Dean and Mary connects them without the basic way dream root does it, polyjuice potion style, so theoretically neither of them should have control over the other, although Dean's entering Mary's head?

WHERE'S THE SOCK MONKEY? INACURRATE. FAKE.

Oh well, I suppose there's some sort of weird symbolism sticking Dean in that chair to wake up but without Dean's sock monkey it just doesn't feel real to me.

I suppose it could be any old day of the week not like dropping Dean directly into the scene in 1x01, since it's daylight beyond the windows, so perhaps Mary has been tidying and Dean's sock monkey is in his room where it belongs and it just happened to be on the floor in 1x01 because she hadn't tidied that day >.>

Dean whatever you do do not pick up the tiny Sammy. He's very cute but I have a bad feeling about randomly appearing babies.

Oh it's so weird to regress Mary back to the Mary she was stuck at the whole time of the show for 11 seasons. I mean MARY said she was stuck there in 12x03 as well but her surface actions have all been really different, obviously. And at this point... Dean looks stunned to see her and I don't think it's just because it's the "wow Mom" shock he would get all the previous times, but now, FINALLY looking at her as someone who she USED to be...

Oh no he's so small.

This is what he looked like when he wore the "I wuv hugs" shirt. He's seeing it from the other side now.

Dean could pick HIMSELF up.

Oh noooo he's eating PB&J I didn't sign up for this.

I was expecting him to do this but I was not expecting it to be Dark Side of the Moon over again instead of 1x01. I thought he was going to go do something similar to Sam in the vision Azazel showed him in 2x21, but I suppose the point is that they return to the most important moment to them, and for Dean it was eating PB&J with his mom. It's utterly tragic that Dean and Mary have the same Heaven memory but from different sides, because one of the worst things about Heaven is the isolation - if you don't know to start pressing on the walls looking for roads or loose threads, you can stay in a dream for eternity, and Mary and Dean might be living the exact same moment over and over again, but without each other... I'm not saying they should be soulmates, I'm saying Heaven should be more like what Ash made of it without the sneaking around and needing an advanced understanding of quantum physics or an angel to tell you what to do to start hopping between Heavens.

Of course put too many people together and they start talking and questioning and it's easier to keep them content if they don't have the ability to think about their situation deeply and philosophically, but are drugged up in their Heaven dream with happiness and mindless contentment living over their best times again.

And now Dean's stuck on the outside looking in of the same moment just as Sam was 7 years ago (you know maybe last night I was wondering if we'd come back here because I was thinking Roy and Walt were a very obvious clue... This is what happens when you take 14 hours off)

YEAH JODY. FUCK THE LAW. RUN A GUY OVER. SHOOT SOMEONE.

LOL Roy and Walt are driving Gadreel's car

Of course in the way the show endlessly loops around itself, what Dean is doing, especially the sitting opposite Mary while her brain is hacked thing, is 9x10 again. Toni is Crowley but this time Dean is going in himself.

"You're choosing this" *Dean is horrified* *has only just gone through this with Cas last year* He hates that anyone would choose not free will because, well, contradiction. But Mary has regressed back to how she would have been in Heaven - living in the dream and not really able to think about what's outside herself, and so the choice to stay is very easy: abstract pain and harsh reality, or just not thinking about it. In a way it's almost like trying to right what she feels was done wrong to her - all those gifsets comparing it to Buffy talking about how she didn't ask to be brought back and how she had been happy in Heaven. To Mary, THAT was the violation of her free will...

"I hate you"

Aaand Dean reaches the most dramatic part of HIS character arc relating to Mary.

Ironically one of the B99 episodes I caught up while laying around like a dead fish yesterday included one where Holt got annoyed Amy wouldn't stand up to him even after he lost her favourite pen, and eventually wound her up enough to make her yell at him and dare to disrespect her superior officer (... to an Amy degree anyway :P) and, yeah. Same deal; Dean's been completely INCAPABLE of expressing anything negative to/about Mary, and even the argument in 12x14 was more a sort of downwards bump in this relationship, because within the episode he decided to reconcile with her *just* because she was Mary, and of course the argument was not as stark and final sounding as "I hate you" - reconciling with her after was just putting that aside in order to keep her around, not any sort of conclusion to this fight.

lol getting some more use out of the sci fi corridors to randomly mimic the opening of A New Hope, though the BMoL are literally "the empire" and the American hunters are the "rebels"

oh I think Roy or Walt is already dead. Lol. Sucks to be them.

(they DID just think they were doing what was right in 5x16 but still. They've been a statisticaly anomoly to be someone who killed a Winchester and lived to tell the tale (I suppose the lady from Wishful Thinking as well but she was as much a victim of the spell as anything so it doesn't... count...?? I suppose the people from Mystery Spot who helped kill Dean all those 1000s of time as well :P))

Anyway being a redshirt on this mission gets them killed on the Winchesters' behalf so fair's fair

Oh boy here's the stuff from Dean's confrontation with Mary, and aside from squeezing her eyes not to listen it's completely one-sided as Jensen delivers the sort of Dean monologue which of all the monologues which should have got him an Emmy already, this is the best. This is terrible :D

He's using instead of "we love you" truths to get to her, the HoRRIBLE truth that she's been owed THIS ENTIRE TIME

Anyway he's blaming his whole tragic backstory on her instead of Azazel, because the story has become the story that even after 4x03 Dean's managed to keep Mary pretty much exactly on the pedestal he always kept her on rather than confront that she is the root cause of his angst, which involves her death... He's letting go of everything. Seeing her saying she wants the best for him and will keep him safe, but he knows she's saying this having ALREADY made the deal, and that her entire happy life with her kids was ALWAYS a sham because she ALWAYS knew something bad was coming, but while she was living like this she put herself entirely into that dream to ignore it.

"You left us, ALONE, because Dad was just a shell" holy crap the show is actually OVER, what's even left to SAY

I know when Mary came back, around this time last year we were screeching about the development he'd be offered by this, by finally getting to confront his family history again and get to be at peace with the way he was raised and all that... It's gutting to watch it in real time though

"I had to be a father, and I had to be a mother"

holy shit I wish I could send this scene back to season 10 me to see :D Like, right after 10x03. Because the character thread in Dean I've been following the entire time I've been in fandom has been waiting to see if this would ever get resolved well, after 10x03 where demon!Dean blurted out similar to Sam but from the worst possible place, at HIS lowest point. (This is not Dean's lowest point. Lowest point for his relationship with his mom, but higest peak he's ever stood on for his own personal strength. Holy crap I'm proud of my boy.)

(The phrasing here is all kind of reminiscent of 10x05's song about John and Mary and it's making me laugh inappropriately because the start of season 10 nailed all this so much)

And the thing is by setting this all here in the Dark Side of the Moon day it's a completely timeless moment - like sure there's some vague outside stuff going on like it's BECAUSE of the BMoL but Dean's ONLY talking about their history, their past, how his life was all the time since ever, and the historical facts of Mary's life. Any time since 5x16 they COULD have pulled the trigger on a scene like this, because all they needed was a run up to get Dean in the right mood to say it all. Of course this is the end result of a massive, at least 4 years project to tear Dean down and build him back up and have his character development go on an absolutely incredible journey... At this point I feel like the sports commentator yelling encouragement on the final lap before an absolutely record breaking victory.

"I couldn't do it - and you want to know what that was like?" YES PLEASE KEEP TALKING

Dean lists all the shit that's happened to Sam like the bitter Sam!girl he is and says "all because of you"

I think at this point I just want to look back at 1x09, where Mary as a ghost goes to Sam, before almost any of this happens except Jess dying and the horrible upbringing, and says "I'm sorry" because she KNEW what she'd done to him, and she died guilty about it. She said in 12x02,

MARY: And when we do find Sam... how am I gonna face him? DEAN: What do you mean? MARY: That yellow-eyed thing would never have come for him that night if I... I started all of this.

but with all the massive miscommunication themes she didn't go talk to Sam when she should have - when he came to her in the end of the episode and hugged her, she should have apologised there, and made a start on it. And if not then, then in 12x03, although I'm feeling like from the moment she cut her hair it was too late and she was already avoiding who she had once been, chopping off the style associated with herself as their mom and stepping into what would become this demon!Dean-like brainwashed Mary. I suppose it makes sense to say in 12x02 she raised the problem that she had to face sam somehow, and she DIDN'T and then we got 12x03, the mirror episode to this one on this side of the story (and it feels like Berens has made one of those clear lines through the season, with 12x14 being mirrored on the other side of this episode, in the way Robbie owned season 9 - so like I hand season 9 to Robbie, I'm giving Berens season 12 :P Good work on all this, sir.) In 12x03 Mary is faced with the haunted house full of mirrors to exactly what she's NOT seeing here - Sam as the burned, soulless doll in a crib, the object the demons passed around, and eventually was nothing but a hollow person, as Dean ends it on describing that Sam lost his soul. And for Dean, she sees the little boy, and she hasn't moved past that, but Dean had to tell her from the moment she died he wasn't that any more - he was the parent of the family. She's got her family regressed here again, because confronting it in 12x03 just made her run away. And this is as far as she's run, through the season, literally just running on the spot in this exact place.

Outside Mary is crying, but inside Mary is refusing to show anything. Maybe it's just because where her consciousness is - she won't cry on the face Dean can see. He's leaking tears in the dream but not on the outside. But yeah, she can pick one (1) set of tear ducts to angrily repress. Because at the end of the day, Mary has always been the one more like Dean.

Dean FINALLY gets through the "i hate yous" he's always needed to say to get back to "i love you"

*slowly sinks underneath the blankets* Yeah, saying "I love you" to Mary is the only way he's ever been able to get it out before - the speculation being that once he's worked through his COLLOSAL issues with his parents he might be able to say "I love you" more casually to others because he's at peace. I can SEE him settling into being at peace now, which I think is all that Amara INTENDED when bringing Mary back, but obviously the MASSIVE repercussions going on outside their little insular family bubble.

And Dean forgives her. And says on the other side of this, they can rebuild their family and make it work. AAAAAAH.

(AAAAAAAAH)

Finally he gets to the "but I need you to fight"

"Mom I need you to see me" Oh god this is so good and painful

Mary's crying on the inside too! But in this case it's good because that's the part of her that can see Dean

And we're back to mirroring the start of the season, the very opening scene, but this time Mary recognises Dean and gets to say his name first, instead of Dean crashing out of the trees at her, yelling "Mom", and getting his ass handed to him :P He had to tell her who she was, but this time he told her who HE was. And NOW she sees him, now he took down every single wall between them.

LOL Oops bye Toni nice knowin' ya except for all the times you were terrible.

If Dean had trusted her - and if they'd changed the freakin LOCKS again - she might not be dead.

Ketch does the thing again where instead of just killing his targets, he wants to talk to them, so he wakes Dean up instead of just slitting his and Mary's throats while they're unconscious.

I suppose now it's on Mary to wake up and save Dean

I was torn on who needed to kill the dark mirror of John more, but honestly, Dean's done, came out of the oven perfectly risen and smelling great, so he does not need to reject John. He sees John accurately and describes him in that speech in such a way... His memory doesn't have to haunt Dean, and he's forgiven Mary too.

(And we never mentioned the cupids. Pfft.)

christ, Dean's being given the Swan Song beatdown with his leg not working. For once he fights back because Ketch is absolutely not a loved one, but he's completely outmatched, and Ketch is enjoying punching him.

He says Mary said absolutely nothing about Dean - Dean knows from being in Mary's head how she DOES care about him, and that she was being brainwashed - he doesn't know for how long... Point is, these words can't hurt. He already made his peace with Mary too.

I think Dean just threw Ketch through the SW DW table, which is hilariously dark about their legacy >.> It's more about in the contacts they build outside themselves, and the WORK they do, than anything they write on a table - shots of Sam and Dean thinking about the world while sitting alone in the bunker or in/on the car are often very sad about how isolated and alone they are.

Thinking of which, we're rapidly running out of episode for me to be worried about Jody in.

Ahaha Ketch brought a gun to the fight. He says he's not stupid after Dean points out how stupid he was, but he's got his back turned to Mary, and Dean's now in exactly the same place SAM was in 10x03 after the demon!Dean chase, where Cas suddenly came out of nowhere and grabbed Dean.

Oh Dean flinched, he had been watching Ketch. Nice surprise. Mary's back :D

Dean hobbles over to stand at her side.

"I knew you were a killer. You both are." "you're right." Yeah, Dean n Mary are a pair aren't they :P Both been through this same arc now. Dean owns the description but I think he has a very different definition than Ketch, for all people tell him that he's a killer. He can kill things for his job and when it needs to be done, but that does NOT mean he's a psychopath like Ketch. And Mary has a heart too and chose the right side.

Jody pls don't stand with your back to the open door - this is literally how that random no name got killed in 12x14 and I really really don't like you not covering your back, especially when you're a cop, and even when you think you cleared this place.

Oh they all survived. Sam got the news about Lucifer, decided to pass on working with a maybe lesser evil to deal with a bigger one. Jody saves his bacon with the big kill shot.

Where does Dean even get prescription painkillers. I suppose he'd have got some when he broke his leg but aside from that it's pretty much up to them to work out how much to medicate themselves by whatever illegal means off-the-grid people can fake prescriptions or health insurance. Also America's healthcare system is terrible because it seems like an entire adversity all by itself to their lives, while in a free healthcare country... yeah, not so much a big deal :P

Mary's got the season 7 Cas guilt now - everything that happened is her fault, she feels. I mean she certainly really helped the BMoL get a foothold and so on although they seemed pretty intent to come on over whether she had anything to do with it or not. But the broken family relationships, yeah, she ran away >.>

"What if he can't forgive me?" "Mom. You don't have to be scared of me" *Winchester family sandwich*

I think I'm starting to cry at this show way more often than I used to but oh my god I'm so happy for Sam right now. He misses the entiiiiiiiiire thing but the point he made back at the start of the season is he just wanted Mary THERE and her problem is she was TERRIFIED of him, and having the whole equivalent drama to what Dean just went through with her, but if she knew Sam, that's not him. He zenned out in season 5-7 and has already recovered from like, the whole thing, and piled on totally different trauma :P His arc was so important to resolve to the story they already completed the arc in Swan Song, and it wasn't about Mary but it WAS about peace with himself, and of course all done with external actions and plot drama while Dean had to deal with the internal stuff, literally going inside Mary's head to sort it. Anyway point is Mary doesn't need to be scared of him because there's nothing to be scared of. It's literally as simple as he wants his mom, should she happen to be here. Unlike Dean's entire character arc since season 1 still having been unresolved. And the heart of it was stuff that was obvious since season 1 or the first episode, but Sam got his resolution in season 5, while taking us back to that season 5 moment, showed how Dean did NOT get his resolution when he needed it, because it was never JUST about sam but his entire family.

I wonder how he'll be next season, no matter if Mary survives it or not.

Thinking of which, now Berens has finished writing season 12 for us, I suppose Dabb has a whole bucket of fuckery waiting to throw us into season 13.

#12x22 #Berens fanclub #season 12 spoilers #my stuff

77 notes · View notes